The direction of society lately

[fastupslowdown]

If this proves to the case, the Felon in the White House is the one not thinking ahead. After four years of turning the country upside down on account of his thin skin and poor grasp of things such as history, economics, law and ethics the FITWH will be striding along the lawn at the White House to be whisked away by helicopter feeling pleased enough that he (a) avoided jail, (b) screwed those commie lefty liberals and (c) expanded his bank account and that of his 'friends' courtesy of the tax payer. That is until he discovers immigration officials waiting as the helicopter lands. Alas the retirement party is crashed when Mrs Trump is taken away by handcuffs and sent with a one way ticket to Slovenia. In cattle class. Citizenship stripped.

Trump didn't get to where he is because of his grasp of politics or economics. He has none. His skills are promotion and demagoguery. And in those traits he's quite proficient. I think its a dangerous game waiting for him to burn out. We'll might have better luck of his end coming from a bad diet

[Saab2000]

If this proves to the case, the Felon in the White House is the one not thinking ahead. After four years of turning the country upside down on account of his thin skin and poor grasp of things such as history, economics, law and ethics the FITWH will be striding along the lawn at the White House to be whisked away by helicopter feeling pleased enough that he (a) avoided jail, (b) screwed those commie lefty liberals and (c) expanded his bank account and that of his 'friends' courtesy of the tax payer. That is until he discovers immigration officials waiting as the helicopter lands. Alas the retirement party is crashed when Mrs Trump is taken away by handcuffs and sent with a one way ticket to Slovenia. In cattle class. Citizenship stripped.

And her parents, as ‘chain migrants’.

BTW, I like your term FITWH. It is 100% appropriate and accurate.

[rwsaunders]

Alas the retirement party is crashed when Mrs Trump is taken away by handcuffs and sent with a one way ticket to Slovenia. In cattle class. Citizenship stripped.

Escort the escort if you will.

[bcm119]

While I get Schumer's thinking and would probably have done similar looking back on his tenure I"m very disappointed. He's never shown the leadership and tactical skills that Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell have. Honestly I think the sole reason he got the job as Majority and now Minority leader is due to his fund raising skills.

AOC wants Schumer's job, but honestly I think she'd be worse.

I think any winning dem leader will come out of left field, no pun intended. There is a heavy veil of past failure hanging over all the current dems, and a paper trail of infighting that stains the credibility of any new approach. I actually think Gavin Newsom is on to something in his latest podcasts, interviewing the likes of Steve Bannon to extract winning populist ideas from the opposition to build the foundation of a new coalition. Many on the left are livid at him right now, but I think we have to hit rock bottom and then rebuild with some elements of the populist right's formula. The horseshoe theory of politics may be our only chance.

[Marvinlungwitz]

Bad news for the EPA.

Love Canal and smog are now hoping to do sequels.

[Mark Walberg]

I think any winning dem leader will come out of left field, no pun intended. There is a heavy veil of past failure hanging over all the current dems, and a paper trail of infighting that stains the credibility of any new approach. I actually think Gavin Newsom is on to something in his latest podcasts, interviewing the likes of Steve Bannon to extract winning populist ideas from the opposition to build the foundation of a new coalition. Many on the left are livid at him right now, but I think we have to hit rock bottom and then rebuild with some elements of the populist right's formula. The horseshoe theory of politics may be our only chance.

I think you are right about this. If I was in charge, I would figure out a way to completely take over MAGA, saying how to do it the right way, different that the current group in charge. I would take the populist approach that was honestly aimed at fostering the average people in the US, as opposed to enriching the successful capitalists.

[suspectdevice]

I think you are right about this. If I was in charge, I would figure out a way to completely take over MAGA, saying how to do it the right way, different that the current group in charge. I would take the populist approach that was honestly aimed at fostering the average people in the US, as opposed to enriching the successful capitalists.

You mean the Sanders campaigns of 2016 and 2020 that were sabatoged by Obama, corporate media, Jim Clyburn and outgoing DNC chair Jamie Harrison?

The demoncratic caucus got the opportunity to get behind progressive populism and very, very clearly chose corporatism instead.

The Democratic party is just as guilty in creating the pre-existing conditions for fascists as the Republican party.

