Back to Normal Doesn't Work Because Normal Wasn't Working
January 15, 2022 5:58 AM Subscribe
It all feels like some terribly boring nightmare, this gentle constant frustration in the space where hope used to be.
Back to Normal Isn't Enough, from Kelsey McKinney, writing for Defector.
From the article:
The United States does not become the kind of country that threatens its citizens with onerous hospital bills as part of a vaccine promotion campaign by accident. This is how the country was built, and how the system has grown to work; it is how it was designed.
From the article:
The United States does not become the kind of country that threatens its citizens with onerous hospital bills as part of a vaccine promotion campaign by accident. This is how the country was built, and how the system has grown to work; it is how it was designed.
People compare Republicans to the Mafia, but Democrats are the ones who are pulling the Mafia "nice stable country you've got here, would be a shame if some other party got voted in and wrecked it all" speech of a protection racket, as the author astutely points out. It's honestly gross it's gone on this long and people aren't willing to call it out for the abuse it absolutely is from the Democratic party. It's Mafia threat bullshit and I'm sick of every election being like this. If it's such an important election, Democrats, maybe get some shit done while you have power so the next one won't be so fucking important.
Problem is, the Democrats aren't even trying to protect us anymore, but they're still wagging their fingers at progressives like they're the fucking problem. Par for the course for abusers, really.
posted by deadaluspark at 6:27 AM on January 15, 2022 [92 favorites]
Problem is, the Democrats aren't even trying to protect us anymore, but they're still wagging their fingers at progressives like they're the fucking problem. Par for the course for abusers, really.
posted by deadaluspark at 6:27 AM on January 15, 2022 [92 favorites]
For an idea of how much contempt the Biden administration has for us peasants, look no further than the continued employment of Jen Psaki:
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:36 AM on January 15, 2022 [70 favorites]
Reporter: "So the sense is things are going well [at the White House], there's no need for change right now?"This particular example of pissy, snarky behavior is from yesterday, barely a month after her attempt to put down the idea of sending Americans free rapid tests as some sort of fevered fantasy dream instead of the bare minimum many other nations were already doing.
Jen Psaki: "We could certainly propose legislation to see if people support bunny rabbits and ice cream, but that wouldn't be very rewarding for the American people."
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:36 AM on January 15, 2022 [70 favorites]
Well here's hoping there'll be a U-turn on that like there's been with the tests! (Ideally a u-turn less clumsy and less dependent on antagonistic and crippled organizations like the USPS, but)
posted by trig at 6:49 AM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by trig at 6:49 AM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Four tests, per address, that will arrive a couple of weeks after you request them. These incremental walk-backs are not much better than the initial (non)plan. The Biden administration has had a year to plan for this. Two years into a global pandemic and the party that's supposed to be the good guys had to be pressured to send 4 tests per address. It's shameful.
posted by Mavri at 7:25 AM on January 15, 2022 [51 favorites]
posted by Mavri at 7:25 AM on January 15, 2022 [51 favorites]
A day or two ago, the CDC recommended that cloth masks are not sufficient to protect consistently against omicron and that N95 masks are the safe bet. Before the CDC even issued the statement, the manufacturers of N95 masks apparently caught wind of it and immediately put huge markups on the prices of their masks.
The author mentions a time early in the pandemic when they hoped that a crisis of sufficient magnitude would hit us hard enough that we would start to somehow restructure our society -- that this might be a chance to reset things to be more humane. (I indulged the same hope for a little while, trying to ignore its undertones of accelerationism.) Yesterday's mask markup reminded me of the naïvete of that particular hope. Because for every powerless person who dreams that a collective hardship will push our society to better things, there is a powerful person who dreams of exploiting that same hardship to choke the powerless just a little more, and a little more, and a little more.
posted by cubeb at 7:34 AM on January 15, 2022 [69 favorites]
The author mentions a time early in the pandemic when they hoped that a crisis of sufficient magnitude would hit us hard enough that we would start to somehow restructure our society -- that this might be a chance to reset things to be more humane. (I indulged the same hope for a little while, trying to ignore its undertones of accelerationism.) Yesterday's mask markup reminded me of the naïvete of that particular hope. Because for every powerless person who dreams that a collective hardship will push our society to better things, there is a powerful person who dreams of exploiting that same hardship to choke the powerless just a little more, and a little more, and a little more.
posted by cubeb at 7:34 AM on January 15, 2022 [69 favorites]
Reading that piece, I wondered what it would look like, if we tried to put a dollar value on how much help was provided to average Americans during the pandemic under Trump vs Biden. To my horror I am wondering whether Trump might actually come out ahead.
posted by eirias at 7:39 AM on January 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by eirias at 7:39 AM on January 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
Problem is, the Democrats aren't even trying to protect us anymore, but they're still wagging their fingers at progressives like they're the fucking problem. Par for the course for abusers, really.
The Democrats are also the only US political party both structurally capable of forming government and having a progressive wing at all, so there's that.
Reacting to the party's obvious and undeniable deficiencies by throwing up your hands and refusing to vote at all just amounts to voting Republican by default. Actually voting Republican, which is what I've seen some disaffected Democrats decide to do on no better basis than that they have become thoroughly sick of Democratic shitfuckery, is even more counterproductive. Don't do that either. When the choice is between Shit and Shit Lite, go with Shit Lite.
Meanwhile, keep on pushing for electoral reform that offers better options.
posted by flabdablet at 7:42 AM on January 15, 2022 [54 favorites]
The Democrats are also the only US political party both structurally capable of forming government and having a progressive wing at all, so there's that.
Reacting to the party's obvious and undeniable deficiencies by throwing up your hands and refusing to vote at all just amounts to voting Republican by default. Actually voting Republican, which is what I've seen some disaffected Democrats decide to do on no better basis than that they have become thoroughly sick of Democratic shitfuckery, is even more counterproductive. Don't do that either. When the choice is between Shit and Shit Lite, go with Shit Lite.
Meanwhile, keep on pushing for electoral reform that offers better options.
posted by flabdablet at 7:42 AM on January 15, 2022 [54 favorites]
This particular example of pissy, snarky behavior
is nowhere near as soul-crushing as even five seconds of Sean Spicer. When you perceive two options as off-the-charts awful, the thing to do is seek a bigger chart. Because there is a difference between something ten times worse than is acceptable and something a million times worse, and if your standards are so overloaded as to be incapable of seeing that, then the million times worse thing wins.
posted by flabdablet at 7:51 AM on January 15, 2022 [65 favorites]
is nowhere near as soul-crushing as even five seconds of Sean Spicer. When you perceive two options as off-the-charts awful, the thing to do is seek a bigger chart. Because there is a difference between something ten times worse than is acceptable and something a million times worse, and if your standards are so overloaded as to be incapable of seeing that, then the million times worse thing wins.
posted by flabdablet at 7:51 AM on January 15, 2022 [65 favorites]
When the choice is between Shit and Shit Lite, go with Shit Lite.
You can't blame folks for being burned out when they keep voting Shit Lite, and still end up with Shit.
posted by Kitteh at 7:56 AM on January 15, 2022 [69 favorites]
You can't blame folks for being burned out when they keep voting Shit Lite, and still end up with Shit.
posted by Kitteh at 7:56 AM on January 15, 2022 [69 favorites]
This is one of the best pieces I have ever read on the pandemic. Thanks for posting.
posted by wittgenstein at 8:05 AM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by wittgenstein at 8:05 AM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Yes, the real threat is the Democrats....
I said it before the election, and I'll say it again. The job of the Democrats isn't to implement hearts and flowers for all. Their job is to return the country to a baseline of normal. Progress doesn't happen when the country fails to even pretend to value democracy. Yes, it would be a shame if something were to happen to your democracy. Oh, does that sound too threatening? It fucking well should, because that's exactly what's happening.
"Progressives" who can't figure this out will be the death of us all.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:06 AM on January 15, 2022 [64 favorites]
I said it before the election, and I'll say it again. The job of the Democrats isn't to implement hearts and flowers for all. Their job is to return the country to a baseline of normal. Progress doesn't happen when the country fails to even pretend to value democracy. Yes, it would be a shame if something were to happen to your democracy. Oh, does that sound too threatening? It fucking well should, because that's exactly what's happening.
"Progressives" who can't figure this out will be the death of us all.
posted by 2N2222 at 8:06 AM on January 15, 2022 [64 favorites]
You can't blame folks for being burned out when they keep voting Shit Lite, and still end up with Shit
Under those circumstances it's easy to forget that allowing Shit to take the controls has always meant ending up with The Shit, The Whole Shit and Nothing But The Shit. Doesn't alter the fact that it has, though.
The only reason that Shit Lite is shitty to any extent is because the electoral successes of Shit have made that a viable position. Every single time Shit gets behind the wheel, Shit Lite can get away with being just that little bit more shit than they were before and still be the better option.
posted by flabdablet at 8:08 AM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
Under those circumstances it's easy to forget that allowing Shit to take the controls has always meant ending up with The Shit, The Whole Shit and Nothing But The Shit. Doesn't alter the fact that it has, though.
The only reason that Shit Lite is shitty to any extent is because the electoral successes of Shit have made that a viable position. Every single time Shit gets behind the wheel, Shit Lite can get away with being just that little bit more shit than they were before and still be the better option.
posted by flabdablet at 8:08 AM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
The job of the Democrats isn't to implement hearts and flowers for all. Their job is to return the country to a baseline of normal.
Is that enough to get people to come back for midterms, though?
posted by Selena777 at 8:09 AM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Is that enough to get people to come back for midterms, though?
posted by Selena777 at 8:09 AM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Yep, it's all relative and the key is to consistently deny Shit the chance at power. Any hope they'll get power means they'll keep being Shit. Deny them enough and they will become Shit Lite and Shit Lite will have to move to Marginally Shitty.
posted by BeReasonable at 8:10 AM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by BeReasonable at 8:10 AM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
is nowhere near as soul-crushing as even five seconds of Sean Spicer
Really? I think it's even more soul-crushing, because this is the kind of shit I expect from people like, well, Sean Spicer. Biden's campaign hinged on him being a more empathetic, human president who would value lives over an economy. What we got is an administration who foolishly declared the pandemic would be over by July 4th, ignored the basic concept of "viruses can evolve" to the point that that the rise Delta and Omicron surprised at the very least VPOTUS, and has repeatedly mocked good faith inquiries about commonsense solutions as fantastical.
I said it before the election, and I'll say it again. The job of the Democrats isn't to implement hearts and flowers for all. Their job is to return the country to a baseline of normal.
And as this article points out, they're failing horribly even at that, and the electoral consequences fall squarely on their shoulders, no matter how much you want to blame progressives.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:12 AM on January 15, 2022 [35 favorites]
Really? I think it's even more soul-crushing, because this is the kind of shit I expect from people like, well, Sean Spicer. Biden's campaign hinged on him being a more empathetic, human president who would value lives over an economy. What we got is an administration who foolishly declared the pandemic would be over by July 4th, ignored the basic concept of "viruses can evolve" to the point that that the rise Delta and Omicron surprised at the very least VPOTUS, and has repeatedly mocked good faith inquiries about commonsense solutions as fantastical.
I said it before the election, and I'll say it again. The job of the Democrats isn't to implement hearts and flowers for all. Their job is to return the country to a baseline of normal.
And as this article points out, they're failing horribly even at that, and the electoral consequences fall squarely on their shoulders, no matter how much you want to blame progressives.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:12 AM on January 15, 2022 [35 favorites]
Another circular firing squad. I expected this well before the last big election, but I guess I was a little early.
posted by SoberHighland at 8:17 AM on January 15, 2022 [34 favorites]
posted by SoberHighland at 8:17 AM on January 15, 2022 [34 favorites]
The trouble is, this is all one system. The Trump administration acted out of character in the first panicked year, hence the eviction moratorium, loan suspension, etc, because no one was sure how things were going to shake out. But now capital won't wait, and the Biden administration, come hell or high water, will force people back to work/school/death/homelessness. Trump would be doing the same thing if he'd won.
The parties have converged in my lifetime - I suppose the start is really the Carter administration, when the old labor Democrats were pushed out of power, but it's really visible with Clinton and welfare reform.
Here's what I regret: I was a reformist/scared person/harm reductionist since Clinton, because the Republicans were proximately worse. I underestimated how bad things could get, so I was always willing to vote the Democrat in to forestall the Republican. The smart move would have been to punish the Democrats right away from the nineties on forward because the states were a lot lower. Instead, I've waited for a real crisis to come along, where the failure of the Democrats and the appalling fascism of the Republicans are both existential threats. Withholding votes would have had bad consequences but could have scared the Democrats into change and the bad consequences would have been a little less "total destruction".
Now, of course, the Democrats are going to lose - not because me or mefites decide to withhold our votes but because they have disgusted and disenfranchised a critical number of Americans - and disaster, chaos and violence will be upon us. We're not going to have a choice. The Democrats will be a feeble rump party, be destroyed by the fascist GOP or be so utterly transformed by dangerous, unpleasant political instability as to be unrecognizable. So we're in a worse position than if we'd said "fuck you I won't vote for Clinton" or "fuck you I won't vote for Obama".
posted by Frowner at 8:23 AM on January 15, 2022 [42 favorites]
The parties have converged in my lifetime - I suppose the start is really the Carter administration, when the old labor Democrats were pushed out of power, but it's really visible with Clinton and welfare reform.
Here's what I regret: I was a reformist/scared person/harm reductionist since Clinton, because the Republicans were proximately worse. I underestimated how bad things could get, so I was always willing to vote the Democrat in to forestall the Republican. The smart move would have been to punish the Democrats right away from the nineties on forward because the states were a lot lower. Instead, I've waited for a real crisis to come along, where the failure of the Democrats and the appalling fascism of the Republicans are both existential threats. Withholding votes would have had bad consequences but could have scared the Democrats into change and the bad consequences would have been a little less "total destruction".
Now, of course, the Democrats are going to lose - not because me or mefites decide to withhold our votes but because they have disgusted and disenfranchised a critical number of Americans - and disaster, chaos and violence will be upon us. We're not going to have a choice. The Democrats will be a feeble rump party, be destroyed by the fascist GOP or be so utterly transformed by dangerous, unpleasant political instability as to be unrecognizable. So we're in a worse position than if we'd said "fuck you I won't vote for Clinton" or "fuck you I won't vote for Obama".
posted by Frowner at 8:23 AM on January 15, 2022 [42 favorites]
What we got is an administration who foolishly declared the pandemic would be over by July 4th, ignored the basic concept of "viruses can evolve" to the point that that the rise Delta and Omicron surprised at the very least VPOTUS, and has repeatedly mocked good faith inquiries about commonsense solutions as fantastical.
And what we didn't get is an administration that spitballs ingesting bleach and horse paste because it not only has no clue, it has no clue what clue even is.
this is the kind of shit I expect from people like, well, Sean Spicer.
Being governed by people whom one can reasonably expect to make the worst possible botch of it is objectively worse than being governed by people who frequently upset us by fucking things up that we expected them to handle better.
Yes, feeling betrayed by the present administration is completely understandable and fully justified. But it's important to understand that simply expecting Hell to be hellish and helping it back into power because at least that's an ethos does not actually offer any chance at all of an escape from eternal torment.
The Squad was not a thing when I was a kid. It is now. And its best chance of getting shit done would be if the Democratic Party's Congressional numbers were increased just a little bit so that The Squad, rather than the Manchin Coal Company, held the balance of power.
posted by flabdablet at 8:23 AM on January 15, 2022 [55 favorites]
And what we didn't get is an administration that spitballs ingesting bleach and horse paste because it not only has no clue, it has no clue what clue even is.
this is the kind of shit I expect from people like, well, Sean Spicer.
Being governed by people whom one can reasonably expect to make the worst possible botch of it is objectively worse than being governed by people who frequently upset us by fucking things up that we expected them to handle better.
Yes, feeling betrayed by the present administration is completely understandable and fully justified. But it's important to understand that simply expecting Hell to be hellish and helping it back into power because at least that's an ethos does not actually offer any chance at all of an escape from eternal torment.
The Squad was not a thing when I was a kid. It is now. And its best chance of getting shit done would be if the Democratic Party's Congressional numbers were increased just a little bit so that The Squad, rather than the Manchin Coal Company, held the balance of power.
posted by flabdablet at 8:23 AM on January 15, 2022 [55 favorites]
The job of the Democrats isn't to implement hearts and flowers for all. Their job is to return the country to a baseline of normal.
Tests and masks aren't hearts and flowers and it's condescending and depressing to see anyone making such a disingenuous comparison. It's extremely on brand for a Democrat though. Even if the best you can hope for is a return to normal, the Dems are doing a piss poor job of it.
if your standards are so overloaded as to be incapable of seeing that, then the million times worse thing wins.
And, honestly, immediately shifting the discussion to Sean Spicer is . . .? The entire premise of the article and the progressive positions is that being "not as bad as Trump" isn't good enough. She can see the difference. We can all see the difference.
Is that enough to get people to come back for midterms, though?
It is not. People are not going to turn out for a party that has no sense of urgency, no passion, no fire, no energy. Dems are gonna get creamed and people are gonna blame the Squad, progressives, POC who don't turn out, young voters, activists who didn't save them this time. Dem leaders do not seem capable of self-reflection, only finger-pointing.
(I am a registered Democrat and I vote in every election, including primaries, since I was 18. People plodding to the polls out of a sense of duty does not win elections.)
posted by Mavri at 8:28 AM on January 15, 2022 [42 favorites]
Tests and masks aren't hearts and flowers and it's condescending and depressing to see anyone making such a disingenuous comparison. It's extremely on brand for a Democrat though. Even if the best you can hope for is a return to normal, the Dems are doing a piss poor job of it.
if your standards are so overloaded as to be incapable of seeing that, then the million times worse thing wins.
And, honestly, immediately shifting the discussion to Sean Spicer is . . .? The entire premise of the article and the progressive positions is that being "not as bad as Trump" isn't good enough. She can see the difference. We can all see the difference.
Is that enough to get people to come back for midterms, though?
It is not. People are not going to turn out for a party that has no sense of urgency, no passion, no fire, no energy. Dems are gonna get creamed and people are gonna blame the Squad, progressives, POC who don't turn out, young voters, activists who didn't save them this time. Dem leaders do not seem capable of self-reflection, only finger-pointing.
(I am a registered Democrat and I vote in every election, including primaries, since I was 18. People plodding to the polls out of a sense of duty does not win elections.)
posted by Mavri at 8:28 AM on January 15, 2022 [42 favorites]
we're in a worse position than if we'd said "fuck you I won't vote for Clinton" or "fuck you I won't vote for Obama"
Nobody can possibly prove that, and I don't believe it. Administrations as wholly evil as Trump's yet less crippled by incompetence could easily have completely destroyed any vestige of democracy in the US already, given sixteen years more unopposed opportunity to do so.
posted by flabdablet at 8:28 AM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
Nobody can possibly prove that, and I don't believe it. Administrations as wholly evil as Trump's yet less crippled by incompetence could easily have completely destroyed any vestige of democracy in the US already, given sixteen years more unopposed opportunity to do so.
posted by flabdablet at 8:28 AM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
Ghidorah, I appreciated getting to read this article; thanks for pointing to it.
posted by brainwane at 8:28 AM on January 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by brainwane at 8:28 AM on January 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
being "not as bad as Trump" isn't good enough
That ought to be an obvious given, a point of full agreement, and the starting point for any discussion on this topic.
But when actually getting Trump again is the result of tipping the present administration out of power, being not as bad as Trump has to be the last-ditch minimum acceptable fallback. Because something that's not as bad as Trump has at least a sliver of hope in it, while something that actually is Trump has none.
posted by flabdablet at 8:35 AM on January 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
That ought to be an obvious given, a point of full agreement, and the starting point for any discussion on this topic.
But when actually getting Trump again is the result of tipping the present administration out of power, being not as bad as Trump has to be the last-ditch minimum acceptable fallback. Because something that's not as bad as Trump has at least a sliver of hope in it, while something that actually is Trump has none.
posted by flabdablet at 8:35 AM on January 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
People are not going to turn out for a party that has no sense of urgency, no passion, no fire, no energy.
Quite so. Which is why creating as much unambiguously anti-fascist noise as possible is a far better use of everybody's time than sitting around moaning about what a horrible disappointment the Democratic Party has yet again allowed itself to become.
posted by flabdablet at 8:37 AM on January 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
Quite so. Which is why creating as much unambiguously anti-fascist noise as possible is a far better use of everybody's time than sitting around moaning about what a horrible disappointment the Democratic Party has yet again allowed itself to become.
posted by flabdablet at 8:37 AM on January 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
Here's what I regret: I was a reformist/scared person/harm reductionist since Clinton, because the Republicans were proximately worse.
I personally find it very useful to keep in mind the whole spectrum of political roles. Our choices at the federal level are extremely constrained - the sort of candidates you or I would actually want to vote for for President or US Senate don’t get on the ballot of options we have to vote on in the first place. So at that level, a harm reduction approach makes some sense. But often there can be more options, and more opportunity for truly progressive candidates, at the state and local levels. Inasmuch as one relies on electoral politics in the first place, structurally the game right now at the federal level is and can only be preventing the worst harm, while actual positive progress or change is feasible only at smaller scale levels (and even then, the way political systems work, you need to have a slate of progressive politicians working together; one single person can’t do much on their own). (The plus side is that eventually that positive change can trickle up, especially once a state gets to the point of changing to something like single transferrable ballot voting systems instead of first past the post.) I’ve found that keeping that in mind has led to reasonable expectations that have helped my mental health, including helping me avoid burnout in doing the more direct action activism work that is the end of things that I feel best putting my personal efforts into.
posted by eviemath at 8:38 AM on January 15, 2022 [28 favorites]
I personally find it very useful to keep in mind the whole spectrum of political roles. Our choices at the federal level are extremely constrained - the sort of candidates you or I would actually want to vote for for President or US Senate don’t get on the ballot of options we have to vote on in the first place. So at that level, a harm reduction approach makes some sense. But often there can be more options, and more opportunity for truly progressive candidates, at the state and local levels. Inasmuch as one relies on electoral politics in the first place, structurally the game right now at the federal level is and can only be preventing the worst harm, while actual positive progress or change is feasible only at smaller scale levels (and even then, the way political systems work, you need to have a slate of progressive politicians working together; one single person can’t do much on their own). (The plus side is that eventually that positive change can trickle up, especially once a state gets to the point of changing to something like single transferrable ballot voting systems instead of first past the post.) I’ve found that keeping that in mind has led to reasonable expectations that have helped my mental health, including helping me avoid burnout in doing the more direct action activism work that is the end of things that I feel best putting my personal efforts into.
posted by eviemath at 8:38 AM on January 15, 2022 [28 favorites]
The intense resentment people have for the Squad and progressives and young activists is a prime example of the American crabs in a bucket mentality. If I have to choose between people who have hope and fire and people who are content with Shit Lite, I'll take the people with hope. Expect better. Demand better. Aim higher, even if it's for something as modest as free tests and masks. Tests and masks aren't hearts and flowers! Universal healthcare isn't even hearts and flowers. Keeping people alive isn't hearts and flowers.
posted by Mavri at 8:38 AM on January 15, 2022 [53 favorites]
posted by Mavri at 8:38 AM on January 15, 2022 [53 favorites]
Yes yes yes to a progressive Progressive takeover from the local level on upward.
posted by flabdablet at 8:41 AM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 8:41 AM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
There has been a dynamic since at least when Gingrich was prominent of the GOP playing hardball (including willingness to drop all pretensions of ethical compliance) while the Dems lackadaisically play catch up. It's gotten way more intense in recent years, and it is disappointing that the dynamic hasn't shifted and the Dems are still, collectively, dithering around rather than figuring out a new way to be effective since the old way isn't working. In that time, the Dems have had huge successes (repeatedly winning the presidential popular vote, passing Obamacare, etc.) but have overall slowly and consistently lost actual power and effectiveness.
I certainly don't have any easy solutions to offer, but I am certain that just continuing the current ineffective approach is going to keep producing the same results.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:42 AM on January 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
I certainly don't have any easy solutions to offer, but I am certain that just continuing the current ineffective approach is going to keep producing the same results.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:42 AM on January 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
I would love an All-Squad Congress, but the Democratic Party apparatus is set up to support a gerontocracy of bigots and legacy hires (ex: Dan Lipinski) while simultaneously trying to crush challengers even in deep-blue districts where anyone with a D next to their name would win (ex: Eliot Engel). I would be surprised if the redistricting doesn't end up replacing at least one Squad member with an establishment, corporate-friendly Dem.
The Squad exists despite the party's efforts, not because of it.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:49 AM on January 15, 2022 [35 favorites]
The Squad exists despite the party's efforts, not because of it.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 8:49 AM on January 15, 2022 [35 favorites]
I should clarify that I think if anyone were to do the math on direct benefits to citizens under Trump vs Biden and find Biden on the wrong end of the comparison, the proper thing to do with that information would be to publicly shame Biden into doing better. I'm sure those upthread who chalk those benefits up to differences in what an early-pandemic vs late-pandemic leader thinks he can get away with are absolutely right. I in no way would actually prefer that Trump be in office here.
posted by eirias at 8:51 AM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by eirias at 8:51 AM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
overall slowly and consistently lost actual power and effectiveness
for one reason and one reason only: the completely unreasonable effectiveness of the noise machine pioneered, as you correctly point out, by Gingrich.
When the political discourse is so disproportionately dominated by the blaring of those willing to direct a Gish Gallop of completely appalling scams against the populace at large while utterly unconstrained by any vestige of shame, it should be no surprise to find that genuine progress slows down.
And yes the meagreness of that progress is disappointing. But the reason that the Democratic party has no silver bullet to offer against weaponized Republican horseshit marketing is because there is none. The grinding, crushing slog of endless resistance and anti-fascist organizing is the only thing left.
The Squad exists despite the party's efforts, not because of it.
Undeniably true. Doesn't change the fact that it does exist, and that for all its faults (and nobody who pays attention could possibly deny any of those faults) the Democratic Party is its vehicle. Given the ongoing existence of an electoral system designed in such a way as to guarantee a two-party system in perpetuity, the only sane option is to support the party that does host a Squad while working at the local level to widen the Squad's wedge inside that party.
posted by flabdablet at 8:54 AM on January 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
for one reason and one reason only: the completely unreasonable effectiveness of the noise machine pioneered, as you correctly point out, by Gingrich.
When the political discourse is so disproportionately dominated by the blaring of those willing to direct a Gish Gallop of completely appalling scams against the populace at large while utterly unconstrained by any vestige of shame, it should be no surprise to find that genuine progress slows down.
And yes the meagreness of that progress is disappointing. But the reason that the Democratic party has no silver bullet to offer against weaponized Republican horseshit marketing is because there is none. The grinding, crushing slog of endless resistance and anti-fascist organizing is the only thing left.
The Squad exists despite the party's efforts, not because of it.
