Octopus Overlords

Well, we have a thread on this for the Republicans, and I think we need one for the Democrats.

I’ll start it off. I think the Democrats are foundering in many ways. IMO the Dems should be able to crush the Republicans - demographics are with them, and so are their policies, for the most part. But I think their biggest problem is this - how did they ever lose working class whites, who should be a natural constituency for them:

I think this article has some of the answers:

That piece is peak NY Times - the same old storylines rehashed again and again to avoid talking about what is really happening in this country. For example, losing the white working class is partially because the Democrats focused too much on 'race essentialism'? I mean there is a component there but it is like worrying about a trickle when the GOP is full out turned on the racism dog whistle (which he hand waves away). I think it is way more important to understand that the GOP is focusing on the same thing in a different way and it paid much bigger dividends. However, again this guy counsels not focusing on that as if it is just an inconvenient problem that the Democrats need to message around. How are we still having a serious discussion about this when the GOP is winning by touting anti-CRT legislation banning something that isn't even happening.

In any case, I'm pretty tired of this type of analysis that blows past the existential crisis we face. The Democrats have their issues but we have huge systemic issues and this type of piece is just flat out worthless and lacks any real insight. It is the very serious people navel gazing from the ivory tower without acknowledging what is failing. For example, his recommendations for the Democrats to succeed? These are just not real things. They sound oh so serious but they aren't because they are practically politically impossible in a dying system.

Well, it won’t be easy. You try to be productive, you try to get the Electoral Count Act and associated reforms done. You try to get some sort of Build Back Better thing through Congress with Joe Manchin’s support, or you break it up into pieces that are popular and try to get them through. These are the kinds of things you have to do to convince people you’re effective, and you can govern.

Oh just win over Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema. No big task. Let's not talk about how they aren't honest dealers and are pretty much the epitome of 'what's in it for me' political corruption.

The second thing is, whatever you haven’t done to try to get the country back to normal, do it. We’re fast approaching the end of this pandemic. A Democrat should be ready to reopen the country. You’ve just got to send the message that what you want is for people to be happy and for things to be back to normal.

So basically encourage the bad behaviors that are causing the endlessness of the pandemic.

A third thing here that’s related to any elections: They’ve got to try to lift the ceiling on their support levels, which I think will necessitate some drawing of lines within the party, where you say, “No, no, we believe in being tough on crime. We think it is an absolutely atrocious idea to defund the police.”

Biden did this. No one really defunded police except in isolated cases.

You’ve got to win, and when you win, you’ve got to do stuff for the people who elected you. It’s not much more complicated than that.

Jeez, thanks for the helpful advice. This is what passes for seriousness in our most august paper. No wonder our nation is in deep decline.

edit: That said, there are kernels of truth in there. Do black people want crime handled. Yes. But at the same time they don't want the police killing them to do it. That has been a real issue that we have no answers for. We have no ability to reform our broken pieces and more pieces of the system are under constant assault. I'd buy his tale of 'back to basics' to stabilize the situation if we had the time for it. But we don't.

The second thing is, whatever you haven’t done to try to get the country back to normal, do it.

Biden's promoted vaccines, testing, masks. The American people don't want it. He's tried mandating vaccinations for businesses, the Supreme Court shot it down. He's trying to get the country back to normal, and people have decided they'd rather drag this out for as long as humanly possible.

You’ve got to win, and when you win, you’ve got to do stuff for the people who elected you. It’s not much more complicated than that.

And somehow you've got to do that stuff while being actively blocked at every level by the opposing party (and two members of your own party).

This is the equivalent of a sports commentator saying, "To win, you just need to put more points on the board than your opponent."

YellowKing wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:01 pmThis is the equivalent of a sports commentator saying, "To win, you just need to put more points on the board than your opponent."

This is a good boil down. It is sad that the NY Times is passing this off as wisdom of any sort.