[jclay]

You mean the Sanders campaigns of 2016 and 2020 that were sabatoged by Obama, corporate media, Jim Clyburn and outgoing DNC chair Jamie Harrison?

The demoncratic caucus got the opportunity to get behind progressive populism and very, very clearly chose corporatism instead.

The Democratic party is just as guilty in creating the pre-existing conditions for fascists as the Republican party.

I had a contractor and a few of his carpenters working on the house late last year; Trump stickers on the trucks. We had collegial chats about current politics and I asked questions, not pointed, and I made it clear that I was genuinely interested in seeing things from their perspectives. I offered mine as well; not ranting but just "here's what I see and think" (and the DP with which I've always been registered didn't get spared). Interesting things came out of this, observed and noted by all (though votes weren't changed, not that they could be under the circs):

1) On general desires for our society we were in harmony.
2) On specific, major, topical policy issues (including tax funded, cradle/grave Medicare for All) we were virtually in lock step (often not wrt the DP though).
3) When asked if at the time, not with the benefit of hindsight but when Bernie was trying to get on the ticket, did they consciously want to be able to vote for Bernie rather than Trump the answer was yes. They would have voted for Bernie at the time; they could not stand Hillary (I didn't want her either) and voted Trump.
4) When asked if the '24 race was between Bernie and Trump who would they support, it was Bernie.
5) All of them thought Trump a vile, destructive individual but that corporate/MIC/special interest $$$ influence in Washington, and the same sort of influence and tone deafness within the major parties but particularly the DP, is so out of control and non-responsive that the only remedy available was burning the house down.
6) Cultural wedge issues are even more powerful than I thought (and I already thought they were near nuclear) and for my money the DP is utterly incompetent at being reasonable on these sorts of issues, never mind being tactical and strategic wrt simply winning races so, down the road you can advance things that need to happen but can't, yet.
7) Hillary's "deplorables" comment as well as Obama's "retreat into God and guns" are as destructively potent now as the instant uttered. We'll be suffering from, and losing races due to, those two comments for decades.
8) Harris, running as Biden V2 (no....no, I think no changes) was moronic. And to fail to loudly, non-stop reject the Hillary & Obama comments, scream acknowledgement of the neglect of the working class backbone of our country, reject the de-fund police nonsense (yes, of course we need to revisit policing but to allow that handle to go unchallenged was astonishingly dumb), and to fail getting control of the narrative of a few other similar types of hot button cultural issues, and seriously deal with some that have long needed serious address.....just stupid beyond belief.
9) The DP is totally incompetent at relevant marketing and psychology.

That should tell the DNC a thing or two; but I also think the power behind the DNC would rather have Trump than Bernie, for what I think are obvious corp/$$$ related reasons. So, it's up to the Democratic electorate to make A LOT of noise, demand better and vote smarter, not that I'm sure that can work.

Cheers.

We're in a heap of trouble.

[72gmc]

The Democratic party is just as guilty in creating the pre-existing conditions for fascists as the Republican party.

Perhaps more guilty, from a certain perspective. If you see the current crisis as the outcome of heedless devotion to the establishment plus clueless defense of said establishment, the Dems are contributing most of the ingredients. Add the right amount of unethical opportunism from the other party, and off you go.

[echappist]

2) On specific, major, topical policy issues (including tax funded, cradle/grave Medicare for All) we were virtually in lock step (often not wrt the DP though).

...

5) All of them thought Trump a vile, destructive individual but that corporate/MIC/special interest $$$ influence in Washington, and the same sort of influence and tone deafness within the major parties but particularly the DP, is so out of control and non-responsive that the only remedy available was burning the house down.

...

We're in a heap of trouble.

Assuming these could be taken at face value (as opposed to socially acceptable justification that shields more base intentions), these points taken together are representative of a nation whose swing electorate and right-leaning electorate have significant proportion of metaphorical arsonists, all the while wanting benefits of a stable government that promotes social welfare, said electorates driven more by a sense of my way or the highway than any rational approach.

And of course, such an attitude is not limited to just the right-leaning and swing electorates, as left-leaning electorate who wanted to demonstrate how ideologically unblemished they are went for Nader in 2000 and Stein in 2016.