Undeniably true. Doesn't change the fact that it does exist, and that for all its faults (and nobody who pays attention could possibly deny any of those faults) the Democratic Party is its vehicle. Given the ongoing existence of an electoral system designed in such a way as to guarantee a two-party system in perpetuity, the only sane option is to support the party that does host a Squad while working at the local level to widen the Squad's wedge inside that party.
posted by flabdablet at 8:54 AM on January 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
i'm pretty sure i've seen all of you have this exact discussion multiple times
from tfa: They need us to look at the cotton gin and praise American innovation, instead of seeing an instrument of violence.
i was going to say, i dont even remember learning anything in particular about the cotton gin in school, just that we had to learn it existed i guess question mark? a cool invention that existed in a vacuum completely contextless with anything else around it! because yeah the second you start examining why a cotton gin would have boosted the economy...
i'm working through too much covid brain to actually make a point but i'm so struck by pairing the violence of making the cotton industry run more effectively on purpose for money and control and the violence of making healthcare run more shittily on purpose for money and control
also from tfa: Everyone is frustrated, and their patience is thin, but no one is defeated yet. In the pharmacy, people yelled at the clipboard man, sure, but it was to help the pharmacist. They held open the doors for a parent with a stroller. They pointed when someone dropped a glove. The desire to support each other is unflagging even when people are exhausted.
i'm trying so hard to hold onto this! because if i hold onto the anger too long then the covid brain gives me debilitating headaches it takes an entire day to work down from! but people really are still trying despite everything and it makes me also want to keep trying
thanks for posting!
posted by gaybobbie at 9:01 AM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
from tfa: They need us to look at the cotton gin and praise American innovation, instead of seeing an instrument of violence.
i was going to say, i dont even remember learning anything in particular about the cotton gin in school, just that we had to learn it existed i guess question mark? a cool invention that existed in a vacuum completely contextless with anything else around it! because yeah the second you start examining why a cotton gin would have boosted the economy...
i'm working through too much covid brain to actually make a point but i'm so struck by pairing the violence of making the cotton industry run more effectively on purpose for money and control and the violence of making healthcare run more shittily on purpose for money and control
also from tfa: Everyone is frustrated, and their patience is thin, but no one is defeated yet. In the pharmacy, people yelled at the clipboard man, sure, but it was to help the pharmacist. They held open the doors for a parent with a stroller. They pointed when someone dropped a glove. The desire to support each other is unflagging even when people are exhausted.
i'm trying so hard to hold onto this! because if i hold onto the anger too long then the covid brain gives me debilitating headaches it takes an entire day to work down from! but people really are still trying despite everything and it makes me also want to keep trying
thanks for posting!
posted by gaybobbie at 9:01 AM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
What is so frustrating to me is that the Dem leadership and so many of their vocal defenders keep flogging away at the "should" argument. You should vote for us because we're not the worst. No one expects this to work when you're telling people they should go to the gym or should eat more vegetables, but it's supposed to work for voting. People "should" vote for Dems, but they're not going to. So then what? Unfortunately the current (and former and future) plan seems to be to blame voters instead of moving beyond this notion that obligation and guilt will motivate people to vote. It's depressing. I'm depressed.
posted by Mavri at 9:04 AM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by Mavri at 9:04 AM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
Every single problem the Democratic Party has right now, from the collapse of their public health response to the point where you can legitimately say Trump did better to their impending massive defeat in 22/24, to Sinema and Manchin being built up to the point where they can guarantee and reinforce that defeat, is down to moderates, and moderates only.
You can hop up and down at progressives all you like but it’s not going to make one single shred of difference to any of that.
posted by Artw at 9:06 AM on January 15, 2022 [33 favorites]
You can hop up and down at progressives all you like but it’s not going to make one single shred of difference to any of that.
posted by Artw at 9:06 AM on January 15, 2022 [33 favorites]
> Now, of course, the Democrats are going to lose - not because me or mefites decide to withhold our votes but because they have disgusted and disenfranchised a critical number of Americans - and disaster, chaos and violence will be upon us. We're not going to have a choice. The Democrats will be a feeble rump party, be destroyed by the fascist GOP or be so utterly transformed by dangerous, unpleasant political instability as to be unrecognizable. So we're in a worse position than if we'd said "fuck you I won't vote for Clinton" or "fuck you I won't vote for Obama".
It's deeply unsettling to see someone I recognize from years of posting here as always saying things about the importance of local organizing and direct action writing as if only Presidential politics matter. The Republicans surely don't make this mistake, which is the reason they've been able to increase their power even when during the times when they didn't hold the Presidency or a Congressional majority. The entire reason Biden inherited such a mess and has so few tools available is because Republicans made sure of it through decades of difficult work of putting conservatives on school boards, and in state houses, and by filling every judicial vacancy as possible with the most reactionary hacks possible.
This is not to excuse the administration for the many places where they do have power and have either failed to use it or have done it ineptly. These are huge problems, as McKinney correctly notes in the piece. But we must not fall prey to a noxious mix of Murc's Law (which states that only Democrats have agency) and a narrow focus on Presidential elections as the only vehicle for change. Biden needs to do better, and also, we need to work hard to overcome the advantages Republicans have built while liberals and leftists have focused way too much on who sits in the Oval Office.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:09 AM on January 15, 2022 [22 favorites]
It's deeply unsettling to see someone I recognize from years of posting here as always saying things about the importance of local organizing and direct action writing as if only Presidential politics matter. The Republicans surely don't make this mistake, which is the reason they've been able to increase their power even when during the times when they didn't hold the Presidency or a Congressional majority. The entire reason Biden inherited such a mess and has so few tools available is because Republicans made sure of it through decades of difficult work of putting conservatives on school boards, and in state houses, and by filling every judicial vacancy as possible with the most reactionary hacks possible.
This is not to excuse the administration for the many places where they do have power and have either failed to use it or have done it ineptly. These are huge problems, as McKinney correctly notes in the piece. But we must not fall prey to a noxious mix of Murc's Law (which states that only Democrats have agency) and a narrow focus on Presidential elections as the only vehicle for change. Biden needs to do better, and also, we need to work hard to overcome the advantages Republicans have built while liberals and leftists have focused way too much on who sits in the Oval Office.
posted by tonycpsu at 9:09 AM on January 15, 2022 [22 favorites]
I think the point of this piece people are missing is that Democrats are terrible. It doesn’t matter that Republicans are worse when the party in power is committed to ensuring that things don’t get better. The Democrats aren’t trying to make things better and failing, they’re trying to ensure that the status quo remains the same, which is making things worse because their status quo is bipartisan white supremacy and neoliberal capitalism. Voting for more Democrats won’t change the fact that the party is committed to those things.
posted by fryman at 9:16 AM on January 15, 2022 [37 favorites]
posted by fryman at 9:16 AM on January 15, 2022 [37 favorites]
As someone who watches the press conferences daily, I note that there's a fair number of questions being asked that seem to be trying to get the administration to admit that they are failing and should just learn to live with Covid and that everything sucks and they can't make things happen. And Jen Psaki doesn't cave into that, and instead does give answers along the lines of "we're working on it and we're making some things happen" angle, which I appreciate in this fucking dark time. No, everything's not as improved as we would like, but think of how things would likely be going right now in Trump Term 2.0 by comparison. I'm happy that literally any improvements happen and that the president isn't suggesting we drink bleach to cure Covid right now and happily superspreading it about. This is the world's biggest mess, it's going to take a lot of cooperation among everybody, and frankly WE DON'T HAVE THAT COOPERATION FROM EVERYBODY, NO MATTER HOW BAD IT GETS. There's only so much that can get done, especially when two shitheads technically on "our side" are doing their best to roadblock it all.
I admit I'm confused on the bunny rabbits and ice cream remark myself, though. As for her comment on the testing: yeah, that seemed off to me too. On the other hand, sending ONE test to every American seemed inadequate and I felt snarky at that bit myself, and I don't think we were aware exactly of what was going on with regards to setting up testing at the time. Maybe that was a thing being worked on but wasn't going well at the time.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:16 AM on January 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
I admit I'm confused on the bunny rabbits and ice cream remark myself, though. As for her comment on the testing: yeah, that seemed off to me too. On the other hand, sending ONE test to every American seemed inadequate and I felt snarky at that bit myself, and I don't think we were aware exactly of what was going on with regards to setting up testing at the time. Maybe that was a thing being worked on but wasn't going well at the time.
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:16 AM on January 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
From TFA:
But here's the thing: it's the ruling class that's all crabs in a bucket. They are the ones who have devoted their lives to promoting the lie that Choice and Competition are the only worthwhile things. The rest of us have always known, on some level, that cooperation and organizing is and always has been the human species's One Weird Trick superpower. The ruling class is shit scared of the power of the rest of us to organize, which is why it has always spent so much of its considerable power on suppressing that realization.
posted by flabdablet at 9:17 AM on January 15, 2022 [46 favorites]
All of this, finally, is your problem. It’s your fault. It’s you.Emphasis mine. We who don't live there have long had a very good outsider's view of that very thing, too, mainly because we're all keenly aware of the extent to which we've all been importing "it's your fault, it's you" from the Empire in countless subtle ways since at least the late Seventies.
It’s not, though. That’s what has been keeping me awake long after I’ve climbed into bed. It’s not us. We are not the ones who have failed. The country has always worked this way. You just tend to notice it more when all that absence comes barrelling down on you at once.
But here's the thing: it's the ruling class that's all crabs in a bucket. They are the ones who have devoted their lives to promoting the lie that Choice and Competition are the only worthwhile things. The rest of us have always known, on some level, that cooperation and organizing is and always has been the human species's One Weird Trick superpower. The ruling class is shit scared of the power of the rest of us to organize, which is why it has always spent so much of its considerable power on suppressing that realization.
posted by flabdablet at 9:17 AM on January 15, 2022 [46 favorites]
Voting for more Democrats won’t change the fact that the party is committed to those things.
Not immediately, and not if careful attention isn't paid to which particular candidates are getting added to the party as the present gerontocracy inevitably dies out.
Again: between Shit and Shit Lite, Shit Lite is the one with a Not Shit faction embedded in it. Getting out the vote for Shit Lite while also organizing to bolster Not Shit's influence inside it can change the way that not only the party, but the country as a whole, ends up governed.
No comparable path to change is available at all inside Shit, which therefore needs to be kept out of power to the greatest extent achievable.
posted by flabdablet at 9:24 AM on January 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
Not immediately, and not if careful attention isn't paid to which particular candidates are getting added to the party as the present gerontocracy inevitably dies out.
Again: between Shit and Shit Lite, Shit Lite is the one with a Not Shit faction embedded in it. Getting out the vote for Shit Lite while also organizing to bolster Not Shit's influence inside it can change the way that not only the party, but the country as a whole, ends up governed.
No comparable path to change is available at all inside Shit, which therefore needs to be kept out of power to the greatest extent achievable.
posted by flabdablet at 9:24 AM on January 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
here’s Biden campaign plan to “beat” Covid. Are we in the situation we’re currently in because he tried all this and was stopped by Republicans or even his own party? Or did he not even try? Is voting for more Democrats going to change that?
posted by fryman at 9:25 AM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by fryman at 9:25 AM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Biden needs to do better, and also, we need to work hard to overcome the advantages Republicans have built while liberals and leftists have focused way too much on who sits in the Oval Office.
On the contrary, it's the liberals and leftists who have been focused on abolishing the filibuster and unpacking the Supreme Court. We know Biden is useless.
posted by Gadarene at 9:25 AM on January 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
On the contrary, it's the liberals and leftists who have been focused on abolishing the filibuster and unpacking the Supreme Court. We know Biden is useless.
posted by Gadarene at 9:25 AM on January 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
And always have known that Biden would be useless, despite the good game he talked on climate change. The calculus has always been that useless is several shades less bad than actively, overtly evil.
posted by flabdablet at 9:28 AM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
posted by flabdablet at 9:28 AM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
Biden put in a total rentier class lackey to head the COVID process. Dude is an executive at various lobbyist groups and such, but is not an infectious disease doctor, in fact, as far as I can tell is not a medical doctor at all(?)
Yeah know, they're just as evil and want to send us marching to deaths.
And I've been informed starting Feb 2, they're just gonna stop the mandatory reporting? We're not even gonna count who's dying from COVID-19 anymore I guess.
Convenient : We can't falsify our claims if we don't have the data to do so!
I'm not blaming any single politician, so please don't think I will or won't vote Biden. I have a feeling if he runs again i'm gonna hold my nose and vote. But let's stop pretending they give a fuck about us. The CDC director's words were very anti-disabled, and we have nobody giving a shit about anyone, the leadership demands more blood for the blood god...
2022 and 2024 are gonna be terrible.
posted by symbioid at 9:31 AM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Yeah know, they're just as evil and want to send us marching to deaths.
And I've been informed starting Feb 2, they're just gonna stop the mandatory reporting? We're not even gonna count who's dying from COVID-19 anymore I guess.
Convenient : We can't falsify our claims if we don't have the data to do so!
I'm not blaming any single politician, so please don't think I will or won't vote Biden. I have a feeling if he runs again i'm gonna hold my nose and vote. But let's stop pretending they give a fuck about us. The CDC director's words were very anti-disabled, and we have nobody giving a shit about anyone, the leadership demands more blood for the blood god...
2022 and 2024 are gonna be terrible.
posted by symbioid at 9:31 AM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Any time we make legitimate complaints about Democrats, half the thread is someone shitting it up like we all suddenly said "We will vote Republican!"
Hey, like I've probably said every time: We're allowed to level criticisms at these people, and when the treatment they give us amounts to abuse, even if it's not as terrible as the abuse the Republicans would give us we're still allowed to call it what it fucking is.
If MeFi is supposed to be about being charitable in your interpretations of your fellow MeFites posts maybe don't spend the whole thread shitting it up and acting like we're all gonna vote Republican or withhold or votes because we're bothering to call abusers abusers.
We get that we literally don't have any other choice than to vote for an abusive Shit Lite you can stop reminding us thanks. This is not how you help despondent, depressed, and broken people. If anything this behavior is more likely to make us not vote out of spite and broken mental health than shutting the fuck up and listening to our fucking grievances for once. You're just pushing us deeper into giving up by repeating "everything will be fine if you just keep voting Democrat!" I've lost too many people for it to ever be fucking fine, please fucking stop, it's not helping.
If you really want to remember that we're all the end of our fucking rope, try remembering it now, with us, instead of preaching at us like we're children who need to have a finger wagged at them and taught the better way. Maybe just listen to us cry and scream because we're fucking suffering. And we're also not wrong to call abusers abusers.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:40 AM on January 15, 2022 [75 favorites]
Hey, like I've probably said every time: We're allowed to level criticisms at these people, and when the treatment they give us amounts to abuse, even if it's not as terrible as the abuse the Republicans would give us we're still allowed to call it what it fucking is.
If MeFi is supposed to be about being charitable in your interpretations of your fellow MeFites posts maybe don't spend the whole thread shitting it up and acting like we're all gonna vote Republican or withhold or votes because we're bothering to call abusers abusers.
We get that we literally don't have any other choice than to vote for an abusive Shit Lite you can stop reminding us thanks. This is not how you help despondent, depressed, and broken people. If anything this behavior is more likely to make us not vote out of spite and broken mental health than shutting the fuck up and listening to our fucking grievances for once. You're just pushing us deeper into giving up by repeating "everything will be fine if you just keep voting Democrat!" I've lost too many people for it to ever be fucking fine, please fucking stop, it's not helping.
If you really want to remember that we're all the end of our fucking rope, try remembering it now, with us, instead of preaching at us like we're children who need to have a finger wagged at them and taught the better way. Maybe just listen to us cry and scream because we're fucking suffering. And we're also not wrong to call abusers abusers.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:40 AM on January 15, 2022 [75 favorites]
Number one thing depressed people want is to be heard, to be understood, and have people not invalidate the reasons for their depression.
Every thread about the democrats turns into a shitshow of invalidating the very real depression people are suffering under this two party system where they have such little choice and so little control.
We're not here to vote Republican, but if you want to worry about how we're at the end of our rope and how to help, going on and on and on about how wrong we are is basically 100% the wrong fucking way to go about it.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:51 AM on January 15, 2022 [30 favorites]
Every thread about the democrats turns into a shitshow of invalidating the very real depression people are suffering under this two party system where they have such little choice and so little control.
We're not here to vote Republican, but if you want to worry about how we're at the end of our rope and how to help, going on and on and on about how wrong we are is basically 100% the wrong fucking way to go about it.
posted by deadaluspark at 9:51 AM on January 15, 2022 [30 favorites]
Their job is to return the country to a baseline of normal.
which is a big lie that people are desperate to believe
we are NOT GOING BACK TO NORMAL, and it's hardly the sign of wonderful democratic leadership when they choose to imitate harding and his invocation of normalcy
the american people have been undergoing a good cop/bad cop routine for years - whatever way it gets played, notice that you're still not free
---
Just wait a few more years; you won’t need to complain about elections ever again because there won’t be any.
but of course there will, as there's no better way to pretend you have legitimacy than to hold elections - you don't even have to tilt things that much
all you have to do to keep the charade going is to have one party that's effectively in charge and another party that claims to want to change things but just can't ever seem to get it done
they won't have to change a thing, will they?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:04 AM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
which is a big lie that people are desperate to believe
we are NOT GOING BACK TO NORMAL, and it's hardly the sign of wonderful democratic leadership when they choose to imitate harding and his invocation of normalcy
the american people have been undergoing a good cop/bad cop routine for years - whatever way it gets played, notice that you're still not free
---
Just wait a few more years; you won’t need to complain about elections ever again because there won’t be any.
but of course there will, as there's no better way to pretend you have legitimacy than to hold elections - you don't even have to tilt things that much
all you have to do to keep the charade going is to have one party that's effectively in charge and another party that claims to want to change things but just can't ever seem to get it done
they won't have to change a thing, will they?
posted by pyramid termite at 10:04 AM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
Their job is to return the country to a baseline of normal.
This is an odd point to make given the title of the post.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 10:11 AM on January 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
This is an odd point to make given the title of the post.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 10:11 AM on January 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
The CDC director's words were very anti-disabled,
Apparently that was out of context.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:14 AM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
Apparently that was out of context.
posted by jenfullmoon at 10:14 AM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
Thank you deadaluspark, I'm getting soooo fucking sick of it too. As though a bunch of registered democrats and democratic voters merely venting about the current shitty state of the current administration online is going to have some greater influence on electoral outcomes than, you know, the actual material forces shaping our lives and society at large. Conditions that our current administration miraculously has no power or influence over, the way that the Trump administration did - no, all conversations must be framed around how our leaders hands are tied or how some rotating cast of villains is always obstructing them or how we are just not patient enough to be playing some kind of long game.
The game is pretty much about to end, it's in it's final minutes, and this whole "democrats can't fail, only individuals can fail democrats" line of thinking is the opposite of the hail mary that literally everyone wants to see. Sorry if it sucks to see people so mad about that, but people are mad!
posted by windbox at 10:29 AM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
The game is pretty much about to end, it's in it's final minutes, and this whole "democrats can't fail, only individuals can fail democrats" line of thinking is the opposite of the hail mary that literally everyone wants to see. Sorry if it sucks to see people so mad about that, but people are mad!
posted by windbox at 10:29 AM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
It's deeply unsettling to see someone I recognize from years of posting here as always saying things about the importance of local organizing and direct action acting as if only Presidential politics matter.
thank you.
I tend to go further than this and lament that so many entirely smart, rational, productive people still seem to the think that the main way out of our current crises is via some kind of enlightened political leadership. I just don't think it is. I can't help but feel that so much of what's going wrong of late is down to the fact that we're not communicating with each other. Blame Twitter, blame Facebook, blame Metafilter even. We've lost touch with how our emotions get played by all these so-called evolutions in communication technology, and by those who will use them to less than righteous ends (even as they may be feeling righteous about it).
We're confused en masse and ours is a culture where admitting as much just isn't done -- certainly not in the political sphere. I was talking to an old friend recently, one of the most politically savvy people I've ever known and he said, "the single most significant mental health issue on the planet today is Manichaeism." To which I had to say, "Remind me what that means." He said, "Breaking everything down into good versus evil. Black versus white. It's populism in a nutshell. Tell people they've got no bad in them. It's all in those other people who they disagree with. Vote for me and I'll set things straight." And so on.
I have to say, it's helped to start applying this filter to things. To notice how often when somebody is either A. losing it, or B. driving me to the point of losing it via their illogical arguments and actions -- they're foolishly (to my mind) working from that black vs white certainty. They know they're right which means that anything or anyone that runs counter to them (that confuses them) well, that's just evil manifesting.
We need to get way better at being confused.
Which by the way, I think science is really good at when it's done right. No "truth" is ever considered absolutely stable. The field is always open to another hypothesis, more experimentation etc ... maybe a new Theory to turn everything on its head. Art is damned good at it, too. You could argue, that's all it does -- the good stuff. It confuses our preconceptions, knocks us off balance, encourages us to rethink what balance even is.
The politics I suppose I'm interested in is the one that starts here, from acknowledged imbalance in pretty much perpetuity. We're always going to be at least slightly uncertain of what exactly is going down. In the meantime, let's focus on building more contingency into our various systems and infrastructures so that they handle these imbalances better. And, oh yeah, let's try to assist those who for whatever reason aren't handling things all that well, have fallen over.
posted by philip-random at 10:36 AM on January 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
thank you.
I tend to go further than this and lament that so many entirely smart, rational, productive people still seem to the think that the main way out of our current crises is via some kind of enlightened political leadership. I just don't think it is. I can't help but feel that so much of what's going wrong of late is down to the fact that we're not communicating with each other. Blame Twitter, blame Facebook, blame Metafilter even. We've lost touch with how our emotions get played by all these so-called evolutions in communication technology, and by those who will use them to less than righteous ends (even as they may be feeling righteous about it).
We're confused en masse and ours is a culture where admitting as much just isn't done -- certainly not in the political sphere. I was talking to an old friend recently, one of the most politically savvy people I've ever known and he said, "the single most significant mental health issue on the planet today is Manichaeism." To which I had to say, "Remind me what that means." He said, "Breaking everything down into good versus evil. Black versus white. It's populism in a nutshell. Tell people they've got no bad in them. It's all in those other people who they disagree with. Vote for me and I'll set things straight." And so on.
I have to say, it's helped to start applying this filter to things. To notice how often when somebody is either A. losing it, or B. driving me to the point of losing it via their illogical arguments and actions -- they're foolishly (to my mind) working from that black vs white certainty. They know they're right which means that anything or anyone that runs counter to them (that confuses them) well, that's just evil manifesting.
We need to get way better at being confused.
Which by the way, I think science is really good at when it's done right. No "truth" is ever considered absolutely stable. The field is always open to another hypothesis, more experimentation etc ... maybe a new Theory to turn everything on its head. Art is damned good at it, too. You could argue, that's all it does -- the good stuff. It confuses our preconceptions, knocks us off balance, encourages us to rethink what balance even is.
The politics I suppose I'm interested in is the one that starts here, from acknowledged imbalance in pretty much perpetuity. We're always going to be at least slightly uncertain of what exactly is going down. In the meantime, let's focus on building more contingency into our various systems and infrastructures so that they handle these imbalances better. And, oh yeah, let's try to assist those who for whatever reason aren't handling things all that well, have fallen over.
posted by philip-random at 10:36 AM on January 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
The Democratic party leadership doesn't care. The politicians just want to keep things comfortable and stable until they drop dead of old age, which could be any day now for most of them, and the operatives and apparatchiks enjoy the same job security when the party loses that they do when the party wins.
I don't know what the solution is. I hope to god there is one and we somehow stumble over it. It's not looking good that we won't get Trump back or someone Trump-esque.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:36 AM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
I don't know what the solution is. I hope to god there is one and we somehow stumble over it. It's not looking good that we won't get Trump back or someone Trump-esque.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 10:36 AM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
The reason both parties are terrible to a greater or lesser degree, is because they're both based on a terrible system. When money is required to win an election, money is going to dominate no matter who wins. When the system allows the minority to dominate then only when one side gets overwhelming majorities can it actively govern.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:48 AM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 10:48 AM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
This line from the essay really resonates with me: "I have been thinking about how it feels and what it means to have been left so thoroughly alone." That's the baseline feeling I have about all this, and why I have a hard time any longer mustering anger toward individuals around me; we're all strapped to this ride whether we like it or not.
Her conclusion, QFT:
posted by LooseFilter at 10:56 AM on January 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
Her conclusion, QFT:
The problem is no longer just the pandemic. It is, more precisely, that our government is blaming the pandemic for problems that it created. We do not deserve to go back to a normal that is so terribly bad for most people. We do not deserve to pay more for worse things. We do not deserve to be sold the lie that it is just more important for companies to make money than it is for us to live. Certainly no one would choose that, if they felt they had a choice.And the implied question, what happens if it doesn't get better, is also quite urgent.
We deserve a country that uses our tax dollars to make our lives richer, and better, and easier. We deserve a country that can promise a future that improves upon some glorified, false version of our past. We deserve, simply, a country that makes it easier to be alive. That is what a society is supposed to be—people working together to help each other and make the places they live better. It is what we wait for, what keeps the lines orderly. It is supposed to get better.
posted by LooseFilter at 10:56 AM on January 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
"I have been thinking about how it feels and what it means to have been left so thoroughly alone."
To me, living in a red state where a lot of legal protections simply wouldn't exist without federal laws or supreme court rulings, the difference between Democrats and Republicans in office feels a lot like:
(a) Democrats will let you die to protect profits
(b) Republicans will also do that, but in addition they'll try to kill you out of spite
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:16 AM on January 15, 2022 [48 favorites]
To me, living in a red state where a lot of legal protections simply wouldn't exist without federal laws or supreme court rulings, the difference between Democrats and Republicans in office feels a lot like:
(a) Democrats will let you die to protect profits
(b) Republicans will also do that, but in addition they'll try to kill you out of spite
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 11:16 AM on January 15, 2022 [48 favorites]
Withholding votes would have had bad consequences but could have scared the Democrats into change and the bad consequences would have been a little less "total destruction".
Or it would have scared the Democrats into triangulating onto a Republican politics sooner, harder, faster more completely.
Making things worse tends to have the effect of actually making things worse, not better.
posted by Dysk at 12:28 PM on January 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
Or it would have scared the Democrats into triangulating onto a Republican politics sooner, harder, faster more completely.
Making things worse tends to have the effect of actually making things worse, not better.
posted by Dysk at 12:28 PM on January 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
I vote in every election, vote in primaries, make considered donations to politicians—especially the city and state levels—who I think will walk the walk, and vote for mainstream Democrats in general elections, when they're the only choice I've got. And I'm sick of the asinine notion that progressive Democrats, who are routinely and systemically shat on by the mainstream party, are somehow the force holding the Democrats back. Or the even more asinine notion that it's somehow progressive leftists who are the reason why Democrats are so unpopular and hated, as if the DSA is somehow behind Biden's polling numbers threatening to dip lower than even Trump's.
The Democrats—not Sinema and Manchin, but Biden's own team—are the ones who publicly boast about how they're going to force those no-good students to get back on their loan payments. They're the ones who claimed that $1400 was equivalent to $2000. They're the ones who treat unemployment like it's a sinister conspiracy among minimum wage serfs to spoil the fun of noble small businesses.
It's not just that they're failing to pass bills. It's that, given every opportunity to show the slightest empathy for America's growing underclass, they spit and sneer instead. It's that they so clearly want to treat those progressive leftists like deplorables in the same manner as Trump's followers—the way their contempt for people who they think are immoral or idiotic extends to more-or-less anyone who attempts to voice their pain. The way Biden sneered, on the campaign trail, whenever students tried to tell him just how fucked they were.