YellowKing wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:01 pm
Biden's promoted vaccines, testing, masks. The American people don't want it

I just wanted to jump in on this. Overwhelmingly (I think that the last polling number I saw was 71% approval) the American people support mandatory masking during surges and are largely supportive of masks in schools (not sure it's 71% levels, but it's more than 50%). The problem is state/county/local leadership that refuses to enact it because of the 29% that have their ear.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:08 pm

YellowKing wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:01 pm
Biden's promoted vaccines, testing, masks. The American people don't want it

I just wanted to jump in on this. Overwhelmingly (I think that the last polling number I saw was 71% approval) the American people support mandatory masking during surges and are largely supportive of masks in schools (not sure it's 71% levels, but it's more than 50%). The problem is state/county/local leadership that refuses to enact it because of the 29% that have their ear.

This. I think this goes well beyond just this topic. The current state of things is often quickly normalized as if we had functional decision making or policy processes. The assumption is like a reflex remembering the past. It is practically axiomatic, "it is happening therefore that it is what Americans want". Instead the reality is that this system is deeply, deeply dysfunctional. No majority on practically any issue wants things to be the way they are run. However, they continue because every issue is governed by exception and unfortunately become the norm good results or not. We don't consider alternative better outcomes because no other path is visible. We also don't learn from our failures and never improve.

Reading the piece Grif linked to now, but I stumbled on this word in the intro before the interview even got started: “samizdat” (as in, “His newsletter has become a kind of samizdat for like-minded liberals who aren’t as willing to speak their minds.”)

I have never heard that word before in my life, but I learned it means:
I’m all for expanding my vocabulary, but it does make me wonder who the NYT staff thinks they’re writing for. Actually, no it doesn’t.

Just my barely-informed opinion: Screw BBB. BBB should never have been a priority after the 2020 elections. We need BBB, but it's something he could do in his next term, or the next Democrat President could do it. Now we have to worry about whether future Presidents will even be 'elected' as we know the term. Voting and patching the holes in the system should have been the first, second, and third priorities. Hell, they should have been his entire top-ten list. He should have spent whatever political power he had on achieving that one thing right from the beginning.

We'd be better of with no BBB and safe elections than we would be with better infrastructure and social systems but an undermined system. Hell, any 'progress' he might have made - even if BBB was passed - will just be temporary, gutted or erased if we lose the government completely. And if the 2022 elections go the way we expect, that's a real possibility. Obstructionism becomes easy as the Democrats lose their last few tools, and the loopholes and abuses that have gotten us here will be locked in.

A little more thinking about what I find especially wrong about that piece is that this goes back to a long time criticism I have with modern "serious" journalism. The GOP says things over and over and over. The press writes them down over and over and over. It doesn't matter if they are true or not. Especially if they are political fodder that is subjective. The bottom line is through repetition they establish a boundary for the discussion.

Then folks like this are invited to come along and comment within that window of discussion. It essentially normalizes and anchors the GOP framing. And in the end he is shooting ideas to knock down a target that has been set up by the GOP. They are mirages. They'll always miss the mark. These aren't the core of the real issues.

I like the juxtaposition and a place for this. I don't have anything to add as we've had it before, not all cases of the Democrats unable to message and unable to unify or get out of their own way or rise to the occasion in spite of obstruction are as grandiose as "will they self destruct on reconciliation" which has done a great job of defining the 21st century democratic party, even if OO like to look at the party favorably through progressive lenses (Get it? I made a funny. Because progressive is both a branch of democratic party and the prescription for not being able to see clearly at different distances.)

Good points Smoove and malchior.

In a weird way the idea that people (in general) want to do the right thing gives me a little bit of solace, even if the current system favors minority rule. It at least cracks the door a bit for one day things being better.

