For some reason I decided to torture myself and read yesterday's New York Times focus group with twelve people in their 70s and 80s. Here's my favorite part:
Earlier, someone mentioned Dianne Feinstein, the senator from California, who has served for nearly 30 years. She just announced she’d be retiring from the Senate. Does anyone have a strong view one way or another about that decision?
Eugene, 80, Calif., white, Republican, retired
She should have done it two election cycles ago.Why do you think so?
It was three election cycles ago that we voted $3 billion to provide for reservoirs and water for the state. That remains unspent.
So it’s about effectiveness in office, Eugene?
Oh, yes.
It's true that in 2014 we voted to spend a bunch of money on water projects. It's also true that these projects take a long time to approve and build. Most of them aren't scheduled to become operational until the end of the decade.
Maybe that sucks, or maybe it's just business as usual. Either way, though, Dianne Feinstein is a US Senator and has nothing to with it. But Eugene is mad at her anyway.
Focus group? Shouldn't that be called Out-of-focus group?
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His comment is an excellent example of why someone over 80 should not be in office.
I think conservatives are generally wrong about everything and fairly stupid at any age
Yes, but most are wilfully ignorant, as well as dishonest, when it suits them.
On the contrary, his comment is an excellent example of why we need civics classes in public schools that actually work correctly.
Although if you want to talk about competency tests for voters of 65, I'm listening.
age doesn't have anything to do with it. ignorance is a human problem that afflicts all ages.
"His comment is an excellent example of why someone over 80 should not be in office."
Sure thing, based on a sample size of 1. Although the more logical/supportable conclusion might be that his comment is an excellent example of why _that person_ should not be in office. Fortunately, he isn't! So all is well, aside from the NYtimes deciding it's a good idea to waste precious journalistic resources on the stupid stunt of "I bet it's interesting to read what 12 elderly randos in a nation of nearly 350 million people think!"
We've got lower limits on age. We need upper limits too.
Teh stupid affects all age groups.
Eugene is mad at the right people. Maybe his reasons aren't sharp enough for you, but he's absolutely right that Feinstein should have retired years ago. She could have enjoyed more time with her husband before he died and more time at her $25 million vacation home in Colorado before she sold it.
Her health problems are hurting Dems and making her unable to fulfill the job that Californians elected her to do. She's missed 60 of 82 votes in the Senate this year and holding up business in the Judiciary Committee. She needs to get back to work.
It's a long way to November 2024, and it's questionable whether she'll make it that far. There's mounting pressure for her to retire, which would be unfortunate, I think. The people of California should be making the choice on who succeeds her, not the governor. She could have avoided this mess with dignity. But the trappings of office, I guess, are too hard to give up.
Shh... the people who get upset at any mention that old people in power should plan for an orderly succession rather than just throw it all to chance will hear you. Somewhere, RBG's biggest fans are already girding their loins for battle over whether we should "push out" Feinstein.
right for absolutely the wrong reason. sort of like blaming the goaltender for the baseball team's woes.
This! We are unable to get judges out of committee because she isn't there! Resign, for goodness sake!!
Ding ding ding! Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
Feinstein shouldn't have been in office at any point since the Bush years. She's about 20 years past her expiration date.
Newsome could handle the appointment issue by picking an elder statesman caretaker who will commit to not running in 24, keeping the open primary so the voters can pick.
Jerry Brown for example would be a solid choice.
Or in the past other governors have appointed the retiring Senators Chief of staff.
It'd be better if the American system was changed so that voters can more easily identify who is to blame for what. (Federalism and non-parliamentary systems are great at obscuring who exactly is responsible for what.)
But of course, ever since the Founding Fathers delivered the US Constitution on stone tablets from on high, it has proven to be fairly impossible to make any positive changes whatsoever to how the country operates.
The guy is not mad at Feinstein because of water projects, he's mad at her because she is a member of the other party and opposes some of the things that he favors, probably including White Christian Supremacy. Focus groups, with their direct, friendly questions are not likely to get at people's real attitudes on racism. Very few people admit to racism, so they have to give other reasons for their attitudes. When partisanship reaches a high level, anything the other side does is usually considered bad. And Republican politicians have been using things such as race and religion (not water projects) to inflame group identity and increase partisanship.
