(Politico) – One week into the government shutdown, top Republican leaders appear to have lost the plot.
#RepublicansInDisarray @politico.com
www.politico.com/news/2025/10…— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) October 7, 2025 at 7:18 PM
When Politico breaks out the ‘Repubs in disarray’ take…
… President Donald Trump, Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune are straining to project a united front against Democrats, just barely concealing tensions over strategy that have snowballed behind the scenes since agencies closed last week.
In one stark example, Trump scrambled the congressional leaders’ messaging Monday when he told reporters in the Oval Office he would “like to see a deal made for great health care” and that he was “talking to Democrats about it.”
Within hours, Trump walked it back: “I am happy to work with the Democrats on their Failed Healthcare Policies, or anything else, but first they must allow our Government to re-open,” he wrote on Truth Social hours after his initial comments.
Johnson said Tuesday he “spoke with the president at length yesterday” about the need to reopen agencies first, while Thune told reporters there have been “ongoing conversations” about strategy between the top Republicans.
A White House official granted anonymity to speak about the circumstances behind the president’s statements said the Truth post was “issued to make clear that the [administration] position has not changed” and was not done at the behest of the two leaders.
But tensions surfaced again Tuesday after a White House budget office memo raised questions about a federal law guaranteeing back pay for furloughed federal workers — one that Johnson and Thune both voted for in 2019.
These episodes are among many where the White House and Hill Republicans have been crosswise on strategy and seemingly not communicating in advance about their key moves. Many of those instances have concerned hardball tactics coming from White House budget director Russ Vought seemingly aimed at cornering Democrats by threatening blue-state spending and the federal workforce.
Not only have those moves so far failed to move Democrats off their positions, they have left Johnson and Thune flat-footed as they confront questions about the GOP strategy for ending the shutdown…
In contrast to the GOP divisions, Democrats have been largely successful so far in their effort to focus attention on health care — in particular, on Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that expire at the end of the year. They are pushing Republicans to engage now while Johnson and Thune insist the problem can be dealt with later, after the government reopens.
And they have noticed the disarray on the other side of the aisle. “I think they are absolutely struggling to figure out how they are going to get out of this,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said Tuesday…
Ah yes so it was a dumb bluff and now they all know it was a dumb bluff.
Master strategy Mr. Vought— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 7, 2025 at 8:42 PM
===
Schumer: "Now Johnson says he's the healthcare guy. He couldn't look straight in the camera. He said, 'Let me look straight in the camera,' and then he looked around and said, 'I'm the healthcare guy' … the American people are on our side."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 7, 2025 at 2:59 PM
===
Murray: "If House Republicans were here, I'd make sure they understood over 3/4 of the families on the exchanges actually live in R states. And I'd make sure they understand the 10 states where families will face biggest average premium increase hikes when the ACA credits expire are all R states."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 7, 2025 at 2:51 PM
===
"To the extent Republicans have managed to settle on a single talking point, it’s that Dems want taxpayer $ to pay for healthcare for undocumented people — a lie so egregious even the mainstream media is balking at repeating it. It’s almost self-parodic messaging & polling suggests it’s not working"
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 7, 2025 at 2:08 PM
… The current Republican faceplant was not by any means a foregone conclusion.
Democrats initially moved towards the shutdown with a great deal of trepidation. Back in March, Senate Democrats were so afraid that the shutdown argument would go against them that their caucus removed its own spine. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and other Democrats in leadership broke their own filibuster, handing the GOP an easy victory and enraging their own base.
That rage had a salutary effect, and Democrats were better prepared this time. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries settled on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies as their key demand, capitalizing on the traditional Democratic advantage on healthcare issues. They’ve also called for a restoration of some Medicaid funding, which would help to protect small hospitals — disproportionately located in Trump-friendly rural areas.
Jeffries, Schumer, and other Democrats have been single-mindedly focusing their messaging on healthcare — sometimes so single-mindedly that they’ve seemed reluctant to respond to Trump’s other attacks on the Constitution.
But the fact of the matter is that healthcare is a strong topic for Democrats. A YouGov poll earlier this year found them with a whopping 43 to 26 percent advantage over Republicans on the issue, and that’s only going to get worse for the GOP. Thanks to Trump’s “big beautiful bill,” ACA premiums are likely to rise 75 percent for the average purchaser next year.
Republicans are barely pretending to care…
“.. How can anyone in Congress — Democrats or Republicans — make a budget ‘deal’ with this administration if we now know the President is going to ignore implementing any part of the ‘deal’ he wants?”
@vermontgmg.bsky.social
www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/there-is-n…— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) October 7, 2025 at 7:42 PM
On The Road – Captain C – Netherlands, September 2024 Part 14: Van Gogh Museum Part 3
lowtechcyclist
I would have thought the Rapture was a more likely event than an outlet like Politico talking about Republicans in disarray. We are in strange times indeed!
NotMax
“healthcare, shmealthcare. How much do eggs cost?
– John/jane Q, Maga
//
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
It’s Christmas in October!
Baud
I’ll say what the Internet dares not speak: Good job. Schumer and Jeffries!
Aziz, light!
Good morning. Is this the right place for talking about Donald Trump?
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Seconded!
Baud
Reddit, links to PBS video
Gvg
@NotMax: in a way healthcare premiums ARE how much do eggs cost?
Baud
Baud
iKropoclast
Somehow I was under the impression that the verb for surveillance was “survey.”
Suzanne
@Baud: Agreed. I think they’re doing a good job messaging this! A clear and understandable viewpoint, repeated over and over. Words, signs.
Remember when Bill Clinton was called “Secretary of Explaining Stuff”? That’s a good position.
Baud
@iKropoclast:
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/surveil
iKropoclast
@Baud: Hmm, go figure.
Suzanne
@iKropoclast: I use “surveil” in specific contexts. To survey, IMO, feels like a broad overview. To surveil is to watch something specific, very carefully.
I love English. So many words to choose from.
iKropoclast
@Suzanne: Sensible. You learn something new every day. Unless you actively avoid it.
lowtechcyclist
I have to disagree with Graff and Quintanilla, above, at least in this particular instance. It’s the lapsing of a tax credit that will cause ACA premiums to double. Keep the tax credit in place, and the problem is solved.
Now I suppose it’s possible that Trump could tell his IRS commissioner to ignore the reinstatement of the tax credit, but that would open up an enormous can of worms: if the tax code itself can’t be believed, a whole shitload of stuff stops working. It’s one thing to not spend appropriations that don’t directly affect many people, but it’s a totally different thing to treat the tax code as something that is subject to the whim of a senile old man who doesn’t have a clue.
satby
Republicans are a shit show because they can’t manage the felon or predict what will dribble out of his demented mouth at any moment. It’s only going to get worse for them, especially disorienting to them because they thought they’d be in complete control; but cracks are appearing everywhere.
Not to say we all aren’t going to be in for a lousy rest of the year, or up until the election; but they don’t have popularity, the consent of the governed, most of the courts; and the opposition in the military probably exists but won’t be obvious (unless they try to throw another parade). I like our chances.
iKropoclast
An individual without sufficient clue about the tax code or the bounds on his statutory authority might just try anyway. Or, more likely, one of his radical fellow travelers will convince him it’s a good idea.
Baud
@iKropoclast:
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
This. The demographic directorate of the Census Bureau conducts surveys, but it damned sure didn’t conduct surveillance when I was there! (And now they wouldn’t have the staff for that anyway, even after the shutdown ends.)
Kathleen
@Baud: Internet hates when Dems seek to read voters instead of pandering to the Hot Takes from the Beltway Brocasters/Substackers/Political Propaganda Complex infected with Democrat Derangement Syndrome.
Kathleen
Deleted duplicate comment
Princess
@Baud: I’ll be even more unpopular: I think the Dems did the right thing in March to kick the can down the road. Trump and his policies weren’t unpopular enough and it was too close to Biden’s presidency. The Dems didn’t trust their voters to go with them and they were right. By waiting until now to push back hard, all the blame falls on Trump.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Boy howdy, they’ve sure had a lot of people covering multiple high-level positions in the Administration. Good lackeys must be hard to find right now, I guess there’s only so many Rubios to go around.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: On my projects, we often have to hire land surveyors to define the contours of the site and establish the legal property boundaries of the plat. They are looking at a big field! But the people who watch and supervise patients who may be up to something…. they’re surveilling.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
THEE AUDACITY
to even remotely utter that these government workers might not GET PAID😠😠😠
lowtechcyclist
@Princess:
Who knows? Whoever was right, it’s water under the bridge and not worth arguing about. They’re doing the right thing now, and that’s what matters now.
EarthWindFire
It’s almost like standing up to bullies makes them cut and run. Heed this lesson, Dems!
Princess
@Baud: When the 51st state stuff and the tariffs started, Canadians were staying at home for patriotic reasons and to keep our money in Canada. But the ICE stuff is another huge nail in the coffin. We hear stories that probably don’t even make the US news of fishermen being harassed on lakes that span the border and people being interrogated at customs. Who needs that risk while on holiday? The US ambassador’s genius solution was to threaten to end US customs pre clearance at Canadian airports. Sure, make it harder for us to go to the US and more likely we’ll end up in a cell if we do go; that’s sure to encourage us.
Jeffro
the WaPo has up a story with the subhead: “Furloughed federal workers are not entitled to automatic back pay, the trump administration argues, adding that a law trump signed in 2019 guaranteeing back pay to furloughed workers does no such thing”
LOLOL
When you’ve lost even the Bezos Post…
Jeffro
@Baud: a sign of a truly serious administration, eh? Same guy heading two enormous federal agencies of great importance?
Geminid
@Princess: I think you are right here. This is a dynamic situation, and the dynamic favors Democrats more now than it did in March.
Baud
@EarthWindFire:
Well, no. Dems have some leverage because the Senate is clinging to the filibuster, and because the issue they chose to fight on is immensely popular.
Standing up to bullies is a good high level principle, but it’s not a strategy.
Kathleen
@Princess: I agree 💯. I think they have carefully planned this strategy and the message beginning right after inauguration. And you are right that they wanted to maximize impact on voters’ awareness. I think strategy and execution have been brilliant but of course bromedia wants to start the “will the Dem Senate members cave” conversation. Dems were creating the right moment they wanted to meet.