Sean Spicer is objectively more odious than Jen Psaki, and I don't look forward to the 2024 Trump press secretary lineup, but there's a reason Psaki pisses people off, and it's because that self-righteous sense that "we" are smart and oh-so-pragmatic and "you" are a stupid lowbred without the slightest understanding of "how politics works", even as the Democrats repeatedly get their ass handed to them, has been a staple of American politics for over a decade—as has been the group of people whose politics are relatively close to mine cheering sorts like that on as if America were an Aaron Sorkin show where the most arrogantly "intelligent" people always win the day.
Are the Democrats destroying democracy in the way Republicans are? Of course not! But they're not really putting up a great fight to preserve it, whereas their machine is impressively good at crushing every halfway progressive politician who dares say something like "I think people should get to go to hospitals now and again." Don't blame progressives for finding that somewhat irksome, or for suggesting that Democrats are at least a part of the problem these days.
posted by rorgy at 12:32 PM on January 15, 2022 [48 favorites]
The Democrats—not Sinema and Manchin, but Biden's own team—are the ones who publicly boast about how they're going to force those no-good students to get back on their loan payments. They're the ones who claimed that $1400 was equivalent to $2000. They're the ones who treat unemployment like it's a sinister conspiracy among minimum wage serfs to spoil the fun of noble small businesses.
It's not just that they're failing to pass bills. It's that, given every opportunity to show the slightest empathy for America's growing underclass, they spit and sneer instead. It's that they so clearly want to treat those progressive leftists like deplorables in the same manner as Trump's followers—the way their contempt for people who they think are immoral or idiotic extends to more-or-less anyone who attempts to voice their pain. The way Biden sneered, on the campaign trail, whenever students tried to tell him just how fucked they were.
Sean Spicer is objectively more odious than Jen Psaki, and I don't look forward to the 2024 Trump press secretary lineup, but there's a reason Psaki pisses people off, and it's because that self-righteous sense that "we" are smart and oh-so-pragmatic and "you" are a stupid lowbred without the slightest understanding of "how politics works", even as the Democrats repeatedly get their ass handed to them, has been a staple of American politics for over a decade—as has been the group of people whose politics are relatively close to mine cheering sorts like that on as if America were an Aaron Sorkin show where the most arrogantly "intelligent" people always win the day.
Are the Democrats destroying democracy in the way Republicans are? Of course not! But they're not really putting up a great fight to preserve it, whereas their machine is impressively good at crushing every halfway progressive politician who dares say something like "I think people should get to go to hospitals now and again." Don't blame progressives for finding that somewhat irksome, or for suggesting that Democrats are at least a part of the problem these days.
posted by rorgy at 12:32 PM on January 15, 2022 [48 favorites]
"Or it would have scared the Democrats into triangulating onto a Republican politics sooner, harder, faster more completely.
Making things worse tends to have the effect of actually making things worse, not better."
All this "but if we hold people accountable they might retaliate and hurt us for it!" certainly isn't making me think more highly of the Democrats if they're so easily swayed into fascism-lite. Honestly, it says a lot about our leaders if that truly is the case. "Abusive" is putting it mildly, if they would have indeed just careened into fucking us over more quickly. Like, how is that supposed to get me to want to vote for these people if your assumption is that if punishing them politically back then would have just resulted in them becoming more right wing? So our endless solution is for everything to just get more right wing??? We can't have accountability, that makes politicians more right wing!
So what is even the fucking point of trying to get them to listen, at all, if there isn't any accountability? Oh wait there isn't because without accountability they can just keep coasting along like it doesn't matter.
Every single person in the Senate has access to and can afford monoclonal antibody treatment. They literally do not and will not suffer the same horrors as we will when fascism comes knocking. Due to this, they are not approaching it the same way we are, and that distinction fucking matters when we talk about this.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:43 PM on January 15, 2022 [17 favorites]
Making things worse tends to have the effect of actually making things worse, not better."
All this "but if we hold people accountable they might retaliate and hurt us for it!" certainly isn't making me think more highly of the Democrats if they're so easily swayed into fascism-lite. Honestly, it says a lot about our leaders if that truly is the case. "Abusive" is putting it mildly, if they would have indeed just careened into fucking us over more quickly. Like, how is that supposed to get me to want to vote for these people if your assumption is that if punishing them politically back then would have just resulted in them becoming more right wing? So our endless solution is for everything to just get more right wing??? We can't have accountability, that makes politicians more right wing!
So what is even the fucking point of trying to get them to listen, at all, if there isn't any accountability? Oh wait there isn't because without accountability they can just keep coasting along like it doesn't matter.
Every single person in the Senate has access to and can afford monoclonal antibody treatment. They literally do not and will not suffer the same horrors as we will when fascism comes knocking. Due to this, they are not approaching it the same way we are, and that distinction fucking matters when we talk about this.
posted by deadaluspark at 12:43 PM on January 15, 2022 [17 favorites]
how is that supposed to get me to want to vote for these people
If your country were my country I'd be voting Democratic out of raw, naked fear. Nothing else. Because regardless of how shit my mental health is right now, I remember well how much worse I felt, every single day, for the four years Trump was in the White House. That was the shittest icing on the shittest cake, and I don't want to have to eat any more of that.
At least you folks have Shit Lite in power right now. We're still Shit and Really Shit over here, complete with Let It Rip pandemic policy.
So you'll forgive me, I'm sure, for getting a little salty when people start talking about throwing up their hands up in They're All Just Shit despair and refusing to vote at all. You want accountability from the Emperors and the fucking foreigners to shut up and stop complaining about nihilism? Maybe start by not blowing off the accountability that the voluntary voters of the Empire have to the rest of the subjugated world.
posted by flabdablet at 12:59 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
If your country were my country I'd be voting Democratic out of raw, naked fear. Nothing else. Because regardless of how shit my mental health is right now, I remember well how much worse I felt, every single day, for the four years Trump was in the White House. That was the shittest icing on the shittest cake, and I don't want to have to eat any more of that.
At least you folks have Shit Lite in power right now. We're still Shit and Really Shit over here, complete with Let It Rip pandemic policy.
So you'll forgive me, I'm sure, for getting a little salty when people start talking about throwing up their hands up in They're All Just Shit despair and refusing to vote at all. You want accountability from the Emperors and the fucking foreigners to shut up and stop complaining about nihilism? Maybe start by not blowing off the accountability that the voluntary voters of the Empire have to the rest of the subjugated world.
posted by flabdablet at 12:59 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
The intense resentment people have for the Squad and progressives and young activists
looks almost entirely Astroturfed from over here.
posted by flabdablet at 1:19 PM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
looks almost entirely Astroturfed from over here.
posted by flabdablet at 1:19 PM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
flabdablet, you are a really smart and lovely poster and I have appreciated a lot of things you've said here lately, and I appreciated the perspective you offered upthread a lot, but some of your responses here are coming off as incredibly patronizing and dismissive. It's a little weird to me that you're this invested in telling people sharing their lived experiences as Americans that they're completely wrong about everything involving US politics—especially because I suspect that the median MeFite is considerably politically aware and engaged.
posted by rorgy at 1:28 PM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by rorgy at 1:28 PM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
looks almost entirely Astroturfed from over here.
This is one million percent untrue.
posted by Gadarene at 1:32 PM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
This is one million percent untrue.
posted by Gadarene at 1:32 PM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
Mod note: So you'll forgive me, I'm sure, for getting a little salty when people start talking about throwing up their hands up in They're All Just Shit despair and refusing to vote at all.
I'm gonna say from a mod perspective that feeling salty about a thing in the world needs to be different from aiming that saltiness to whoever is in the room with you at the moment. Please stop digging in on this like MeFites are the enemy.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:32 PM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
I'm gonna say from a mod perspective that feeling salty about a thing in the world needs to be different from aiming that saltiness to whoever is in the room with you at the moment. Please stop digging in on this like MeFites are the enemy.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:32 PM on January 15, 2022 [10 favorites]
All this "but if we hold people accountable they might retaliate and hurt us for it!" certainly isn't making me think more highly of the Democrats if they're so easily swayed into fascism-lite. Honestly, it says a lot about our leaders if that truly is the case.
I'm not saying it is necessarily what would've happened, but I do see it as more likely than a trouncing in the 90s leading to an enlightened left wing party now.
This is absolutely meant to be an indictment of the Democratic party.
But I would still vote for them if I were in the states, much as I'd still vote Labour here with their right wing in ascendancy if I could.
posted by Dysk at 1:41 PM on January 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
I'm not saying it is necessarily what would've happened, but I do see it as more likely than a trouncing in the 90s leading to an enlightened left wing party now.
This is absolutely meant to be an indictment of the Democratic party.
But I would still vote for them if I were in the states, much as I'd still vote Labour here with their right wing in ascendancy if I could.
posted by Dysk at 1:41 PM on January 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
This is one million percent untrue.
Who are US mefites hearing this from? Because the only people I've ever seen running a "these uppity progressives are too demanding and clearly unelectable and not to be taken seriously" line in such media reports as make it to my side of the planet are pretty transparently lackeys of the existing ruling class. It's certainly not a line I've heard from any of the thoughtful local political commentators whose opinions might actually offer genuine food for thought.
I obviously get very little opportunity to know what the feeling is on the ground in the US. All I can work from is what I've been seeing where I am, and what I'm seeing where I am is that the source of this particular line is pretty much always some complacent fuck in a suit and/or some fawning press hanger-on of same, not any of his constituents.
posted by flabdablet at 1:46 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Who are US mefites hearing this from? Because the only people I've ever seen running a "these uppity progressives are too demanding and clearly unelectable and not to be taken seriously" line in such media reports as make it to my side of the planet are pretty transparently lackeys of the existing ruling class. It's certainly not a line I've heard from any of the thoughtful local political commentators whose opinions might actually offer genuine food for thought.
I obviously get very little opportunity to know what the feeling is on the ground in the US. All I can work from is what I've been seeing where I am, and what I'm seeing where I am is that the source of this particular line is pretty much always some complacent fuck in a suit and/or some fawning press hanger-on of same, not any of his constituents.
posted by flabdablet at 1:46 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
looks almost entirely Astroturfed from over here.
A component, but they organically make Clinton/DNC liberals display their true allegiances and bare their teeth.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:46 PM on January 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
A component, but they organically make Clinton/DNC liberals display their true allegiances and bare their teeth.
posted by ryanshepard at 1:46 PM on January 15, 2022 [3 favorites]
I tend to think the Democrats' issues tend to be this:
(a) They are NOT IN LOCKSTEP like the Republicans are. No matter what,the Republicans all do the same thing, every time. Democrats won't or can't do that. They infight. There's the shithead Senators. There's no actual majority of Democrats.
(b) They will not play dirty like the Democrats do. Once again I say, evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
The Republicans usually win because of those two traits, as far as I can tell. This is why we are forever the overall losing side.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:48 PM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
(a) They are NOT IN LOCKSTEP like the Republicans are. No matter what,the Republicans all do the same thing, every time. Democrats won't or can't do that. They infight. There's the shithead Senators. There's no actual majority of Democrats.
(b) They will not play dirty like the Democrats do. Once again I say, evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
The Republicans usually win because of those two traits, as far as I can tell. This is why we are forever the overall losing side.
posted by jenfullmoon at 1:48 PM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
Evil is certainly tactically superior, because its job is tactically easier: it's unconstrained by any need to engage with reality in any consistent fashion and can just make shit up any time it needs a quick win in a marketing contest.
But I can't bring myself to call the result a "triumph". Not when it involves doing such an insane amount of damage. And I also can't see how an increasingly psychotic Shit Party is ever going to be a strategic winner. At some point, the amount of their own horseshit they insist on continuing to eat must surely bring them undone; a pandemic is by no means the only fertile ground for Herman Cain Awards.
posted by flabdablet at 2:01 PM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
Evil is certainly tactically superior, because its job is tactically easier: it's unconstrained by any need to engage with reality in any consistent fashion and can just make shit up any time it needs a quick win in a marketing contest.
But I can't bring myself to call the result a "triumph". Not when it involves doing such an insane amount of damage. And I also can't see how an increasingly psychotic Shit Party is ever going to be a strategic winner. At some point, the amount of their own horseshit they insist on continuing to eat must surely bring them undone; a pandemic is by no means the only fertile ground for Herman Cain Awards.
posted by flabdablet at 2:01 PM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
(b) They will not play dirty like the Democrats do. Once again I say, evil will always triumph because good is dumb.
Oh you should see the fuckers if it looks like a leftist might be in spitting distance of primarying them.
posted by Artw at 2:25 PM on January 15, 2022 [22 favorites]
Oh you should see the fuckers if it looks like a leftist might be in spitting distance of primarying them.
posted by Artw at 2:25 PM on January 15, 2022 [22 favorites]
And its best chance of getting shit done would be if the Democratic Party's Congressional numbers were increased just a little bit so that The Squad, rather than the Manchin Coal Company, held the balance of power.
As others have pointed out, as much as I dream of having a party that purports to be the party of the left, actually being run by the left, by people who, in their very recent memory, have had to work shitty jobs to get by (AOC) or been actually homeless themselves (Bush), it's kind of important to remember that, in (as far as I remember) nearly every member of the Squad made it into congress running against a Dem incumbent, a party hack vetted and accepted. Not only are the Squad not what the party wanted, they also replaced members of the club, and I don't doubt part (only part) of the party's disdain for them is based in "my friend and colleague would still be here if not for you." Instead, now the party has to deal with a group of people who force the public to realize that it's not really a choice between shit and shit-lite (as has been coined in this thread), but that better things, better choices just might be possible, and they hate it. At every turn, instead of realizing that there is strength (and popular support) in the positions the Squad are arguing for, the party has sought to knee cap them, attacking AOC and Omar noticeably, but also working to prevent any future growth of the group (mandating no support for attempts at primarying sitting politicians, etc). The only place to take hope is that, in spite of the attempts from in their own house to quash them, the Squad (god, I don't like that name) has grown.
Past that, but I guess connected to it, is that we are where we are because the leaders of the party are so far removed from the ability to understand scenes like the pharmacy in the essay. They would never need to stand in line for anything, it is available to them, and if it weren't, they have people to do it for them. The party leadership is extremely wealthy, and wealth acts to protect wealth. It insulates, it creates the inability to understand different circumstances. Nearly every time I hear party leadership talking about any kind of economic hardship on the family level, it sounds like they're asking "how much could a banana cost? $10?" and it's painful. The party is much closer to Manchin's assertion that any kind of aid would result in some people using it to buy drugs, therefore no aid should be given, than to any actual thought of how to help people. Forget the $2000 check Biden promised, where's the $2000/month that Harris campaigned on?
Past that, the article spoke to me because of the talk of innovation, because of the talk of the cotton gin. It's not so much that we have to choose between the GOP and the battered husk of the Democratic Party, it's that the leadership of both parties has, and with only sporadic pauses, always been on the side of capital. There's a reason Mark Zuckerberg dines at the White House instead of community activists or labor leaders. There's a reason for all of this, and it's mostly aligned with the idea that the stock market has anything to do with the actual economy, or that the health of the country is determined by GDP. The measures that would be good for the widest possible cross section of the nation are at odds with productivity, and the interests of those in power more closely feel the needs of the shareholders over the needs of the population.
I share McKinney's growing fear of innovation. School was a long time ago, and much has faded, but yes, I remember being taught the side of history where each new device that replaced workers was lauded as a perfectly good thing, while never being taught about the workers it displaced, or the was it disrupted communities. The simple question of who benefits is in my mind whenever a new thing is introduced, and with vanishingly rare exceptions, the new things haven't benefited the average person in a long damn time.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:42 PM on January 15, 2022 [49 favorites]
As others have pointed out, as much as I dream of having a party that purports to be the party of the left, actually being run by the left, by people who, in their very recent memory, have had to work shitty jobs to get by (AOC) or been actually homeless themselves (Bush), it's kind of important to remember that, in (as far as I remember) nearly every member of the Squad made it into congress running against a Dem incumbent, a party hack vetted and accepted. Not only are the Squad not what the party wanted, they also replaced members of the club, and I don't doubt part (only part) of the party's disdain for them is based in "my friend and colleague would still be here if not for you." Instead, now the party has to deal with a group of people who force the public to realize that it's not really a choice between shit and shit-lite (as has been coined in this thread), but that better things, better choices just might be possible, and they hate it. At every turn, instead of realizing that there is strength (and popular support) in the positions the Squad are arguing for, the party has sought to knee cap them, attacking AOC and Omar noticeably, but also working to prevent any future growth of the group (mandating no support for attempts at primarying sitting politicians, etc). The only place to take hope is that, in spite of the attempts from in their own house to quash them, the Squad (god, I don't like that name) has grown.
Past that, but I guess connected to it, is that we are where we are because the leaders of the party are so far removed from the ability to understand scenes like the pharmacy in the essay. They would never need to stand in line for anything, it is available to them, and if it weren't, they have people to do it for them. The party leadership is extremely wealthy, and wealth acts to protect wealth. It insulates, it creates the inability to understand different circumstances. Nearly every time I hear party leadership talking about any kind of economic hardship on the family level, it sounds like they're asking "how much could a banana cost? $10?" and it's painful. The party is much closer to Manchin's assertion that any kind of aid would result in some people using it to buy drugs, therefore no aid should be given, than to any actual thought of how to help people. Forget the $2000 check Biden promised, where's the $2000/month that Harris campaigned on?
Past that, the article spoke to me because of the talk of innovation, because of the talk of the cotton gin. It's not so much that we have to choose between the GOP and the battered husk of the Democratic Party, it's that the leadership of both parties has, and with only sporadic pauses, always been on the side of capital. There's a reason Mark Zuckerberg dines at the White House instead of community activists or labor leaders. There's a reason for all of this, and it's mostly aligned with the idea that the stock market has anything to do with the actual economy, or that the health of the country is determined by GDP. The measures that would be good for the widest possible cross section of the nation are at odds with productivity, and the interests of those in power more closely feel the needs of the shareholders over the needs of the population.
I share McKinney's growing fear of innovation. School was a long time ago, and much has faded, but yes, I remember being taught the side of history where each new device that replaced workers was lauded as a perfectly good thing, while never being taught about the workers it displaced, or the was it disrupted communities. The simple question of who benefits is in my mind whenever a new thing is introduced, and with vanishingly rare exceptions, the new things haven't benefited the average person in a long damn time.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:42 PM on January 15, 2022 [49 favorites]
Their job is to return the country to a baseline of normal.
This line frustrates and infuriates me more every time that I read it.
Because that is what Trumpoids want -- to return America to the 'normal' where their tribe was superior and privileged and all others knew their place. And that is what corporate interests want -- to return America to the 'normal' of the last several decades, where deregulation and corporate predation and slashing of taxation lead to more and more of America's wealth and assets shifting to fewer and fewer hands with a veneer of 'stability' covering it up. And that is what 'moderate' Democrats want -- to appeal to the fictional center-right couple that lives in Chuck Schumer's imagination, to be a palatable alternative for those corporate interests to hard-right excesses, and to make precisely zero waves against the status quo that might threaten that status.
'Normal' is an opinion, a perspective, a point of view. And when one looks back at America over the decades, its 'normal' state has rarely been a particularly fair or enlightened place to be.
Biden was elected on a 'baseline of normal' wave; once a small progressive uprising was once again throttled by money, media and circumstances, he was Not Trump and that was enough to get him over the line. Now, we came within a couple of hours and shifting circumstances of that being stolen away from him last year, but never mind that. In simple terms, governing as At Least We're Not Actually Trump is not enough to avoid a 2022 bloodbath. 'Normal' for the hard right is to rage, rage against the dying of the prominence of the white. 'Normal' for the center is to shut up and take it unless things grow truly intolerable.
posted by delfin at 2:46 PM on January 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
This line frustrates and infuriates me more every time that I read it.
Because that is what Trumpoids want -- to return America to the 'normal' where their tribe was superior and privileged and all others knew their place. And that is what corporate interests want -- to return America to the 'normal' of the last several decades, where deregulation and corporate predation and slashing of taxation lead to more and more of America's wealth and assets shifting to fewer and fewer hands with a veneer of 'stability' covering it up. And that is what 'moderate' Democrats want -- to appeal to the fictional center-right couple that lives in Chuck Schumer's imagination, to be a palatable alternative for those corporate interests to hard-right excesses, and to make precisely zero waves against the status quo that might threaten that status.
'Normal' is an opinion, a perspective, a point of view. And when one looks back at America over the decades, its 'normal' state has rarely been a particularly fair or enlightened place to be.
Biden was elected on a 'baseline of normal' wave; once a small progressive uprising was once again throttled by money, media and circumstances, he was Not Trump and that was enough to get him over the line. Now, we came within a couple of hours and shifting circumstances of that being stolen away from him last year, but never mind that. In simple terms, governing as At Least We're Not Actually Trump is not enough to avoid a 2022 bloodbath. 'Normal' for the hard right is to rage, rage against the dying of the prominence of the white. 'Normal' for the center is to shut up and take it unless things grow truly intolerable.
posted by delfin at 2:46 PM on January 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
The Democrats aren’t trying to make things better and failing, they’re trying to ensure that the status quo remains the same
Many Democrats are in fact trying to make things better. They are being stymied by a couple of people with outsized power in the Senate and the consequences of people not finding Hillary compelling enough to turn out for her, namely three fucking hacks on the Supreme Court who are doing their level best to eviscerate the ability of the government to regulate business and implement policy. Add to that the immense astroturfing campaign that is directly responsible for antivax bullshit and terroristic threats against any official who do much as broaches the possibility of doing anything effective against the pandemic and here we are. For whatever reason the narrative is always "feckless Democrats," and not "government literally under siege." I guess it's more comforting to believe the problem is with insufficiently pure political leaders than to admit that there is a large contingent of our fellow citizens who are waging a low level guerilla war in an attempt to reassert their interrupted christofascist state.
Poor past choices have led us to a point where we're all going to be eating shit no matter how much we wish it were otherwise. The question is whether or not the shit sandwich gets bigger or not. Once we've defeated the fucking fascists, we can work on getting rid of the shit.
The sad thing is that we (not specifically on mefi, just in general) are playing out the exact same shit that allowed Hitler and Mussolini to take power in their respective countries. Infighting amongst the majority who agreed it would be better not to have extremist authoritarians in power gave them the necessary room to take over. I shouldn't have to, but somehow feel the need anyway, point out that it did not end well for any of the opposition.
posted by wierdo at 2:48 PM on January 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
Many Democrats are in fact trying to make things better. They are being stymied by a couple of people with outsized power in the Senate and the consequences of people not finding Hillary compelling enough to turn out for her, namely three fucking hacks on the Supreme Court who are doing their level best to eviscerate the ability of the government to regulate business and implement policy. Add to that the immense astroturfing campaign that is directly responsible for antivax bullshit and terroristic threats against any official who do much as broaches the possibility of doing anything effective against the pandemic and here we are. For whatever reason the narrative is always "feckless Democrats," and not "government literally under siege." I guess it's more comforting to believe the problem is with insufficiently pure political leaders than to admit that there is a large contingent of our fellow citizens who are waging a low level guerilla war in an attempt to reassert their interrupted christofascist state.
Poor past choices have led us to a point where we're all going to be eating shit no matter how much we wish it were otherwise. The question is whether or not the shit sandwich gets bigger or not. Once we've defeated the fucking fascists, we can work on getting rid of the shit.
The sad thing is that we (not specifically on mefi, just in general) are playing out the exact same shit that allowed Hitler and Mussolini to take power in their respective countries. Infighting amongst the majority who agreed it would be better not to have extremist authoritarians in power gave them the necessary room to take over. I shouldn't have to, but somehow feel the need anyway, point out that it did not end well for any of the opposition.
posted by wierdo at 2:48 PM on January 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
Flagged as fantastic, Ghidorah.
posted by Gadarene at 2:57 PM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Gadarene at 2:57 PM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Once we've defeated the fucking fascists, we can work on getting rid of the shit.
The thing about fascists is that they both manufacture and breed in the shit. Getting rid of them needs to be done in parallel with getting rid of the shit, because leaving either in place will inevitably create more of the other.
posted by flabdablet at 2:59 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
The thing about fascists is that they both manufacture and breed in the shit. Getting rid of them needs to be done in parallel with getting rid of the shit, because leaving either in place will inevitably create more of the other.
posted by flabdablet at 2:59 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
Poor past choices have led us to a point where we're all going to be eating shit no matter how much we wish it were otherwise
Who made those choices? Why do they continue to demand we keep supporting them and their current choices? When is enough enough?
posted by flamk at 3:10 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Who made those choices? Why do they continue to demand we keep supporting them and their current choices? When is enough enough?
posted by flamk at 3:10 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Silly question. You have a 50-50 Senate. Two of the people ostensibly on your side are very unlikely to vote for basic things like ditching the filibuster, Build Back Better, whatever. Within the rules of that system, how is it that people are expecting Biden to do anything ? The workplace COVID/ OSHA requirement was just nuked the the conservative Supreme Court. Shouldn’t we be mad at Republicans and maybe Manchin and Sinema? Do people really think there are no good public servants in the entire Democratic Party? If that’s the case, we’re fucked because there ain’t enough leftists to run the country. I say this as someone who wants capitalism to burn as soon as we come up with an alternative.
posted by freecellwizard at 3:26 PM on January 15, 2022 [23 favorites]
posted by freecellwizard at 3:26 PM on January 15, 2022 [23 favorites]
Who made those choices? Why do they continue to demand we keep supporting them and their current choices? When is enough enough?
We did, collectively. Not the politicians, except for those who were engaging in voter suppression in some states. Us. The voters (and would be voters who chose to sit it out).
The past choices don't really anger me, though. Sad, but not angry. It was obvious Trump was going to be a shit show, but it wasn't obvious that he was going to adopt straight up fascism.
What gets me angry are people who talk like they're going to do the same shit in the face of a party and president who have demonstrated their willingness to not only fuck around at the margins but completely throw out the results of elections they don't like and foment violence to do it.
We have liked to say "these are not serious people." Turns out they're deadly serious, they just didn't look it because they were perfectly willing to make shit up and look like idiots to anyone with a basic grasp of the truth. Funny thing is, that's precisely what the Germans said about Hitler and the Nazis. They're not serious. They can't win. They look like idiots. They won, but it's only temporary. Things will be back to normal soon.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't really any better about seeing it. It is to my eternal shame that I didn't start to come around until I saw the brownshirts attacking public meetings, and even then I didn't see how far gone shit really is. Even January 6th didn't make it fully sink in. Only after recently learning how coordinated the various different forms of attack really are did I understand the gravity of the situation.
posted by wierdo at 3:41 PM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
We did, collectively. Not the politicians, except for those who were engaging in voter suppression in some states. Us. The voters (and would be voters who chose to sit it out).
The past choices don't really anger me, though. Sad, but not angry. It was obvious Trump was going to be a shit show, but it wasn't obvious that he was going to adopt straight up fascism.
What gets me angry are people who talk like they're going to do the same shit in the face of a party and president who have demonstrated their willingness to not only fuck around at the margins but completely throw out the results of elections they don't like and foment violence to do it.