"The guy is not mad at Feinstein because of water projects, he's mad at her because she is a member of the other party and opposes some of the things that he favors, probably including White Christian Supremacy."
Indeed! This is why it's always best to never listen to what other people are saying, because whenever they disagree with us we _know_ it's because they are racist or evil or something.
As a congressional intern many years ago, I was amazed at what people in the district thought their Representative should be able to do for them. I was the lucky one who got to respond to their irate letters demanding that the Congresswoman settle their conflicts with their next door neighbors or address the issue of "stringy canned chicken" from Longs Drugstore (came complete with the disgusting smelly can)!
Indeed. Wise to remember.
A few years ago I scrolled through a 538 link to a poll of registered voters somewhere. Eighty Percent (80%!) did not know who Mitch McConell was.
Much of today's problems basically boils down to the fact that (a) there are alot of super low information voters out there, you know, as in Blazing Saddles, "simple people of the earth, you know, morons," and (b) the Repubs have the moron vote sewed up.
And those who don't get pulled in by the Rethugnicans get convinced by both-sides-ism because all they know is that shit sucks so it's gotta be every politician's and civil servant's fault.
I guess the dozen or so "elderly randos" (thanks, mr hickman!) is the latest Big Media answer to the trumpy randos who sit around in diners all day.
I would like to see the Times and other influential outlets start talking to people who have a clue. Go to a meeting of the League of Women Voters and chat with a bunch of them. Many are elderly (check!), many are men (check!), and many are even white (check!!) This group would check all the boxes -- but actually be informed and interested in good government, and helping all Americans to achieve it.
In sharp contrast to their preferred groups of cranky geezers who can't see beyond their own, near-over lives. A lot of the dudes don't even give a rip about the futures of their grandchildren, or great grandchildren.
Perhaps what Eugene is speaking to, is a perceived lack of political pressure applied to the USACE (and other departments) to speed reviews and approvals.
Maybe! I'm sure if we put our heads together, we could come up with all sorts of reasonable ideas that if you squint might plausibly be what Eugene is *really* talking about.
But that sort of exercise undoubtedly means spending far, far more brainpower on analyzing some happenstance statement by some pensioner nobody here has ever heard of before than Eugene himself likely ever did.
(Which is a bit like how during the Trump presidency barrells of digital ink expended massaging whatever batshit tweet El Jefe spat out into some semblence of an informed policy position, because the thought/reality that the president was so diametrically unpresidential was--depending on one's views--either unstrategic or hard to bear).
Sometimes people are just fools. In fact, most of the time that's how it is.
I prefer not to minimize or mock people based on a superficial exchange of words.
"So it’s about effectiveness in office, Eugene?"
That's not a very good follow-up query. The questioner should have requested that Eugene elaborate on what he thought Feinstein's obligations were. Instead s/he had already drawn conclusions then asked for reinforcement.
All of us are fools, some of the time.
Yeah, but that's sort of the point--this whole exercise is stupid. Does anything "Eugene" has to say on the subject illuminate objective truth? No? Ok, is there any reason to think that the views of "Eugene" are representative of a politically significant share of the population? Not that either? Well then, is "Eugene" a notable thinker or speaker or leader whose views might be influential? Nope. Are Eugene's views particularly interesting or novel? Again, nope. So why care what he has to say (or more accurately, what the NYtimes chose to report him saying in this little stunt of bad journalism)?
Put another way, "Eugene" could be a bot or something that just generated some words, and we could all engage in the same sort of chin-stroking about What Did Eugene Mean? without any of this rising to a level above the sometimes-fun intellectual exercise of yapping about nothing.
If the NYtimes wanted to address the apparent problem of how "we don’t hear enough directly from regular Americans 65 or older," they should have conducted a statistically relevant survey and generated some actual data. As is, all this piece does is increase the number of "regular 65 Americans 65 or older" we have heard from by 0.00004%.