Princess
@lowtechcyclist: who is arguing? I look at the past to understand how the Dem leadership operates and what their assumptions are, which helps me interpret the present and guides expectations for the future. Only Trump can afford to live in the eternal present of whatever his mind tells him is going on now.
Baud
@Kathleen:
I don’t know if this was planned from the start. That’s a little too much for me.
At some point, there will be a deal, and all the savvy people will complain about it. So enjoy this while it lasts.
Ramalama
@Baud: it really is too bad that Vermont is getting hit badly. Such a wonderful state. But yeah, everyone I know in QC is going to Thousand Islands or Gaspé or Yurp.
MagdaInBlack
I thought this was cool, and the answer is “No, it is not.”
isportlandburning.com/#cameras
Geminid
@Jeffro: I’m starting to feel a little sorry for Winsome Sears. Trump traveled to Norfolk fo celebrate the Navy’s 250th anniversary and delivered a speech in which he did not even mention her name. Trump praised Virginia Reps. Randy Wittman, Jen Kiggans and John McGuire, even took a poke at Abigail Spanberger, but he gave no notice to his party’s candidate for Governor. Cold!
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Right on. Ds are gaining traction on this issue. You know how I know that. BS bro, Jon Stewart is out there pissing on Schumer and calling him a human flat tire. Convince me that these people are not stealth Republicans. Everything they do harms Ds.
That’s the end result, despite the other mouth noises they make about exalted goals
Jon Stewart kisses up to Rumsfeld, and Yoo and has an attitude towards Obama, Biden and now Schumer. With “friends” like this..
schrodingers_cat
@Ramalama: Well we are living in the world Maple Syrup Jesus created back in 2016.
Tony Jay
@Jeffro:
Maga Party stalwarts are vast and can contain multitudes. The perfect endpoint is the merger of all federal agencies into one super-agency called, simply, The Government. Making it a much simpler administrative task for The Leader to drown the whole thing in a bathtub, or a large, gilded toilet.
Such vision.
Ramalama
@schrodingers_cat: I used to love Jon Stewart. I haven’t been able to watch him in Years. He’s been consistently great regarding Wall Street and first responders, but the rest. Maybe he thinks that gives him a freebie to be an asshole with everything else.
Kathleen
@Baud: I think they have 2 goals – restore health care benefits that were lost in BBB lost and midterms. Jeffries said several months ago how before 2018 midterms Dem caucus leadership and Pelosi decided to make health care the issue and they won many more seats than what was predicted. That told me strategy Dem caucus heads would employ for 2026.
NotMax
FYI.
Something new around Uranus.
/7th grader snickering
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: Amen to that!
Geminid
@Ramalama: Businesses in Elise Stefanik’s northeastern New York congressional district are being hit by a decline in Canadians who normally come for recreation and shopping. Local media reported that trend starting back in February.
Geminid
@Geminid: Correction: that should be *Rob* Wittman (VA01).
NotMax
@Baud
For those keeping track at home, that’s what? The sixth head of the IRS in 8½ months?
Chief Oshkosh
They just can’t quite report the truth, can they? Edited for clarity, brevity, and truth:
Ramalama
Also Blue state governors met with some Canadian premiers in Quebec City like a couple days ago. They are planning to do things together in the interest of “business” while also mentioning that trump’s fly by night mental capacity prevents businesses from making plans. And I’m thinking…how are they going to bypass the Federal Government / ICE?
They Call Me Noni
@MagdaInBlack: That is cool.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I drove around some of the reddest parts of Virginia earlier this week and noticed very few Sears signs. FWIW (which is nothing).
iKropoclast
You just know they’ve been champing at the bit to get some unpaid labor outside the prison system for 160 years
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
It’s a win when they don’t talk about Dems “trying to” do things.
schrodingers_cat
@Ramalama: He has been this terrible since Obama took office in 2009.
Deputinize America
@Betty Cracker:
There are just enough rednecks who will refuse to vote for a black woman, no matter how batshit right wing she is.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Until the next time white folks decide what the Democrats are doing isn’t good enough.
I figure later today.
mappy!
@Kathleen: There’s a time lag between implementation, when a strategy is formulated and run up the flagpole, and when it becomes embedded in public perception. You don’t focus on the hit single because that has a short shelf life. You go for the album. Magat R’s live in a world of singles.
schrodingers_cat
@mappy!: As does our elite media.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
If not too far I highly recommend the Cedar Creek historic site and museum. Although might be closed during the shutdown? Hop skip and a jump from Harrisonburg.
Was privileged enough to be allowed to stay overnight in the mansion many moons ago and wander around at will. Still recall the graffiti made with candle smoke on the plastered eaves of the attic during the Civil War.
mappy!
Addendum: even when they (R’s) seem to have a strategy…
ED: they can’t stick to it…
Karen Gail
Am working on something more important: apple crisp, trying apples, dried cranberries, and pineapple topping is rolled oats and coconut.
No matter what the policies are we still need to eat and enjoy food.
p.a.
1) When your enemy is drowning, throw them an anchor.
2) Wow! MSM doing its job-for now. How long before they get the shakes and edge back to “Congress’ fault”, “both sides” b.s. But let’s enjoy and use it while we can.
3) A second line point Dems could make: “they want a continuation and then go through this again in 6 fucking weeks?!?!“
NotMax
@mappy!
If only they were just one sh*t wonders….
//
Suzanne
@Princess:
AFAIAC, it would be totally reasonable and prudent if y’all built a big, beautiful wall on your southern border.
Kosh III
Can the resident health care experts tell me: I have a supplemental Medicare policy (Mutual of Omaha). How would the end of the ACA subsidies affect this?
TIA
mappy!
@Baud: I guess one could call them servile, in service of those who want pregnant women to be serveilled?
(Spell check doesn’t like this… ; – )
NotMax
@Suzanne
“We can save gobs of money and skim that into our pockets by piling up My Pillows at the border.”
/
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: They’re avoiding a Senate confirmation hearing. I read that’s why they’re doing this.
Professor Bigfoot
@Karen Gail: Mrs. B makes applesauce every year, so we go get a few bushels at Sunnyslope Orchard.
This year she decided to try to make apple butter. Turns out it’s ridiculously simple with a crock pot and an immersion blender, and… she’s been successful. <slavering human emoji>
JML
@Soprano2: they certainly can’t count on any of their nominees not to humiliate themselves in that environment. The “CEO” position is probably illegal, but Bishop Alito and his cronies will allow it, since a republican did it. If it had been Obama, the howls for his impeachment would be heard from sea to shining sea.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: Ahhh, that makes sense— but it’s also a mechanism for putting more power into the hands of fewer people; all of whom are “ride or die” for Mango Mussolini.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@NotMax: If so, that’s a faster pace than Al Qaeda went through number-two people or Spinal Tap went through drummers.
Soprano2
@Baud: I agree, they often use the word “trying” when they talk about what Democrats are doing.
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins is not a user manual.
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: Didn’t get that far north but will keep it in mind for future travels! Thanks!
@Deputinize America: I suspect that is a factor.
Unlike in many states, FL GOP is genuinely diverse, but we have plenty of white rednecks, and I wonder if a similar dynamic might play out in the next gubernatorial race.
Dump endorsed Rep. Byron Donalds. Looks like FL Dems will nominate another former Repub retread because that’s always worked so well in the past, but maybe this time the fact that he’s a white guy will help.
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: That’s true. I still can’t believe Billy Long had some semblance of a spine and stood up to them. I think he’s ambassador to Iceland now.
Jeffg166
I don’t envy the person who has to splain to his Royal Highass how things actually work outside of the bubble he lives in.
mappy!
@NotMax: In the late 50’s, early 60’s, record companies thought they were sitting on a gold mine of singles (under 2:30, longer than 1:45). Who gives a shit if it’s a one hit wonder. Lee Baby Sims blew that premise open by playing Ballad of a Thin Man, then later Rainy Day Women #12 & 35. Conservatives hated that radio station…
p.a.
@Jeffg166: The bubble is titanium. Explaining won’t get through. Maybe some uranium-tipped ordinance?
piratedan
@Geminid: and I am loathe to admit it, but th VA GOP has access to some very slick commercial talent. Those messages do not resonate with me, but I can see how they would with certain normies….
for those outside th state…. Candidate Sears is linking Spanberger to trans rights which “they” find intrusive, scary and icky and they have a Karen on to bring home the fear of having their little girl being forced to change in the locker room with a trans man (or so implied, a modest exaggeration to say the least) and their AG Candidate Miyares is claiming that the Dem Candidate is soft on Sexual Predators and yet, he is supported by National Sexual Predator #1 which has a certain juxtaposition to it. Their Lieutenant gov candidate was just identified in a new sex scandal, so my guess is that they’re hoping for few ticket splits….
chemiclord
@Princess:
So much of “internet politics” is driven by vibes that the best decision Biden made during his presidency and campaign was to almost entirely ignore social media.
It didn’t matter what Schumer and Jeffries did the last time. Whatever it was, social media had pre-determined it was going to be the wrong move, simply because they made the choice.
“Internet politics” genuinely doesn’t give one tenth of one shit about the message. It only cares about who says it.
NotMax
mappy!
AFAIK >Tony Burrows holds the record for having the most one hit wonders.
;)
jlowe
With Politico’s ample help, of course. Our finest example of the elite media as the idea police. A mockery of freedom of the press.
Baud
Via reddit, was this reported here?
Kathleen
@NotMax: Trump government agency heads are like Spinal Tap drummers.
tobie
For the first time in months, I feel a glimmer of hope. Cracks in the GOP armor are emerging, and for a party that prides itself on its invincibility, this could be fatal. As many have noted, the members of this admin portray themselves as cartoon heroes but they’ve revealed themselves to be clowns and even the MSM is starting to notice this.
We need millions on the street on Oct 18th to say this kind of lawlessness and campaign of terror against the civilian population cannot stand. I think we’ll manage this.
Chief Oshkosh
@Princess:
I think that that’s backwards. Democratic voters didn’t trust their elected leadership. And the voters turned out to be right. While I agree with Baud/others that Schumer did better this time, I suspect it’s because Jeffries and Dem House leaders “helped” him similar to how Nancy Smash had to.
