The Neverending Thread for Political Shit

[jr29]

The irony, of course, is that rural republicans have built a cult around the coastal elitiest coastal elite who ever coastal elited.

I Don’t disagree. And there is a big percentage of those folks who are probably lost causes. Even some of those January 6 Proud Boy shitheads are now saying they were duped though, so a fella can dream.
A shift of a couple percentage points changes the entire electoral landscape though. I honestly do believe there are millions and millions of votes on the table if Dems get the right candidate out front.

[beantownbubba]

I assume you're content with what mainstream liberalism is currently serving up but I'm not,

But here's the multi-billion dollar question: What specifically, or even approximately, lies to the left of liberalism? Until one gets to more or less doctrinaire communism, which is clearly off the table for most Americans, I find it hard to understand what the left is proposing and what it might look like. I suppose a vague term like "social democracy" is better than no term at all but I don't find it particularly meaningful/substantive. Any thoughts along these lines?

[brettac1]

I assume you're content with what mainstream liberalism is currently serving up but I'm not,

But here's the multi-billion dollar question: What specifically, or even approximately, lies to the left of liberalism? Until one gets to more or less doctrinaire communism, which is clearly off the table for most Americans, I find it hard to understand what the left is proposing and what it might look like. I suppose a vague term like "social democracy" is better than no term at all but I don't find it particularly meaningful/substantive. Any thoughts along these lines?

At minimum, a return to New Deal Liberalism/Keynesian economics. Expansion of the social safety net that has been eroded to the point of almost non-existence over the past 40 years. Universal programs like pre-K, tech school, or *gasp* even state colleges. Actual universal healthcare. The motherfucking minimum wage is $7.25/hr and it is 2023. Tax increases on the wealthy/corporations. Contrary to what Oliver Anthony believes, "welfare" is virtually non-existent at this point.

You can probably just call that social democracy or whatever. I'm not naive enough to think that Karl Marx is walking down 1600 Pennsylvania Ave but the approach of the last 40 years (I guess you could probably say "New Democrat" or DLC) is not getting it done at this point. Eventually enough people are going to get left in the economic dust that "at least we're not the other guys" won't be a winning message.

[305 Engine]

At minimum, a return to New Deal Liberalism/Keynesian economics. Expansion of the social safety net that has been eroded to the point of almost non-existence over the past 40 years.

It strikes me that "the left" need to now be conservative in a sense and promise to return some things to where they were 20-30 years ago. Reverse the erosion of social safety nets. Less Milton Friedman.

This goes for more than one country.

[beantownbubba]

At minimum, a return to New Deal Liberalism/Keynesian economics. Expansion of the social safety net that has been eroded to the point of almost non-existence over the past 40 years.

It strikes me that "the left" need to now be conservative in a sense and promise to return some things to where they were 20-30 years ago. Reverse the erosion of social safety nets. Less Milton Friedman.

This goes for more than one country.

Yes "liberal" and "conservative" have become somewhere between unhelpful and useless as stand ins for policies/beliefs in the current era. Heather Cox Richardson hasn't (to my recollection) used your exact formulation but she's been very, very good in describing just how radical the modern era of Republican politics has been and how maintaining (repairing!) the social safety net is actually a conservative position. How far back one has to go is I guess a minor point in the overall scheme of things, but most people, including Richardson, tend to date the change to the Reagan administration (and the corresponding Thatcher era for you) which is more like 40 years ago.

[beantownbubba]

I assume you're content with what mainstream liberalism is currently serving up but I'm not,

But here's the multi-billion dollar question: What specifically, or even approximately, lies to the left of liberalism? Until one gets to more or less doctrinaire communism, which is clearly off the table for most Americans, I find it hard to understand what the left is proposing and what it might look like. I suppose a vague term like "social democracy" is better than no term at all but I don't find it particularly meaningful/substantive. Any thoughts along these lines?

At minimum, a return to New Deal Liberalism/Keynesian economics. Expansion of the social safety net that has been eroded to the point of almost non-existence over the past 40 years. Universal programs like pre-K, tech school, or *gasp* even state colleges. Actual universal healthcare. The motherfucking minimum wage is $7.25/hr and it is 2023. Tax increases on the wealthy/corporations. Contrary to what Oliver Anthony believes, "welfare" is virtually non-existent at this point.

You can probably just call that social democracy or whatever. I'm not naive enough to think that Karl Marx is walking down 1600 Pennsylvania Ave but the approach of the last 40 years (I guess you could probably say "New Democrat" or DLC) is not getting it done at this point. Eventually enough people are going to get left in the economic dust that "at least we're not the other guys" won't be a winning message.