Being a naturalized citizen, I learned about our political system from the perspective of an outsider, and I've long viewed the exultation of our version of representative democracy as a bit over-the-top (and cringy), as the political system is often presented as the sublimation of enlightenment ideals rather than a case of a solution born of various compromises, none more cynical than the 3/5 compromise. Such a framing along with the constant refrain of one gets to voice one's opinion in an election, is taught in many public schools, and this often leads to an interpretation of the political process that veers too much into fantasy land and leaves very little room for what to do when the ideal situation isn't available.

So when the most ideal solution isn't available, it's toys out of the pram time, regardless of how much of a mess such an act of defiance leaves or whether someone might get hit in the face with a toy. There were constant justifications in 2016 from those on the left who didn't vote for Hilary that at worst, four years of Trump would be so detrimental that it would shock the nation onto a leftward bent for years to come. As if.

We aren't in a heap of trouble solely b/c of an inept counterweight to the GOP (although that certainly doesn't help), we are in a heap of trouble b/c fundamentally, the national ethos is looking out for #1 , with very little broad solidarity and willing sacrifice of one's own interests. This tilt toward individualism and self-interest is a particularly American one, as it is not present to the same degree in other immigrant-settler countries such as Canada and Australia. I recall a few years back, ~800 doctors in Quebec refusing pay raise unless lesser-paid staff receive better compensation. Here in the U.S., we have various physicians association stand in the way of any decision economically unfavorable to their members. "Enough" is just not part of the present-day national ethos, and even were the Dems to strategize in a way that game theorists and Machiavelli would approve, it has to contend against the significant tilt toward individualism and self-interest manifest in much of the populace at large.

[BBB]

I had a contractor and a few of his carpenters working on the house late last year; Trump stickers on the trucks. We had collegial chats about current politics and I asked questions, not pointed, and I made it clear that I was genuinely interested in seeing things from their perspectives. I offered mine as well; not ranting but just "here's what I see and think" (and the DP with which I've always been registered didn't get spared). Interesting things came out of this, observed and noted by all (though votes weren't changed, not that they could be under the circs):

1) On general desires for our society we were in harmony.
2) On specific, major, topical policy issues (including tax funded, cradle/grave Medicare for All) we were virtually in lock step (often not wrt the DP though).
3) When asked if at the time, not with the benefit of hindsight but when Bernie was trying to get on the ticket, did they consciously want to be able to vote for Bernie rather than Trump the answer was yes. They would have voted for Bernie at the time; they could not stand Hillary (I didn't want her either) and voted Trump.
4) When asked if the '24 race was between Bernie and Trump who would they support, it was Bernie.
5) All of them thought Trump a vile, destructive individual but that corporate/MIC/special interest $$$ influence in Washington, and the same sort of influence and tone deafness within the major parties but particularly the DP, is so out of control and non-responsive that the only remedy available was burning the house down.
6) Cultural wedge issues are even more powerful than I thought (and I already thought they were near nuclear) and for my money the DP is utterly incompetent at being reasonable on these sorts of issues, never mind being tactical and strategic wrt simply winning races so, down the road you can advance things that need to happen but can't, yet.
7) Hillary's "deplorables" comment as well as Obama's "retreat into God and guns" are as destructively potent now as the instant uttered. We'll be suffering from, and losing races due to, those two comments for decades.
8) Harris, running as Biden V2 (no....no, I think no changes) was moronic. And to fail to loudly, non-stop reject the Hillary & Obama comments, scream acknowledgement of the neglect of the working class backbone of our country, reject the de-fund police nonsense (yes, of course we need to revisit policing but to allow that handle to go unchallenged was astonishingly dumb), and to fail getting control of the narrative of a few other similar types of hot button cultural issues, and seriously deal with some that have long needed serious address.....just stupid beyond belief.
9) The DP is totally incompetent at relevant marketing and psychology.

That should tell the DNC a thing or two; but I also think the power behind the DNC would rather have Trump than Bernie, for what I think are obvious corp/$$$ related reasons. So, it's up to the Democratic electorate to make A LOT of noise, demand better and vote smarter, not that I'm sure that can work.

Cheers.

We're in a heap of trouble.