But, yes, Jeffries & Schumer — Go, Team, Go! :)
ETA: No snark. I’m optimistic that they’ve found their team groove.
Kathleen
@mappy!: That’s true. So do the media who love and coddle them.
Baud
@tobie:
Call it a vibes thing, but I also feel like I’m seeing glimmers of sharper, more focused voices on our side. Not just elected people, but private citizens. We’ll see if that’s just wishful thinking.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
I’m not speaking for any elected Dem, but I’ve lost trust in our voters.
ETA: Regardless and independent of how much trust leadership deserves.
tobie
@Baud: wishful thinking keeps us going and this will be a long, relentless slog. So I’m all for it.
Baud
@tobie:
As I’ve previously said, even if God herself told me we were going to lose in the end, I wouldn’t be doing anything differently.
Fighting fascism is it’s own reward.
Kathleen
@chemiclord: In its way it’s more toxic than corporate legacy media. I listened to too much of the new media and Dem Derangement Syndrome reigns supreme.. it has its own weird vibe.
tobie
@Baud: Bingo!
jonas
@Baud: Superintendent Chalmers: “Why is the cafeteria lady posing as a nurse?”
Lunchlady Doris: “I get two paychecks this way.”
tobie
@Kathleen: It feels like a repeat of adolescence. Your parents embarass you, they’re so not with it, they don’t have a clue about how the world works, you know so much more, etc.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Partha, you have imbibed the teachings of Geeta very well.
suzanne
@Chief Oshkosh:
This era kind of demands different technique. I’m glad to see Schumer responding.
Belafon
Because most people don’t care. If they cared, Harris would be president.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, yet another illustration that the stuff on “Fox News” is not “news”.
This slop sold as “news” is what we’re up against.
[ sigh ]
Best wishes,
Scott.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: I have no trust for our white voters.
There’s a map showing how a presidential election would turn out if only ___________ was able to vote.
They couldn’t break down “people of color” in any way that didn’t result in a completely blue map.
Ah, but if only white people voted… almost solid red.
So I am reminded that white people are the weakest, least reliable part of our coalition.
Particularly white men.
Scout211
Not at all. Medicare supplements/Medigap plans are not Marketplace plans.
Medicare.gov
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: “It’s a damn fine hill, ain’t it?”
Geminid
@piratedan: I’ve heard the radio ads: “Abigail Spanberger is angry….Spanberger and her woke Washington posse want to transform Virginia’s schools…”
Evidently, these ads have been a flat failure. Christopher Newport University released a poll Monday showing Spanberger leading Sears among likely voters voters by 10 percent, 52-42. When asked who could better handle the transgender issue, Spanberger led Sears by 13 percent, 50-37.
The CNU poll also asked voters to choose what they considered their “top issues.” The results show that Virginia Republicans have spent two months and millions of dollars hammering away at an issue only three percent of likely Virginia voters consider a top issue of theirs.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
They’re they demo most likely not to be in our coalition. I don’t know that I’d say the ones that are in our coalition are the weakest part of it. After all, it takes some fortitude to go against one’s tribe.
Belafon
@Ramalama: If you rewatch some of the old Daily Show stuff, you can see that he’s always wanted to bash both parties, it’s just that the Republican party has been by far the worst one for the last few decades.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: How many white men (and women) who vote D are BS bros or BS curious? IDK if its the majority but seems like a sizable chunk
DSA/Our revolution, whatever new name they want to identify themselves with seem overwhelmingly white if you see the photos of their gatherings.
p.a.
@Baud: If you bank on the ute vote, you’re playing roulette. It’s way past time Dems internalized this. Not saying write it off, just saying turnout efforts since… forever… are a coin flip. And now it seems there’s fascist inroads with males (or maybe they’re just a braying trumpet overstating their numbers.)
“We” used to lazily think “we” had the smart digital election forces, but since Cambridge Analytica et al from 2016 and the Silicon Valley fuckheads going full Krupp, Siemens in support if tRumpism, that’s not true. Gotta adapt. Above my paygrade.
Ishiyama
@Professor Bigfoot: What if only Yippees voted? We would have won in ’72.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I don’t know. But are “bros” in our coalition? The “curious” might be, although I don’t entirely know what that means in this context.
Marleedog
And get el tangerino to pay for it
In regards Winsome Sears, how can a black woman be a Republican, I will never know, unless she is batshit crazy like Candace Owens.
schrodingers_cat
@p.a.: I also don’t think that people who are prepping for a colonoscopy have a particular insight into how young people vote. Even if they have children themselves. At most its like a sample size of 1 or 2 plus friends.
When you were a teen or a young adult how much did your parental units actually know about you?
Baud
@Marleedog:
Equality means anyone can be anything. There are trans Republicans too.
Statistically, we know some groups of people are better than others. But on an individual level, it’s a crap shoot.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Curious are the ones who vote D but drop tankie lingo like late stage capitalism, carceral state, in casual conversation.
You are right, bros may be lost to us.
Belafon
@Baud: Inside the Democratic voter coalition, men were the weakest link in the last election.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Nominated! But take out that apostrophe.
Baud
@Belafon:
Agreed. Men are weak.
p.a.
I wouldn’t be alive here to comment if they did.🤫
One thing I told young people (I’m childless) that their parents hated: do well in school and you won’t believe how much shit you’ll be able to get away with at home.
Booger
@Geminid: Well, as I’ve noted before, Winsome, lose some.
Jeffro
@Geminid: I would feel sorry for Sears, except she’s happy to run for an office that she has no idea what to do with (other than make appearances on Fox)
I forget where I saw it, but one writer noted that she has literally next to nothing in terms of policy proposals, and she’s making next to no appearances, speeches, etc. Just completely phoning it in
Scout211
Is Trump’s social media team off script again?
I am amazed at what vulnerable little snowflakes ICE agents really are. They need protection from words!
Jeffro
I think it’s because they keep refusing to break the law for trump & Co (by abusing/disclosing his enemies’ tax records)
Booger
@Betty Cracker: AND YOU DIDN’T STOP AND SAY HELLO?
Belafon
I’m all for bashing whites, and especially white men, but we have to acknowledge that black and Latino men (I still haven’t quite figured out how you say in Spanish that when I say Latinos I mean men only) broke away from Democrats because a woman was running.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
@Professor Bigfoot: Apple butter sounds perfect for cinnamon toast
Jeffro
@Betty Cracker:
@Deputinize America:
what’s ASTOUNDING to me is that, thanks to the Fox News/MAGA noise machine ‘floor’, Sears is polling in the low 40%
this is someone who’s a) obviously nuts, b) has little to no campaign of any kind going on, and c) can’t even get a shout-out from her orange MAGA overlord
We may have to adjust the ‘crazification factor’ from 27% to 40%
Clearly 80-90% of Republicans will vote for ANYONE with an ‘R’ next to their name (98% off them if that person is trump)
kindness
The current government shutdown and Republicans position that Democrats must vote to give Republicans everything they want before they are willing to discuss the Democrats’ terms seems just like a poker game between Democrats & Republicans, where Republicans are demanding Democrats show their cards before Republicans decide to raise or not. And the MSM trying to act as if Republicans are being reasonable is par for our Village Elders.
Belafon
@Jeffro: So the entire country is becoming like Texas.
RevRick
@Kosh III: It’s a cascading effect. If ACA premiums do, in fact, increase because the tax credits lapse, then those who are healthy will make the bet that they can afford to not get the insurance. But that makes the insurance pool sicker, so the insurance companies raise their rates to compensate. I have already been notified that my supplemental insurance rates will increase.
The whole principle of insurance is to spread the risk. But that means the pool needs to include those who won’t make claims. It’s why you can’t buy homeowners insurance after the house burns down. It’s why the heart of those companies are actuaries who calculate the risk.
Mind you, Medicare supplement policies already involve a much sicker pool.
schrodingers_cat
@Belafon: If you look at the actual #, the # of misogynist non white men pale in significance compared to the votes Rs made up with white women (and men)
But that’s rehashing the past and being rude in this new avatar of the nice polite BJ.
Kathleen
@tobie: You’ve captured their vibe perfectly.
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: Agree, it was one of many shifts in last years totals that led to Harris’ loss. But it was there. The largest shift in Latino voting between 2020 and 2024 was men.
Librettist
CBS wasting is no time. Trying to sanewash RFK Jr. with a puff piece interview of his loser wife Cheryl Hines.
trnc
@Baud: Couldn’t help but notice this false claim that went unchecked:
gene108
@chemiclord:
I disagree.
Engagement with all forms of media turns out to be very important for politicians. We are just beginning to understand this. If we are not constantly engaging across all media platforms, we cede the ground to right-wing propaganda.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Belafon: I mean, he savages Republicans a lot more than Democrats. And in his defense Chuck Schumer over enunciates and is very wooden in front of a microphone…basically a human flat tire.
He’s the leader we have and in his defense there’s not necessarily a lot of overlap between raw charisma and being a skillful legislator. Stewart’s first job as a comedian is to go where the jokes are. If he makes a few at the expense of Democrats so be it.
Ohio Mom
@Kosh III: For questions like that, I think googling and looking for recent AARP posts is your best bet. AARP does a good job of keeping up with the latest and relaying the news clearly.
suzanne
@Baud:
I mean, yeah, there’s some bro types in our coalition. (I know a few, personally.) White people with college degrees went for Harris by 14 points. I have seen exit poll data that indicates that white women with degrees voted for Harris very strongly, but that still means that probably roughly half of white men with college degrees voted for Harris.
The Pod Save America guys get a lot of flak here, but there’s probably a lot of people like them who vote for Dems. We seem to have a weird idea of our coalition.
Miss Bianca
@lowtechcyclist: I still want to pump up the term “Republicans in Rout”. Alliterative and (with any hope) predictive as well!
Kathleen
@tobie: As Boomer college student in the 60’s I can attest that the following were things: vibe, dude, bro, home, bitching and don’t trust anyone over 30. Also many of today’s commercials are using early 60’s pre Motown r&b flavored tracks. Think Crystals, Shirrelles NY Brill Building.
trnc
@Princess:
Totally valid, but what I didn’t like that time was their claim that they were absolutely going to hold the line before caving. Bottom line: don’t make promises if you might not keep them.