Yeah, whatever happened to universal health care (and related corollaries like prescription drug prices and the allocation of medical resources)? It seems to me that this should still be a front burner, front page issue for everyone from the center to liberals to the further left. That access to healthcare and affordability of healthcare are still such big problems in this country continues to shock me and I really can't understand why things are the way they are (I mean in the big picture; I understand the politics and the details of who's for and against actual implementation). As my mother would have said, this is a shonda. I would call it a national disgrace.

The misunderstanding of what "welfare" is and how it works continues to surprise me and of course makes it harder to discuss policy rationally. It's incredible how much staying power the old tropes like "welfare queen" have.

The minimum wage is an interesting one in that so many sub-federal jurisdictions have already raised it for their citizens and market forces, too, have resulted in the actual minimum being more theoretical than actual. At least around here. I'm sure it varies by geography and industry. But some national franchises around here advertise starting wages of as much as $17. If anything, the current reality proves that raising the wage is extremely low risk in terms of its effect on the economy (availability of jobs, etc).

Anyway, sorry, got distracted by the specifics. Most of what you describe used to be the liberal agenda. It's eye-opening to see it there in "black and white" as now being a significantly further left package of policies. See also 305's related comment above.

[beantownbubba]

This is what my son has been doing lately.

https://explore.thepublicsradio.org/ser ... protected/

[Zip City]

To be fair, how much is that Democrats not trying to implement those fixes and how much is it just impossible to make happen given the rules and make up if Congress? Obama completely watered down the ACA in order to bargain with the right and they still voted against it.

[beantownbubba]

To be fair, how much is that Democrats not trying to implement those fixes and how much is it just impossible to make happen given the rules and make up if Congress? Obama completely watered down the ACA in order to bargain with the right and they still voted against it.

That's true but what I had in mind was more making and keeping it a top, highly vocal priority in order to distinguish the parties and build support that can translate into action. Kind of like what's happening w/ abortion post-Dobbs: On the federal level anti-abortion politics is proving to be a real loser. Even Trump said so.

[brettac1]

To be fair, how much is that Democrats not trying to implement those fixes and how much is it just impossible to make happen given the rules and make up if Congress? Obama completely watered down the ACA in order to bargain with the right and they still voted against it.

That's true but what I had in mind was more making and keeping it a top, highly vocal priority in order to distinguish the parties and build support that can translate into action. Kind of like what's happening w/ abortion post-Dobbs: On the federal level anti-abortion politics is proving to be a real loser. Even Trump said so.

The Democrats are the masters of learned helplessness. They have this ability to condition their base to believe that better things are, in fact, not possible. The best we can hope for is to claw like hell to maintain the status quo.

[Zip City]

Their messaging sucks for sure. GOP rules on that front

[beantownbubba]

Food for thought I:

Charlie Sykes citing and quoting Arthur Brooks to the effect that the problem w/ politics today is not incivility, it is contempt for "the other."

"But Brooks, who is a far better man than I am, also warned about the dangers of a more global contempt for people who might have different perspectives and opinions. “Contempt,” he notes, “makes political compromise and progress impossible.”

"And it shuts down any possibility of dialogue. Wrote Brooks:

"Contempt makes persuasion impossible — no one has ever been hated into agreement, after all — so its expression is either petty self-indulgence or cheap virtue signaling, neither of which wins converts."

[beantownbubba]

Food for thought II, also from Charlie Sykes following up on the contempt idea above as applied to the Democratic Party:

"the dismissal of working-class voters as ignorant, irrational bigots, who really don’t understand the economy or even their own self-interest. Okay, that does explain some of them; but, as Ruy points out, the voters-are-too-dumb-to-understand mantra is (1) hardly a ringing endorsement of democracy, and (2) a questionable electoral strategy for the party of FDR.

"Simply assuming that working-class reactions to social and economic conditions are irrational seems like a strategy for widening the disconnect between elites and the voters desperately needed to block a second Trump term. It also dismisses a wide swath of humanity as unworthy of respect or attention."

Citing and quoting from a conversation/podcast Sykes had with Ruy Teixiera (w/ whom I am not familiar), Sykes writes:

"Ruy argues that that it’s important for Democrats to understand just how poorly the Biden economy has played with working-class voters so far: A recent Quinnipiac poll found Biden with a 25% approval on the economy among white working-class (non-college) voters vs. 52% approval on the economy among white college grad voters...

"Teixeira notes that views on the Biden economy may also reflect the belief among working class voters that, “Democrats don’t much like them and their uneducated uncouth manner of speaking and thinking...”