If it turned out the majority of Americans were truly as loathsome as our policies would imply, that hope would be completely shot.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:47 pm Just my barely-informed opinion: Screw BBB. BBB should never have been a priority after the 2020 elections. We need BBB, but it's something he could do in his next term, or the next Democrat President could do it. Now we have to worry about whether future Presidents will even be 'elected' as we know the term. Voting and patching the holes in the system should have been the first, second, and third priorities. Hell, they should have been his entire top-ten list. He should have spent whatever political power he had on achieving that one thing right from the beginning.

We'd be better of with no BBB and safe elections than we would be with better infrastructure and social systems but an undermined system. Hell, any 'progress' he might have made - even if BBB was passed - will just be temporary, gutted or erased if we lose the government completely. And if the 2022 elections go the way we expect, that's a real possibility. Obstructionism becomes easy as the Democrats lose their last few tools, and the loopholes and abuses that have gotten us here will be locked in.

Amen.

I've mentioned the same elsewhere on OO, but probably not as clearly as this.

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:11 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:47 pm Just my barely-informed opinion: Screw BBB. BBB should never have been a priority after the 2020 elections. We need BBB, but it's something he could do in his next term, or the next Democrat President could do it. Now we have to worry about whether future Presidents will even be 'elected' as we know the term. Voting and patching the holes in the system should have been the first, second, and third priorities. Hell, they should have been his entire top-ten list. He should have spent whatever political power he had on achieving that one thing right from the beginning.

We'd be better of with no BBB and safe elections than we would be with better infrastructure and social systems but an undermined system. Hell, any 'progress' he might have made - even if BBB was passed - will just be temporary, gutted or erased if we lose the government completely. And if the 2022 elections go the way we expect, that's a real possibility. Obstructionism becomes easy as the Democrats lose their last few tools, and the loopholes and abuses that have gotten us here will be locked in.

Amen.

EXCEPT for the climate portion of BBB. Time is running out to cut emissions, and time is also very short for the Dems to pass a climate bill (because you know the Republicans absolutely will not). Climate legislation has to pass before the midterms, and that accounted for nearly 1/3 of BBB. If they can't salvage anything else, they have to save that.

Kraken wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:33 pm

Carpet_pissr wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:11 pm

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:47 pm Just my barely-informed opinion: Screw BBB. BBB should never have been a priority after the 2020 elections. We need BBB, but it's something he could do in his next term, or the next Democrat President could do it. Now we have to worry about whether future Presidents will even be 'elected' as we know the term. Voting and patching the holes in the system should have been the first, second, and third priorities. Hell, they should have been his entire top-ten list. He should have spent whatever political power he had on achieving that one thing right from the beginning.

We'd be better of with no BBB and safe elections than we would be with better infrastructure and social systems but an undermined system. Hell, any 'progress' he might have made - even if BBB was passed - will just be temporary, gutted or erased if we lose the government completely. And if the 2022 elections go the way we expect, that's a real possibility. Obstructionism becomes easy as the Democrats lose their last few tools, and the loopholes and abuses that have gotten us here will be locked in.

Amen.

EXCEPT for the climate portion of BBB. Time is running out to cut emissions, and time is also very short for the Dems to pass a climate bill (because you know the Republicans absolutely will not). Climate legislation has to pass before the midterms, and that accounted for nearly 1/3 of BBB. If they can't salvage anything else, they have to save that.

I dunno. 1) infrastructure cannot be put off again and again. The nation is literally falling apart. 2) I dunno specifically what was in the climate portion. That was never clearly communicated to me. Much of the BBB is still a mystery but what was communicated by both sides. Is it that BBB was focused on "human infrastructure" and that focus was poor decision making? The infrastructure bill got passed by virtue of pulling it from BBB, and even then no one was happy. But the GOP got to tank the bill that no one would want to pay for (see inflation of 2021 and our collective reaction) and for which the progressive left were angry to point of melt down, as removing infrastructure in their minds sank their mythical agenda of using infrastructure to pass in "human infrastructure". Both progressives democrats and the GOP ran with the narrative of BBB being tanked by passing infrastructure spending and the democrats bore the brunt of that reaction. Look no further than the OO to see how reactions unfolded.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:46 pm 2) I dunno specifically what was in the climate portion. That was never clearly communicated to me.