We have liked to say "these are not serious people." Turns out they're deadly serious, they just didn't look it because they were perfectly willing to make shit up and look like idiots to anyone with a basic grasp of the truth. Funny thing is, that's precisely what the Germans said about Hitler and the Nazis. They're not serious. They can't win. They look like idiots. They won, but it's only temporary. Things will be back to normal soon.
Don't get me wrong, I wasn't really any better about seeing it. It is to my eternal shame that I didn't start to come around until I saw the brownshirts attacking public meetings, and even then I didn't see how far gone shit really is. Even January 6th didn't make it fully sink in. Only after recently learning how coordinated the various different forms of attack really are did I understand the gravity of the situation.
posted by wierdo at 3:41 PM on January 15, 2022 [4 favorites]
It remains extremely weird to me that this conversation, as every convo on this subject does, has turned into "are lefties insufficiently loyal to the Democrat Party?"
The people criticizing the Democrats understand that the Republicans are worse. The criticism of the Democrats is that they are ineffective, half-heartedly pursue half measures, approach system politics with some mixture of cowardice or incompetence or corruption or flat-out conservatism in ways that belie their fiery rhetoric, and invariably turn that fieriness, not only on Republicans, but on people who dare suggest that they need to do better.
As artw mentioned above, the Democrats seem plenty good at being underhanded, united, and vicious when it comes to shutting down leftist "dissenters." They sure know how to play hardball then! But the best-possible-faith reading I have of their political tactics is that they have a conservative, even reactionary, faith in "the process" even while they decry the collapse of that same process. That same best-faith reading says that Democrats don't value the importance of power nearly enough, and don't see how their own unwillingness to grasp it is why so many people have lost faith in them. Yet the moment their power within their party is threatened, boy do they seem to understand that maintaining power at any cost is the name of the game!
There are worse-faith readings, like the ratchet theory or the belief that Dems are actively, intentionally out to preserve America as a fundamentally conservative nation. But you don't need to be that cynical to feel that Democrats are profoundly unready for this moment, and that the fieriest and most driven Dems are almost invariably the ones who the main party pushed hard to keep out of politics. You don't need conspiracy theories to be baffled at how Hillary Clinton simultaneously tweets MLK quotes about "white moderates" holding everything up and gives interviews where she says that Democrats need to get even more moderate if they want to avoid a slaughter in 2022. Or to, you know, look at how the most moderate candidate won the primary in 2020, but we're still told that it's the left wing of the party that's causing all the problems.
America's political institutions are conservative by design. The Supreme Court and the Senate both have storied histories of preventing progress, preventing change, preserving power for the few in the face of the many. Our version of "democracy" was implemented in ways to make it, well, insanely un-democratic; our country has always been more reactionary than not. I try not to assume that every mainstream Democrat is a corrupt sociopath—though it certainly has its fair share, just look at Josh Gottheimer—but I think that the party line of "revere the system" doesn't sufficiently examine how crappy "the system" is to begin with. A lot of Democrats don't examine that all too closely, defend tradition even when that tradition is oppressive and/or self-defeating, and are additionally some combination of entrenched and entitled and defensive; I think they have been blindsided again and again by crises they were not prepared to manage, and I think that their attempts to resolve those crises have often enabled even worse ones, like Obama's handling of the 2008 crash.
My unpopular take is that I think they are largely good-hearted and well-meaning people who want what's best for everyone—but I don't think they know "what's best" nearly as well as they think they do, and I think they're far better (and far more enthusiastic) about fighting their own party than they are at fighting Republicans, because fighting in their party means upholding tradition, whereas fighting Republicans would require them to acknowledge that, in many ways, the old ways are dead and gone.
I don't think it's unreasonable for people to be insanely frustrated by their approach to leadership and to politics, and I don't think it's unreasonable for people who have actively been ill-served or betrayed by their leadership to harbor fairly personal feelings towards them. And I wish we would stop pretending like people who are mad at the Democrats are somehow fucking up or doing something inappropriate or else just politically dim-witted, because a lot of very smart and very well-informed people hate the Democrats these days for reasons that I think are generally fairly well-reasoned. Plenty of people on the left would love to work with mainstream Democrats and be part of the conversation and work out ways of pushing for power and change in every possible way while accepting pragmatic or incremental compromises in the process; if they seem to think the Democrat Party has no room for them, well, maybe that's because that's what the Democrat Party has said aggressively for decades, including from their top brass literally this week.
We generally agree that people in power should be held more responsible for their actions and behaviors than people who have almost no power. In this case, Democrat moderates hold virtually all the power, the progressive wing holds no power apart from, well, their ability to garner intense enthusiasm from their base, and the moderates constantly hammer the progressives, then turn around and scold the progressives for going "Hey, that's really shit, cut that out." And I think that our inability to recognize that pattern is in part a byproduct of that same "trust the system" mindset that Democrats struggle with so much these days.
posted by rorgy at 4:20 PM on January 15, 2022 [37 favorites]
The people criticizing the Democrats understand that the Republicans are worse. The criticism of the Democrats is that they are ineffective, half-heartedly pursue half measures, approach system politics with some mixture of cowardice or incompetence or corruption or flat-out conservatism in ways that belie their fiery rhetoric, and invariably turn that fieriness, not only on Republicans, but on people who dare suggest that they need to do better.
As artw mentioned above, the Democrats seem plenty good at being underhanded, united, and vicious when it comes to shutting down leftist "dissenters." They sure know how to play hardball then! But the best-possible-faith reading I have of their political tactics is that they have a conservative, even reactionary, faith in "the process" even while they decry the collapse of that same process. That same best-faith reading says that Democrats don't value the importance of power nearly enough, and don't see how their own unwillingness to grasp it is why so many people have lost faith in them. Yet the moment their power within their party is threatened, boy do they seem to understand that maintaining power at any cost is the name of the game!
There are worse-faith readings, like the ratchet theory or the belief that Dems are actively, intentionally out to preserve America as a fundamentally conservative nation. But you don't need to be that cynical to feel that Democrats are profoundly unready for this moment, and that the fieriest and most driven Dems are almost invariably the ones who the main party pushed hard to keep out of politics. You don't need conspiracy theories to be baffled at how Hillary Clinton simultaneously tweets MLK quotes about "white moderates" holding everything up and gives interviews where she says that Democrats need to get even more moderate if they want to avoid a slaughter in 2022. Or to, you know, look at how the most moderate candidate won the primary in 2020, but we're still told that it's the left wing of the party that's causing all the problems.
America's political institutions are conservative by design. The Supreme Court and the Senate both have storied histories of preventing progress, preventing change, preserving power for the few in the face of the many. Our version of "democracy" was implemented in ways to make it, well, insanely un-democratic; our country has always been more reactionary than not. I try not to assume that every mainstream Democrat is a corrupt sociopath—though it certainly has its fair share, just look at Josh Gottheimer—but I think that the party line of "revere the system" doesn't sufficiently examine how crappy "the system" is to begin with. A lot of Democrats don't examine that all too closely, defend tradition even when that tradition is oppressive and/or self-defeating, and are additionally some combination of entrenched and entitled and defensive; I think they have been blindsided again and again by crises they were not prepared to manage, and I think that their attempts to resolve those crises have often enabled even worse ones, like Obama's handling of the 2008 crash.
My unpopular take is that I think they are largely good-hearted and well-meaning people who want what's best for everyone—but I don't think they know "what's best" nearly as well as they think they do, and I think they're far better (and far more enthusiastic) about fighting their own party than they are at fighting Republicans, because fighting in their party means upholding tradition, whereas fighting Republicans would require them to acknowledge that, in many ways, the old ways are dead and gone.
I don't think it's unreasonable for people to be insanely frustrated by their approach to leadership and to politics, and I don't think it's unreasonable for people who have actively been ill-served or betrayed by their leadership to harbor fairly personal feelings towards them. And I wish we would stop pretending like people who are mad at the Democrats are somehow fucking up or doing something inappropriate or else just politically dim-witted, because a lot of very smart and very well-informed people hate the Democrats these days for reasons that I think are generally fairly well-reasoned. Plenty of people on the left would love to work with mainstream Democrats and be part of the conversation and work out ways of pushing for power and change in every possible way while accepting pragmatic or incremental compromises in the process; if they seem to think the Democrat Party has no room for them, well, maybe that's because that's what the Democrat Party has said aggressively for decades, including from their top brass literally this week.
We generally agree that people in power should be held more responsible for their actions and behaviors than people who have almost no power. In this case, Democrat moderates hold virtually all the power, the progressive wing holds no power apart from, well, their ability to garner intense enthusiasm from their base, and the moderates constantly hammer the progressives, then turn around and scold the progressives for going "Hey, that's really shit, cut that out." And I think that our inability to recognize that pattern is in part a byproduct of that same "trust the system" mindset that Democrats struggle with so much these days.
posted by rorgy at 4:20 PM on January 15, 2022 [37 favorites]
And I've been informed starting Feb 2, they're just gonna stop the mandatory reporting? We're not even gonna count who's dying from COVID-19 anymore I guess.
You've been informed wrongly and the lack of fact checking it makes me question the validity of any of the rest of your analysis.
posted by Justinian at 4:24 PM on January 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
You've been informed wrongly and the lack of fact checking it makes me question the validity of any of the rest of your analysis.
posted by Justinian at 4:24 PM on January 15, 2022 [12 favorites]
The basic premise of TFA: they currently control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency and yet they have accomplished very little - is horseshit. Even a casual reading of actual news will make it clear that Manchin and Sinema, while nominally democrats, have thwarted every single progressive initiative.
As for more financial assistance being given out during the Trump administration, the reason is simple: Democrats will put country before party, R's won't. When the Trump administration proposed something that was good (or even tolerable) the D's got on board because it was the right thing to do (or at least better than not doing it.) With D's in nominal power, however, McConnell (supported by Manchin and Sinema) do their level best do make sure that nothing good happens.
Ignore this article and - even more important - Quit reading Facebook; the bots posting "the dem's are letting everybody down; take your vote and go home." are being controlled by Russia and the kleptocrats. Showing up at polls and voting locally at the state level is crucial if there's to be any chance to dig our way out of this.
Most likely we're in for dark decade or so; the pandemic, highly gerrymandered districts, and an intensely partisan Supreme Court means we're pretty fucked in the short term. By all means support your progressive candidates, but make sure that you, and everybody of conscience you know, shows up and votes blue for all the elections.
posted by microscone at 4:24 PM on January 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
As for more financial assistance being given out during the Trump administration, the reason is simple: Democrats will put country before party, R's won't. When the Trump administration proposed something that was good (or even tolerable) the D's got on board because it was the right thing to do (or at least better than not doing it.) With D's in nominal power, however, McConnell (supported by Manchin and Sinema) do their level best do make sure that nothing good happens.
Ignore this article and - even more important - Quit reading Facebook; the bots posting "the dem's are letting everybody down; take your vote and go home." are being controlled by Russia and the kleptocrats. Showing up at polls and voting locally at the state level is crucial if there's to be any chance to dig our way out of this.
Most likely we're in for dark decade or so; the pandemic, highly gerrymandered districts, and an intensely partisan Supreme Court means we're pretty fucked in the short term. By all means support your progressive candidates, but make sure that you, and everybody of conscience you know, shows up and votes blue for all the elections.
posted by microscone at 4:24 PM on January 15, 2022 [16 favorites]
Before we start worrying about the GOP taking power let's remind ourselves that the real enemies of the people are those damn SPD cowards.
posted by Anonymous at 4:37 PM on January 15, 2022
posted by Anonymous at 4:37 PM on January 15, 2022
I suggest we don't vote at all so the SPD knows how serious we are. Nobody could possibly be harmed by that action.
posted by Anonymous at 4:39 PM on January 15, 2022
posted by Anonymous at 4:39 PM on January 15, 2022
The basic premise of TFA: they currently control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency and yet they have accomplished very little - is horseshit. Even a casual reading of actual news will make it clear that Manchin and Sinema, while nominally democrats, have thwarted every single progressive initiative.
Thank you. Even without Manchin and Sinema, nobody controls the Senate without 60 votes nowadays.
The Republicans control SCOTUS. It's 1-1/2 to 1-1/2 on branches and in every election the Republicans have an advantage in the EC. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but never became president.
I'm not saying every Democratic policy is ideal, but a lot of those "half measures" address burn from compromise, just trying to get something done or get the support they need to get reelected. We need to direct enough people to change the rules, then we'll see better candidates.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:41 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
Thank you. Even without Manchin and Sinema, nobody controls the Senate without 60 votes nowadays.
The Republicans control SCOTUS. It's 1-1/2 to 1-1/2 on branches and in every election the Republicans have an advantage in the EC. Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote but never became president.
I'm not saying every Democratic policy is ideal, but a lot of those "half measures" address burn from compromise, just trying to get something done or get the support they need to get reelected. We need to direct enough people to change the rules, then we'll see better candidates.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:41 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
why is it that i never hear anything about not being able to get the votes to pass our military budget?
seems like the will is there to get SOME things done
posted by pyramid termite at 4:44 PM on January 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
seems like the will is there to get SOME things done
posted by pyramid termite at 4:44 PM on January 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
how could "but some bills do pass" possibly be a refutation of the point that the Democrats can't get progressive bills passed because of Manchinema and the GOP? "You say you don't like ice cream, but I see you right there eating sandwiches, GOTCHA!" Yes, Manchinema and the GOP vote for bills they like! WHAT A SURPRISE
posted by Anonymous at 4:56 PM on January 15, 2022
posted by Anonymous at 4:56 PM on January 15, 2022
And I've been informed starting Feb 2, they're just gonna stop the mandatory reporting? We're not even gonna count who's dying from COVID-19 anymore I guess.
No. What's happening is that hospitals are not going to be required to report COVID deaths directly to the federal government on a daily basis anymore, but every time you see COVID death numbers reported, it's not coming from the hospital dataset, because not all COVID deaths occur in hospitals anyway and we want to know about COVID deaths both in and out of hospitals. COVID deaths will continue to be reported through the normal process, which is how the death data gets to websites like the New York Times anyway. Anytime you go to look at the number of COVID deaths, nothing about that is impacted by this change.
I'd further add that political discussions are generally more informative if you link to the news item you're talking about so that others may understand the basis for your information rather than just vague "I've been informed" statements that the government has done something that sounds generically bad.
posted by zachlipton at 4:58 PM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
No. What's happening is that hospitals are not going to be required to report COVID deaths directly to the federal government on a daily basis anymore, but every time you see COVID death numbers reported, it's not coming from the hospital dataset, because not all COVID deaths occur in hospitals anyway and we want to know about COVID deaths both in and out of hospitals. COVID deaths will continue to be reported through the normal process, which is how the death data gets to websites like the New York Times anyway. Anytime you go to look at the number of COVID deaths, nothing about that is impacted by this change.
I'd further add that political discussions are generally more informative if you link to the news item you're talking about so that others may understand the basis for your information rather than just vague "I've been informed" statements that the government has done something that sounds generically bad.
posted by zachlipton at 4:58 PM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
why is it that i never hear anything about not being able to get the votes to pass our military budget?
Because that one line item is sacrosanct.
posted by Selena777 at 5:04 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Because that one line item is sacrosanct.
posted by Selena777 at 5:04 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
"The GOP voting for defense bills but not progressive legislation is proof Biden sucks" is the kind of argument you make when you have become so unhinged due to your hatred of Democrats that you've lost all contact with any understanding of what democracies are and are now operating under the assumption that the Presidency is some sort of kingship that grants the POTUS mind control abilities over their political opponents.
posted by Anonymous at 5:04 PM on January 15, 2022
posted by Anonymous at 5:04 PM on January 15, 2022
Seems like Democrats don't really need to be voting for those defense bills, tho
posted by Gadarene at 5:22 PM on January 15, 2022 [17 favorites]
posted by Gadarene at 5:22 PM on January 15, 2022 [17 favorites]
i said nothing about biden
you people are desperate not to admit that our government exists for the military and the corporations and little else, even when the proof is so obvious
we do not have a government that cares about the people and most of the democrats are going along with it, proven by votes - and the insider trading the leadership likes to do
we also have a good many people who when confronted with the complicity of their leaders, decide to ignore it, as real change in this country could affect their comfortable place in it
plague stalks the land, the planet is heating, our economics are becoming non-sustainable and just what is happening?
you're worried that i'm pointing out what the system really supports because it makes your party look bad also
isn't that a shame?
what would happen if we held up the military budget for OUR agenda?
posted by pyramid termite at 5:30 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
you people are desperate not to admit that our government exists for the military and the corporations and little else, even when the proof is so obvious
we do not have a government that cares about the people and most of the democrats are going along with it, proven by votes - and the insider trading the leadership likes to do
we also have a good many people who when confronted with the complicity of their leaders, decide to ignore it, as real change in this country could affect their comfortable place in it
plague stalks the land, the planet is heating, our economics are becoming non-sustainable and just what is happening?
you're worried that i'm pointing out what the system really supports because it makes your party look bad also
isn't that a shame?
what would happen if we held up the military budget for OUR agenda?
posted by pyramid termite at 5:30 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
you're worried that i'm pointing out what the system really supports because it makes your party look bad also
all you've done is point out the GOP will vote for defense bills
what a surprise, what incredible truth-telling, you're a goddamn psychic
what would happen if we held up the military budget for OUR agenda?
Please explain, with details, how you are going to elect the representatives who will do this
Please account for the fact that most of the voting population does not, in fact, want defense bills held hostage
posted by Anonymous at 5:53 PM on January 15, 2022
all you've done is point out the GOP will vote for defense bills
what a surprise, what incredible truth-telling, you're a goddamn psychic
what would happen if we held up the military budget for OUR agenda?
Please explain, with details, how you are going to elect the representatives who will do this
Please account for the fact that most of the voting population does not, in fact, want defense bills held hostage
posted by Anonymous at 5:53 PM on January 15, 2022
"The POTUS has a Green Lantern ring and can enact policy via willpower" is a common fallacy, yes. And the notion of "principled Republican Senators who might occasionally reach across the aisle" died years ago; there is not one who is a potential counterweight to Manchin or Sinema on any issue. Not one issue. Not one Senator. It's simply not going to happen.
But we have also watched the Republicans run roughshod over decency, fairness, decorum and precedent for years now. They have blocked every possible bit of legislation, stolen two SCOTUS seats, engineered a failed coup and made a mockery of two impeachment trials. It may be a cold war rather than a shooting war so far, but we as a democratic nation are in fact at war and it's not ending any time soon.
And maybe there is nothing that Biden or Schumer or other prominent Dems can actually do to sway the opinions and votes of Manchin, Sinema, and whichever other corporate stooges (hello, Coons) are reluctant to name and shame their mortal enemies. Maybe there are no behind-the-scenes arm-twisting, persuading, screaming and/or underhanded tactics that might have the desired effect on them. Maybe this is actually the Manchin-Sinema administration's nation and we're all just living in it now, at least until Mitch takes the reins of power back.
But have we seen and heard that kind of urgency from above? Treating major issues like electoral integrity, literal traitors in and out of Congress, stolen SCOTUS seats, a legislative blockade, an ongoing pandemic and such as the actual national emergencies that they are? Fire, brimstone, anger and loud condemnation of openly bad actors standing in the way?
Because I'd like to.
posted by delfin at 6:10 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
But we have also watched the Republicans run roughshod over decency, fairness, decorum and precedent for years now. They have blocked every possible bit of legislation, stolen two SCOTUS seats, engineered a failed coup and made a mockery of two impeachment trials. It may be a cold war rather than a shooting war so far, but we as a democratic nation are in fact at war and it's not ending any time soon.
And maybe there is nothing that Biden or Schumer or other prominent Dems can actually do to sway the opinions and votes of Manchin, Sinema, and whichever other corporate stooges (hello, Coons) are reluctant to name and shame their mortal enemies. Maybe there are no behind-the-scenes arm-twisting, persuading, screaming and/or underhanded tactics that might have the desired effect on them. Maybe this is actually the Manchin-Sinema administration's nation and we're all just living in it now, at least until Mitch takes the reins of power back.
But have we seen and heard that kind of urgency from above? Treating major issues like electoral integrity, literal traitors in and out of Congress, stolen SCOTUS seats, a legislative blockade, an ongoing pandemic and such as the actual national emergencies that they are? Fire, brimstone, anger and loud condemnation of openly bad actors standing in the way?
Because I'd like to.
posted by delfin at 6:10 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
And the notion of "principled Republican Senators who might occasionally reach across the aisle" died years ago; there is not one who is a potential counterweight to Manchin or Sinema on any issue. Not one issue. Not one Senator. It's simply not going to happen.
Somebody probably should've informed Joe Biden.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:16 PM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
Somebody probably should've informed Joe Biden.
posted by Pope Guilty at 6:16 PM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
All the more reason that he was my last choice until the moment that he won the nomination, and thus became the only possible choice.
posted by delfin at 6:22 PM on January 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by delfin at 6:22 PM on January 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
It remains extremely weird to me that this conversation, as every convo on this subject does, has turned into "are lefties insufficiently loyal to the Democrat Party?"
Only speaking for myself, I don't care about loyalty to the Democratic Party, I care about setting our shit aside and making sure the fascists don't take over the damn government. Even when they pretend for a few months to not be up TFG's ass.
Maybe don't whinge about how terrible Biden is on Twitter and elsewhere where it actually helps drive a narrative. Here? Whatever, as long as you're complaining about things that actually happened.
It does really annoy me when people say the entire Democratic Party is doing nothing, though. The House has passed a bunch of shit that ought to make you happy. There's 48 Democratic votes in the Senate for most of it, too. Biden has supported this progressive (for those holding office, anyway) agenda. Much political capital has been expended on trying to get Manchin and Sinema to pull their heads out of their asses. Biden just gave a speech comparing people who are against the election bill to George Wallace and segregationists.
They're doing what they have the power to do and they're still getting shit on. And you wonder why it seems like Democrats get frustrated with the left. "I'd rather you do more" would provoke a lot less of that than "Democrats are clearly worthless and barely if at all better than Republicans." As with dealing with customer service, you'll get a lot better results asking for something that is actually within their power to do that moves the ball down the field than you will angrily demanding to Talk To The Manager.
If the latter isn't actually what you're intending to say, might I gently suggest that you work on the message so that it is received as intended?
For the record, even if all the bills that have passed the House had made it through the Senate, I'd still consider it insufficient to meet the occasion. I'd still call it a damn good start, though.
posted by wierdo at 6:22 PM on January 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
Only speaking for myself, I don't care about loyalty to the Democratic Party, I care about setting our shit aside and making sure the fascists don't take over the damn government. Even when they pretend for a few months to not be up TFG's ass.
Maybe don't whinge about how terrible Biden is on Twitter and elsewhere where it actually helps drive a narrative. Here? Whatever, as long as you're complaining about things that actually happened.
It does really annoy me when people say the entire Democratic Party is doing nothing, though. The House has passed a bunch of shit that ought to make you happy. There's 48 Democratic votes in the Senate for most of it, too. Biden has supported this progressive (for those holding office, anyway) agenda. Much political capital has been expended on trying to get Manchin and Sinema to pull their heads out of their asses. Biden just gave a speech comparing people who are against the election bill to George Wallace and segregationists.
They're doing what they have the power to do and they're still getting shit on. And you wonder why it seems like Democrats get frustrated with the left. "I'd rather you do more" would provoke a lot less of that than "Democrats are clearly worthless and barely if at all better than Republicans." As with dealing with customer service, you'll get a lot better results asking for something that is actually within their power to do that moves the ball down the field than you will angrily demanding to Talk To The Manager.
If the latter isn't actually what you're intending to say, might I gently suggest that you work on the message so that it is received as intended?
For the record, even if all the bills that have passed the House had made it through the Senate, I'd still consider it insufficient to meet the occasion. I'd still call it a damn good start, though.
posted by wierdo at 6:22 PM on January 15, 2022 [21 favorites]
I've never really believed that accelerationism makes sense, but I think if accelerationism is going to work anywhere, US federal elections at the moment are an unusually good case for a few reasons:
The landlord centrists that currently control the organisational levers of the national democratic party are unusually old. You don't often get 70+ year olds in significant positions of power in a democratic country. Losing a couple elections in a row will remove a lot of them as a threat by infirmity if nothing else and prevent them from effectively grooming successors.
Democratic voters are slowly being radicalised into progressives by the same forces that are turning republicans into chuds. A second Trump presidency is going to create progressive voters even faster than the incompetence of the Biden presidency and shrink the size of the centrist democrat voter base.
The centrist democrat voter base itself might split. Rich white voters from the suburbs and African American voters in cities are going to be treated vastly differently by a second trump administration and are going to want their politicians to respond differently. It would be difficult for whoever replaces Biden to staple them back together into a primary coalition.
posted by zymil at 6:37 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
The landlord centrists that currently control the organisational levers of the national democratic party are unusually old. You don't often get 70+ year olds in significant positions of power in a democratic country. Losing a couple elections in a row will remove a lot of them as a threat by infirmity if nothing else and prevent them from effectively grooming successors.
Democratic voters are slowly being radicalised into progressives by the same forces that are turning republicans into chuds. A second Trump presidency is going to create progressive voters even faster than the incompetence of the Biden presidency and shrink the size of the centrist democrat voter base.
The centrist democrat voter base itself might split. Rich white voters from the suburbs and African American voters in cities are going to be treated vastly differently by a second trump administration and are going to want their politicians to respond differently. It would be difficult for whoever replaces Biden to staple them back together into a primary coalition.
posted by zymil at 6:37 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
If we've got to have an old White dude as President I pick Biden over Trump or Sanders. I like Sanders' policies better but of the three, at least Biden can manage to get measurable support outside the insufferably over-privileged White people crowd
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:38 PM on January 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:38 PM on January 15, 2022 [9 favorites]
This thread has been absolutely infuriating to read.
This week, a Republican governor will be sworn in in my state, because the left couldn't be bothered to turn out in the last election. I didn't love the guy either, but we also didn't have anybody else who was vaguely credible on the primary ticket.
As of tomorrow, it will become illegal to say things like "Racism is bad" in a public school.
But, please. Tell me more about how the party who wants me dead is the same as the party that tried and failed to pass a progressive agenda with 48 votes in the Senate.
posted by schmod at 6:38 PM on January 15, 2022 [26 favorites]
This week, a Republican governor will be sworn in in my state, because the left couldn't be bothered to turn out in the last election. I didn't love the guy either, but we also didn't have anybody else who was vaguely credible on the primary ticket.
As of tomorrow, it will become illegal to say things like "Racism is bad" in a public school.
But, please. Tell me more about how the party who wants me dead is the same as the party that tried and failed to pass a progressive agenda with 48 votes in the Senate.
posted by schmod at 6:38 PM on January 15, 2022 [26 favorites]
A second Trump presidency is going to create progressive voters even faster than the incompetence of the Biden presidency and shrink the size of the centrist democrat voter base.