I’m very happy to see them sticking to their guns this time, and I hope the lesson becomes ingrained.
Nettoyeur
@Jeffro: When workers learn they won’t get back pay and are likely to get laid off, guess what? They ‘ll stop coming to work and look for new gigs.
Belafon
@trnc: Telling the other side what you’re going to do in advance doesn’t work in politics very well, especially if you’re on defense.
Belafon
@Nettoyeur: In this economy?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Every Billionaire Is A Policy Failure:
golfdigest.com/story/this-billionaire-had-tom-fazio-build-him-50-million-private-golf-course-david-h…
Kathleen
@Scout211: Don’t forget protection from. tied toddlers.
Baud
@suzanne:
Or we don’t have a standard definition of “bros.”
Anyway, there’s an open question of how we deal with people who vote blue but are constantly complaining about Dems, whether on the left or the right.
goodmatt
I think Bondi hurt them a lot this week. Who cares if you furlough a government made up of contemptuous, horrible ideologues who obviously perform no real work other than corruption?
Belafon
@goodmatt: Most of the horrible ones are still getting paid. The administration is trying to remove those that still think they’re obligated to follow the constitution.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
Which parts? We shoulda had a meetup for you!
...now I try to be amused
@Jeffro:
I assume that Sears is a sacrificial candidate.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ishiyama: LOL
goodmatt
@Belafon: That’s fine. I still think the optics of a horrible, lawless, contemptuous spitting executive branch weakens the case for keeping the government running.
schrodingers_cat
I have to go now, Trump’s white vote has been pretty consistent the 3 times he has run for President. Think about that before typing which minority group is responsible for our current predicament.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
Seems to be a wide-ranging behavior on their part. They must be avoiding a fair number of confirmation hearings.
RevRick
@Belafon: They voted for Trump, because a woman was running?
That’s a rather hubristic claim on the truth. Do you have data to back that up, or is it just your personal assumptions?
The truth is those communities experienced real pain and trauma during the Biden years. And you just pooh-pooh that.
Poor and working class families are hit especially hard by inflation, because they can’t defer their spending.
The spike in crime that lasted from 2020-2023 retraumatized minority communities. The Congressional Black Caucus had supported the 1994 Crime Bill, because their communities had been completely traumatized by the wave of violence that built through the 70s and 80s and peaked in 1992.
Border communities were overwhelmed by the tidal wave of immigrants seeking asylum.
War, a bad economy, and disorder are three things that will cause the downfall of a presidency.
And here we are, stupidly rehashing the past election.
Scout211
@RevRick: Good point. But that would be for 2027. The rates are already set for 2026 for Medicare supplement plans.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
But can’t we at least get King
DerwinDonald of Didd buried under Oobleck? :Dgoodmatt
@RevRick: Reactionary authoritarian leaders are called strongmen, not strong people because they’re always men. You can drip with sympathy for authoritarian followers, won’t fix them.
schrodingers_cat
One last point white supremacy can sometimes have a non-white face. That’s what the colonial experience shows us.
Baud
According to Pew, white college grads actually were less blue in 2024 compared to Clinton and Biden.
pewresearch.org/politics/2025/06/26/voting-patterns-in-the-2024-election/
schrodingers_cat
@goodmatt: Indira Gandhi says hi!
UncleEbeneezer
@Baud: Elected Dems follow what they think the voters want. How they ascertain that is different for different Dems. Some take their cues from activist Twitter, some take them from centrist media, most let their advisors figure it out but in most cases elected officials (at least on our side) are chasing the perceived will of voters, not the other way around. I’ve had local, city, county, state Dems tell us yes/no on supporting a particular issue based on what they believed would help/hurt them with their constituents and chances of reelection. They may have a couple issues where they are steadfast in their positions but most they are just generally liberal and receptive to multiple positions/approaches and use constituent feedback to find the sweet spot for how they want to proceed.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: And they (college grads) also are not the majority of the voters IIRC.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Was she reactionary?
Professor Bigfoot
@suzanne: I think just a more realistic view of how the various bits of our coalition can be depended upon in difficult times.
Black folks and Jews showed up last November.
The white part of our coalition… not so much.
Geminid
@Marleedog: I think all demographic groups are bound to have their contrarians. Winsome Sears’ biography could maybe give some clues as to why she is one.
Born in Kingston, Jamaica in 1964, Sears emigrated to the US in 1980. After attending high school in The Bronx, New York City, Sears served in the Marine Corps 1983-86. She changed her registration from Democratic to Republican in 1988.
That must have been before she moved to Tidewater Virginia to persue higher education, because we don’t register by party here. Anyway, Sears earned an associates degree at a community college and a B.A. in English from Old Dominion University.
Sears worked for a while running a Salvation Army homeless shelter (she’s very churchy). Then she ran for the House of Delegates in 2001 and beat a 20-year Democratic incumbent.
That made Sears the first female Republican, first Black Republican, and first naturalized citizen to serve in the House of Delegates. She was also the first Republican to win a Black-majority district in Virginia since 1865.
Sears did not run for reelection. That might have been because of redistricting but I don’t know. Anyway, Gov.Bob McDonnell appointed her to the State Board of Education in 2010.
Sears picked a good time to run for Lt. Governor in 2021. Glenn Youngkin did a slick job controlling the “Disassembled Convention” that year and could steer the LG and Attorney General nominations to Sears–a Black woman– and Jason Miyares– a Cuban American; a fleece vest of diversity and inclusion so to speak. And Sears was carried into office on a small red wave that year.
Sears basically got this year’s nomination by default. No one else wanted to run against Abigail Spanberger. Winsome Sears is a mediocre politician, and the disparity in candidate quality is really high here because, as former Lt. Bill Bolling put it, Abigail Spanberger is “a formidable politician.”
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: I completely agree. But misogyny among men of all groups played a role in 2016, and played a role again in 2024. I just don’t think we can ignore that either. That points even more problems at the group I am part of, white men.
mrmoshpotato
Excellent post title.
suzanne
@Baud:
Yeah, that’s likely true. “Bro” is ill-defined. I will note that 40% of white men voted for Harris. Which is not enough and I’m not excusing any behavior. But if I told you had a 40% chance of being kicked in the balls, you would think that was not small.
Our coalition is varied.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: And Catherine I!
Belafon
@RevRick: I don’t want to rehash the election, but I feel that ignoring misogyny would be like ignoring race. I mean, we could go into 2028 thinking that that will be the election when whites will stop seeing race as an issue.
...now I try to be amused
@Geminid: For what it’s worth, Colin Powell’s parents emigrated from Jamaica.
Professor Bigfoot
@Belafon: That’s a factor always; and generally men really don’t even think about or understand the misogyny within them.
Those men who DO understand that they’re wired up for male supremacy in a profoundly patriarchal society also understand that it’s a lifetime’s job of work to see it and make conscious choices to oppose it.
Baud
Via Reddit
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
Yeah, that to me is the more interesting question. Some of our coalition are absolutely locked in. Others are easily dispirited and swayed. They are not dependable. And the coalitions have shifted a lot over the years, too.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: As the saying goes “A dozen eggs a day keeps the doctor away.”
Jeffro
@…now I try to be amused: they should have held a primary – OH WELL
Here’s where I saw the article about how Sears isn’t doing much of anything at all:
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I think we need to figure out why we lost those voters and if we can get them back rather than compare the way they voted to the way another group voted. I think that’s the most important thing right now. You still seem to think most of us don’t know that the majority of white people voted for FFOTUS. Why do you feel the need to constantly remind us of this over and over and over? What can we say that will satisfy you? Are we supposed to ignore all the other people who used to vote for us who voted for FFOTUS in the 2024 election?
Belafon
@suzanne: If our election margins weren’t so close these last many elections, 40% would definitely feel differently, but when the win percentages are in the single digits, with a few thousand votes in a few states deciding everything, big numbers can feel small.
Chris T.
@NotMax:
It’s pronounced “YOO-rin-us” … which means “like urine”, e.g., “it smells urinous around here.”
(Yeah, this guy doesn’t pronounce it that way. The other way is also an option. Both of them stink :-) )
suzanne
@Belafon: Also….. plenty of people with problematic views of women voted for Harris. All of us have absorbed racist and sexist and homophobic attitudes over our lives. It’s not binary.
mrmoshpotato
@Chris T.: It’s spelled – contact a proctologist.
Belafon
@RevRick: I will get numbers when I go home this evening, but a quick search talked about how many Latinos switched because of abortion. Guess where I fit believing that women shouldn’t be allowed to have an abortion?
Belafon
@suzanne: I wonder how many switched from the Republican party.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: Because it seems very much like focusing on the near inconsequential and ignoring the “elephant in the room.”
Absent majorities of white people, Trump loses every time. REPUBLICANS lose, every time.
From up here in the peanut gallery, it SEEMS like a continual distraction from how do we change white people without throwing everyone else under the bus?
OR should we stop worrying about trying to get white people because white people have not voted for us in the last 60 years and focus on getting as many of everyone else registered and to the polls as possible?
mark
Johnson is a tiny little man.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Wait, that doesn’t make sense. What that’s really saying is that most white people, and particularly most white men, aren’t even a part of our coalition to begin with. Most white people, and especially most white men, are on the other side.
And then there are a bunch of low-info voters who swing back and forth who aren’t really a part of anybody’s coalition but who sometimes vote with us when they vote at all.
Now that doesn’t say how (un)reliable the white people who are in our coalition are. We’d need a definition for who’s in our coalition, and what constitutes reliability.
One possibility is to define our coalition as people who vote Dem when they vote. Using that definition, reliability would be how consistently they show up and vote. But that seems hard to measure. Another possibility is to identify particular subgroups of white people who lean Dem, and define them as being in our coalition, e.g. college-educated white women. If polling samples are good enough to measure how groups like that voted, we can measure how those groups’ Dem support shifts from one election to the next, and use that as a measure of reliability.
I’m sure there are other definitions that make some reasonable sort of sense. But what we can’t do is point to some group that’s clearly not in our coalition, and say they’re not a reliable part of our coalition. Well, we can say it, but it’s like saying it’s not very warm at the North Pole.
ETA: Looks like Baud said some of this already @110.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Chris T.: The Greeks (who were the source for the name, meaning “sky”) pronounce it “oo-ran-OS” with the emphasis on the last syllable.