Bingo! "Eugene" got top billing because what he said generated clicks. Outrage from anyone in the Reality-Based Community. "Heck YEAH!" from his fellow Fox-Infected.
No reason to assume it was "representative" of folks over 65, of which I (sadly) am one. No reason to assume "Eugene" wasn't just talking out his arse. Maybe he's been shunned by his family for his dumb views and ignorance ... we can't tell!
But the clicks! All those CLICKS!
As George Carlin put it think of how dumb the average person you know is and then remember that half the people are even dumber
Only when the distribution is such that the average and the median are the same…
A large element of democracy is essential to good government. A sane, well-informed electorate is essential to democracy. Ipso facto, the United States is effyouseekayed, for sure.
"Eugene" may be 80, but he has the mind of a child. All authority is the same and all power is arbitrary. In this, he is like all Americans, with so few exceptions as to make no practical difference.
Most people have zero idea of how government works. They’re completely ignorant.
Voters in rural Washington routinely attempt to strip the urban areas of authority to tax themselves to provide transit—even though it doesn’t cost those voters anything.
And the rural parts of every state think they are subsidizing the cities and if they could be just be left alone they’d be doing great, when in reality of course most of them couldn’t self fund their Fire Department, schools, police, etc. without huge subsidies from the cities
Moreover, any time somebody with a clue speaks to them, they rage that they're being "disrespected" by those snooty "elitists". Thus, they are forced - FORCED, I say! - to ignore anything they hear from folks in the Reality-Based Community.
There's a rural district in WA state that hasn't passed a school levy in 15 years that is going to take the state to court to demand the state pay for their school construction. Proud libertarians I'm sure.
Have we found an effective way to address people's misunderstandings with causing them to hold onto their false beliefs even tighter?
So, Congress appropriates funding and then their responsibility ends? To what extent were any of the members of the California caucus keeping track on a topic that is arguably extremely vital to the wellbeing of the state they represent?
Presumably the "we" that Eugene refers to is California voters. In 2014, California had a referendum on spending money on water projects. The referendum passed, leaving it up to the state government to develop the projects. As Kevin notes, the state has proceeded slowly.
Feinstein has essentially nothing to do with this. She is a United States senator, which means she works in the Federal government, not the California state government.
Got it. Thanks. So in this case Eugene’s ire should be directed at Sacramento.
At the same time, Ballotpedia lists four officials as Supporters:
Gov. Jerry Brown
US Sen. Barbara Boxer
Asm. Marc Levine
and …
US Sen. Dianne Feinstein
So while her portfolio may be Federal, she did associate herself with the effort. And some cursory web searches suggest there are or will be federal loans involved.
Usually it’s up to the state and local governments to oversee the projects. For example Ohio’s Mike DeWine and legislature has dedicated $500 million of Ohio’s share of Biden’s American Rescue Act to reviving Ohio’s Appalachian area towns with grants. The money is federal but it’s the state that has created the program and is responsible for overseeing it.
This is why people applauded when Orange Julius promised to fix bad light bulbs and bad toilets.
I quit liking her when she supported the anti-flag burning amendment. She showed herself as an anti-free speech busybody.
I think you yourself have pointed out it takes much more time and money to do US projects than Europe.
I recently read some articles that say the US relies too much on public-private partnerships, particularly private consultants we don’t have enough qualified public ones.
https://slate.com/business/2023/02/subway-costs-us-europe-public-transit-funds.html
I remember back in the noughties all those toll projects projects that the GWB years forced was blamed by the AM radio set on local dem law makers until Obama was elected then the blame was expanded to cover him as well. The mighty wurlitzer is effective at shifting blame at the local level, maybe even better than the national.
Feinstein should go because she is clearly advancing into dementia. Pelosi is dead wrong. If she can show me a male senator who can't hold an idea in his head for longer than 5 minutes, I'll advocate for his resignation as well. Feinstein has become an obstacle to the very purposes she claims to support and, like Justice Ginsburg, it is purely out of ego and a sense that she is indispensable.