This attitude worked out really well for Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic and it will only go better for us. We will definitely have a fully intact democracy when it comes time for all these new progressive voters to vote because Trump 2.0 will definitely do his best to reverse the erosion of voting rights his party has been pushing for decades and decades and he will definitely not accelerate it and use the experience of Trump 1.0 to find new and smarter ways to overturn elections. January 6th was definitely not a training exercise. You have great and smart ideas and I think you should continue to spread them.
posted by Anonymous at 6:54 PM on January 15, 2022
This attitude worked out really well for Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic and it will only go better for us. We will definitely have a fully intact democracy when it comes time for all these new progressive voters to vote because Trump 2.0 will definitely do his best to reverse the erosion of voting rights his party has been pushing for decades and decades and he will definitely not accelerate it and use the experience of Trump 1.0 to find new and smarter ways to overturn elections. January 6th was definitely not a training exercise. You have great and smart ideas and I think you should continue to spread them.
posted by Anonymous at 6:54 PM on January 15, 2022
Then again, after the Weimar Republic was over life was still pretty good for a while for a lot of cis heterosexual white people so I guess most of you accelerationists don't have much to worry about.
posted by Anonymous at 6:58 PM on January 15, 2022
posted by Anonymous at 6:58 PM on January 15, 2022
This week, a Republican governor will be sworn in in my state, because the left couldn't be bothered to turn out in the last election
That would be the one where the moderate Democrat and their campaign made up of leftovers from other moderate campaigns basically didn’t bother showing up? I think maybe you should look beyond your comfort narrative.
posted by Artw at 7:01 PM on January 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
That would be the one where the moderate Democrat and their campaign made up of leftovers from other moderate campaigns basically didn’t bother showing up? I think maybe you should look beyond your comfort narrative.
posted by Artw at 7:01 PM on January 15, 2022 [13 favorites]
Cool. Blame the victims.
posted by schmod at 7:05 PM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by schmod at 7:05 PM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
This attitude worked out really well for Germany at the end of the Weimar Republic and it will only go better for us. We will definitely have a fully intact democracy when it comes time for all these new progressive voters to vote because Trump 2.0 will definitely do his best to reverse the erosion of voting rights his party has been pushing for decades and decades and he will definitely not accelerate it and use the experience of Trump 1.0 to find new and smarter ways to overturn elections. January 6th was definitely not a training exercise. You have great and smart ideas and I think you should continue to spread them.The democrats have done nothing to reverse the erosion of voting rights and have no reasonable prospects of doing so in the future.
Manchin and Sinema are useful foils that hide the fact that you'd probably need to elect at least 55-56 democratic senators to find 50 that would vote for overturning the filibuster to pass voting rights legislation. There is no prospect of electing that many democratic senators any time soon.
If America does become a second Weimar Republic it is going to be the fault of corrupt and cowardly democratic senators as much as it is the baying republican mob.
posted by zymil at 7:06 PM on January 15, 2022 [7 favorites]
If America does become a second Weimar Republic it is going to be the fault of corrupt and cowardly democratic senators as much as it is the baying republican mob.
*Assumes facts not in evidence
"Sure. I'm white and comfortable. Let's let fascism in because it's inevitable."
posted by schmod at 7:12 PM on January 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
*Assumes facts not in evidence
"Sure. I'm white and comfortable. Let's let fascism in because it's inevitable."
posted by schmod at 7:12 PM on January 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
If America does become a second Weimar Republic it is going to be the fault of corrupt and cowardly democratic senators as much as it is the baying republican mob.
This is the sort of position that's held by somebody who is 110% confident that their life will not change when the Nazis are in power because they have never been a target of them.
posted by Anonymous at 7:13 PM on January 15, 2022
This is the sort of position that's held by somebody who is 110% confident that their life will not change when the Nazis are in power because they have never been a target of them.
posted by Anonymous at 7:13 PM on January 15, 2022
If America does become a second Weimar Republic it is going to be the fault of corrupt and cowardly democratic senators as much as it is the baying republican mob.
No.
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:14 PM on January 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
No.
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:14 PM on January 15, 2022 [11 favorites]
It's gonna be the fault of the purportedly pro-democracy parts of the White community which refused to coalesce around the one party which, for all its faults, is the only multiracial pro-democracy political organization in this country with any real hope of wielding power.
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:16 PM on January 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:16 PM on January 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
i am reading with interest. other than to agree that pre-pandemic normal is not what we should aspire to, i have little productive to add: make america a bit less sick but as fucked as ever again! it's not a slogan i would get behind but i seem to be stuck riding it. not sure it is within the power of congress to fix what ails us - the many ways pre-pandemic normal was already grinding us down on the wheel of the economy - though they certainly have the power to ameliorate much of it and bend towards better. build back better normal!
posted by 20 year lurk at 7:38 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by 20 year lurk at 7:38 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
>The smart move would have been to punish the Democrats right away from the nineties on forward
>Any time we make legitimate complaints about Democrats, half the thread is someone shitting it up like we all suddenly said "We will vote Republican!"
I know these two comments weren't made by the same user, but they came from users who appeared to be speaking from the same point of view, which is one I've often heard from others. If I have not read that correctly, I sincerely apologize.
I'm genuinely curious - what is the proposed method of "punishing Democrats" that doesn't involve "voting Republican?" (Or not voting, or voting third-party at the national level, both of which result in Republicans being elected and claiming a mandate.)
I agree that the Democratic Patry is not doing enough at the Federal level. I agree that going back to the way things were is not enough.
But when you're trying to get from the bottom of the sea to the top of the mountain, isn't getting to the land at sea level, and maybe pausing to catch our breath and make a plan for climbing, a necessary first step? I know as much as everyone else does that the Democrats at the Federal level aren't going to get us to the mountaintop. But the Rebublicans are going to actively fight to make sure we reamin on the ocean floor.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:39 PM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
>Any time we make legitimate complaints about Democrats, half the thread is someone shitting it up like we all suddenly said "We will vote Republican!"
I know these two comments weren't made by the same user, but they came from users who appeared to be speaking from the same point of view, which is one I've often heard from others. If I have not read that correctly, I sincerely apologize.
I'm genuinely curious - what is the proposed method of "punishing Democrats" that doesn't involve "voting Republican?" (Or not voting, or voting third-party at the national level, both of which result in Republicans being elected and claiming a mandate.)
I agree that the Democratic Patry is not doing enough at the Federal level. I agree that going back to the way things were is not enough.
But when you're trying to get from the bottom of the sea to the top of the mountain, isn't getting to the land at sea level, and maybe pausing to catch our breath and make a plan for climbing, a necessary first step? I know as much as everyone else does that the Democrats at the Federal level aren't going to get us to the mountaintop. But the Rebublicans are going to actively fight to make sure we reamin on the ocean floor.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 7:39 PM on January 15, 2022 [15 favorites]
The democrats have done nothing to reverse the erosion of voting rights and have no reasonable prospects of doing so in the future.
Trying and failing is not the same as doing nothing. Just like we tried and failed to get more than 50 Democratic Senators in office. The answer isn't to let Republicans win, it's to elect a few more Senators. If they still fail to pass necessary voting reform or pass bills similar to those that have passed the House, then it's time to try a different tactic.
(Nationally. We should be pushing for more/better progressives locally as hard as we can like yesterday. Without a bench, we won't get better people into national office!)
posted by wierdo at 7:49 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Trying and failing is not the same as doing nothing. Just like we tried and failed to get more than 50 Democratic Senators in office. The answer isn't to let Republicans win, it's to elect a few more Senators. If they still fail to pass necessary voting reform or pass bills similar to those that have passed the House, then it's time to try a different tactic.
(Nationally. We should be pushing for more/better progressives locally as hard as we can like yesterday. Without a bench, we won't get better people into national office!)
posted by wierdo at 7:49 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
"are lefties insufficiently loyal to the Democrat Party?"
Wait, why do you keep writing "The Democrat Party"? I thought it was only Republicans that did that, but is there some kind of trend for even Left people to do it now?
I'm asking because it's one shorthand indicator I use to identify right-leaning people.
posted by FJT at 7:57 PM on January 15, 2022 [22 favorites]
Wait, why do you keep writing "The Democrat Party"? I thought it was only Republicans that did that, but is there some kind of trend for even Left people to do it now?
I'm asking because it's one shorthand indicator I use to identify right-leaning people.
posted by FJT at 7:57 PM on January 15, 2022 [22 favorites]
One key thing to remember about the progressive wing, the Squad, and those aligned with them. By and large, the proposals they are making, the bills they introduce have incredible popular support. In poll after poll, it shows the country wants what the squad is trying to do.
The thing is, the squad and the progressive caucus are essentially an aberration in the party. The party does not want them, even though they have, again, incredible support for the initiatives they are trying to pass. The party has, again and again, either failed to support these politicians, or tried to unseat them. The leadership of the party is more interested in their hold on power than in heeding the will of those who elected them, and is doing its best to chew off its own most popular leg to spite itself.
Yes, I’ll vote for them, because the alternative is worse, but goddamn, don’t expect me to like it.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:15 PM on January 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
The thing is, the squad and the progressive caucus are essentially an aberration in the party. The party does not want them, even though they have, again, incredible support for the initiatives they are trying to pass. The party has, again and again, either failed to support these politicians, or tried to unseat them. The leadership of the party is more interested in their hold on power than in heeding the will of those who elected them, and is doing its best to chew off its own most popular leg to spite itself.
Yes, I’ll vote for them, because the alternative is worse, but goddamn, don’t expect me to like it.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:15 PM on January 15, 2022 [20 favorites]
It's gonna be the fault of the purportedly pro-democracy parts of the White community which refused to coalesce around the one party which, for all its faults, is the only multiracial pro-democracy political organization in this country with any real hope of wielding power.
As you know, one of the major failures in the Weimar Republic was purportedly left of center anti-Nazi parties to take the Nazis seriously and unite against them, and instead bicker amongst themselves until the Nazis yoinked power.
posted by Justinian at 8:18 PM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
As you know, one of the major failures in the Weimar Republic was purportedly left of center anti-Nazi parties to take the Nazis seriously and unite against them, and instead bicker amongst themselves until the Nazis yoinked power.
posted by Justinian at 8:18 PM on January 15, 2022 [5 favorites]
(failing to take them seriously enough, I omitted a word)
posted by Justinian at 8:25 PM on January 15, 2022
posted by Justinian at 8:25 PM on January 15, 2022
Cool. Blame the victims.
Yes, this is what people are doing to the progressives.
posted by Gadarene at 8:41 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
Yes, this is what people are doing to the progressives.
posted by Gadarene at 8:41 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
We're all victims of fascist Republicans. Ideological purity is irrelevant when elections become completely meaningless.
TFG is still trying to overturn the 2020 election. Books are being banned from libraries. Schools are being told they cannot teach certain topics. Government officials are being threatened enough to force them to resign so they can be replaced with someone sufficiently fascist. Voting laws are being changed to make it even more difficult for people who don't vote in favor of fascists to cast their ballot. Election boards are being taken over by fascists.
This is happening right in front of our faces and still we're having arguments about whether the Democratic Party is sufficiently progressive so excuse me if I'm a bit salty.
posted by wierdo at 8:54 PM on January 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
TFG is still trying to overturn the 2020 election. Books are being banned from libraries. Schools are being told they cannot teach certain topics. Government officials are being threatened enough to force them to resign so they can be replaced with someone sufficiently fascist. Voting laws are being changed to make it even more difficult for people who don't vote in favor of fascists to cast their ballot. Election boards are being taken over by fascists.
This is happening right in front of our faces and still we're having arguments about whether the Democratic Party is sufficiently progressive so excuse me if I'm a bit salty.
posted by wierdo at 8:54 PM on January 15, 2022 [14 favorites]
Man, people really struggle with the idea that someone can both a) vote a straight Democratic ticket and b) have pointed criticisms for the Democrats in a tiny online forum.
At least, that's the only way I can understand the vitriol that anyone who admits to having criticisms for Biden gets here.
posted by sagc at 8:59 PM on January 15, 2022 [19 favorites]
At least, that's the only way I can understand the vitriol that anyone who admits to having criticisms for Biden gets here.
posted by sagc at 8:59 PM on January 15, 2022 [19 favorites]
Since comic book analogies are apparently how we very serious adults communicate now, it seems like a lot of centrists believe in a "Death Note theory of elections" where leftists can, with their powerful bad vibes, sink at will any Democratic party candidate. The Democrats were in perfect shape for the midterms until Kelsey "Kira" McKinney wrote down their names in her Death Note named Defector, but now they are doomed. Since a leftist's mean tweet can end a candidate it makes perfect sense to focus on policing leftist expressions of dissatisfaction above all else, and when a Democrat loses we simply need to find a mean tweet to identify the culprit (leftists).
posted by Pyry at 9:01 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Pyry at 9:01 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
Mod note: Comment and a few replies removed. There's plenty of room for being critical of other people's positions, but we've absolutely got to keep shit above a floor of just raging out and calling your fellow community members shitstains; if you can't manage that in a thread, take a break from it and come back when/if you can rein it in.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:06 PM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:06 PM on January 15, 2022 [2 favorites]
Nobody’s policing supposed leftists speech “above all else,” come on. And using the phrase “mean tweets,” a right wing dog whistle, really calls your whole point into question.
posted by JenMarie at 9:11 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by JenMarie at 9:11 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
If that's a dogwhistle, I have no idea what isn't one anymore. Can you cite something for it's dogwhistley-ness?
posted by sagc at 9:21 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by sagc at 9:21 PM on January 15, 2022 [1 favorite]
Man, people really struggle with the idea that someone can both a) vote a straight Democratic ticket and b) have pointed criticisms for the Democrats in a tiny online forum.
At least, that's the only way I can understand the vitriol that anyone who admits to having criticisms for Biden gets here.
A lot of us are responding to the textbook accelerationism of comments like the one about "punishing" the Democratic Party in the 90s so that somehow things would be better. That is what we take issue with, not criticism of a party that looks extremely right wing from a lot of places outside the US. Those criticisms are valid, useful, necessary even. But agitating for making shit worse so that somehow, by some magical route, it might get better, that is something else.
posted by Dysk at 9:23 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
At least, that's the only way I can understand the vitriol that anyone who admits to having criticisms for Biden gets here.
A lot of us are responding to the textbook accelerationism of comments like the one about "punishing" the Democratic Party in the 90s so that somehow things would be better. That is what we take issue with, not criticism of a party that looks extremely right wing from a lot of places outside the US. Those criticisms are valid, useful, necessary even. But agitating for making shit worse so that somehow, by some magical route, it might get better, that is something else.
posted by Dysk at 9:23 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
I'm genuinely curious - what is the proposed method of "punishing Democrats" that doesn't involve "voting Republican?"
Primary them from the left. Donate to/volunteer for their leftist primary opponents. I mean, that's literally how we got what scant few progressives we have in Congress there in the first place. That one's not even a hard question, c'mon.
I really wish we could get these threads away from being a litany alternating between people insisting "if you criticize the Democratic Party in this darkest hour you are blind to the needs of the moment and your apathy is allowing the fascist party to take over!" and then the other sides goes "but literally my exact criticism of the Democratic Party in this darkest hour is that THEY are blind to the needs of the moment and their apathy is allowing the fascist party to take over!" and round and round again, ad nauseam.
So maybe some of you will indulge me in a little thought experiment. Let us assume, by some quirk of fate, that in 2022, zero seats change hands. Let us assume, that by miraculous circumstance, that again in 2024, both parties retain precisely what they have now, gaining no seats, losing no seats. Let's go even further out: let's just arbitrarily imagine, that for the next FIFTY YEARS, the Democrats will keep the House and the Presidency, the Senate will remain gridlocked, the Supreme Court will remain Republican (advances in healthcare somehow prolonging the current Justices lifespans to an unnatural degree....best not think too deeply about those details, it's only a thought experiment).
So imagine it: There will be no fascist takeover, guaranteed, for half a century, hooray! Take a deep breath, let yourself relax just a bit.
Now then. 50 years of this. Exactly this. Is that enough? What does 50 more years of "Shit Lite" get us, do we imagine? What will this country be like after that 50 years. Are you happy with it? Happy with the way the government is run? Are you happy with the Democratic party? (They've successfully staved off fascism for 50 years after all!) Will things be better, then, than they are now, or worse? Is the Democratic party capable of meeting the challenges it will face over five decades? Will 50 years of unbroken dominance in DC change the Democratic Party for the better, or the worse? What of the Republicans, what do they look like after 50 years as the opposition party?
If you can find it in you to recognize that maybe 50 years of Shit Lite is not gonna be enough, than I think we can, in fact, have a thoughtful conversation about what more we need, above and beyond merely preventing a fascist takeover of the government and the end of democracy in the United States. Then we could maybe talk about how we go about getting to that "more", or at least getting to a place where "more" feels possible.
Or we can just let the threat level of this immediate moment - an absolutely real thing! a hugely important thing! but also a thing that there is, as far as I can tell, absolute 100% unanimity about in this thread already - completely short-circuit our ability to have any kind of discussion about the future that has room for more hope than just the hope of stopping the fascists. You know, like "normal" on MeFi. (Here I will refer you to the title of the post.)
posted by mstokes650 at 10:05 PM on January 15, 2022 [29 favorites]
Primary them from the left. Donate to/volunteer for their leftist primary opponents. I mean, that's literally how we got what scant few progressives we have in Congress there in the first place. That one's not even a hard question, c'mon.
I really wish we could get these threads away from being a litany alternating between people insisting "if you criticize the Democratic Party in this darkest hour you are blind to the needs of the moment and your apathy is allowing the fascist party to take over!" and then the other sides goes "but literally my exact criticism of the Democratic Party in this darkest hour is that THEY are blind to the needs of the moment and their apathy is allowing the fascist party to take over!" and round and round again, ad nauseam.
So maybe some of you will indulge me in a little thought experiment. Let us assume, by some quirk of fate, that in 2022, zero seats change hands. Let us assume, that by miraculous circumstance, that again in 2024, both parties retain precisely what they have now, gaining no seats, losing no seats. Let's go even further out: let's just arbitrarily imagine, that for the next FIFTY YEARS, the Democrats will keep the House and the Presidency, the Senate will remain gridlocked, the Supreme Court will remain Republican (advances in healthcare somehow prolonging the current Justices lifespans to an unnatural degree....best not think too deeply about those details, it's only a thought experiment).
So imagine it: There will be no fascist takeover, guaranteed, for half a century, hooray! Take a deep breath, let yourself relax just a bit.
Now then. 50 years of this. Exactly this. Is that enough? What does 50 more years of "Shit Lite" get us, do we imagine? What will this country be like after that 50 years. Are you happy with it? Happy with the way the government is run? Are you happy with the Democratic party? (They've successfully staved off fascism for 50 years after all!) Will things be better, then, than they are now, or worse? Is the Democratic party capable of meeting the challenges it will face over five decades? Will 50 years of unbroken dominance in DC change the Democratic Party for the better, or the worse? What of the Republicans, what do they look like after 50 years as the opposition party?
If you can find it in you to recognize that maybe 50 years of Shit Lite is not gonna be enough, than I think we can, in fact, have a thoughtful conversation about what more we need, above and beyond merely preventing a fascist takeover of the government and the end of democracy in the United States. Then we could maybe talk about how we go about getting to that "more", or at least getting to a place where "more" feels possible.
Or we can just let the threat level of this immediate moment - an absolutely real thing! a hugely important thing! but also a thing that there is, as far as I can tell, absolute 100% unanimity about in this thread already - completely short-circuit our ability to have any kind of discussion about the future that has room for more hope than just the hope of stopping the fascists. You know, like "normal" on MeFi. (Here I will refer you to the title of the post.)
posted by mstokes650 at 10:05 PM on January 15, 2022 [29 favorites]
I waffle between two takes:
A) The Democrats will always be inconvenienced by exactly the number of center-right senators in their ranks that is required to halt real solutions to the crises affecting the country. There is literally no point in electing even 60 senators since one will Lieberman us and 10 more will declare their love undying for the Platonic Filibuster.
B) The Democrats will always be unable to govern because JFC they don't know their own party ELITE well enough to accurately judge a vote or bargaining process in the senate. Why do we keep electing empty suits that bomb civilians, perpetuate horrific border policies, make mouth noises about police riots and killings, etc etc.
(Also on accelerationism: if four years of Trump running scandal-a-day then flubbing a pandemic, burning two+ years of everyone's lives, and putting 1 out of every 600 people in the dirt (at the time) didn't "accelerate" change then what will accelerate change? What's the magic sauce for pushing people out of their comfort zones? Sudden mass starvation?)
posted by Slackermagee at 10:25 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
A) The Democrats will always be inconvenienced by exactly the number of center-right senators in their ranks that is required to halt real solutions to the crises affecting the country. There is literally no point in electing even 60 senators since one will Lieberman us and 10 more will declare their love undying for the Platonic Filibuster.
B) The Democrats will always be unable to govern because JFC they don't know their own party ELITE well enough to accurately judge a vote or bargaining process in the senate. Why do we keep electing empty suits that bomb civilians, perpetuate horrific border policies, make mouth noises about police riots and killings, etc etc.
(Also on accelerationism: if four years of Trump running scandal-a-day then flubbing a pandemic, burning two+ years of everyone's lives, and putting 1 out of every 600 people in the dirt (at the time) didn't "accelerate" change then what will accelerate change? What's the magic sauce for pushing people out of their comfort zones? Sudden mass starvation?)
posted by Slackermagee at 10:25 PM on January 15, 2022 [6 favorites]
It seems clear that we are starting to primary Democrats from the left, and that’s great - I’ll cheer for that. But getting serious about state and local races means acknowledging that there are plenty of districts we desperately need, but where a progressive in the mold of AOC can’t expect to win.
That means tolerating liberal, moderate and even (gulp) centrist candidates whose messages are tailored to their districts, and trying to forge some sort of functioning coalition where we’re not constantly shredding each other to ribbons like fucking betta fish.
Like, seriously, Metafilter, can we bury the hatchet? Like, tonight? Swear to god, if you stop calling me a craven liberal proceduralist collaborator, I’ll stop telling you to go levitate the Pentagon.
What do you say? (Spits in palm, extends hand)
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:30 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
That means tolerating liberal, moderate and even (gulp) centrist candidates whose messages are tailored to their districts, and trying to forge some sort of functioning coalition where we’re not constantly shredding each other to ribbons like fucking betta fish.
Like, seriously, Metafilter, can we bury the hatchet? Like, tonight? Swear to god, if you stop calling me a craven liberal proceduralist collaborator, I’ll stop telling you to go levitate the Pentagon.
What do you say? (Spits in palm, extends hand)
posted by ducky l'orange at 10:30 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Then we could maybe talk about how we go about getting to that "more", or at least getting to a place where "more" feels possible.
Given that it wasn't that long ago that Tom Daschle was majority leader in the Senate and Chuck Schumer was about as left as they got, I'd say we've already made some pretty significant progress in terms of dragging the Democratic Party to the left. A large part of the party appears to be open to expanding the Supreme Court, for fuck's sake! Unfortunately, the Republican Party has been dragged to the right much more quickly, so it quite often feels like no progress has been made.
The thing is, the unholy alliance between the christofascists and the billionaire "I'm a libertarian, but I'm perfectly ok with fascists" shitheads that fund all this bullshit have been at it for literally 40 years and only in the past few have they gotten to the point that their end game is in sight. This shit takes time even when you have very, very deep pockets.
We must be content with playing the long game when it comes to dragging the Democratic Party as far left as we all agree it needs to be. At the same time, we must more quickly and urgently (metaphorically, I hope) curbstomp the outright fascists to keep that possibility open. That will likely require temporary alliances with people who were willing to call themselves Republicans until much more recently than I'd like and who I'll likely go right back to opposing once this anti-democratic movement is roundly defeated.
posted by wierdo at 11:10 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
Given that it wasn't that long ago that Tom Daschle was majority leader in the Senate and Chuck Schumer was about as left as they got, I'd say we've already made some pretty significant progress in terms of dragging the Democratic Party to the left. A large part of the party appears to be open to expanding the Supreme Court, for fuck's sake! Unfortunately, the Republican Party has been dragged to the right much more quickly, so it quite often feels like no progress has been made.
The thing is, the unholy alliance between the christofascists and the billionaire "I'm a libertarian, but I'm perfectly ok with fascists" shitheads that fund all this bullshit have been at it for literally 40 years and only in the past few have they gotten to the point that their end game is in sight. This shit takes time even when you have very, very deep pockets.
We must be content with playing the long game when it comes to dragging the Democratic Party as far left as we all agree it needs to be. At the same time, we must more quickly and urgently (metaphorically, I hope) curbstomp the outright fascists to keep that possibility open. That will likely require temporary alliances with people who were willing to call themselves Republicans until much more recently than I'd like and who I'll likely go right back to opposing once this anti-democratic movement is roundly defeated.
posted by wierdo at 11:10 PM on January 15, 2022 [8 favorites]
And thinking about it more, maybe we could try some more "you/we are/can do better than this" and less "you're/we're evil/worthless/feckless because of this". Both here and in general.
The former expresses disappointment that we aren't living up to our potential. The latter expresses hate for who we are. That's bad for productive conversation here and out in the world it makes the normies think we hate our country rather than believing it can be better.
posted by wierdo at 12:20 AM on January 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
The former expresses disappointment that we aren't living up to our potential. The latter expresses hate for who we are. That's bad for productive conversation here and out in the world it makes the normies think we hate our country rather than believing it can be better.
posted by wierdo at 12:20 AM on January 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
That will likely require temporary alliances with people who were willing to call themselves Republicans until much more recently than I'd like and who I'll likely go right back to opposing once this anti-democratic movement is roundly defeated.
There's not going to be an election after which we can say "now fascism is defeated", after which the Trump supporters return to 'normal' as if a fever had broken. If to win the next election we ally with the people whose ideology is two steps short of fascism, who continue to push for the very policies that created the preconditions for fascism, then where do we end up except in a deeper hole? As with climate change, there is never going to be an easier time than now to try to make necessary structural changes, it is only going to get harder as things get worse and the crises come faster and faster.
posted by Pyry at 5:08 AM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
There's not going to be an election after which we can say "now fascism is defeated", after which the Trump supporters return to 'normal' as if a fever had broken. If to win the next election we ally with the people whose ideology is two steps short of fascism, who continue to push for the very policies that created the preconditions for fascism, then where do we end up except in a deeper hole? As with climate change, there is never going to be an easier time than now to try to make necessary structural changes, it is only going to get harder as things get worse and the crises come faster and faster.
posted by Pyry at 5:08 AM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
there is never going to be an easier time than now to try to make necessary structural changes
What is your plan for flooding Congress with progressives immediately? I need more details than "elect them" because what do you plan to do in areas where The Squad would never be elected but a not-fascist might be--but we are not supporting the not-fascists any more? Is your proposal that we abandon those areas? How does that work when voting rights have been stripped to the point that power is weighted towards voters on the right, so those areas hold disproportionate control in state legislatures and in Congress?
We are facing the end of US democracy as we know it right now. A number of you appear to believe it will be OK if we let the GOP take power for a little bit longer and you think we'll win elections in the future. Please, please tell me how you plan to protect vulnerable populations in the intervening time period. Please, please tell me how you plan to preserve fair elections--given that they are already not fair and the GOP is making them less fair by the day. Because if you cannot answer those questions then I can only assume this is not a problem you have been thinking very deeply about.
posted by Anonymous at 5:58 AM on January 16, 2022
What is your plan for flooding Congress with progressives immediately? I need more details than "elect them" because what do you plan to do in areas where The Squad would never be elected but a not-fascist might be--but we are not supporting the not-fascists any more? Is your proposal that we abandon those areas? How does that work when voting rights have been stripped to the point that power is weighted towards voters on the right, so those areas hold disproportionate control in state legislatures and in Congress?