It was continuously whittled down and reshaped to suit Joe Manchin. Its core provisions were tax credits to favor renewable energy R&D, and a fee on methane emissions to make it revenue-neutral.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:46 pm I dunno. 1) infrastructure cannot be put off again and again. The nation is literally falling apart.

What does this actually mean though? We have underinvested for years for sure but we're basically renovating infrastructure that worsens the more urgent climate problem.

Kraken wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:33 pm

EXCEPT for the climate portion of BBB. Time is running out to cut emissions, and time is also very short for the Dems to pass a climate bill (because you know the Republicans absolutely will not). Climate legislation has to pass before the midterms, and that accounted for nearly 1/3 of BBB. If they can't salvage anything else, they have to save that.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:46 pm I dunno. 1) infrastructure cannot be put off again and again. The nation is literally falling apart.

That's not the point. Without safe elections, it doesn't matter what they pass. Without safe elections, the Republicans will simply undo any legislation that they dislike. Pass the climate bill, and it is undone before it ever takes effect. Especially if the Republicans have the opportunity to lock down the restrictions that could threaten them. Biden could go in tomorrow and legalize pot, restrict guns, fix the climate, fix welfare, fix the tax laws, and it would all vanish as soon as the next President sits down, and there would be nothing that could be done. There would be no consequence, as it will be borderline impossible to vote them out of office for the things they do (the very thing that needed to be fixed.)

Legislation passed without voting reform is irrelevant.

Kraken wrote:

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:46 pm 2) I dunno specifically what was in the climate portion. That was never clearly communicated to me.

It was continuously whittled down and reshaped to suit Joe Manchin. Its core provisions were tax credits to favor renewable energy R&D, and a fee on methane emissions to make it revenue-neutral.

Manchin was opposed to the climate part specifically. The rest were excuses to give him political cover behind Sinema who cashed in with business, and then punitive because Manchin got pissed by being called out by the press and activists.

Zarathud wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:53 pm

Kraken wrote:

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:46 pm 2) I dunno specifically what was in the climate portion. That was never clearly communicated to me.

It was continuously whittled down and reshaped to suit Joe Manchin. Its core provisions were tax credits to favor renewable energy R&D, and a fee on methane emissions to make it revenue-neutral.

Manchin was opposed to the climate part specifically.

Sorta. He has said he supports elements of it and not others. He made some noise that we needed a more gradual transition because we don't want to be like Texas and California. You have to put aside things like facts such as both had outages directly linked to deregulation and market failures. They had nothing to do with energy transition but who knows if Manchin understands it or is just blustering. The real question is naturally was his lukewarm support for some climate change elements cover to distract from the fact that he is a fucking coal baron running the energy committee. He might figure he should pretend to support it when he knows he was going to kibosh the whole thing anyway.

The rest were excuses to give him political cover behind Sinema who cashed in with business, and then punitive because Manchin got pissed by being called out by the press and activists.

Manchin has been increasingly spinning out (lashing out at Klain by multiple accounts) and getting mad at everyone because they all saw through him for who he truly is. There were also two recent international pieces (one this weekend in the Guardian) where people around the world specifically called him out as a villain. It seems to be getting under his skin.

malchior wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:02 pm

Zarathud wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 7:53 pm

Kraken wrote:

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 2:46 pm 2) I dunno specifically what was in the climate portion. That was never clearly communicated to me.

It was continuously whittled down and reshaped to suit Joe Manchin. Its core provisions were tax credits to favor renewable energy R&D, and a fee on methane emissions to make it revenue-neutral.

Manchin was opposed to the climate part specifically.

Sorta. He has said he supports elements of it and not others. He made some noise that we needed a more gradual transition because we don't want to be like Texas and California.