RaflW
At this point, though there would be risks (of course!) the possible best course is to force the weak and strategically lame Thune to nuke the filibuster. Centrists would have a cow, but it would reflect the reality on the ground.
Make the GOP pass the insanely unpopular budget, with NO cover from Democrats. Because anything that IS passed, Trump + Vought will just refuse to spend the money Democrats might think they’ve leveraged from Republicans.
Kirklin
@Professor Bigfoot:
Very true. Buried that dataset I used to point out that sexism is an issue across races is an important point. 20% of the voters were black despite being only 12% of total population. And even with the sexist shift the vast majority – 75% of black men, 85% of black women – voted for Harris.
Whites didn’t show up, and of those that did 52% of white women and almost 60% of white men voted for the racist sexist asshole.
Belafon
@mark: I do like that they think that the way to beat the “Republicans are going to raise our health care costs” rap is to switch to “Republicans are going to ignore their own law and steal from employees.”
suzanne
@Belafon: Among white people, there’s been a big shift. Working-class white people and those without college degrees used to be a strongly Dem-voting cohort. As recently as Obama’s elections.
Now, Dems win voters making over $100K a year and run up huge margins with college-educated whites. Meanwhile, the white working class went for FFOTUS by something like 29 points. So there’s been a lot of switching.
And the way Latinos are voting is interesting, because they seem to be following a similar pattern to the groups we used to call “ethnic whites”. Italians, Eastern Europeans, etc. Those groups also shifted significantly as they became more baked into America.
Old Man Shadow
That is the elephant in the room: what guarantee is there that the Executive branch will faithfully execute the laws of the land when they’ve already shown they have no intention to do so and there is zero means of holding them accountable?
Princess
@trnc: Also totally fair. Messaging was a problem. It was a hard thing to message but that’s their job.
Their challenge is that different groups of people who might vote Dem are motivated by very different messaging and the squishiest Dem voters are motivated most by stuff that will enrage the most solid voters. But again, that’s their job.
Belafon
@RaflW: Don’t force Thune to nuke the filibuster, that would mean Democrats are blocking the change to the tax. Don’t give in if Thune threatens to nuke the filibuster.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Seems like a really important distinction!
@Librettist: The Marvelous Mrs. Measles, as someone on Bsky called her.
Jeffro
can’t eat that booming stock portfolio, amirite MAGA?
entirely predictable
Trump Labor Department Says Immigration Raids Pose Threat to Nation’s Food Supply
Princess
@Baud: I wonder if it’s young people or young men. I have no idea but difference is crucial.
The disaffection of young men seems global and cuts across race and culture. Not sure what to do about it but it’s worth addressing.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: Why does pointing to demographic data about white people bring about this defensive reaction. My answer was in response to Belafon’s comment about black and Latino demographic.
I AM NOT BLAMING YOU, so you don’t have to say or do anything
We work on anyone who can be persuaded.
mrmoshpotato
@Jeffro: C’mon now. No one could’ve guessed that laying waste to the labor force would fuck up the industry.
I mean, you’d need to have two brain cells to rub together to predict that.
Belafon
@schrodingers_cat: Just to be clear, whites own most of this, and my comments should never be construed as anything else. If they weren’t racist, we wouldn’t be anywhere near this discussion.
Geminid
@Princess: Messaging certainly is hot topic now. I don’t have much to say on that score except that we ought to look at successful Democratic candidates and their messaging. They are as important as the unsuccessful ones, and maybe more instructive.
p.a.
As much as I and everyone here rightly and constantly dump on the MSM, the workings of their sicko “culture” has resulted in us now being in “Charlie who?” territory. Take the wins where you can.
Professor Bigfoot
My bold, but QFT.
I contend it’s not possible to have been born and raised male in this patriarchal society and not have sexist ideas wired into us.
But if one actually sees the white supremacist patriarchy, one cannot stop seeing it.
Every fucking where.
WTFGhost
“Gee, who would have thought that hooking ourselves to Donald J Trump, who never has a plan, would result in a situation in which we have no plan?”
“I don’t know. He threw on a lot of tariffs, and he didn’t have a plan.”
“He said he’d fix health care, and never had a plan, never even started to have a plan ‘in two weeks’.”
“He said there’s more to live than having everything….”
“SHUT UP! THIS IS NOW A SCIF! CAMERAS AND RECORDING DEVICES OFF!!!”
suzanne
@Princess:
Agreed. And this is why we zoom in on things like Latino men shifting to FFOTUS. It’s not to cast blame. It’s to see if there is something happening that could be addressable.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: No, no, I’m saying that the “siren song: of white supremacy that owns MOST white people is also alluring to the white people ostensibly on our side.
Which is why (imho) we get the loud complaining about the “uselessness” and “fecklessness” of the Democrats from white people.
schrodingers_cat
@Belafon: Agreed.
WTFGhost
@lowtechcyclist: I used to have a bumper sticker, “In case of the RAPTURE:
BEWARE: DRIVER may become CARLESS
(in proper arrangement to maximize double takes)
Twice, I’d thought the Rapture had come, and God was being a smartass, but once, my wife had borrowed it, and the other time it was just stolen.
Old School
No conditions?!! They are letting this maniac out of custody?
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: No, no, I’m saying that the “siren song of white supremacy that owns MOST white people is also alluring to the white people ostensibly on our side.
Which is why (imho) we get the loud complaining about the “uselessness” and “fecklessness” of the Democrats from white people.
White people are susceptible to white supremacy. And many of you won’t do the internal work to realize it.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Old School: This gets around the perp walk the First Felon had a jones for, right?
p.a.
@WTFGhost: Heh. But see former fundies who talk abt the absolute terror they felt as children if they had time home alone and no other signs of life in the neighborhood they could see.
Professor Bigfoot
As they became more white.
...now I try to be amused
@RaflW:
Republicans want to govern like a Westminster-style parliament under a system designed not to work that way. (A Canadian acquaintance called his Westminster-style government “an elected dictatorship”.) Letting the filibuster continue to exist is trying to have it both ways, I suppose. A Senate filibuster is an awfully convenient way for backbenchers in the majority party to oppose legislation without having to vote against it.
Old School
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Sure seems like it.
AWOL
@Baud:
She wasn’t the martyr the West made her out to be. She was brutal. Her son was into mass castrations and mass shootings of the lower castes.
Until I read the novel, mentioned below, I thought she was a valid person. I was wrong.
I just read Rushdie’s MIDNIGHT’S CHILDREN. She in it. Not in the best light. Rushdie wasn’t allowed to publish this fine novel until he revised a passage to her liking.
Obviously, SC knows more than I can ever know about her reign and assassination.
schrodingers_cat
Proximity to whiteness is tempting but it is a mirage.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Professor Bigfoot: I know that as a white guy (albeit an ex-pat), I’m presumed to be not the most reliable ally, and I’m painfully aware that I’ve got blind spots all over the place and I’m prone to flamingo-ing up*. But given that I’ll never again vote for a Republican unless my deceased earthly remains are exhumed, zombified, and ordered to vote Republican**, what does that make me?
*Like a cock-up but much bigger. Courtesy of Red Dwarf, I think.
**And because I wouldn’t put it past Republicans to do just that, I’m planning to put into my last will and testament that my remains are to be cremated and scattered on multiple sites on multiple continents.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Sorry, I missed your comment earlier— but as I replied to someone else, I believe that the white men ostensibly on our side also feel the pull of white supremacy; which is why the white men on our side spend so much money trashing our candidates and railing against our agendas.
White men ostensibly on our side complain about “identity politics,” for example; but cannot acknowledge the power of their own identity— the pull of their own “tribe,” if you will.
It’s white men ostensibly on our side who’ve floated the idea of not defending trans rights as human rights, as another example.
I’m sure many will disagree, but it does seem to me that the “circular firing squad” includes a whole lot of white people.
Professor Bigfoot
@Professor Bigfoot: Okay, that was weird— duplicate comment separated by two other comments and now it’s way too late to delete either!
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Kathleen: The new media is definitely more toxic in every way. This is why I get so disgruntled about the constant attacks on legacy media on this blog. Legacy media isn’t great, but it is hella better and hella more accurate than influencers. There is a reason, that despite the continuous smears that NPR listeners are Nice Polite Republicans, most vote for Democrats. Same with NYT and WashPost readers.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: Yes, agreed. And we should assume that whiteness will expand to include others.
From Pew:
Again, it isn’t about blaming anybody. It is to see that there are shifts happening in the coalition that we would be wise to see if we can address. Why are those groups shifting toward FFOTUS? Are we not meeting their needs or addressing their concerns?
mrmoshpotato
@Professor Bigfoot: It’s October. The site is most likely haunted.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Soprano2: It needs to constantly be brought up because people continue to believe that if they address anything other than white people’s refusal to vote for anything other than that which benefits themselves, they’ll stumble across the Magic Bullet. It’s like watching a cancer patient rely on homegrown and holistic treatments instead of going to a reputable doctor like they should have in the first place.
Geminid
@Belafon: I think there is an underlying question here: who is *supposed* to vote for Democrats? Apparently, it’s every group but White men. I am one myself, and ever since last November I have watched the brick-bats flying downhill at White Women, Hispanic Americans, Black people and Muslim Americans. Only occasionally are they tossed at us.
I think some Democrats have internalized the notion that some groups owe us their votes, and I think this is a patronizing attitude and also a pernicious one. The way I see it, we might deserve everybody’s vote but no one, regardless of gender or ethnicity, owes us that vote. It’s on us to demonstrate that we deserve their votes.
I think we should take the various demographic groups where Democrats underperformed– in absolute terms as well as relative to 2020– and look at why those who voted Democratic did so. What issues moved them? What messages resonated?
Because these people did not vote Democratic because they owed us that vote; they voted Democratic because we showed them we deserved it.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Seems overly simplistic to me. As someone (Suzanne?) pointed out upthread, 40% of whites voted for Harris last year. If it had been 41%, we’d have probably won. 42%, and we’d have won for sure.
I think you’ve quite correctly made the point before that the shifts towards Trump in 2024 among Blacks and Hispanics matter a lot less than much smaller percentage shifts among white people. But that wouldn’t be true unless those small percentage shifts among white people were atop a large minority of white voters that consistently vote Democratic.