We are facing the end of US democracy as we know it right now. A number of you appear to believe it will be OK if we let the GOP take power for a little bit longer and you think we'll win elections in the future. Please, please tell me how you plan to protect vulnerable populations in the intervening time period. Please, please tell me how you plan to preserve fair elections--given that they are already not fair and the GOP is making them less fair by the day. Because if you cannot answer those questions then I can only assume this is not a problem you have been thinking very deeply about.
posted by Anonymous at 5:58 AM on January 16, 2022
Please, please tell me how you plan to protect vulnerable populations in the intervening time period. Please, please tell me how you plan to preserve fair elections--given that they are already not fair and the GOP is making them less fair by the day.
My state is down to I think three clinics which provide abortion services. This will probably go down to zero this year, with a decent chance that my marriage and my right to have (gay) sex will also no longer be recognized by the state. African-Americans and other ethnic minorities make up more than a third of the population, but we're gerrymandered into one rump congressional district. Climate change is already here; power to the entire metropolitan area was out for weeks last fall after a massive hurricane hit and tens of thousands of homes are still unlivable, and entire communities were washed away.
Letting Republicans win for the sake of punishing Democrats' failings will not help to fix any of these things.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:38 AM on January 16, 2022 [10 favorites]
My state is down to I think three clinics which provide abortion services. This will probably go down to zero this year, with a decent chance that my marriage and my right to have (gay) sex will also no longer be recognized by the state. African-Americans and other ethnic minorities make up more than a third of the population, but we're gerrymandered into one rump congressional district. Climate change is already here; power to the entire metropolitan area was out for weeks last fall after a massive hurricane hit and tens of thousands of homes are still unlivable, and entire communities were washed away.
Letting Republicans win for the sake of punishing Democrats' failings will not help to fix any of these things.
posted by tivalasvegas at 6:38 AM on January 16, 2022 [10 favorites]
See, this is where the disconnect kind of is. We know that we are facing the end of US democracy right now. We know that the GOP is on the verge of retaking more power later this year, which will be precisely what they need to thwart any attempts to do anything productive or set the table in any way to avoid losing democracy entirely in 2024. We know that a virus is pounding the country, that a different (ultraconservative) virus appears incurable in half our voting population, that the enemy is not only on the march but is calling out their battle orders on live TV and on the floor of Congress.
There is a gigantic difference between "let's let the GOP take power for a little bit longer" and "the Democratic Party in general and its leadership in particular need to articulate that they RECOGNIZE THE DANGER that we and they are in, that shit is badly broken, that traitors walk amongst us, and that drastic and immediate action is necessary to save what power they currently have, much less the country in general."
We see that the car is aimed for the edge of the cliff. We are screaming "TURN LEFT, OR AT LEAST HIT THE GODDAMNED BRAKES" as loudly as we can. But our perception is that it has taken a year for leadership to even put on a turn signal. Your mileage may vary on that.
posted by delfin at 6:40 AM on January 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
There is a gigantic difference between "let's let the GOP take power for a little bit longer" and "the Democratic Party in general and its leadership in particular need to articulate that they RECOGNIZE THE DANGER that we and they are in, that shit is badly broken, that traitors walk amongst us, and that drastic and immediate action is necessary to save what power they currently have, much less the country in general."
We see that the car is aimed for the edge of the cliff. We are screaming "TURN LEFT, OR AT LEAST HIT THE GODDAMNED BRAKES" as loudly as we can. But our perception is that it has taken a year for leadership to even put on a turn signal. Your mileage may vary on that.
posted by delfin at 6:40 AM on January 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
Shrugging and just leaning on the accelerator because the turn or stop isn't happening fast enough won't save anyone from the cliff edge.
posted by Dysk at 7:17 AM on January 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Dysk at 7:17 AM on January 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
Well, the AG laid out pretty clearly what actions the federal government is taking to identify, build a case against and prosecute the people who instigated or participated in the attempted 1/6 insurrection. Democrats have also attempted to pass legislation that restores and expands funding for a number of things, including infrastructure, climate change mitigation and social services and are currently trying once again to push through voting/democratic reforms; there's not really any way that they could've obviously gotten any more done, due to the implacable opposition of 50 senators and the hairpullingly obnoxious antics of two Dem Senators.
Certainly there is plenty of room to criticize the scope and speed of the Administration's actions on a number of fronts; in particular, the administration has completely fallen down on addressing the pandemic and appear to have thrown up their hands in despair. But I do think that Democratic leadership is acting in good faith; I may disagree with various choices they make or narratives they play into, but I think they're generally trying to move things in a positive direction.
Durable social change usually happens as a result of a lot of boring things -- people who speak up at interminable neighborhood association meetings, give money to progressive causes, volunteer their time and skills toward progressive causes, and vote for the least bad option. That's not sexy and certainly is less fun than doing hot takes on Twitter. But that's how things get done.
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:21 AM on January 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
Certainly there is plenty of room to criticize the scope and speed of the Administration's actions on a number of fronts; in particular, the administration has completely fallen down on addressing the pandemic and appear to have thrown up their hands in despair. But I do think that Democratic leadership is acting in good faith; I may disagree with various choices they make or narratives they play into, but I think they're generally trying to move things in a positive direction.
Durable social change usually happens as a result of a lot of boring things -- people who speak up at interminable neighborhood association meetings, give money to progressive causes, volunteer their time and skills toward progressive causes, and vote for the least bad option. That's not sexy and certainly is less fun than doing hot takes on Twitter. But that's how things get done.
posted by tivalasvegas at 7:21 AM on January 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
I'm not claiming we should stay silent. Yes, let's scream and scream and scream about how dire the situation is! Let's work our asses off to keep the GOP out of power! But that's not accelerationism, and people in this thread are talking about accelerationism. Accelerationism is the conscious decision to let the fascists take power based on the idea that somehow the fascists will preserve the democratic state long enough for people to get sick of them and vote in The Squad across the country. Which does not happen! Which has never happened! Alternatively, they are hoping for the country to spontaneously erupt in violence against the fascists--and hoping for a civil war is even more fucked up.
posted by Anonymous at 7:29 AM on January 16, 2022
posted by Anonymous at 7:29 AM on January 16, 2022
There's also a difference between "let's let the GOP take power for a little bit longer" and "the Democrats shouldn't bargain away abortion rights (or racial justice, or the environment, or trans rights, ...) to get another Manchin". Nobody is suggesting letting the Republicans win, we are asking for a strategy beyond winning the next election at all costs.
The Democrats are, in all likelihood, going to get slaughtered in the midterms and it'll have nothing to do with a tiny number of accelerationists and everything to do with a million covid deaths, hollowed-out real economy, and high-profile failure to pass Biden's broadly popular BBB. And you can already see the self-styled moderates, the ones who sabotaged that very legislation and who we are meant to welcome into our big tent, warming up to pin the blame on progressives and leftists for tricking Biden into an agenda too woke for America.
posted by Pyry at 7:49 AM on January 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
The Democrats are, in all likelihood, going to get slaughtered in the midterms and it'll have nothing to do with a tiny number of accelerationists and everything to do with a million covid deaths, hollowed-out real economy, and high-profile failure to pass Biden's broadly popular BBB. And you can already see the self-styled moderates, the ones who sabotaged that very legislation and who we are meant to welcome into our big tent, warming up to pin the blame on progressives and leftists for tricking Biden into an agenda too woke for America.
posted by Pyry at 7:49 AM on January 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
There's more than two moderates in the Senate - everyone else fell in line for BBB, didn't they?
posted by Selena777 at 7:53 AM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 7:53 AM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
By the power vested in me by... no one, I hereby declare every MeFite in this thread to be POTUS. Now, as Schroedinger asks upthread, what are you going to DO - in the real world - to enact the progressive legislation that everyone here supports and increase our margins in the House and Senate in these next 10 months?
posted by PhineasGage at 8:00 AM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 8:00 AM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
But that's not accelerationism, and people in this thread are talking about accelerationism. Accelerationism is the conscious decision to let the fascists take power based on the idea that somehow the fascists will preserve the democratic state long enough for people to get sick of them and vote in The Squad across the country. Which does not happen! Which has never happened! Alternatively, they are hoping for the country to spontaneously erupt in violence against the fascists--
You know what? Let's pump the brakes right here. Show receipts, please. Show quotes from one person in this thread who has vocalized that they want Trump and his minions back in power, or that a midterm bloodbath for the Dems is secretly a good thing that will lead to a 2024 deep blue wave and outwardly progressive majorities, or that it's time for all good people to take up arms and Start The Revolution against Trump and Biden alike. Show one person who is openly and unashamedly accelerationist, rather than openly advocating for Shit Lite over Shit but also complaining about Shit Lite's obvious stench.
This left-of-center slapfight is the same old arguing over the best way to keep the fascists out of power, not whether we should let them in again because they'll be easier to kick out the next time. One can abide by "vote blue no matter who" AND scream loudly about the blue candidates that are trotted out before us. Because as someone noted upthread about Terry McAuliffe, Clintonite ghoul candidate du jour:
People are not going to turn out for a party that has no sense of urgency, no passion, no fire, no energy. Dems are gonna get creamed and people are gonna blame the Squad, progressives, POC who don't turn out, young voters, activists who didn't save them this time.
I am going to turn out and vote blue because it is absolutely necessary for me to do so. I am also arguing that without Trump explicitly on the ballot, even with a longshot possibility that this upcoming election might end up with Trump as Speaker of the House, too many people will not be motivated to do the same unless they feel like there is something to vote for, that their vote resulted in something good other than "the fascists weren't in charge last year." Yelling about hippies isn't going to change that.
posted by delfin at 8:02 AM on January 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
You know what? Let's pump the brakes right here. Show receipts, please. Show quotes from one person in this thread who has vocalized that they want Trump and his minions back in power, or that a midterm bloodbath for the Dems is secretly a good thing that will lead to a 2024 deep blue wave and outwardly progressive majorities, or that it's time for all good people to take up arms and Start The Revolution against Trump and Biden alike. Show one person who is openly and unashamedly accelerationist, rather than openly advocating for Shit Lite over Shit but also complaining about Shit Lite's obvious stench.
This left-of-center slapfight is the same old arguing over the best way to keep the fascists out of power, not whether we should let them in again because they'll be easier to kick out the next time. One can abide by "vote blue no matter who" AND scream loudly about the blue candidates that are trotted out before us. Because as someone noted upthread about Terry McAuliffe, Clintonite ghoul candidate du jour:
People are not going to turn out for a party that has no sense of urgency, no passion, no fire, no energy. Dems are gonna get creamed and people are gonna blame the Squad, progressives, POC who don't turn out, young voters, activists who didn't save them this time.
I am going to turn out and vote blue because it is absolutely necessary for me to do so. I am also arguing that without Trump explicitly on the ballot, even with a longshot possibility that this upcoming election might end up with Trump as Speaker of the House, too many people will not be motivated to do the same unless they feel like there is something to vote for, that their vote resulted in something good other than "the fascists weren't in charge last year." Yelling about hippies isn't going to change that.
posted by delfin at 8:02 AM on January 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
>I'm genuinely curious - what is the proposed method of "punishing Democrats" that doesn't involve "voting Republican?"
>>Primary them from the left. Donate to/volunteer for their leftist primary opponents. I mean, that's literally how we got what scant few progressives we have in Congress there in the first place. That one's not even a hard question, c'mon.
I guess I'm just not capable of the level of mental gymnastics it takes to see "electing different Democrats" as "punishing Democrats."
posted by The Underpants Monster at 8:20 AM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
No gymnastics required to see that - just like here on MetaFilter - the Democratic Party includes members with moderate as well as more progressive beliefs.
posted by PhineasGage at 8:24 AM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by PhineasGage at 8:24 AM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
No gymnastics required to see that...
That's a relief. I'm no good on those balance bars.
posted by y2karl at 8:41 AM on January 16, 2022
That's a relief. I'm no good on those balance bars.
posted by y2karl at 8:41 AM on January 16, 2022
It would be nice then if people here could refrain from ascribing things, good or bad, to "The Democrats" as a whole without addressing the nuance that party members have a large range of ideologies.
posted by octothorpe at 9:47 AM on January 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 9:47 AM on January 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
Wait, why do you keep writing "The Democrat Party"? I thought it was only Republicans that did that, but is there some kind of trend for even Left people to do it now?
It was a genuine mistake—to be honest, I knew that either “Democrat Party” or “Democratic Party” was the one that’s off, flipped a coin, decided it was “Democratic” that was bad, and didn’t think much more of it.
My apologies for muddling the discourse! Not that this discourse was particularly muddless to begin with. I’m a Jewish man who openly mentioned volunteering for Clinton in ‘16 in this thread, so if I’m secretly a right-winger or a tankie accelerationist, it’s news to me. :-)
posted by rorgy at 10:41 AM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
It was a genuine mistake—to be honest, I knew that either “Democrat Party” or “Democratic Party” was the one that’s off, flipped a coin, decided it was “Democratic” that was bad, and didn’t think much more of it.
My apologies for muddling the discourse! Not that this discourse was particularly muddless to begin with. I’m a Jewish man who openly mentioned volunteering for Clinton in ‘16 in this thread, so if I’m secretly a right-winger or a tankie accelerationist, it’s news to me. :-)
posted by rorgy at 10:41 AM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Also, while I am clearly more in the camp of “it’s okay to be critical of the Democrats even if you support them in the general, and tweeting your complaints isn’t actually gonna be what destroys America,” this feels like a prime example of a conversation where every person involved agrees on 99% of everything and is going screamo apeshit over differences in articulating the last 1%. I feel like talking about bilateral systemic failure is acceptable in the comment thread for an essay about America being a historically un-democratic and oppressive nation, but, regardless of whether you agree with me, I really don’t see the point in treating other people commenting in this thread like they’re somehow the reason why America is broken. This is one of the least politically diverse communities on the Internet—I think it’s safe to assume that we are all more-or-less in this together.
posted by rorgy at 10:47 AM on January 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
posted by rorgy at 10:47 AM on January 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
Is "deciding to vote Republican" shorthand for "deciding to vote Republican or staying home," or something? The latter is well within the range of reactions to demoralization.
posted by Selena777 at 10:47 AM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 10:47 AM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Mod note: Okay, wow, come in at the start of my shift to find the thread has descended into name-calling and accusations of violence and murder. A bunch deleted, and I'm handing out 24-hour time-outs to a few people. I am happy to remove those if you hit the contact form and promise to chill, but WOW, this is not okay.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 11:14 AM on January 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 11:14 AM on January 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
Mod note: If you are having thoughts of self-harm because of national politics or this thread, please go to the There Is Help page on the wiki for resources to help you.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 11:22 AM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 11:22 AM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
I tried, Metafilter, I really tried.
We are facing the end of US democracy as we know it right now.
Everyone - yes, every single poster in this thread without exception, every single goddamned one of us - already knows this.
Before any poster in this thread feels the need to invoke the looming specter of fascism or TFG returning to power, please, PLEASE, I am literally begging you, stop and ask yourself who that will read your post does not already fully understand this? And if everyone already understands this, what is the benefit of typing it out, except to add heat to the thread and condescension to your post?
A number of you appear to believe it will be OK if we let the GOP take power for a little bit longer and you think we'll win elections in the future.
Literally no-one in this thread thinks this. Not one poster. Show me a single quote from anybody to the opposite effect.
Letting Republicans win for the sake of punishing Democrats' failings will not help to fix any of these things.
Good thing literally no one in this thread has proposed doing that, then!
Shrugging and just leaning on the accelerator because the turn or stop isn't happening fast enough won't save anyone from the cliff edge.
Good thing literally no one in this thread has proposed doing that either, then!
I guess I'm just not capable of the level of mental gymnastics it takes to see "electing different Democrats" as "punishing Democrats."
Are you similarly incapable of the level of mental gymnastics required to differentiate between "some men" and "all men", or are you well aware of the long and inglorious history that #notallmen has as a rhetorical tactic, yet choosing to deploy #notallDemocrats as a rhetorical tactic anyways?
I have posted on MeFi before about how I hate the semantic drift of the word "gaslighting" in recent years.... but seriously, here I can absolutely understand why deadaluspark is raging about the gaslighting. But of course, he's raging, so he gets deleted while these....well, the most charitably I can describe them is "wildly mis-aimed" posts get to stand without pushback. These are untrue statements; they are asserting that people have said things that in fact, nobody here has said. Which seems like a spectacularly counterproductive way to try and achieve positive interactions with a community of progressives who had to live through years of the Trump administration lying to us about basic facts every damn day.
By the power vested in me by... no one, I hereby declare every MeFite in this thread to be POTUS. Now, as Schroedinger asks upthread, what are you going to DO - in the real world - to enact the progressive legislation that everyone here supports and increase our margins in the House and Senate in these next 10 months?
My goodness an actual legitimate question! Okay here's my answer: I'm going to (quietly, privately, NOT publicly...at least not at first) threaten to have the justice department and the IRS scrutinize Manchin and Sinema's every single deal they've ever made, for even the faintest whiff of illegality, insider trading, campaign finance law violations, etc., and if they're able to find anything I'm going to absolutely throw the book at them. They get in line with the Democratic agenda or they better be damn confident their books are squeaky clean, because if the investigators find anything it's jail time.
Now ask yourself, does Joe Manchin seem like the kind of guy who has quietly gotten threatened with that? Does Sinema?
Of course, I'm President by thought-experiment-fiat, so I don't have to worry about an outright revolt amongst the rank-and-file Dems should I start investigating shady financial bullshit in my own party.
posted by mstokes650 at 12:22 PM on January 16, 2022 [20 favorites]
We are facing the end of US democracy as we know it right now.
Everyone - yes, every single poster in this thread without exception, every single goddamned one of us - already knows this.
Before any poster in this thread feels the need to invoke the looming specter of fascism or TFG returning to power, please, PLEASE, I am literally begging you, stop and ask yourself who that will read your post does not already fully understand this? And if everyone already understands this, what is the benefit of typing it out, except to add heat to the thread and condescension to your post?
A number of you appear to believe it will be OK if we let the GOP take power for a little bit longer and you think we'll win elections in the future.
Literally no-one in this thread thinks this. Not one poster. Show me a single quote from anybody to the opposite effect.
Letting Republicans win for the sake of punishing Democrats' failings will not help to fix any of these things.
Good thing literally no one in this thread has proposed doing that, then!
Shrugging and just leaning on the accelerator because the turn or stop isn't happening fast enough won't save anyone from the cliff edge.
Good thing literally no one in this thread has proposed doing that either, then!
I guess I'm just not capable of the level of mental gymnastics it takes to see "electing different Democrats" as "punishing Democrats."
Are you similarly incapable of the level of mental gymnastics required to differentiate between "some men" and "all men", or are you well aware of the long and inglorious history that #notallmen has as a rhetorical tactic, yet choosing to deploy #notallDemocrats as a rhetorical tactic anyways?
I have posted on MeFi before about how I hate the semantic drift of the word "gaslighting" in recent years.... but seriously, here I can absolutely understand why deadaluspark is raging about the gaslighting. But of course, he's raging, so he gets deleted while these....well, the most charitably I can describe them is "wildly mis-aimed" posts get to stand without pushback. These are untrue statements; they are asserting that people have said things that in fact, nobody here has said. Which seems like a spectacularly counterproductive way to try and achieve positive interactions with a community of progressives who had to live through years of the Trump administration lying to us about basic facts every damn day.
By the power vested in me by... no one, I hereby declare every MeFite in this thread to be POTUS. Now, as Schroedinger asks upthread, what are you going to DO - in the real world - to enact the progressive legislation that everyone here supports and increase our margins in the House and Senate in these next 10 months?
My goodness an actual legitimate question! Okay here's my answer: I'm going to (quietly, privately, NOT publicly...at least not at first) threaten to have the justice department and the IRS scrutinize Manchin and Sinema's every single deal they've ever made, for even the faintest whiff of illegality, insider trading, campaign finance law violations, etc., and if they're able to find anything I'm going to absolutely throw the book at them. They get in line with the Democratic agenda or they better be damn confident their books are squeaky clean, because if the investigators find anything it's jail time.
Now ask yourself, does Joe Manchin seem like the kind of guy who has quietly gotten threatened with that? Does Sinema?
Of course, I'm President by thought-experiment-fiat, so I don't have to worry about an outright revolt amongst the rank-and-file Dems should I start investigating shady financial bullshit in my own party.
posted by mstokes650 at 12:22 PM on January 16, 2022 [20 favorites]
Manchin's daughter has also engaged in flagrantly questionable behavior with respect to the EpiPen price inflation that could/should be a pressure point in getting him to fall in line, should a hypothetical President be inclined to apply such hypothetical pressure.
posted by Gadarene at 12:31 PM on January 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by Gadarene at 12:31 PM on January 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
You really think that having the president use the justice department to attack US senators is a terrific idea? I don't know what harnessing a national police force against your political enemies sounds like to you but that sounds like the tactics of a dictatorship to me. Is that were we really want to go?
posted by octothorpe at 12:51 PM on January 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 12:51 PM on January 16, 2022 [6 favorites]
I think part of the thought there is that said Senators should've been scrutinized for unethical-potentially-illegal behavior already. I get that selectively lax enforcement can be a threat, but the answer to that is "pull up enforcement standards" rather than "hold off, because it might look suspect".
"If you're going to be a barrier to reform, you'd better be scrupulously clean" doesn't seem like a terrible message. Sure, it could be twisted into terrible things; but that's not anything special to this. Doing anything can be twisted into terrible things. Doing nothing can be twisted into terrible things. It's not a feature of the actions in question, and as we've seen, people who want to do terrible things won't be deterred by a lack of precedent, they'll just invent their own path.
posted by CrystalDave at 1:01 PM on January 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
"If you're going to be a barrier to reform, you'd better be scrupulously clean" doesn't seem like a terrible message. Sure, it could be twisted into terrible things; but that's not anything special to this. Doing anything can be twisted into terrible things. Doing nothing can be twisted into terrible things. It's not a feature of the actions in question, and as we've seen, people who want to do terrible things won't be deterred by a lack of precedent, they'll just invent their own path.
posted by CrystalDave at 1:01 PM on January 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
It's not Plan A.
But if Plans A through F have all failed, and the alternative is a political death spiral, there are very, very few behind-the-scenes tactics that I would call officially off the table in American politics.
Persuasion, reason, appeals to humanity, public opinion and whatnot haven't moved either Manchin or Sinema one inch. Neither is willing to negotiate, though they're happy to pretend to negotiate for a while to run the clock out. At some point, it's either time to bring out the heavy artillery or to invite President Manchin to deliver this year's State of the Union Address.
posted by delfin at 1:04 PM on January 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
But if Plans A through F have all failed, and the alternative is a political death spiral, there are very, very few behind-the-scenes tactics that I would call officially off the table in American politics.
Persuasion, reason, appeals to humanity, public opinion and whatnot haven't moved either Manchin or Sinema one inch. Neither is willing to negotiate, though they're happy to pretend to negotiate for a while to run the clock out. At some point, it's either time to bring out the heavy artillery or to invite President Manchin to deliver this year's State of the Union Address.
posted by delfin at 1:04 PM on January 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
When I think of Democrats and naked bids for power, I think of Alex Morse, whose primary against Richard Neal was undermined by some shockingly dirty (and pretty damn homophobic) tactics by the Massachusetts Democratic Party, in tandem with some ambitious brown-nosers in the local College Democrats. I'm not bringing that up because I want to declare a black-and-white "what happened" in that situation which was messy; I'm bringing it up because it's a clear instance of Democrats throwing away "norms" in the name of doing anything, everything, to maintain power.
Astroturfing up some political scandals, gaslighting their opponents, and creating an utterly gross and controversial atmosphere in the name of retaining a seat? Retaining it, moreover, against a fellow Dem? That's obviously all kinds of awful—but it's proof that Democrats understand full well how to treat power as an amoral and rule-less game where victory is all that matters. That's not even corruption, it's just plain viciousness—and it sucked and I hated it, but it belied the notion that Democrats are incapable of understanding politics beyond "the process" when it suits them. And plenty of people in the Biden cabinet are no stranger to that kind of playing that kind of hardball.
It's possible that there are all kinds of backroom shenanigans going on w/r/t Manchin and Sinema right now, similarly dirty attempts to get them to play ball. Right now, at the very least, it doesn't seem to have affected them much, which is a shame. But I do think that there are plenty of instances of Dems going after people that got in their way, not harder necessarily—there's a lot of public anti-Manchin/Sinema stuff being said right now—but more viciously and, often, more effectively. And I think it's worth asking how the party chooses where and when to be underhanded, given they have demonstrated the capacity to be underhanded when they feel it's important to be.
I agree that shoring up democracy is one of the most important things that needs to be done right now; what disheartens me is not that that's being said, but that, as I said upthread, the rhetoric often seems a lot fierier than the action. That isn't always the case in Democratic politics, and while I think there are explanations more complex and empathetic than "every single Democrat secretly don't care," the explanations I can think of are still somewhat critical of the party line, which I think is reasonable in this day and age. And I think that you can be critical like that in a way that doesn't cross over into pure cynicism and defeatism, and use that criticism in the hope that there is a way forward that involves the Democrats, and not just the Squad faction of the Democrats. At the end of the day, for all I'm posting more critically in this thread, I've been happy with some of what Biden's done or even just attempted, and have been frequently surprised at what he's willing to say or go for. But I think that that just makes me want to hope for even more, and a lot of what I hope for involves Dems overcoming certain bad habits that I would like to think can be genuinely overcome.
So I'm hopeful for national Democrats, I'm as active as I can afford to be with my local Democrats—and Philadelphia has had some amazing things happen over the last 4-5 years—and I think that a part of taking the next step forward involves looking at the brokenness of American politics as considerably more expansive than just the absolute worst part of our politics. It's popular (and correct) to say that Trump was a symptom of the Republican Party, not the standalone disease, but I think that in a similar way the Republican Party is itself a symptom of America's political situation, and not the end-all be-all of what's wrong with it. (I read a lot of Stephen Skowronek during the Trump administration, and really like his theory of how our overt politics reflect and feed back into broader cultural moments; while the Republicans are obviously emblematic of patriarchal Christian anti-democratic pro-corporate sentiments, I think there is a deeper story for why exactly those sentiments are taking this particular form in this particular moment.)