Manchin specifically opposed a carbon tax, which was stripped out. His rationale was that the bill should reward good behavior, not punish bad. That's how it was written before he scooped up all the marbles and went home. Presumably that will be the starting point for a stand-alone climate bill. The WV coal miners, who can read the handwriting on the wall, actually support its retraining/re-employment provisions, which has got to be putting some pressure on him to get that much done.

Blackhawk wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 5:48 pm Pass the climate bill, and it is undone before it ever takes effect.

How does it get undone?

Eliminate funding, challenge it in court and let the Supremes kill it, executive order pieces of it away, create legislation to revoke it, state outright that it won't be enforced, many other ways.

See anything that Obama did that Trump erased out of spite for examples.

It would be law though, and not just something Biden did. Any congressional action would be subject to Democratic obstruction I'd hope. I guess we'd see a lot of reconciliation. It seems like court challenges and executive orders would be the best way to chip away at it.

Alefroth wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 4:01 am It would be law though, and not just something Biden did. Any congressional action would be subject to Democratic obstruction I'd hope. I guess we'd see a lot of reconciliation. It seems like court challenges and executive orders would be the best way to chip away at it.

Wait, I thought we were trying to do away with mechanisms for minority party obstruction . . . like the filibuster.

Smoove_B wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:08 pm

YellowKing wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:01 pm
Biden's promoted vaccines, testing, masks. The American people don't want it

I just wanted to jump in on this. Overwhelmingly (I think that the last polling number I saw was 71% approval) the American people support mandatory masking during surges and are largely supportive of masks in schools (not sure it's 71% levels, but it's more than 50%). The problem is state/county/local leadership that refuses to enact it because of the 29% that have their ear.

This goes for most of the points in the article - even the 'defund the police' section. Here's the quote from the article:

The same thing goes for crime. I mean, who wants to be tough on crime? Well, no one could possibly want to be tough on crime except for people who want to put a lot of Black people in jail; whereas actually, this is a huge matter of concern for people across races, and particularly in poor Black and Hispanic communities.

Is defund the police horrible messaging? Hell yeah.

Most of the things the dems want - increased accountability in policing (uh, don't freaking start shooting seconds after arrival!!!), changes to the incarcereal state, better training for police/shifts towards unarmed responses to mental health situations, etc. don't have anything to do with being 'tough on crime', and more to do with being better on crime and law enforcement.

But that message of nuance gets completely lost in our sound bite journalism/political messaging, and the dems have to play defense against the 29% ALL the time.

They need to go on the offensive, and they don't. Heck, even when Obama finally passed Obamacare, he did zero to sell it, and allowed the 29% to control the narrative for over a decade. There really is a disconnect between democratic policy and how they are viewed by the public.

Kurth wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 12:07 pm

Alefroth wrote: ↑Thu Jan 27, 2022 4:01 am It would be law though, and not just something Biden did. Any congressional action would be subject to Democratic obstruction I'd hope. I guess we'd see a lot of reconciliation. It seems like court challenges and executive orders would be the best way to chip away at it.

Wait, I thought we were trying to do away with mechanisms for minority party obstruction . . . like the filibuster.

Uh huh.

Kurth wrote: ↑Wed Jan 26, 2022 12:39 pm Reading the piece Grif linked to now, but I stumbled on this word in the intro before the interview even got started: “samizdat” (as in, “His newsletter has become a kind of samizdat for like-minded liberals who aren’t as willing to speak their minds.”)

I have never heard that word before in my life, but I learned it means:

Spoiler:

the clandestine copying and distribution of literature banned by the state, especially formerly in the communist countries of eastern Europe.
"a samizdat newsletter"

I’m all for expanding my vocabulary, but it does make me wonder who the NYT staff thinks they’re writing for. Actually, no it doesn’t.