"In a recent essay, Teixeira cites recent reporting by Ron Brownstein to explain the chasm in the outlook on the economy between working class and college grads:

"Frustration over high prices is especially acute among voters with fewer resources and less financial cushion, which generally include those with less education. “Nobody likes spending more, but the degree to which you can absorb inflation, those at the higher end of the economic scale have less difficulty doing so,” said Democratic pollster Jay Campbell….

"While Biden and his allies point to an inflation slowdown, prices are not returning to their pre-Covid levels. Higher interest rates are also a problem...

"This is the hard reality Bidenomics and the Democrats have run into. The typical working-class voter just sees and has experienced things in a way that does not comport with Democrats’ preferred narrative. These voters’ “lived experience,” as it were, is just too different to generate buy-in to that narrative.

"Recent economic news is not helping. Inflation went back up in August, as did gas prices. Meanwhile, the latest income data from the Census Bureau “show continued decline in median household income in the first two years of the Biden administration, leaving it 4.7 percent lower than its pre-pandemic peak.

“Taking all this into account,” Teixeira writes, “it should not be too surprising that education polarization is stark in recent horse race polling between Biden and Trump. In a new CNN poll, Biden loses the working class by 14 points to Trump, while carrying college-educated voters by 18 points. That compares to Biden’s 2020 loss to Trump of ‘only’ four points among working-class voters...”

Sykes now quoting Ron Brownstein: "...But besides [relying on educated v. working class voters] being risky, one has to wonder what kind of party the Democrats are becoming. Is this really the party they want to be, where the views, priorities, and values of the educated take precedence?” He writes:

"We are getting very far indeed from FDR’s party of the common man and woman. Both political prudence and the core historic commitments of the Democratic Party should lead them away from their current path and back toward the working class..."

Sykes then goes on to note how these dynamics are playing out in the UAW strike, i.e. working class union members justifiably worry that they may be getting the short end of the stick as the nation transitions to a greener, more electric vehicle oriented future while the money to get there is going to big corporations and, essentially, elites in one form or another. Of course, the flip side is that the Republicans are simply not the friends of the working person so it remains confusing that these same union members are drifting towards Trump and the Republicans. For just one example, consider that car companies are using federal money to build electric car plants in ... South Carolina and other Republican right to work and generally anti-union states. It's a dilemma, but one which Democrats ought to focus on more and more creatively.

[beantownbubba]

If you fly w/ any regularity you should read this article. In fact, if you use credit cards or don't use credit cards you should read this article.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archi ... ntic+Daily

[cortez the killer]

https://www.propublica.org/article/clar ... nts-scotus

[Zip City]

I’m shocked, SHOCKED I say, that SCOTUS is just as cravenly corrupt as the other branches of government

[Mundane Mayhem]

The irony, of course, is that rural republicans have built a cult around the coastal elitiest coastal elite who ever coastal elited.

Even some of those January 6 Proud Boy shitheads are now saying they were duped though, so a fella can dream.

True, although, from what I've seen, mostly in the context of standing next to someone with a professional and constitutional obligation to provide them with a vigorous defense.

[Mundane Mayhem]

This is what my son has been doing lately.

https://explore.thepublicsradio.org/ser ... protected/

This is important work. I work with a lot of folks in similar situations (not minors, though) and it is consistently infuriating.

[brettac1]

https://www.propublica.org/article/clar ... nts-scotus

I'm more troubled by Ken Burns being there.

[whatwouldcooleydo?]

https://www.propublica.org/article/clar ... nts-scotus

I'm more troubled by Ken Burns being there.

I thought it was Dorothy Hamill

[beantownbubba]

I'm more troubled by Ken Burns being there.

I just told myself that it isn't Ken Burns. Saved a lot of agita. That's my story, etc etc

[beantownbubba]

I started out wondering and now I'm pretty much obsessing...

I understand that Senators and Congresspeople get paid during a government shutdown. I would think that this would enrage pretty much everyone and yet...crickets. Seems to me that a bipartisan initiative to ensure that shutdowns are unpaid time off for the elected legislative branch, and perhaps their senior staffers would be a hugely popular way to unite the country. And the logic seems impeccable, even overwhelming.

[beantownbubba]

The dam protecting Trump, holding back accountability, responsiblity, blame, guilt, etc etc was already leaking water over the top (jean carroll). The sounds you've been hearing are the cracks and groans as water starts to force its way through faults in the structure (a series of bad rulings against him in multiple cases, civil and criminal; the inferences from court filings that his gang that can't shoot straight is starting to turn against him, one by one). The little Trump boy doesn't have big enough hands or enough fingers to keep the deluge from breaking through and perhaps drowning him (the judge in the NY civil fraud suit has just ruled against Trump on one of the most important counts against his company with much, much more to follow).

[Zip City]

I started out wondering and now I'm pretty much obsessing...