I've posted a lot in this thread, so my apologies if I'm saying too much of the same thing or taking up too much space in here (and I'll duck out and be quiet after this), but I feel like this is a reasonable enough stance to take, and similarly feel like a lot of the stances here are similarly reasonable. I also, for what it's worth, think it's reasonable to argue that "preventing fascism" is the single most important crisis of our times and that the Democrats are doing everything they can right now, even though that's an argument I don't entirely agree with. And, for a community that talks about how members' respect for other members is sacrosanct, I'm a little shocked at how quickly that's thrown out the window and how frequently "I'm upset" seems to be acceptable justification for interpreting other people in almost parodic bad faith, then crucifying them for their purported sins. I'm glad that the mods removed some of the heat from people on both sides of this—and it was definitely happening on both sides—but I really wish that we could pretend like respectful, empathetic disagreement was still possible here, or like this conversation could take the form of something other than "my view on this needs to beat out every other view on all costs." There are ways of participating meaningfully in politics as civilians, and conversations on MetaFilter are precisely none of them, so I really don't think good faith here has a price.
posted by rorgy at 1:22 PM on January 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
Astroturfing up some political scandals, gaslighting their opponents, and creating an utterly gross and controversial atmosphere in the name of retaining a seat? Retaining it, moreover, against a fellow Dem? That's obviously all kinds of awful—but it's proof that Democrats understand full well how to treat power as an amoral and rule-less game where victory is all that matters. That's not even corruption, it's just plain viciousness—and it sucked and I hated it, but it belied the notion that Democrats are incapable of understanding politics beyond "the process" when it suits them. And plenty of people in the Biden cabinet are no stranger to that kind of playing that kind of hardball.
It's possible that there are all kinds of backroom shenanigans going on w/r/t Manchin and Sinema right now, similarly dirty attempts to get them to play ball. Right now, at the very least, it doesn't seem to have affected them much, which is a shame. But I do think that there are plenty of instances of Dems going after people that got in their way, not harder necessarily—there's a lot of public anti-Manchin/Sinema stuff being said right now—but more viciously and, often, more effectively. And I think it's worth asking how the party chooses where and when to be underhanded, given they have demonstrated the capacity to be underhanded when they feel it's important to be.
I agree that shoring up democracy is one of the most important things that needs to be done right now; what disheartens me is not that that's being said, but that, as I said upthread, the rhetoric often seems a lot fierier than the action. That isn't always the case in Democratic politics, and while I think there are explanations more complex and empathetic than "every single Democrat secretly don't care," the explanations I can think of are still somewhat critical of the party line, which I think is reasonable in this day and age. And I think that you can be critical like that in a way that doesn't cross over into pure cynicism and defeatism, and use that criticism in the hope that there is a way forward that involves the Democrats, and not just the Squad faction of the Democrats. At the end of the day, for all I'm posting more critically in this thread, I've been happy with some of what Biden's done or even just attempted, and have been frequently surprised at what he's willing to say or go for. But I think that that just makes me want to hope for even more, and a lot of what I hope for involves Dems overcoming certain bad habits that I would like to think can be genuinely overcome.
So I'm hopeful for national Democrats, I'm as active as I can afford to be with my local Democrats—and Philadelphia has had some amazing things happen over the last 4-5 years—and I think that a part of taking the next step forward involves looking at the brokenness of American politics as considerably more expansive than just the absolute worst part of our politics. It's popular (and correct) to say that Trump was a symptom of the Republican Party, not the standalone disease, but I think that in a similar way the Republican Party is itself a symptom of America's political situation, and not the end-all be-all of what's wrong with it. (I read a lot of Stephen Skowronek during the Trump administration, and really like his theory of how our overt politics reflect and feed back into broader cultural moments; while the Republicans are obviously emblematic of patriarchal Christian anti-democratic pro-corporate sentiments, I think there is a deeper story for why exactly those sentiments are taking this particular form in this particular moment.)
I've posted a lot in this thread, so my apologies if I'm saying too much of the same thing or taking up too much space in here (and I'll duck out and be quiet after this), but I feel like this is a reasonable enough stance to take, and similarly feel like a lot of the stances here are similarly reasonable. I also, for what it's worth, think it's reasonable to argue that "preventing fascism" is the single most important crisis of our times and that the Democrats are doing everything they can right now, even though that's an argument I don't entirely agree with. And, for a community that talks about how members' respect for other members is sacrosanct, I'm a little shocked at how quickly that's thrown out the window and how frequently "I'm upset" seems to be acceptable justification for interpreting other people in almost parodic bad faith, then crucifying them for their purported sins. I'm glad that the mods removed some of the heat from people on both sides of this—and it was definitely happening on both sides—but I really wish that we could pretend like respectful, empathetic disagreement was still possible here, or like this conversation could take the form of something other than "my view on this needs to beat out every other view on all costs." There are ways of participating meaningfully in politics as civilians, and conversations on MetaFilter are precisely none of them, so I really don't think good faith here has a price.
posted by rorgy at 1:22 PM on January 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
So, when someone refers to “the Democrats,” I’m supposed to automatically not only know that what they really mean is not the Democrats in general but some specific subset of Democrats, but I’m also supposed to know which subset of the Democrats they’re talking about? Wouldn’t it be easier and cause less conflict if we all just said what we meant?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:51 PM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:51 PM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
So, when someone refers to “the Democrats,” I’m supposed to automatically not only know that what they really mean is not the Democrats in general but some specific subset of Democrats, but I’m also supposed to know which subset of the Democrats they’re talking about? Wouldn’t it be easier and cause less conflict if we all just said what we meant?
Most of us expressing frustration have been pretty consistent in this and past threads in directing it at Democratic party leadership, which includes the vile and above-mentioned Richard Neal (who has been absolutely awful on the issue of prescription drug price-fixing and dragged his feet unconscionably on Trump's tax returns). There are many, many amazing Democrats in the House and Senate -- Warren, Brown, Markey, Merkley, Bush, Bowman, Jones, Pressley, Tlaib, Jayapal, and on and on. They all speak with passion and urgency, which the moment requires. They understand what's needed. They're just not the ones who hold the reins of power. Yet.
posted by Gadarene at 2:19 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Most of us expressing frustration have been pretty consistent in this and past threads in directing it at Democratic party leadership, which includes the vile and above-mentioned Richard Neal (who has been absolutely awful on the issue of prescription drug price-fixing and dragged his feet unconscionably on Trump's tax returns). There are many, many amazing Democrats in the House and Senate -- Warren, Brown, Markey, Merkley, Bush, Bowman, Jones, Pressley, Tlaib, Jayapal, and on and on. They all speak with passion and urgency, which the moment requires. They understand what's needed. They're just not the ones who hold the reins of power. Yet.
posted by Gadarene at 2:19 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
“The ones who wield power and set policy” really does not seem a hard concept to grasp.
posted by Artw at 2:20 PM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Artw at 2:20 PM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Would stripping Sinema and Manchin of key committee posts and their other various accesses to the levers of power if they don't help enact Biden's agenda in a time of crisis be considered "threats and blackmail" to you? Do they just get to keep on keeping on with no consequences?
posted by Gadarene at 2:43 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Gadarene at 2:43 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
It depends on whether you think Manchin and/or Sinema would rebel and start caucusing with the Republicans if they were punished in that manner. What's worse than not being able to pass your legislative agenda because of their obstinance? Not being able to pass your legislative agenda and not being able to confirm judges and government officials.
posted by Justinian at 2:50 PM on January 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Justinian at 2:50 PM on January 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
You guys are too much, really.
I'm guessing LBJ had terrible political instincts when he twisted arms and rolled logs and did whatever he needed to enact his agenda in Congress and the White House too, right? Biden's sole selling point was that he could work across the aisle to get things done. If he can't even raise his voice above a whisper when trying to persuade members of his own goddamn party to stave off an existential threat to democracy for fear of offending them, then we are utterly and completely fucked.
We've tried nothing, indeed, and we're all out of ideas.
posted by Gadarene at 2:54 PM on January 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
I'm guessing LBJ had terrible political instincts when he twisted arms and rolled logs and did whatever he needed to enact his agenda in Congress and the White House too, right? Biden's sole selling point was that he could work across the aisle to get things done. If he can't even raise his voice above a whisper when trying to persuade members of his own goddamn party to stave off an existential threat to democracy for fear of offending them, then we are utterly and completely fucked.
We've tried nothing, indeed, and we're all out of ideas.
posted by Gadarene at 2:54 PM on January 16, 2022 [5 favorites]
LBJ had 68 seats in the Senate when he passed Civil Rights.
Next you'll tell me that it's absurd that Biden can't get as much done as FDR.
posted by Justinian at 2:57 PM on January 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
Next you'll tell me that it's absurd that Biden can't get as much done as FDR.
posted by Justinian at 2:57 PM on January 16, 2022 [13 favorites]
It depends on whether you think Manchin and/or Sinema would rebel and start caucusing with the Republicans if they were punished in that manner. What's worse than not being able to pass your legislative agenda because of their obstinance? Not being able to pass your legislative agenda and not being able to confirm judges and government officials.
Which is a power that they possess, yes. As long as they're okay with going from having immense influence to having zero influence overnight, and cutting their political futures dramatically short. Suicide bombers are dangerous, but they rarely have long resumes.
posted by delfin at 3:01 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Which is a power that they possess, yes. As long as they're okay with going from having immense influence to having zero influence overnight, and cutting their political futures dramatically short. Suicide bombers are dangerous, but they rarely have long resumes.
posted by delfin at 3:01 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
not one person has provided a strategy for figuring out how to swarm Congress with progressives in 2022
I'm not sure this's the common threshold goal, right now the fight seems to be over harm-reduction/stemming the bleeding.
Which, I don't really have a good answer there, it feels a bit like, to borrow a football metaphor, we're on our own 10 yard line & you're going "if you don't like the current coaching strategy that got us here, what's your plan to get in scoring range?". The strategies employed by Democrats up to this point are very definitionally how we got here. The currently running strategy's got control. We're all watching on the sidelines.
Right now there's a couple questions up in the air.
1. How confident are each of us that the current approach, assuming no significant changes in tactic, will lead to electoral success in 2022 & 2024?
2. How confident are each of us that the current approach will lead to good outcomes for [policy categories they care about]?
Right now one thing which concerns me is that a common answer to #1 & 2 is something along the lines of "This is going as well as it can right now, if we keep pushing on votes qua votes, we'll succeed, and anything that's not that is sabotaging our chances of success".
And I get it, when there's a clear goal in sight it can be helpful to go heads-down and focus on that target. But it's also shutting out potential concerns by conflating "Hey, this is an issue I have & am running into" with momentum-sapping. It's a perspective that sees turnout/enthusiasm as a resource to be conserved but which can't be grown. If someone says "hey, this is a thing that's dampening my enthusiasm & ability to convince people to vote", then the offense is in voicing the issue rather than in the issue existing.
And, setting all "Metafilter as microcosm for larger communication issues" aside, that's not a recipe that's good for conversation. This is all going to play out on the larger stage how it's going to play out regardless of anything we say here. So on a thread of "the old status quo was failing me in various ways", the best thing we can do is listen when people go "here's ways in which the old status quo was failing me as well".
Shutting that down isn't going to make the macrocosm any better, but it's going to leave people in our community feeling unheard.
(and to be explicit given a prior point about ambiguity in the term, I mean "Democratic Party politicians & officials", i.e. people who can act. Voters might be affiliated with Democrats, but I'm not a capitalist because I work a W-2 job, y'know?)
(avoiding counterfactuals about the GOP behaving differently)
posted by CrystalDave at 3:16 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
I'm not sure this's the common threshold goal, right now the fight seems to be over harm-reduction/stemming the bleeding.
Which, I don't really have a good answer there, it feels a bit like, to borrow a football metaphor, we're on our own 10 yard line & you're going "if you don't like the current coaching strategy that got us here, what's your plan to get in scoring range?". The strategies employed by Democrats up to this point are very definitionally how we got here. The currently running strategy's got control. We're all watching on the sidelines.
Right now there's a couple questions up in the air.
1. How confident are each of us that the current approach, assuming no significant changes in tactic, will lead to electoral success in 2022 & 2024?
2. How confident are each of us that the current approach will lead to good outcomes for [policy categories they care about]?
Right now one thing which concerns me is that a common answer to #1 & 2 is something along the lines of "This is going as well as it can right now, if we keep pushing on votes qua votes, we'll succeed, and anything that's not that is sabotaging our chances of success".
And I get it, when there's a clear goal in sight it can be helpful to go heads-down and focus on that target. But it's also shutting out potential concerns by conflating "Hey, this is an issue I have & am running into" with momentum-sapping. It's a perspective that sees turnout/enthusiasm as a resource to be conserved but which can't be grown. If someone says "hey, this is a thing that's dampening my enthusiasm & ability to convince people to vote", then the offense is in voicing the issue rather than in the issue existing.
And, setting all "Metafilter as microcosm for larger communication issues" aside, that's not a recipe that's good for conversation. This is all going to play out on the larger stage how it's going to play out regardless of anything we say here. So on a thread of "the old status quo was failing me in various ways", the best thing we can do is listen when people go "here's ways in which the old status quo was failing me as well".
Shutting that down isn't going to make the macrocosm any better, but it's going to leave people in our community feeling unheard.
(and to be explicit given a prior point about ambiguity in the term, I mean "Democratic Party politicians & officials", i.e. people who can act. Voters might be affiliated with Democrats, but I'm not a capitalist because I work a W-2 job, y'know?)
(avoiding counterfactuals about the GOP behaving differently)
posted by CrystalDave at 3:16 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
Mod note: My bannin' finger is itchy. If you guys can't make your own points without attacking other people for having different points, close the thread and watch Ted Lasso or something.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 3:30 PM on January 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 3:30 PM on January 16, 2022 [7 favorites]
The "corruptly and secretly use law enforcement for good" contingent is just so frustrating. That's some Jack Reacher fantasy level crap. No one on the left is running on this, it would be wildly unpopular, and it's basically uncontrollable, because well it's transparently corrupt, and your fantasy that if Biden was just corrupt but in favor of your policies America would be improved is unprovable. It's not like Bernie runs on: "I will attack my political opponents using the investigative powers of the FBI or IRS", so you're just casting about for fantasy solutions.
As for transparently and publically revoking their committee assignments, I suspect that would flip the senate, rather than improve things as y'all are guessing, but let's go with your guesses instead of mine, why not, since you're so damn confident.
posted by Wood at 4:49 PM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
As for transparently and publically revoking their committee assignments, I suspect that would flip the senate, rather than improve things as y'all are guessing, but let's go with your guesses instead of mine, why not, since you're so damn confident.
posted by Wood at 4:49 PM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
For what it's worth, if Manchin or Sinema was stripped of committee work they wouldn't even have to switch fully to the Republican party to flip the Senate. They'd probably just go independent in exchange for a bucketful of perks in the new assignments.
posted by Wood at 4:52 PM on January 16, 2022
posted by Wood at 4:52 PM on January 16, 2022
Well if we are Sim Citying it...
In the senate - it's done, stop acting like you're blindsided by this, SInema and Manchin are going to prevent all action there. Acting like this is indeed their fault would at least it clear that your're still vaguely connected to reality. Indulging further bad faith negotiations and making announcements like they are going to lead somewhere should cease immediately.
Executing branch - Actually look pissed off at Manchin and Sinema. Make it clear they are the ones fucking up everythihng on the senate side. If there is any leverage please god fucking use it, if not don't pretend you'll get anything from them but sabotage.
The House - you have a couple of months to do anything useful with that Jan 6th comity, if you're holding anything back nows the time to do it. Stop acting like non-cooperation from republicans is a surprise and have immediate responses for it ready. Stop going on fucking holiday. Stop being so polite.
And yes, after 22 it's probably still all over.
Executive branch - Firing the shit out of Zients, Ezekiel Emanuel and whoever else keeps pushing 'back to work' shit in the middle of Omicron would probably be a good idea. Siding with workers and unions and trying to restore trust trust in public health measures versus whatever weird business/eugenics shit they are doing right now. Stop acting like providing masks, tests etc... are unreasonable demands.
It's fairly inconsequential policy-wise but fire Psaki, her instincts are awful.
Oh and cancel student debt already, fucks sake.
In general: Stop being polite about people who are openly stabbing you in the back every chance they get, it makes you look like fucking chumps. Reconsider your covid policy it's not working. Stop being blindsided by fairly likely occurrences like new covid waves.
Oh and do not let Hilary Clinton run for anything, she will lose.
Honestly though they are probably in for a fucking horrible 22/24 whatever they do. The biggest thing I'd ask from the Democratic party as a whole is to have an awareness that it has fucked up and an awareness of why it has fucked up, and not indulge in knee-jerk progressive bashing as an excuse for their failure.
A better question than "what should the democratic party do" is probably "what should we do", knowing what is coming.
posted by Artw at 5:02 PM on January 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
In the senate - it's done, stop acting like you're blindsided by this, SInema and Manchin are going to prevent all action there. Acting like this is indeed their fault would at least it clear that your're still vaguely connected to reality. Indulging further bad faith negotiations and making announcements like they are going to lead somewhere should cease immediately.
Executing branch - Actually look pissed off at Manchin and Sinema. Make it clear they are the ones fucking up everythihng on the senate side. If there is any leverage please god fucking use it, if not don't pretend you'll get anything from them but sabotage.
The House - you have a couple of months to do anything useful with that Jan 6th comity, if you're holding anything back nows the time to do it. Stop acting like non-cooperation from republicans is a surprise and have immediate responses for it ready. Stop going on fucking holiday. Stop being so polite.
And yes, after 22 it's probably still all over.
Executive branch - Firing the shit out of Zients, Ezekiel Emanuel and whoever else keeps pushing 'back to work' shit in the middle of Omicron would probably be a good idea. Siding with workers and unions and trying to restore trust trust in public health measures versus whatever weird business/eugenics shit they are doing right now. Stop acting like providing masks, tests etc... are unreasonable demands.
It's fairly inconsequential policy-wise but fire Psaki, her instincts are awful.
Oh and cancel student debt already, fucks sake.
In general: Stop being polite about people who are openly stabbing you in the back every chance they get, it makes you look like fucking chumps. Reconsider your covid policy it's not working. Stop being blindsided by fairly likely occurrences like new covid waves.
Oh and do not let Hilary Clinton run for anything, she will lose.
Honestly though they are probably in for a fucking horrible 22/24 whatever they do. The biggest thing I'd ask from the Democratic party as a whole is to have an awareness that it has fucked up and an awareness of why it has fucked up, and not indulge in knee-jerk progressive bashing as an excuse for their failure.
A better question than "what should the democratic party do" is probably "what should we do", knowing what is coming.
posted by Artw at 5:02 PM on January 16, 2022 [8 favorites]
Remember when the widely popular and beloved ex-president came out swinging against Trump and the fascist coup attempt? No? Right, it was when NBA players were striking that Obama appeared and did something besides make podcasts and Spotify playlists. Democrats can play hardball when they want to.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 6:45 PM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 6:45 PM on January 16, 2022 [3 favorites]
Accelerationism is the conscious decision to let the fascists take power based on the idea that somehow the fascists will preserve the democratic state long enough for people to get sick of them and vote in The Squad across the country.
Well I haven't read the whole thread (famous first words), but I've never seen this definition, or a definition that leads to that specific of a conclusion. My understanding is that accellerationism is related to ripping the Band-Aid off, is the ethic that if something is going to happen, let's get to it and stop wasting time avoiding consequences.
what are you going to DO - in the real world - to enact the progressive legislation that everyone here supports and increase our margins in the House and Senate in these next 10 months?
A lot of the progressive project is evidently bipartisan popular on the ground. Not the BBB, but the items within it if you split it all apart. My sense is that Biden and Dems should use that popularity to put the screws to Manchin and Sinema at the very least -- scorched earth -- and maybe a handful of Rs (I am not a political scientist!). Then the DCCC primaries their asses from the left full-bore the next time they're up for re-election. Ds have to stop jerking off and govern and stop being controlled opposition. Go straight to the voters.
I've seen the comments here and elsewhere that LBJ-style pressure can't work, but come on: ending $1000/moManchin insulin is popular. End his career as a Democrat.
Especially if people have given up on 22/24, which I feel is thoroughly unproductive pessimism if not nihilism, then why not earn some respect while doing it. I think Rs are more vulnerable than the Dems act.
posted by rhizome at 6:46 PM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Well I haven't read the whole thread (famous first words), but I've never seen this definition, or a definition that leads to that specific of a conclusion. My understanding is that accellerationism is related to ripping the Band-Aid off, is the ethic that if something is going to happen, let's get to it and stop wasting time avoiding consequences.
what are you going to DO - in the real world - to enact the progressive legislation that everyone here supports and increase our margins in the House and Senate in these next 10 months?
A lot of the progressive project is evidently bipartisan popular on the ground. Not the BBB, but the items within it if you split it all apart. My sense is that Biden and Dems should use that popularity to put the screws to Manchin and Sinema at the very least -- scorched earth -- and maybe a handful of Rs (I am not a political scientist!). Then the DCCC primaries their asses from the left full-bore the next time they're up for re-election. Ds have to stop jerking off and govern and stop being controlled opposition. Go straight to the voters.
I've seen the comments here and elsewhere that LBJ-style pressure can't work, but come on: ending $1000/mo
Especially if people have given up on 22/24, which I feel is thoroughly unproductive pessimism if not nihilism, then why not earn some respect while doing it. I think Rs are more vulnerable than the Dems act.
posted by rhizome at 6:46 PM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
Biden's sole selling point was that he could work across the aisle to get things done.I don't recall the Biden campaign nor any of its vocal supporters arguing this particular point.
Obama, yes. Biden in 2020, definitely no. After 10 years of Republican obstruction, it would have been a completely ridiculous thing to claim.
posted by schmod at 6:59 PM on January 16, 2022
*Hillary Clinton mentioned disparagingly in a politics thread that has nothing to do with her* Drink!
posted by schmod at 7:01 PM on January 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
posted by schmod at 7:01 PM on January 16, 2022 [12 favorites]
Hillary Clinton mentioned disparagingly in a politics thread that has nothing to do with her* Drink
I can't find my drink because my eyes rolled up so hard when I saw the Hillary comment that I can't see now.
posted by octothorpe at 7:15 PM on January 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
I can't find my drink because my eyes rolled up so hard when I saw the Hillary comment that I can't see now.
posted by octothorpe at 7:15 PM on January 16, 2022 [4 favorites]
Biden has lived a life inside the Senate. He sees the chamber as an emergent property of 100 individuals, every one of them more complex and nuanced and sympathetic than the partisan cutouts we see on cable news. To him, that is the deep truth revealed by his decades of experience, the hidden knowledge that will let him make American politics work again."Joe Biden will never give up on the system" -- Ezra Klein -- June 2019
“Some of these people are saying, ‘Biden just doesn’t get it,’” he said in his announcement speech. “You can’t work with Republicans anymore. That’s not the way it works anymore. Well, folks, I’m going to say something outrageous. I know how to make government work — not because I’ve talked or tweeted about it, but because I’ve done it. I’ve worked across the aisle to reach consensus. To help make government work in the past. I can do that again with your help.”
posted by Pyry at 7:15 PM on January 16, 2022 [11 favorites]
For balance I’ll say the other candidacy proposition that’s floating around the Cheney one - is a garbage nonstarter also.
posted by Artw at 7:27 PM on January 16, 2022
posted by Artw at 7:27 PM on January 16, 2022
I mean, sure, he made a lot of noise about it on the campaign trail, but once he reached his inauguration he dropped that "reaching out to Republicans" chatter -- Oh, wait.
(NYT: In Biden’s Washington, Democrats and Republicans Are Not United on ‘Unity’
The new president seeks bipartisanship, but he is caught between Republicans who want tangible concessions and Democrats who are in no mood to compromise.)
posted by delfin at 7:42 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
(NYT: In Biden’s Washington, Democrats and Republicans Are Not United on ‘Unity’
The new president seeks bipartisanship, but he is caught between Republicans who want tangible concessions and Democrats who are in no mood to compromise.)
posted by delfin at 7:42 PM on January 16, 2022 [1 favorite]
It was a genuine mistake
That's okay. I'm trying (and mostly failing) not to keep up with *everything*, so I honestly thought I missed a trend or something.
Anyways, Artw asked what we should do. The obvious answer is vote, get involved, organize, etc. But I think another thing (at least for me) is to prepare for the possible Republican victory by Trump or whoever in 2024. And I'm not saying this is inevitable or unavoidable, but because of the uncertainty of everything, it's not implausible.
And I'm not talking having a team of lawyers to stop whatever terrible policy is going to happen, because that's large scale stuff and obviously I can't do any of that. I mean personal stuff like for me it would be to try to rebuild the good habits and social connections that have decayed because of the pandemic. Or trying to enjoy the time I have right now, because these next two years might be the "good" times when looking back.
Again, not saying everything is lost or casting blame on anyone or anything, but just seeing things that can be done on a personal scale. And just to make sure, I'm also not saying we shouldn't do everything to stop Republicans from taking the White House and Legislative Branch and also I'm not saying to give up, even if Republicans win this year or in 2024.
posted by FJT at 8:10 PM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
That's okay. I'm trying (and mostly failing) not to keep up with *everything*, so I honestly thought I missed a trend or something.
Anyways, Artw asked what we should do. The obvious answer is vote, get involved, organize, etc. But I think another thing (at least for me) is to prepare for the possible Republican victory by Trump or whoever in 2024. And I'm not saying this is inevitable or unavoidable, but because of the uncertainty of everything, it's not implausible.
And I'm not talking having a team of lawyers to stop whatever terrible policy is going to happen, because that's large scale stuff and obviously I can't do any of that. I mean personal stuff like for me it would be to try to rebuild the good habits and social connections that have decayed because of the pandemic. Or trying to enjoy the time I have right now, because these next two years might be the "good" times when looking back.
Again, not saying everything is lost or casting blame on anyone or anything, but just seeing things that can be done on a personal scale. And just to make sure, I'm also not saying we shouldn't do everything to stop Republicans from taking the White House and Legislative Branch and also I'm not saying to give up, even if Republicans win this year or in 2024.
posted by FJT at 8:10 PM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
I don't recall the Biden campaign nor any of its vocal supporters arguing this particular point.
You remember incorrectly.
posted by Gadarene at 9:11 PM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
You remember incorrectly.
posted by Gadarene at 9:11 PM on January 16, 2022 [2 favorites]
✓ one of the major failures in the Weimar Republic was purportedly left of center anti
Absolutely correct and a historical detail not a de-rail. To prevent another precieved de-rail, the failure of the Republic, after a short 5 "golden years" was giving Hindenburg emergency powers like Uncle Galba. Damaging in as far that he could back a Chancellor of his choicing and Van Papens eye on the Radicals deal was formulating as evidenced by the 1932 election. I believe over 60 parties ran, many new ones, in that election. The vote decline of the various parties established but what caused perhaps 30 new parties to run for the Reichstag. Was it democracy or the sham election that allowed Galba to concede power to a monster. Historical contrasts are interesting.
The author wrote:
"Because there is no link between “saving democracy” and the policies this so-called democracy might pass to make our lives better, it once again feels like we are being threatened." The cotton gin analogy was apt for the disregard for human life for more land, more statistics, more money to fuel an already inflationary bugbear with real no plan beyond tomorrow even with extant social programs. It's as if history is propping up the bureaucractic normal, that lets go back to rampid speculation normal.
one thing I observed locally through this. The early days of Covid, in stores, all those end caps and aisle displays gone and for a while until the restaurants fully re-opened and slowly the have reached the bumpercar shopping experience level of more displays.
more.
posted by clavdivs at 1:14 PM on January 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
Absolutely correct and a historical detail not a de-rail. To prevent another precieved de-rail, the failure of the Republic, after a short 5 "golden years" was giving Hindenburg emergency powers like Uncle Galba. Damaging in as far that he could back a Chancellor of his choicing and Van Papens eye on the Radicals deal was formulating as evidenced by the 1932 election. I believe over 60 parties ran, many new ones, in that election. The vote decline of the various parties established but what caused perhaps 30 new parties to run for the Reichstag. Was it democracy or the sham election that allowed Galba to concede power to a monster. Historical contrasts are interesting.