FWIW (late reply), this term was very well-known during the late Cold War. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and other survivors of the GULAG were the best-known examples, but it was understood that works of other anti-Stalinist writers from the West (e.g. Arthur Koestler) circulated clandestinely in the USSR. What this mainly indicates is that the NYT understands its core audience to be older than 45 or so.

Still, "samizdat" has also had a second life as a term for underground zines and other radical small-press publications. I just asked my 15-year-old (who fancies himself an online Anarchist), and he knows it.

"Samizdat" literally means "self-published" but the word has mostly been adopted in the clandestine context.

I thought it literally meant no difference between two things.

"Can I get this one instead?"
"Oh frerchrisake, it's the samizadat."

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:59 pm I thought it literally meant no difference between two things.

"Can I get this one instead?"
"Oh frerchrisake, it's the samizadat."

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:59 pm I thought it literally meant no difference between two things.

"Can I get this one instead?"
"Oh frerchrisake, it's the samizadat."

LordMortis wrote: ↑Wed Feb 02, 2022 3:59 pm I thought it literally meant no difference between two things.

"Can I get this one instead?"
"Oh frerchrisake, it's the samizadat."

Nice! I chuckled.

The defining nature of the 21st Century Democratic Party is to have zero clue how to counter culture war misinformation and propaganda, and constantly play defense with unstable footing.

So what can Democrats do in response? One potentially disastrous option for them is to keep engaging with these issues on Republicans’ terms. While this might be easier said than done, as partisanship and strong party loyalties help misleading information spread and thrive, Democrats can still realize when they’re in a fight they can’t win.

That hasn't happened.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I keep being told here that I am wrong but meanwhile, knowledgeable Democrats are agreeing with me:

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-el ... 6dac37456c

The climate across rural Pennsylvania is symptomatic of a larger political problem threatening the Democratic Party heading into the November elections. Beyond losing votes in virtually every election since 2008, Democrats have been effectively ostracized from the overwhelmingly white parts of rural America, leaving party leaders with few options to reverse a cultural trend that is redefining the political landscape.

The shifting climate helped Republicans limit Democratic inroads in 2020 — the GOP actually gained House seats despite Donald Trump’s presidential loss. A year later, surging rural support enabled Republicans to claim the Virginia governorship. A small but vocal group of Democratic officials now fears the same trends will undermine their atic candidates in Ohio, Wisconsin, Georgia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, states that will help decide the Senate majority in November, and the White House two years after that.

Even if Democrats continue to eke out victories by piling up urban and suburban votes, former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota fears her party will have “unstable majorities” if they cannot stop the bleeding in rural areas.

“Democrats have the House, they have the Senate, the presidency, but it’s an unstable majority. By that, I mean, the narrowest kind, making it difficult to advance ideas and build coalitions,” said Heitkamp, who now heads the One Country Project, which is focused on engaging rural voters.

Grifman wrote: ↑Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:09 pm I keep being told here that I am wrong but meanwhile, knowledgeable Democrats are agreeing with me:

This confirms my perception, so it must true.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:29 pm

Grifman wrote: ↑Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:09 pm I keep being told here that I am wrong but meanwhile, knowledgeable Democrats are agreeing with me:

This confirms my perception, so it must true.

When knowledgeable people speak, I tend to listen to them, don’t you?

These aren’t just randos off the street.

For as long as I can remember it's felt like rural and blue collar liberals and/or moderate democrats have been marginalized by urban/coastal liberalism. I don't have facts nor figures to make a presentation out of it, though.

LordMortis wrote: ↑Thu Feb 17, 2022 5:54 pm For as long as I can remember it's felt like rural and blue collar liberals and/or moderate democrats have been marginalized by urban/coastal liberalism. I don't have facts nor figures to make a presentation out of it, though.

I'd think that rural/blue collar election results would be enough evidence for you.

Rural democrats have historically identified with their union. As union membership and importance has dwindled, (also a GOP strategy) that identification has fallen with it.