Oddly enough, white people in America aren’t an undifferentiated mass, any more than all the Hindus in India or all the Black people in sub-Saharan Africa.
Professor Bigfoot
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: One of the good guys who does the introspection and understands the white supremacist/patriarchal wiring our society has put into him and who is determined to do the right thing.
A rare but welcome and treasured example.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: I see it as a matter of self preservation and not that some group owe Ds their votes.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Do I really need to start appending the
You guys are getting offended and I think I need to remind you that hit dogs holler.
Archon
I’m not trying to be cynical here because lord knows premium hikes would affect me but let’s assume Trump and the Republicans relent and decide to fund the ACA to end the shutdown. How is that a political victory for Democrats? Or better yet how is that a victory for the U.S Constitution that Republicans are currently trampling on?
Geminid
@…now I try to be amused: I wonder if Senator Thune can get the 50 votes he needs from his caucus to change the filibuster rule.
Professor Bigfoot
@suzanne: From reading Caste, one understands that for a caste system to operate, there HAS to be some caste that is anathema, untouchable, immutably outside of regular society.
More people want to become “white,” and the best way to become white is through anti-Blackness.
pluky
@iKropoclast: I’m not the only one! Surveillance is not a verb.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: Wilkerson’s understanding of the Indian caste system is way too simplistic IMHO.
suzanne
@Geminid:
Agreed. Agreed so hard.
There is also a temptation to see anyone other than white men who votes for Republicans is irrational, blinkered, stupid. (But white men are acting in their own interests!) This is one of the oldest misogynistic tropes — those irrational women! — but also it leads us to make bad assumptions. Groups aren’t static. Relying on demographic change hasn’t gone well for us.
I noted yesterday that I’m in another online politics group (invited by some IRL friends), and it trends younger and more multi-racial than here. They are just as liberal, maybe even bumping up against the Left. But it has a much different orientation. We should not make assumptions that get baked in.
WTFGhost
@Baud: If you say that three times, one of the elder gods appears, for whom great Cthulhu is but a servant.
(I don’t know if I’m more surprised that I forgot how to spell Cthulhu, or that browser spellcheck corrected it.)
@Suzanne: Key thing is, Clinton not only explained, he really did care, so he combined those two things, which helped create support. That also gave liberal writers something to riff off of. These days, we’re mostly trying to protect the USA and the rest of the world from the Republican Ravaged Feds.
mappy!
Earned it. Earned the vote. You earn respect. Conservatives (“grifters”) live in a world of entitlement and deserve.
Ramona
@Professor Bigfoot: Quantum Field Theory?
VFX Lurker
Boglehead here. I’m expecting a crash when AI expectations finally fall back down to Earth. But, as a Boglehead, I am not doing anything about it.
You’re highlighting a far greater concern (American food security). Just wanted to note that I’m expecting that AI bubble to pop any day now.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
What, 40%-ish of this thread was about the 2024 election, AGAIN?! Do you guys think about anything else? It’s like group OCD.
pluky
@Belafon: Los hombres latinos. You have to be explicit.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I freely admit I’m no political strategist, but really?? This is a political battle and forcing the Republicans to give in is a victory, pure and simple. Is it the best we can do, especially given the fact that it relieves some midterm pressure they might have felt? I have no idea. But a victory is a victory and all political power is unitary.
Alas, it’s not.
mrmoshpotato
@Ramona: Quoted For Truth
Archon
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: It was a paradigm shattering election. The country we thought existed, the shared reality we thought we had with most Americans either doesn’t exist anymore or never did (I lean towards that latter, but open to the idea it’s the former due to cultural and economic changes).
People will be talking and thinking about the 2024 election for the rest of their lives, I know I will.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Professor Bigfoot: Eh, I’m gonna screw up somewhere along the line, and I just hope I don’t hurt others when I do. I cringe at some of the things I believed thirty years ago about justice and such. In any case, I’ve said before that nothing teaches you about your own privilege like losing some of it.
Ramona
@Professor Bigfoot: It seems obvious and that’s why it’s worth reiterating: White people are susceptible to White supremacy which acts on an insidious and unconscious level and so one must actively interrogate oneself to guard against this susceptibility. Likewise, men are susceptible to patriarchy and anywhere a majority defined by arbitrary criteria are susceptible to internalising a subtle message of superiority associated with such criteria.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
This is true, and it matters. Trump does absolutely ANYTHING he can to stop a defeat, because he understands this. Any victory we have weakens his image of inevitability.
WTFGhost
@Archon: The longer and louder this fight goes on, when Republicans cave, the more it will be in people’s memories that Democrats trounced them on health care.
It’s not enough, but it’s important – plus, people won’t die. Repeal of the OBBBA would be better, but unachievable.
@Professor Bigfoot: You know, I was recently thinking to myself, that a Black person could go through an entire racist nightmare during a walk through the neighborhood, without one overt racist being there… just, people didn’t realize they didn’t smile at this one particular neighbor, that some of them started up, then calmed down, “oh, it’s a known Black man,” but not, “oh, it’s a friend.” If any one of them had an angel on their shoulder to say “this fellow could use a friend,” they’d soften, they’d make an effort, but that’s the point. They might have to soften, with effort.
No one there wanted to make a Black man feel shut out, I imagined, but every one of them had an infection. They see a Black person, and they don’t just think “person.” And they don’t want to say they have an infection, they want to insist they’re not *sick*, they don’t use the n-word, they know how bad slavery was, etc., but they are.
It’s a mind-sickness, an infection that comes from overexposure to bigotry, and it requires actual surgical effort to find the infection, lance it, and drain it dry. You need to do that – you can’t trust your “immune system” of ordinary efforts in trying to be a good ally; just like you can’t just trust your immune system to pop an abscess and let it drain safely.
Archon
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I guess my question is at what point does Democrats proactively trying to protect voters from the consequences of their vote become counterproductive politically?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Archon: is it better to heighten the contradictions or to mitigate the damage? I come down on the latter. Opinions differ.
[ETA forgive me if I offend. I wrote that quickly, without careful consideration.]
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Archon: Pity. I don’t agree. If paradigms were shattered, its because people weren’t paying attention. And if people spend all their energy wishcasting about 2024, they aren’t paying attention to today. They are fighting the last battle instead of this one.
Doc Sardonic
This place is really becoming unreadable. Same thing day in and day out, white people bad, 2024 election over and over again. Y’all need to find a new dead equine to flagellate and some new fowl to fornicate.
cain
@Baud:
I can’t believe that fool brought up merging the U.S. again when talking about Canada. JFC.
Ramona
@Professor Bigfoot: It seems obvious and that’s why it’s worth reiterating: White people are susceptible to White supremacy which acts on an insidious and unconscious level and so one must actively interrogate oneself to guard against this susceptibility. Likewise, men are susceptible to patriarchy and anywhere a majority defined by arbitrary criteria are susceptible to internalising a subtle message of superiority associated with such criteria.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@cain: I think Trump really does suffer from dementia. It’s so obvious now even the MSM sees it.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Doc Sardonic: Well, when your attempts at providing new material to discuss usually revolve around things like “Why 107 Days Proves That Kamala Harris Is Actually A Piece Of Rancid Shit” and “How To Vibe With People Who Would Rather See You Thrown Into An Active Burn Pit”, it’s not very hard to see why the old topics keep being brought up.
Perhaps next time, pay attention during the open-book test.
cain
@tobie:
They have as usual over played their hands. But the scam was that the Dems would fix it but Dems can’t because they are out of power and the crazies are going unrestrained.
The leopards are eating faces like crazy.
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
shitforbrains wouldn’t know a clue if it slapped him. He’s aging out. Quite possibly aged out.
rethuglicans don’t want to admit that the guy they wanted has lost the plot – and most everything else. Old farts, like me see this all the time in other old farts. A few never see it in themselves, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there and growing. Sure they may see themselves slowing down, not getting deep into mental issues because it too much effort. And the time this starts is different for everyone but if you get old enough you might see it close up and personal. Even if you can’t ever admit it. For some it’s a slow process, quiet and unimposing. For others it’s a parade, full of pomp and circumstance. But if one lives long enough it’s there. For some it’s slow and reasonably controlled, for others it a very bad parade the size of the Rose Parade. But if one lives long enough it happens. Trump has placed himself front and center so it’s on display for all to see.
Ramona
@mrmoshpotato: Ah, thank-you!
schrodingers_cat
Things I learned on Balloon Juice today: Expecting people not to vote for a party that doesn’t care whether you live or die, is condescending but having a sermon delivered on how to comment is not
It just shows who is allowed to speak and whose words are considered unwanted on this forum
The message couldn’t be clearer.
Harrison Wesley
@Jeffro: They’re just figuring that out now?
Soprano2
This is the one I would pick, quite honestly, at least for now. That’s why I think we need to look at why we lost people who used to vote for us in the past. The most cursory glance would tell you that it was because our candidate was a black woman. I think it’s more complicated than that, but that was a factor IMHO. To me at this point the constant hollering that white people put FFOTUS in office isn’t necessary, because we all know that already! We need to concentrate on winning the next election rather than relitigating past elections ad nauseum. The past is past and can’t be undone, all we have is this moment and the future.
brendancalling
Late to the party, but I’ll repeat what I wrote yesterday.
Senator Dave McCormick (R-Not Really From PA) has had people answering the phone since late last week. No one EVER answers the phone, so it’s a pretty good sign he’s nervous.
Sadly, the young man who answered the phone tried to tell me that this is the Democrats’ fault, and denied that the GOP can pass their awful budget alone if they nuke the filibuster, which they can do by simple majority. He was still lying when I hung up the phone, so I followed up with an email telling Mr. McCormick his staff was either woefully misinformed about Senate rules and procedures or a bunch of filthy liars who’d sell their own mothers into sex slavery for a nickel, that I wasn’t sure which was more disturbing, and that Pennsylvanians deserve better than an ignoramus or a liar answering the phones.
I hate these people and enjoy letting them know that I see them as little more than pond scum.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: I did not make this clear, but I attribute the attitude I describe to white Democrats in general and white male Democrats in particular.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Thanks for providing that context. Yeah that’s how the press covers it as well.