The author wrote:
"Because there is no link between “saving democracy” and the policies this so-called democracy might pass to make our lives better, it once again feels like we are being threatened." The cotton gin analogy was apt for the disregard for human life for more land, more statistics, more money to fuel an already inflationary bugbear with real no plan beyond tomorrow even with extant social programs. It's as if history is propping up the bureaucractic normal, that lets go back to rampid speculation normal.
one thing I observed locally through this. The early days of Covid, in stores, all those end caps and aisle displays gone and for a while until the restaurants fully re-opened and slowly the have reached the bumpercar shopping experience level of more displays.
more.
posted by clavdivs at 1:14 PM on January 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
Along with what McKinney wrote about the cotton gin, Jamelle Bouie has a solid twitter thread on it, and it’s effects on the economy at the time, and it’s likely effect on the country and the policies (slavery, expansionism for starters). The comments are worth reading, as people are pointing out that, as bad as it looks to Bouie, the reality is still worse.
posted by Ghidorah at 2:06 PM on January 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by Ghidorah at 2:06 PM on January 17, 2022 [1 favorite]
Shall we apply Biden's bipartisan leanings towards a recent example? Namely, the Build Back Better agenda and its lesser half, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill.
Biden declared that he would not sign the BIF unless the "human infrastructure" side of the BBB also passed. "If they don't (both) come, I'm not signing it. Real simple," were his exact words. Manchin balked at passing the BBB via reconciliation, claiming that he could find "ten good Republicans" who would cross over and vote for it.
Now, I agree with a previous statement one hundred percent: After 10 years of Republican obstruction, "I will find ten Republican Senators who will cross over and vote with us" was a completely ridiculous thing to claim.
It was a Quixotic quest at best, an unsupportable lie as a stalling tactic in less charitable terms. Instead of openly calling Manchin out for peddling a fantasy, the powers that be allowed Manchin to fritter away the summer and fall, with voting rights bills also falling under his "surely, there are ten good colleagues" wishful-thinking umbrella. Meanwhile, when pressed for specifics as to where their objections fell, Manchin and (especially) Sinema were reluctant to point to them, preferring to mumble about costs and steadily whittle down the total price tags they would support.
In the end, the bipartisan bill (physical infrastructure) passed. Progressives who did what they had said they would do all along, voting 'no' unless the human infrastructure bill received a paired or preceding vote, were pilloried for that. Biden signed the physical bill and crowed in triumph. The human side, without the physical side as a carrot/stick, swiftly died.
There are some who view the BIF as the best that could have been possibly passed under any circumstances, that the BBB was impossible once Manchin decided to oppose it, and that the end result is a positive achievement and a win for the Biden administration.
There are others who view the BIF as far less than should have been passed _just on the physical side_, that the abandonment of bill-pairing/human support was a betrayal by top Dems, and that the centerpiece of a Democratic administration's agenda being killed off by Democratic Senators doesn't say much for the negotiating ability, arm-twisting skills or vaunted bipartisanship of that Democratic executive.
And therein lies the debate. Moderate Dems can point to the BIF and declare, "We got SOMETHING passed" and count that as an achievement. Republicans can point to the whittling-down of the BIF and the death of the BBB and declare, "We stopped the socialist Biden agenda" and feel utterly correct in trumpeting that triumph. Progressives can feel that they were strung along just long enough to get the bipartisan bill through and then left hanging, as usual, and that the process under Biden was different than it would've been under Trump but the end result -- no bill representing their interests -- was the same. And Manchin and Sinema can turn off the TV whenever Biden or Psaki speaks, as they control the agenda of America, not him.
Which of them is wrong?
posted by delfin at 2:49 PM on January 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
Biden declared that he would not sign the BIF unless the "human infrastructure" side of the BBB also passed. "If they don't (both) come, I'm not signing it. Real simple," were his exact words. Manchin balked at passing the BBB via reconciliation, claiming that he could find "ten good Republicans" who would cross over and vote for it.
Now, I agree with a previous statement one hundred percent: After 10 years of Republican obstruction, "I will find ten Republican Senators who will cross over and vote with us" was a completely ridiculous thing to claim.
It was a Quixotic quest at best, an unsupportable lie as a stalling tactic in less charitable terms. Instead of openly calling Manchin out for peddling a fantasy, the powers that be allowed Manchin to fritter away the summer and fall, with voting rights bills also falling under his "surely, there are ten good colleagues" wishful-thinking umbrella. Meanwhile, when pressed for specifics as to where their objections fell, Manchin and (especially) Sinema were reluctant to point to them, preferring to mumble about costs and steadily whittle down the total price tags they would support.
In the end, the bipartisan bill (physical infrastructure) passed. Progressives who did what they had said they would do all along, voting 'no' unless the human infrastructure bill received a paired or preceding vote, were pilloried for that. Biden signed the physical bill and crowed in triumph. The human side, without the physical side as a carrot/stick, swiftly died.
There are some who view the BIF as the best that could have been possibly passed under any circumstances, that the BBB was impossible once Manchin decided to oppose it, and that the end result is a positive achievement and a win for the Biden administration.
There are others who view the BIF as far less than should have been passed _just on the physical side_, that the abandonment of bill-pairing/human support was a betrayal by top Dems, and that the centerpiece of a Democratic administration's agenda being killed off by Democratic Senators doesn't say much for the negotiating ability, arm-twisting skills or vaunted bipartisanship of that Democratic executive.
And therein lies the debate. Moderate Dems can point to the BIF and declare, "We got SOMETHING passed" and count that as an achievement. Republicans can point to the whittling-down of the BIF and the death of the BBB and declare, "We stopped the socialist Biden agenda" and feel utterly correct in trumpeting that triumph. Progressives can feel that they were strung along just long enough to get the bipartisan bill through and then left hanging, as usual, and that the process under Biden was different than it would've been under Trump but the end result -- no bill representing their interests -- was the same. And Manchin and Sinema can turn off the TV whenever Biden or Psaki speaks, as they control the agenda of America, not him.
Which of them is wrong?
posted by delfin at 2:49 PM on January 17, 2022 [5 favorites]
What still remains is a disappointing sticking point in this thread and elsewhere. We all agree how horrible Sinema and Manchin are. But some of us see this as a shitty, shitty reality that nevertheless exists with no immediate solution, while others express the view that there is some way Biden could have somehow done something differently that would have won their votes (for filibuster reform or BBB).
I am truly, deeply sad and furious and anxious and bereft of hope for this country, but I have yet to hear a plausible statement of what Biden could have done that would have changed things, whether or not he started out self-deluded about what he could accomplish with public jawboning and private persuasion.
posted by PhineasGage at 4:26 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
I am truly, deeply sad and furious and anxious and bereft of hope for this country, but I have yet to hear a plausible statement of what Biden could have done that would have changed things, whether or not he started out self-deluded about what he could accomplish with public jawboning and private persuasion.
posted by PhineasGage at 4:26 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
The BIF/BBB story is quite simple once you peel back all the layers of messaging. One side was willing to shoot their hostages and the other wasn't. Nothing else anyone else including Biden, Pelosi, Schumer, Jayapal, or AOC did mattered.
posted by tonycpsu at 4:41 PM on January 17, 2022 [9 favorites]
posted by tonycpsu at 4:41 PM on January 17, 2022 [9 favorites]
Yeah the moderates and their media allies completely crushed their opposition there. Brilliant political strategizing apart from the complete electoral destruction bit.
Meanwhile there’s this fuck: Paul Begala Says Democrats’ Problem ‘Is Not That They Have Bad Leaders. They Have Bad Followers’
These fuckers are either really bad at their jobs or really great at their jobs, depending on what yiu think their jobs are. If it’s making anyone not a moderate as miserable as possible and destroying all hope for the future they are doing great, if a res wave visible from space is not their intention less so.
posted by Artw at 5:44 PM on January 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
Meanwhile there’s this fuck: Paul Begala Says Democrats’ Problem ‘Is Not That They Have Bad Leaders. They Have Bad Followers’
These fuckers are either really bad at their jobs or really great at their jobs, depending on what yiu think their jobs are. If it’s making anyone not a moderate as miserable as possible and destroying all hope for the future they are doing great, if a res wave visible from space is not their intention less so.
posted by Artw at 5:44 PM on January 17, 2022 [3 favorites]
Don't worry, they've figured it out. It's not that the Democrats have bad leaders. It's the voters who are wrong! (real) ((not sarcasm))
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 5:44 PM on January 17, 2022
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 5:44 PM on January 17, 2022
After following that Begala link, my arms and my legs are each attempting to vomit independently. That's new.
posted by delfin at 6:41 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
posted by delfin at 6:41 PM on January 17, 2022 [6 favorites]
These fuckers are either really bad at their jobs or really great at their jobs, depending on what yiu think their jobs are. If it’s making anyone not a moderate as miserable as possible and destroying all hope for the future they are doing great, if a res wave visible from space is not their intention less so.
It simply doesn't matter to them. Win or lose, it doesn't change their lives or their paychecks at all.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:54 PM on January 18, 2022
It simply doesn't matter to them. Win or lose, it doesn't change their lives or their paychecks at all.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 1:54 PM on January 18, 2022
I've seen the comments here and elsewhere that LBJ-style pressure can't work
Has Biden thought of maybe inviting Manchin and Sinema over to the White House and defecating in front of them?
If that's too much, his advisors could suggest a loud open-mouth belch after he's eaten a plate of liver and onions while they're all in a crowded elevator. Or at very least he should stand right next to Joe Manchin at the Senate urinal and start a conversation.
posted by FJT at 7:56 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
Has Biden thought of maybe inviting Manchin and Sinema over to the White House and defecating in front of them?
If that's too much, his advisors could suggest a loud open-mouth belch after he's eaten a plate of liver and onions while they're all in a crowded elevator. Or at very least he should stand right next to Joe Manchin at the Senate urinal and start a conversation.
posted by FJT at 7:56 PM on January 18, 2022 [1 favorite]
The LBJ comparison is so inapt that it's hard to believe anyone other than a liberal parodying a leftist would make it, but there are things that can sometimes work, like this:
Emily’s List says it will no longer endorse Sen. Sinema as she holds firm on filibuster
posted by tonycpsu at 8:54 PM on January 18, 2022
Emily’s List says it will no longer endorse Sen. Sinema as she holds firm on filibuster
Emily’s List, the national group that backs female Democrats who support abortion rights, said Tuesday that it will no longer endorse Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) because she opposes changing Senate rules to pass voting rights legislation.Of course they have other sources of campaign money, but power and money are the only languages they speak, and they have all the power, so let's cut off as much of their money as possible.
In a Senate floor speech last week, Sinema said she would not support changing the chamber’s rules allowing a minority of senators to block legislation. The speech from Sinema, as well as a statement from Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.), appeared
to deliver a fatal blow to efforts by the White House and fellow Democrats to push through voting rights legislation that Republicans overwhelmingly oppose.
Later Tuesday, the abortion-rights group NARAL said that it, too, will not endorse any senator who opposes changing the Senate rules to pass voting rights legislation. The group did not mention Sinema or Manchin by name.
posted by tonycpsu at 8:54 PM on January 18, 2022
The idea that if you just tough enough you can get a strong progressive bill past Manchin is looking about as realistic as the idea that if you are just nice enough you can a bipartisan solution. I wish at least one of these were true! But doesn't seem either are.
Progressives can feel that they were strung along just long enough to get the bipartisan bill through and then left hanging,
This is a curiously passive phrasing for a major faction within the Democratic Party.
This time--unlike the Obama years--leadership actually listened to the progressives and let them run their playbook. Propose a big bill, play hardball with the infrastructure bill because it might give them leverage over Manchin, and see if they can force it through. It doesn't seem to have worked.
Even as I type this there's a vote scheduled Wednesday to force Manchin and Sinema on the record, and I hope by some miracle they blink and cave. But mostly it just seems like Democrats venting their frustration at them. Manchin's poll numbers seem to be only helped by this, while the rest of the party is facing plummeting ratings and bad headlines.
(Sinema seems to be in horrible shape but seems to be truly deluded about her status.)
posted by mark k at 11:26 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Progressives can feel that they were strung along just long enough to get the bipartisan bill through and then left hanging,
This is a curiously passive phrasing for a major faction within the Democratic Party.
This time--unlike the Obama years--leadership actually listened to the progressives and let them run their playbook. Propose a big bill, play hardball with the infrastructure bill because it might give them leverage over Manchin, and see if they can force it through. It doesn't seem to have worked.
Even as I type this there's a vote scheduled Wednesday to force Manchin and Sinema on the record, and I hope by some miracle they blink and cave. But mostly it just seems like Democrats venting their frustration at them. Manchin's poll numbers seem to be only helped by this, while the rest of the party is facing plummeting ratings and bad headlines.
(Sinema seems to be in horrible shape but seems to be truly deluded about her status.)
posted by mark k at 11:26 PM on January 18, 2022 [3 favorites]
Yes, Biden did campaign on "reaching across the aisle." But it seems naive to me to believe that that was the most important reason he was nominated and elected. Biden became the candidate and the President because he was the one candidate on the slate that everyone in the Democratic coalition - and it IS a de facto coalition that contains people of many varied positions at almost all levels - was confident had the best shot at actually getting elected. He was the cheese pizza of candidates. I can't speak for half the nation, but the single most important thing to everybody I knew in 2020 was avoiding a Republican victory. We learned a hard lesson in 2016.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:12 PM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:12 PM on January 19, 2022 [4 favorites]
He literally just gave a speech in part about how he was trying to reach across the aisle and was suprised it didn’t work.
posted by Artw at 2:27 PM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by Artw at 2:27 PM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
And a hard lesson in 2021, it appears.
"I did not anticipate that there would be such a stalwart effort to make sure the most important thing was that President Biden didn't get anything done," President Biden says about Republicans. "What are Republicans for? What are they for?"posted by CrystalDave at 2:32 PM on January 19, 2022 [1 favorite]
This time--unlike the Obama years--leadership actually listened to the progressives and let them run their playbook. Propose a big bill, play hardball with the infrastructure bill because it might give them leverage over Manchin, and see if they can force it through. It doesn't seem to have worked.
It hurts so much more this time because there was a compromise. Progressives, party leadership, and the President settled on an agreeable number. And then this entire coalition got strung along by Manchin and Sinema. First they compromised even further to get those two on board. And then, just when everyone thought they had finally reached a deal to get something--anything done, Manchin and Sinema spitefully pulled the rug out to ensure that no deal would ever get done.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 3:47 PM on January 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
It hurts so much more this time because there was a compromise. Progressives, party leadership, and the President settled on an agreeable number. And then this entire coalition got strung along by Manchin and Sinema. First they compromised even further to get those two on board. And then, just when everyone thought they had finally reached a deal to get something--anything done, Manchin and Sinema spitefully pulled the rug out to ensure that no deal would ever get done.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 3:47 PM on January 19, 2022 [3 favorites]
"I did not anticipate that there would be such a stalwart effort to make sure the most important thing was that President Biden didn't get anything done," President Biden says about Republicans.
Was he napping during his entire Vice Presidency? That was the defining hallmark of the Obama era. The GOP stood for nothing other than obstruction. Did he think his Senate services rendered him immune?
As someone once said, the only thing we seem to learn from history is that we never learn from history.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:27 PM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
Was he napping during his entire Vice Presidency? That was the defining hallmark of the Obama era. The GOP stood for nothing other than obstruction. Did he think his Senate services rendered him immune?
As someone once said, the only thing we seem to learn from history is that we never learn from history.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 4:27 PM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
Oh, yeah.
"They were convinced that even if Obama kept winning policy battles, they could win the broader messaging war simply by remaining unified and fighting him on everything. Their conference chairman, a then-obscure Indiana conservative named Mike Pence, underscored the point with a clip from Patton, showing the general rallying his troops for war against their Nazi enemy: “We’re going to kick the hell out of him all the time! We’re going to go through him like crap through a goose!”
General Omar N. Bradley: What we really need is... someone tough enough to really pull this outfit together.
Brig. Gen. Hobart Carver: P̶a̶t̶t̶o̶n̶ Trump?
General Omar N. Bradley: Possibly.
Brig. Gen. Hobart Carver: God help us
posted by clavdivs at 6:46 PM on January 19, 2022
"They were convinced that even if Obama kept winning policy battles, they could win the broader messaging war simply by remaining unified and fighting him on everything. Their conference chairman, a then-obscure Indiana conservative named Mike Pence, underscored the point with a clip from Patton, showing the general rallying his troops for war against their Nazi enemy: “We’re going to kick the hell out of him all the time! We’re going to go through him like crap through a goose!”
General Omar N. Bradley: What we really need is... someone tough enough to really pull this outfit together.
Brig. Gen. Hobart Carver: P̶a̶t̶t̶o̶n̶ Trump?
General Omar N. Bradley: Possibly.
Brig. Gen. Hobart Carver: God help us
posted by clavdivs at 6:46 PM on January 19, 2022
Was he napping during his entire Vice Presidency?
I mean come on, it's politicking for speech purposes. He's calling them out and naming their bullshit, and we see Mitch dutifully stepping up with his "well I never!" act like he did last week when Republicans were reminded of their racist sympathies. I don't really need to watch his speeches, he's enough of a tradpol for me to extract the high-points just from headlines, and to the degree he does muster some offense, it's welcome. Could be more, but I'm not gonna spit in its face.
There's a big question and perhaps battle brewing about how Democrats are going to survive into the future now that we know the other main party wants to murder them, and for that I save my ire and despair. Until then, baby steps.
posted by rhizome at 8:01 PM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
I mean come on, it's politicking for speech purposes. He's calling them out and naming their bullshit, and we see Mitch dutifully stepping up with his "well I never!" act like he did last week when Republicans were reminded of their racist sympathies. I don't really need to watch his speeches, he's enough of a tradpol for me to extract the high-points just from headlines, and to the degree he does muster some offense, it's welcome. Could be more, but I'm not gonna spit in its face.
There's a big question and perhaps battle brewing about how Democrats are going to survive into the future now that we know the other main party wants to murder them, and for that I save my ire and despair. Until then, baby steps.
posted by rhizome at 8:01 PM on January 19, 2022 [5 favorites]
So we're not doing the long, brave thing of insisting that the filibuster be a spoken one, enforcing the rule of two responses, and generally being persistent assholes?
No, party leadership is choosing to just let voting rights be the GOP's pet punching bag?
Empty goddamn suits.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:08 PM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
No, party leadership is choosing to just let voting rights be the GOP's pet punching bag?
Empty goddamn suits.
posted by Slackermagee at 8:08 PM on January 19, 2022 [2 favorites]
As I understand the rules, Slackermage, you need 60 votes to end debate or 50+ to change the rules so you don't need all 60. They just tried both and failed at both.
There's simply not a way to force a talking filibuster. The minority can fly home and the majority still couldn't have a vote because they need 60. Here's Josh Marshall on the subject (possibly paywalled, but relevant bit excerpted):
posted by mark k at 9:45 PM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
There's simply not a way to force a talking filibuster. The minority can fly home and the majority still couldn't have a vote because they need 60. Here's Josh Marshall on the subject (possibly paywalled, but relevant bit excerpted):
The key fact about the current incarnation of the filibuster is that it requires nothing of the minority. We hear a lot about 60 votes. But the details are important. The minority doesn’t have to show up with 40 votes. They don’t have to show up at all. It’s entirely on the majority to produce 60 votes on the floor to end debate and allow a majority vote on a piece of legislation. Since no cost or even effort is required of the minority, of course it’s used all the time in an era of disciplined parties and high partisanship.I sympathetic to the anger but but, again: The leadership don't have magic tricks to change things. They have 48 votes in favor of the BBB or Voting Rights, and if there was any doubt forcing this vote proved it.
posted by mark k at 9:45 PM on January 19, 2022 [6 favorites]
A furious Sanders on Manchin/Sinema: "It's not just this vote. These are people who I think have undermined the President of the United States. They have forced us to go through five months of discussions which have gotten absolutely nowhere."
posted by octothorpe at 4:21 AM on January 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 4:21 AM on January 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
Progressives are always being told not let perfect be the enemy of the good, that something is always better than nothing, but it's pretty clear that the only "good" Manchin and Sinema are willing to agree to is "nothing".
It's not like there hasn't been half a year of negotiations to get them on board. It's not like important parts of BBB haven't been placed on the chopping block. It's not like the entire package hasn't been reduced in size. After all that work, we're no closer to a compromise. There's no "good" here to proudly tout as an accomplishment....there's just nothing.
You can argue that the BIF is "something", but I would counter that neither Manchin nor Sinema ever expressed that as the limit of what they would agree too. Both of them them have spent the past six months trolling the rest of the party, never firmly committing to anything until they finally decided hang everyone out to dry in the most public way possible. Whatever their issues were with the legislation, they had every opportunity take the offramp to "something" and get some extremely watered-down version of BBB passed, but instead they charged full speed ahead into "nothing". At best, they wasted everyone's time. At worst, they deliberately sabotaged the President's agenda.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:47 AM on January 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
It's not like there hasn't been half a year of negotiations to get them on board. It's not like important parts of BBB haven't been placed on the chopping block. It's not like the entire package hasn't been reduced in size. After all that work, we're no closer to a compromise. There's no "good" here to proudly tout as an accomplishment....there's just nothing.
You can argue that the BIF is "something", but I would counter that neither Manchin nor Sinema ever expressed that as the limit of what they would agree too. Both of them them have spent the past six months trolling the rest of the party, never firmly committing to anything until they finally decided hang everyone out to dry in the most public way possible. Whatever their issues were with the legislation, they had every opportunity take the offramp to "something" and get some extremely watered-down version of BBB passed, but instead they charged full speed ahead into "nothing". At best, they wasted everyone's time. At worst, they deliberately sabotaged the President's agenda.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 8:47 AM on January 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
Both Manchin and Sinema should properly be understood as working to elect Republicans.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:55 AM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:55 AM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Sinema's favorable rating among AZ Dems at a whopping 8%, according to @Civiqs
posted by octothorpe at 9:24 AM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 9:24 AM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
To be fair, a lot of Republican legislators did a good job of making it look like their obstructionism during the Obama administration was at least partly based in otherism. I think we've all known people who love an idea that comes from an old white man that they would absolutely fight tooth and nail against, if it came from literally anybody else. I don't think it was completely out of left field to hope that the obstructionism might ease up a little bit, especially among legislators who were Biden's colleagues for thirty years. No, it was never a guarantee, but it was a hope.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:46 AM on January 20, 2022
posted by The Underpants Monster at 11:46 AM on January 20, 2022
The thing is, if you're doing things that benefit black people- whether that's making it easier for them to vote, easing racial wealth inequality, trying to protect them from the police, or anything else- people who hate black people don't go "oh well you're a fellow white person who I should respect". They understand you as an enemy and a legitimate target of violence. And doing good things for black people is something that the Republicans understand to be a Democratic goal, and one of many things they violently hate the Democrats for.
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:54 PM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by Pope Guilty at 12:54 PM on January 20, 2022 [2 favorites]
Progressives are always being told not let perfect be the enemy of the good, that something is always better than nothing, but it's pretty clear that the only "good" Manchin and Sinema are willing to agree to is "nothing".There’s still good from having them so I’d flip this the other way: without them, for example, things like judicial appointments would not be happening. I share the anger but the answer cannot be “progressives stop voting” because that’s surrendering control to the GOP; it has to be “we get more serious about electing more senators so Manchin and Sinema are sitting in their offices remembering when people cared about their vote”.
posted by adamsc at 1:32 PM on January 20, 2022 [6 favorites]
The “But what about judicial appointments?!?!” comes up a lot but what about the last year makes you think Manchin and/or Sinema won’t suddenly have some issue with judicial appointments?
posted by delicious-luncheon at 2:08 PM on January 20, 2022
posted by delicious-luncheon at 2:08 PM on January 20, 2022
To be fair, a lot of Republican legislators did a good job of making it look like their obstructionism during the Obama administration was at least partly based in otherism.
It was. It was based in the idea that anyone other than their tribe -- their cult of authoritarianism and their rabble that sustain it -- gets no say in anything, anywhere, ever. It didn't matter if the idea in question originated with Obama, or with one of his advisors or think tanks, or if it was something that previous administrations had also sought to achieve, or if it was something that would normally be completely innocuous and uncontroversial. The Gingrichian ideal is a simple one: choose the most visible target, attack it with all your might (actual facts secondary to volume level when doing so), repeat. It's what they do. It's all they do.
If Biden felt like he would be somehow less affected by this via either (a) being white, despite his being white the entire time that he and his fellow Senators were treated with complete disdain by the other side of the aisle, or (b) not being Barack Obama, despite being the politician more closely associated with Obama than any other by virtue of sharing PA Ave. with him for eight years, or (c) "I worked with these people, they liked me," then calling that an absolutely shocking level of naivete is a generous description.
posted by delfin at 2:33 PM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
It was. It was based in the idea that anyone other than their tribe -- their cult of authoritarianism and their rabble that sustain it -- gets no say in anything, anywhere, ever. It didn't matter if the idea in question originated with Obama, or with one of his advisors or think tanks, or if it was something that previous administrations had also sought to achieve, or if it was something that would normally be completely innocuous and uncontroversial. The Gingrichian ideal is a simple one: choose the most visible target, attack it with all your might (actual facts secondary to volume level when doing so), repeat. It's what they do. It's all they do.
If Biden felt like he would be somehow less affected by this via either (a) being white, despite his being white the entire time that he and his fellow Senators were treated with complete disdain by the other side of the aisle, or (b) not being Barack Obama, despite being the politician more closely associated with Obama than any other by virtue of sharing PA Ave. with him for eight years, or (c) "I worked with these people, they liked me," then calling that an absolutely shocking level of naivete is a generous description.
posted by delfin at 2:33 PM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
The “But what about judicial appointments?!?!” comes up a lot but what about the last year makes you think Manchin and/or Sinema won’t suddenly have some issue with judicial appointments?
They may or may not in the future, but so far there have been a lot more confirmations and judicial appointments confirmed than there were when McConnell was on his last obstruction streak.
In the face of the enormous numbers of Federalist Society judges appointed and confirmed during Trump's presidency, this is important work.
posted by wierdo at 3:08 PM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
They may or may not in the future, but so far there have been a lot more confirmations and judicial appointments confirmed than there were when McConnell was on his last obstruction streak.
In the face of the enormous numbers of Federalist Society judges appointed and confirmed during Trump's presidency, this is important work.
posted by wierdo at 3:08 PM on January 20, 2022 [1 favorite]
Trump deeply damaged the judiciary for at least a generation. People were yelling about that danger back in 2016 but obviously not enough people listened.
posted by octothorpe at 3:47 PM on January 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 3:47 PM on January 20, 2022 [5 favorites]
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I will say that while I've never been a believer in the inevitability of progress, if you'd asked me 20 years ago what the future would look like- generally speaking, not my own personal future- I sure as shit wouldn't have put forth a picture resembling our current situation. Jesus Christ.
posted by heteronym at 6:18 AM on January 15, 2022 [28 favorites]