Isn't this just cutting one's nose off to spite one's face? They'd rather have voted for Bernie twice and yet voted for Trump because they couldn't vote for Bernie? FFS.

[thollandpe]

They would have voted for Bernie at the time; they could not stand Hillary (I didn't want her either) and voted for...

I liked Bernie more than Hillary just like I liked McCain more than GW Bush. But seriously…

Do we actually believe that the valid takeaway from that election, that Hillary was a flawed/weaker/worse candidate than Bernie? That in hindsight, given tЯump‘s absolutely disastrous handling of the pandemic, and the subsequent loss of life and destruction to our economy, that it wasn’t a mistake to have put him in an office that he was and is woefully unqualified for and that we were simply believing his lies? Like that wasn’t the actual mistake, but that the hapless Democrats were asking for it?

Because maybe that’s not the lesson we should be learning. And the fact that right now there’s a whole lotta woefully unqualified people in the new regime, some who are actually anti-qualified (as in only qualified to destroy the thing they’ve been appointed to steward), maybe that’s not the lesson we should be learning.

As a certain member of Congress said so well, “Men failing upward is not a Constitutionally protected right.” That goes for Governor Goodhair (chapeau to Molly Ivins for that) and his appeasenik radio hour.

[fastupslowdown]

I think any winning dem leader will come out of left field, no pun intended. There is a heavy veil of past failure hanging over all the current dems, and a paper trail of infighting that stains the credibility of any new approach. I actually think Gavin Newsom is on to something in his latest podcasts, interviewing the likes of Steve Bannon to extract winning populist ideas from the opposition to build the foundation of a new coalition. Many on the left are livid at him right now, but I think we have to hit rock bottom and then rebuild with some elements of the populist right's formula. The horseshoe theory of politics may be our only chance.

Out of left field is a sure sign of failure. This is what the party fails to realize. To win an election it's necessary to appeal to Independents and some Republicans. Joe Biden did that in 2020. In my mind the person who can best do that in 2028 will be Josh Shapiro. The left can sabotage someone else but they can't provide a better option.

[robin3mj]

Out of left field is a sure sign of failure. This is what the party fails to realize. To win an election it's necessary to appeal to Independents and some Republicans. Joe Biden did that in 2020. In my mind the person who can best do that in 2028 will be Josh Shapiro. The left can sabotage someone else but they can't provide a better option.

So why do the Dems need to move their GC candidates to the center, but the R's can continue running people further and further to the right?
This doesn't square with general polls on what policies the broad electorate prefers.

I'm not picking on you; this is a crux question these days. Republicans are (barely) winning elections and driving the national top level messaging in many ways better than the Democrats.

[fastupslowdown]

So why do the Dems need to move their GC candidates to the center, but the R's can continue running people further and further to the right?
This doesn't square with general polls on what policies the broad electorate prefers.

I'm not picking on you; this is a crux question these days. Republicans are (barely) winning elections and driving the national top level messaging in many ways better than the Democrats.

Trump didn't win because he's from the right. He won because he's good at demagoguery. Both Clintons and Obama knew how to appeal to mid-America on some issues. And yes, that's my view. I don't think the Democrats can win with a true progressive.

[BBB]

He's also good at talking about himself and bullshitting (usually the same thing).

[BBB]

Even his notorious thin skin extends to government generally. What happened to freedom of speech?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...ntist-detained

[suspectdevice]

I changed my residence from Massachusetts to South Carolina in fall 2015 to vote for Sanders in the SC primary, and I spent 6 weeks volunteering for the campaign here in the SC 1st district- the cradle of Reconstruction.

After Sanders won the early primaries, our district saw an absolutely overwhelming number of young volunteers… queer kids in their 20’s from Florida who had been living in their cars in Iowa and New Hampshire, other mid-30’s yankee born folks like me who saw the potential in SC’s Gullah Geechee population to rise up and help America finsih the Reconstruction their ancestors were promised by Field Order 15 in 1862.
It was a moment. An overwhelming number of out of town volunteers for sclerotic, gerrymandered local democratic machine. It scared the be jeezuz out of the sleepy party machine precinct captains.