Ramona
@brendancalling: Good job! Well done!
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: Why does anyone pointing out that data about black and Latin voters bring out the defensive reaction from you? I think we’re beating a dead horse, and it would be good for everyone to move on from an argument that could be numbered, everyone knows it so well. What’s done can’t be undone, we need to concentrate on winning in the future. Part of that is studying why we lost in the past and how we can do better in the future. I’m reading that FFOTUS has already lost a lot of the minority voters who voted for him in 2024, which is good news! Let’s build on that.
Ramona
@brendancalling: I don’t think McCormick is up for election next year so what specific contingency do you suppose he fears enough to assign people to answer the phones?
Betty Cracker
@brendancalling: Haha, good for you!
Ruckus
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Sometimes it’s good to remind about history that lives in a dumpster. It sometimes helps people not repeat the dumpster dive.
Of course because it’s people, it’s likely that nothing anyone says is going to change a closed mind.
It’s humanity, in all it’s incantations. Good, bad, great, pure shit walking. And the bad is likely to strike different to different people, IOW how they see the same thing may cause different responses. One of the first things I learned as a mental health counselor long ago, a mind is not a computer, it often works like a car with 3 flat tires and an engine running on only half the cylinders. Badly. And humanity has been this way since day one. But today we can see far more, see/read about humans whose humanity has left the building – or was never really there. A lot of decades ago this would have been a backyard fence discussion, but now that backyard fence has a lot of neighbors in listening/reading range. But that doesn’t make it the same human trajectory. And that’s what is happening here. There have been people like shitforbrains since there were more than a few humans. They just had to work so hard to stay living that no one noticed. Now we notice. And now it can be obvious. And is.
mrmoshpotato
@brendancalling: Well done!
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: Yes, and the press is dominated by the White male viewpoint.
We really have this country rigged. I call it the Creep State.
Ruckus
@brendancalling:
That’s not nice comparing them to pond scum.
Pond scum doesn’t have a brain and only knows how to be pond scum.
Humans have a brain. Some of them even know how to use that brain. More than a few have never figured out how to use that brain in any way other than completely selfishly and in no way positive.
Kirklin
@Ramona: Say it again so the cheap seats hear it.
cain
@Baud: anti immigration sentiment is everywhere right now. And let’s entertain the fact that the u.s. could easily be funding parties like vox.
I suspect us Indians are the leading cause of this stuff. We are immigrating everywhere.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ruckus:
And I wouldn’t be cranky about it if those reminders weren’t literally every single day for the last 11 months.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ramona: I like that one, but “Quoted for Truth.”
Ramona
@Kirklin: ssorry for the double post, I’m getting used to a new tablet and didn’t realize I’d already posted my comment.
Kirklin
@Soprano2: For me, beating the racism/sexism horse is a reminder that if we don’t deal with that, we’re just scraping at the margins.
We don’t have to solve it, but when every sector except white women moved toward the known bigot/danger because it was a non-white woman (either or both) then we need to see if there is a way to get those two elephants out of the room OR to sidestep it.
(I know, beating my own dead horse. But even though the majority of white women still voted for the racist, the percentage that did declined – proportionally more voted democratic. It’s the only race/sex subgroup where that happened. Me, I’d like to know why and what we can do to push that in the other groups.)
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: If that’s what you get from my comments there doesn’t seem to be any reason to carry on this conversation.
I wish you all the best. Bye
Nothing against you just conserving my limited bandwidth.
cain
@Professor Bigfoot:
It’s incredibly difficult but once you see it you can’t unsee it.
The patriarchy hurts men as well forcing them into roles they don’t want to be in. I’m male but I also like doing ‘girly’ things. I want to knit because I have ADHD and it gives me something to do with my hands but I also love to work with wood.
Who the fuck are these men to define my masculinity?
Professor Bigfoot
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Brother, that’s the point.
I KNOW I fuck up with the Patriarchy no matter how hard I try, but I keep on doing that.
When women distrust me, I just live with that- they don’t know me from the Boston Strangler, and while I hate THAT, I’m gonna do what I can to make sure she’s safe and okay if I’m around.
None of us is unaffected by the societal waters in which we swim; but SOME of us TRY to be aware and mindful. 🙏🏾
schrodingers_cat
@cain: Some RWNJ Indians (especially from India but also some Silicon Valley techbros) thought that cozying up to the MAGAs gave them immunity. They forgot their own fucking history.
Professor Bigfoot
QF MF T.
cain
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
But they won’t hound him like they did with Biden because his supporters are violent and can kick up enormous upheaval.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
To make change possible people have to see more than one side and why only one side is almost never going to be humanity. Good or bad – and often both, humanity is what it is. HOWEVER – we have the ability to learn and change. That does require a desire to learn and change but it is still possible. Now the big problem is that a lot of people seemingly refuse to learn and change. And having them change from being a shitty human to a better one is very difficult. As I’ve stated here before I used to be a mental health counselor and one of the first things we learned doing that was that humans can have a closed mind. Access locked out and truth never accepted, mainly because they know everything. Just ask them. Oh wait they will tell you even if you don’t ask. In today’s world we see far more and even discuss it…. Humanity and the world is changing because we can do what we are doing here, now. (and yes other reasons) That doesn’t mean it will all change or will have a positive change. It is after all – humanity.
Professor Bigfoot
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I usually do try to come down on the “mitigate the damage” side.
The problem is that sometimes that boils down to codependency, and the addict has to get hit in the face with it before he faces it and makes changes.
White America is addicted to white supremacy and does not understand that supremacy ultimately benefits no one, including themselves.
Obligatory #NotAllWhitePeople
cain
@schrodingers_cat: they will never get immunity. They are all clowns.
MAGA is also seeing that all the CEOs in the tech sector are Asian. That’s going to cause a backlash too.
cain
@Professor Bigfoot: I swear only in America that citizens willingly give up their rights to live in poverty and squalor because they hate black people.
Kirklin
@Professor Bigfoot: I fuck up with racism and patriarchy. I keep trying to do better.
It helps when I get called out.
I help myself when called out by remembering to watch Muhammad Ali’s snake metaphor.
lowtechcyclist
[Prof. Bigfoot @213; $#@! reply button]
No argument on this point. Like you say, racism is deeply embedded in us white folks, and we don’t always see how it’s working on us.
But I don’t understand the connection here. Too often in the past, the Democratic Party has taken good and strong positions, then run away from them when it counted. And I was vocal about it. Was this my embedded racism speaking out? Hell, sometimes it’s been Black people who got thrown under the bus when it mattered. Yes, there have been times when the Dems have been pretty damn feckless, and I felt they should have been called on it. Is it white privilege or some such that makes me feel this way? And do Blacks not feel they can criticize when appropriate the Democratic Party that’s supposed to be representing their interests?
Seriously, I don’t get it.
Ruckus
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Some learn fast, some learn slowly, some never learn, and some refuse to believe what they learn.
Never forget the old saying, “People see what they want to see, not necessarily what is staring them in the face.” We all have brains, or we wouldn’t be living. How those brains work, what they hold inside, what they want/don’t want, etc, etc is/can be different for each and every one of us. And often is. How we approach an item or a thought can be/often is different. It makes something like what we are doing here, now important. Because it makes the world and the things we can see far more. Because it exposes us to other visions. Sure they may be better or worse visions. That’s a decision we need to learn very well or we might follow the wrong trail. Because we are human. Don’t believe me? Read history. Lots of wrong trails followed. Some damn good ones as well. It’s a choice. Some never recognize that.
ArchTeryx
@Chris T.: The planet stinks, too. There’s a whole lot of sulfur-containing compounds in its atmosphere, apparently. Maybe the ancient middle school joke has something there.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Constructive criticism is a necessary if painful thing.
But damned little of what I see is constructive. What I see is a lot of brickbats thrown at Schumer and Jeffries for literally doing their jobs, then lauding the Great Khan without recognizing that as a state governor he has power the minority power in the federal government simply does not have.
“Everything is a conspiracy when you don’t know how things work,” and the “DO SOMETHING” crowd cannot understand that… but they love tossing barbs at the Black guy and the Jew.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
(Yes, I’m among the ‘terminally online’ and I see this on Bluesky a lot. Perhaps it IS mere coincidence that I see ostensibly white accounts screaming at those two gentlemen, but after a while one begins to suspect enemy action)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ruckus: In the beginning, there was learning. Now, I do not see anything constructive. Its just obsessively picking at the same scab.
gvg
@schrodingers_cat: You live in the Northeast, up near Sander’s home area. I think there might be more Sanders fans up there?
I know people who liked him down south, but they switched to other democrats easily enough (not independants) and they aren’t all that alike so I am not sure how I would describe them. Definately not always bashing Dems or purity ponies or socialist. Tending towards anti mega capitalist? One is a doctor who wants patients all covered. I don’t think Sanders could deliver, but the goal is good.
schrodingers_cat
@gvg: I live in deep blue Sanders country. He won the 2020 primary in my town, Biden was a close second.
schrodingers_cat
@cain: Yep. They are indeed. People like Vivek R are so cringey. Pathetic really.
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
You aren’t wrong here – but.
We face the life in front of us. Sometimes the one we wish we had. But that sometimes often doesn’t make a difference because it’s a wish, not necessarily wrong – or right, but it is often not reality, which is all the bits and pieces in front of us.
A difference of today and decades ago is what we are doing here and now. Discussing all of it with many others. This opens up the learning possibilities. Doesn’t mean everyone or anyone will actually learn the real lesson for that discussion but the possibilities are better today than ever before. But often we discuss the possibilities as if they aren’t possibilities. Now out of the possibilities there may and likely will be good and not at all good choices. Learning which is which sometimes takes time and thought.
I wonder how many of us see the world of say 6 or 7 decades ago and see it the same as today? Sure somethings haven’t changed, but far more have. We have the opportunity to learn things that no one knew that long ago. That changes a lot. It doesn’t change everything though. It’s still humanity, it’s still life. Born, grow, learn, slow down, gone. And sometimes that path is still very short. And sometimes a lot longer than most can imagine. I have a 99 yr old neighbor. 99 years of breathing. Seems impossible to many and even to this human that is a lot closer to that age than I can/want to imagine.