I understand that Senators and Congresspeople get paid during a government shutdown. I would think that this would enrage pretty much everyone and yet...crickets. Seems to me that a bipartisan initiative to ensure that shutdowns are unpaid time off for the elected legislative branch, and perhaps their senior staffers would be a hugely popular way to unite the country. And the logic seems impeccable, even overwhelming.

[beantownbubba]

I started out wondering and now I'm pretty much obsessing...

I understand that Senators and Congresspeople get paid during a government shutdown. I would think that this would enrage pretty much everyone and yet...crickets. Seems to me that a bipartisan initiative to ensure that shutdowns are unpaid time off for the elected legislative branch, and perhaps their senior staffers would be a hugely popular way to unite the country. And the logic seems impeccable, even overwhelming.

Cynic.

Obviously you've forgotten the inspirational lyrics once sung by Arlo Guthrie, slightly modified:

"... if
One person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
They won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
They may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
Singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said
Fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
Walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
And that's what it[could be, the Old Ebbitt Grill No Play No Pay Movement], and
All you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the
Guitar...

[Zip City]

Of course I’m a cynic. I’ve seen Congress literally never choose to do the right thing for nearly 50 years.

[beantownbubba]

I posted this in the comments section of Robert Hubbell's substack newsletter/blog:

I can't help feeling that the conventional wisdom on the looming shutdown and Republican infighting is focused on the wrong things. Sure, there are reprehensible, irresponsible members of the Freedom Caucus. Sure, there are spineless "mainstream" Republicans. But imho it all comes down to two words: Kevin McCarthy.

Perhaps you believe as I do that McCarthy does not have the right package of skills and abilities necessary to be a successful Speaker of the House. But even if you think he has more on the ball than I suspect, it simply cannot be denied that he wants(ed) the job too much. Unbridled ambition uncoupled from any purpose or ideology is a bad thing. See, e.g., Donald Trump. McCarthy sold his soul in a desperate bid to win the Speakership and his term has been doomed from the moment he finally "won" the 15th round of voting. He is the wrong person at the wrong time in the wrong place and nothing good will happen until he is removed (or resigns). He's already won the right to be called "Mr. Speaker" for the rest of his life. There is nothing else for him. Just leave, Kevin.

I grew up in a time when there was still something like "civics" taught in high school. I majored in politics in college. I graduated from law school. So, yep, I'm a "goo-goo," a believer in "good government (e.g. Tammany Hall bad; merit based civil service good). But those old guys didn't have it all wrong, either. Can anyone imagine Tip O'Neill getting into the mess that McCarthy finds himself in (party affiliation aside)? Can anyone imagine the Tipster being so impotent, unable to lead, follow or get out of the way? Time to crack heads, assert discipline, threaten those things the rebels care about (either as individuals or in their political roles), cut off (or down) the flow of money and distribute the pork.

On a related note, I once took a negotiation course from the Harvard Negotiation Project (the people behind the book *Getting to Yes*). I learned some valuable, useful things, but the good folks from Harvard could not answer the only questions that really mattered: What if the other side is just plain uninterested in a resolution or what if their Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement ("BANTA", the foundation of the methodology being taught) is really bad but it does not deter the other party from pursuing it or incentivize them to negotiate. And those questions define the runaway Republican minority. They are either not concerned by a government shutdown or are actively seeking it. In these circumstances, negotiation without more (e.g. some exercise of flat out power combined with sophisticated backroom unpleasantness) by a powerless figurehead is doomed to fail.

[John A Arkansawyer]

the good folks from Harvard could not answer the only questions that really mattered

I thought the answer to those is obvious: No negotiation will succeed for you under those circumstances. Either proceed by other means or stall for time in the hopes the situation might change. If possible. Otherwise there'll be some dirt to eat.

[beantownbubba]

the good folks from Harvard could not answer the only questions that really mattered

I thought the answer to those is obvious: No negotiation will succeed for you under those circumstances. Either proceed by other means or stall for time in the hopes the situation might change. If possible. Otherwise there'll be some dirt to eat.

Correct. The point I was trying to make is that not even the folks from the negotiation project know of a way to negotiate out of these dead end situations, which means negotiating is not a useful way to proceed. A slightly different formulation for hoping the situation might change is taking affirmative steps to change the facts on the ground, i.e. shake up the assumptions, the alliances, the consequences, all things that seem to be quite beyond McCarthy. By contrast, a Tip O'Neill or a Nancy Pelosi would not have gotten into this situation or would have had the tools to work the levers of power in ways that would force an acceptable resolution.

[Zip City]

The saddest thing about McCarthy being speaker is that the GOP has no one else who would come close to getting enough votes to replace him. Their side of the aisle is a complete shit show