What one must remember about the Democratic Party in SC is that after Nixon’s Southern Strategy took hold, it became the party of Gullah politicial patronage, Taminy- Hall style. The Party was hard in on Hillary- but the Gullah voters weren’t interested in her one bit.
“I don’t know who HE is, and I can’t vote for HER, I’m not voting this primary” I heard daily when I got on my bicycle and pedaled around Saint Helena Island, knocking on the doors of folks whose great grandparents had purchased a portion of the lands they were formerly enslaved on at Tax auctions after the cowardly traitors that owned them had fled the Federal armada.
I felt American for the first time.

Nobody, and I mean nobody from the Gullah community had heard of Bernie in 2015- The message got back to Burlington- the Sanders campaign arranged a community meeting at the Penn Center- the first school for free blacks in the south that sits in the middle of Saint Helena.

Dr. King wrote his Dream speech there in a cottage overlooking a creek, where the children of Freedmen from the Sea Islands would disembark the mail packet ship to attend this boarding school, kept safe from white raiders by the lack of a bridge to the mainland until 1959.

This meeting with community elders- some of whom Sanders realized he had organized with in the 60’s was still not enough to spread the word about his campaign across the Gullah Electorate- but we moved the needle enough for Sanders in the 1st district that many of the democratic leaning poling places were mysteriously closed on primary day due to mysterious last-minute staffing issues. I had to turn a van around full of the loveliest senior citizens, twice.

By 2020 we knew we had a bigger battle in the district, still 4th in the nation, but Obama’s VP, with his relationship to state Party Machinery and goodwill from
being the first VP of an African American president, meant we would have to try even harder to fight for everyday Americans.

We lost. The Party was scared enough that first they moved our Primary to be first in the Nation, and most recently, out of fealty to Biden, we didn’t even have a democratic presidential primary last round, The Party was so desperate to do anything to keep popular candidates with popular policies and positions out of national power!

[Mark Walberg]

Suspectdevice, I respect your efforts. If Bernie could run the place, I'd be much happier than now. I do not think that the Democrats overall are going to help us.

[vertical_doug]

I liked Bernie more than Hillary just like I liked McCain more than GW Bush. But seriously…

Do we actually believe that the valid takeaway from that election, that Hillary was a flawed/weaker/worse candidate than Bernie? That in hindsight, given tЯump‘s absolutely disastrous handling of the pandemic, and the subsequent loss of life and destruction to our economy, that it wasn’t a mistake to have put him in an office that he was and is woefully unqualified for and that we were simply believing his lies? Like that wasn’t the actual mistake, but that the hapless Democrats were asking for it?

Because maybe that’s not the lesson we should be learning. And the fact that right now there’s a whole lotta woefully unqualified people in the new regime, some who are actually anti-qualified (as in only qualified to destroy the thing they’ve been appointed to steward), maybe that’s not the lesson we should be learning.

As a certain member of Congress said so well, “Men failing upward is not a Constitutionally protected right.” That goes for Governor Goodhair (chapeau to Molly Ivins for that) and his appeasenik radio hour.

I always understood the original sin of 2016 for the democrats as the super-delegates. Superdelegates were influential members of the party deemed to be worthy of casting their own choice as candidate at the convention and not having to represent the primary voters. To quote Orwell, 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.' It showed the democrats really didn't understand representative democracy either.

Bernie had much more grassroots support, but it was not enough to overcome the early Hillary lead with superdelegates and the party elders. This so pissed off his supporters, they just did not turn out to vote.

Fast forward to 2024, and the top of the democrats hid Joe's cognitive decline and did everything in their power to discourage participation in the primaries and campaigns. I actually liked Dean Phillips, but Biden wouldn't even debate him during the campaign. That's all that needed to happen for the jig to be up. When the jig was finally up, it was too late, and democratic voters had Harris decided in a backroom and that was that. I think someone close realized Joe was so bad, they'd never be able to keep up the charade, and sandbagged him into the early Trump debate. I'd like to know if they were part of the Harris camp or the Harris coronation was an unintended consequence.

The democrats need to give the people a choice. This continuing finger on the scale is so off putting to members, it just destroys their chances. In my opinion, this should not even be close but the clueless leadership of the democrats insist on snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

If AOC wants to primary Schumer, she should. He is a big part of the problem not the solution. AOC has her own issues, but at this point, it is the least dirty shirt.