Life is still life today, but parts of it have changed significantly. The basics that happen to everyone haven’t, but much has. Healthcare is just a tad different. (Tad is doing a lot of work, as it usually does) Most things are different, most also often means better. The amount the world has changed in the last say 150 years is far more than it changed in the 500-1000 years prior. In my lifetime we went from TV being not much more than an idea to large flat screens and showing movies in your own home. Being able to go to an airport and flying most anywhere in the world. How many can say they stood on Antartica? I can, but not a lot had when I was able to, it was over 50 years ago. And on and on and on. One can fly around the world and the cost is less than a car costs. OK not a cheap used car but still. And yet we are still humans. Often better educated today because we know more – or at least can. What we are doing here today is not all that old. And look how much better it is than 25 years ago. Or even exists which it didn’t 37 years ago.
Geminid
@cain:
Last January, New Lines Magazine published an article that addressed anti-Indian sentiment and its expression in U.S. politics. Title:
The article covers arguments over visas, and also distrust among MAGA faithful towards Trump’s several appointments of Indians to high government posts. Authors Alec D’Angelo and Surbhi Gupta saw something deeper:
This link worked once, and it ought to again if I don’t mess it up:
https://search.google/ams6iJA2Kx5Gb8ou
Ed. The link doesn’t work, and I blame “fkn redis.
I see the problem now. Ityped “search.google” instead of share.google. I’ll try again in a reply.
Betty Cracker
@gvg: I know lots of folks who like Sanders and voted for him in primaries right here in Florida (including my husband), and every one of them went on to vote for the Democrat who was eventually nominated. Not a one is a chronic Dem basher, purity pony or whatever. I know those people exist, but I think they’re a small subset who get more attention than they deserve. Dems had far more defections over the PUMA nonsense in 2008.
Geminid
@Geminid: A link to the New Lines article about Indian immigrants:
share.google/ams6iJA2Kx5Gb8ouB
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: I think Vivek does not understand how the American caste system is driven by little more than skin tone.
I don’t think he gets that simply having a darker complexion will mean you’re part of that lowest caste, here, regardless of education or national origin or anything else.
Ruckus
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
Teaching and learning are two different things. Learning and understanding can be, and often are, two different things.
Also how much humanity knows (that’s the total, not the individual knowledge) is a lot different than what it knew in the lifetime of many old farts. Medicine has changed rather significantly in MY lifetime. Cars have changed. Long distance travel had changed, even long distance train travel. Life is far different than when I was born, but then I’m an old fart. In Los Angeles when I was very young there were transit trains in Los Angeles. They were gone by the time I was 10-12 yrs old. We have a transit train system in LA once again. It’s a lot better than the old system. A hell of a lot better. First car I rode in that I knew what it was, was a 1946 or 47 Packard 4 door sedan. Olive drab, it was a never used army staff car, bought after WWII. I was 5 or 6 when I knew what it was. This world has changed very significantly in the lifetimes of many. As has humanity – at least some of it. How old is what we are doing here? About 20 years +/-. Can you still buy a black and white TV? When I was rather young you couldn’t buy a color TV. Now we can communicate – like what we are doing, basically around the world. Or at least many parts of it. Humans have stood on the moon. 56 years ago. I’ve crossed the Atlantic 6 times, been north of the Arctic circle and south of the Antarctic circle. And yet this is a far different world in the lifetimes of many alive today. Like me.
UncleEbeneezer
@Ramona: Yes! Now do antisemitism. Because a whole lot of people (especially on the Left) are mistakenly certain that this dynamic can’t possibly apply to centuries of Jewish Conspiracy Theories being used as the foundation of Anti-Zionist propaganda and activism. It’s been quite astounding watching three years of Jewish People try to explain why x, y, and z are actually rooted in antisemitism only to have all the “Listen to __ People (On oppression of __ People)” insist that no, the Jews are wrong or worse, lying & scheming.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Maybe I see a lot less of it because I’ve had a lot of offline demands on my time over the past few months. And I’ve yet to sign up for BlueSky, even though it’s been years since I posted at the Nazi bar that once was Twitter.
I don’t really know who specifically is meant by the “Do Something” crowd, but that moniker has been around for a few years already, and I keep on seeing instances of “OK, do what?” “Well, how about this?” “No, we couldn’t possibly do this because reasons.” So I’m at least somewhat sympathetic to where they’re coming from.
The fact is that Pritzker has little power as well to resist the Feds when they come into his state. I actually listened to a clip of him speaking the other day. He made it clear that he was doing all that was within his power, but it was also clear that it was small potatoes. What he did was summarize Trump’s playbook aimed at invoking the Insurrection Act and explain where they were now; remind people to stay calm in the face of ICE, to not give Trump any excuse to invoke that Act; to pull out phones and document the atrocities; and to highlight some specific atrocities committed by ICE, including the apartment building where they broke into practically every apartment, dragged everyone out, zip-tied children, etc.
Main thing was, he’s stepped up and led.
Schumer and Jeffries could use their offices to do the same. Schumer especially isn’t up to that, and that’s a structural problem we have when we’re in the opposition: the House and Senate minority leaders are the closest thing to national leaders of our party that we’ve got, but their job has been defined too long as basically a party whip’s job: to round up the votes.
Well, there’s a House and a Senate Minority Whip, and maybe the Dems should adapt to the times and have them be the vote-rounder-uppers, and have some other leader be the chief legislative technician who makes sure the bills will actually do what they’re intended to do. Schumer’s good at that, but the person doing that job shouldn’t occupy the position of The Most Visible National Democrat.
Maybe aiming the brickbats at him personally is unfair, but the mismatch between the job and the position isn’t the sort of thing we should all be shrugging our shoulders at and going ah well, nevertheless. Just because this is how things have been for decades (centuries?) doesn’t mean it’s how they should be now. And Schumer and Jeffries are really the only people who can start any process of reforming that without its coming from someone else in the caucus and looking like a coup or revolt, and amplifying the usual Dems in Disarray narrative by a pretty large factor.
Kosh III
@Scout211: Thank you!
Soprano2
@Geminid: That’s why think the votes of white men are the “average, regular” vote and everyone else is an “interest group”.
Ruckus
@Professor Bigfoot:
It is enemy action. And I’m a white guy.
If we look at a human being and see what we want to see but not anything else and for no good reason whatsoever then we are the problem.
I think I’ve said this here before but I had a friend who I visited in a hospital just before she died of sickle cell. This was a few decades ago, she was gay and lived with my sister for a short time, so I had zero chance but she was beautiful, smart and funny and I miss her to this day.
Humanity seems to still like the concept that people that don’t look like what we see in a mirror are not human or good or whatever they can say negatively. It’s bullshit of the highest order. We are all human. Some are better at being human than others, some are basically useless at humanity in any way, shape or form. And other than that’s humanity I have no idea why. We supposedly have an actual brain that for most people seems to work. But it’s what’s been instilled in that brain over time that creates a reasonable, rational human being, or a pompous, arrogant jackass. Can it ever be fixed? It should be possible but I wouldn’t hold my breath, it can be difficult enough living without doing that.
Soprano2
QFT. We should number this argument, like call it #1 then everyone knows what it is and can move on to something else.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: Well, that seems to be what you get from my comments, that I’m “defensive”. What I am is frustrated and bored! We keep having this same argument over and over again for some reason. I don’t understand what I’m supposed to say or do that will be enough. Maybe there never will be enough, is that what I’m supposed to understand, that I’m guilty forever and nothing I do will ever change that?
lowtechcyclist
@Old School:
How could they?! No telling what his overblown sense of his own rectitude will do to even casual acquaintances and innocent bystanders!
(So no perp walk, then: GOOD! No sympathy for him, but what they can do to him, they can most certainly do to people like us.)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Soprano2: I’m fine with my argument being the giant foam finger #1 argument. I will happily use that shorthand, though I may tack on the months and counting as this continues. For example, if I should wade into a thread and discover the exact same 2024 arguments in November, I will post:
Argument #1 (Same crap, 12 months and counting)
Captain C
@cain:
FTFY
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: We shall simply have to disagree on that.
Ruckus
@lowtechcyclist:
Some of the problem is how some see this country and just basic animal concept of survival. This country has changed significantly in my old fart lifetime. Often for the better but definitely not always. We seem to have some that read the constitution and see that it was written by white people. We’ve had slavery in this country as most of us know, and the slavery side lost. As an old white guy I’d bet that more than a few white people are still on the slavery side. Maybe not near the level of decades/centuries ago, but still – not on the good side. I believe that they see slavery in a positive way, that labor would be cheaper with slavery than a minimum wage and far more structure than we have within the working labor side. The country itself has changed, I believe that a percentage of the population doesn’t see that as benefiting them. And it shouldn’t, because that’s not equality in any way, shape or form.
I was in the US navy decades ago and on board ship I slept in a room with over 80 other men, a good percentage, black humans. As far as I was concerned before then, during that time and now, we are all humans and all have the same rights and duties to each other. I don’t think that is a minority position but it is not universal in this or likely most countries. It damn well should be. But then it is humanity. I have zero idea how to fix this and I’ve been looking and trying for decades. I’ve lived in the same room/buildings/ships, worked with and for black people for decades and they seem rather human to me.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: The media BS bros like Jon Stewart wield a lot of power. You are a frontpager here I don’t need to tell you that he is hardly the only one out there.
But yes let’s pretend that it is 5 people in the middle of nowhere.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
There ain’t no good guy, there ain’t no bad guy
There’s only you and me and we just disagree
–Dave Mason, I think
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
I’m not offended in the least, and I damned sure wouldn’t spend this much time debating you if I didn’t think you were worth debating. Debating you forces me to think a lot harder than I usually have to, and think about things I don’t normally think about, and I like that, being the sort of weirdo that I am.
Ramona
@UncleEbeneezer: I often wonder if a large part of the origin of antisemitism in Europe had to do with the Jews originally living there had darker skin tones.
Of course, historically speaking, the Jewish people have been the original ‘other’ long persecuted and denigrated.
trnc
@Princess:
That’s a good point. It’s easy to find messaging when your voters will swallow any BS you want, including daily contradictions. It’s a lot more difficult when your own base wants to berate you for every little thing.
justsomeguy05
@NotMax: Great reference. Actual chuckle-out-loud from me.