Why oh why?
For the life of me I don’t understand why Dems aren’t falling over themselves to praise how Biden has handled things and express immense relief that he, rather than a fully compromised Trump, is leading the global response, but this delusional nonsense is what’s filling the void. https://t.co/0qBkAF2tRK
— Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) February 28, 2022
It's a good question. Democrats generally seem less inclined than Republicans to loudly boast about what they've done, and I've always ascribed this partly to a lack of conviction: They're afraid of committing themselves for fear that things might go sour later on and they'll look stupid.
As Brian says, we pay a price for this. We haven't boasted much about the stimulus bill getting the economy back on track, so the void has been filled by conservatives and the media going crazy about inflation. Everyone stayed quiet about the Afghanistan withdrawal, so the void was filled with nonstop coverage of "chaos" and bad planning. Right now, Dems are mostly fairly quiet about Biden's rather remarkable diplomatic successes over Ukraine—which are fairly subtle and need explaining—so the void is filled with Fox News talking heads claiming that Biden is "weak" and Putin isn't afraid of him.
I dunno. I've never understood this. Am I wrong about Democrats' aversion to boasting about what they (or their president) have done? Are they talking a lot and I'm just not hearing it? Or what?
Well, except I am not seeing much of a void being filled. You need to stop looking at the coastal elites and look at flyover country for once. Who isn't inside the halls of the dnc not supporting Biden????
This post is weird and useless. It's making things up for the sake of it.
PSA: Don’t feed the troll.
👍👍👍👍👍
I believe in honesty, not false praise. I have been saying how masterful of a job they've done against Russia.
Biden guided the world along, being far more transparent than any previous administration on the intelligence. Everyone got to see how Biden undercut Putin's plans, stopping Putin from taking action earlier. All along, the world got to see Putin's lies and provocations, exactly as Biden said would happen.
This built up Biden's cred and when it came time to defend Russia's war before the UN Security Council, not even China, the UAE, or India would publicly support Putin's rampage. Brazil (!) was vocally opposed to Putin's war. Some of the assumed allies of Putin have turned on him. Fuck, even Republicans are caught in an oh-shit moment, realizing their defense of a tyrant has sunk their political futures.
Short of direct confrontation, the US has Ukraine's back. The Ruble is collapsing. The RCB is running out of US Dollars. Sweden is no longer on the fence. Germany has bypassed its policy and sent thousands of lethal weapons. Denmark has given the OK for its citizens to join Ukraine's foreign volunteer force.
By the way, that targeting of the Russian Central Bank -- wow! -- was brilliant.
Putin's losing his war -- a war rich with irony.
#ThanksBiden
ECB is already warning that the Russian-government-owned Sberbank is ’likely to fail’.
Sberbank's ADR got pummeled. One week ago it was at $10. Today, it hit $1. About half that decline occurred today.
MOEX was closed today and they already announced it'll be closed tomorrow. I don't think they can open at all. The moment they open, all of their stocks will plummet like it's 1929.
Russians are going to quickly face the choice of sticking with Putin or removing him from office.
Oh man, I missed it. MOEX is going to stay closed for the week. Maybe Putin told them he'd have things wrapped up -- for sure this time -- by Saturday.
Putin had better be working on a Plan B, because for sure others are ….
Even if, especially if, Putin’s forces occupy Kyiv by then, and a puppet regime is installed, sanctions aren’t going to be lifted. If the EU can hang on until spring, they can hang on until fall, and meantime they will be working like hell to bring in alternatives to Russian gas. In the same meantime Russia will be on the decline, facing a shrinking future market even if they reverse course.
Yet hashtags are all to easily co-opted. All it takes is some young Ukrainian to have died “because Biden didn’t stop Putin from invading” and the images sent out with that hashtag.
Don’t forget Turkey.
No, you are entirely correct, Biden's leadership has been absolutely astonishing these past few weeks, but not fraught with drama, in fact carefully deflationary, but drama is all that plays on tv, and all that will ever register with social conservatives.
The news media is much more concerned about his approval rating, a thing that is both meaningless, because these polls include conservatives who think they have a duty to lie, and certain to stay rock bottom as long as the media talks only about that whenever Biden himself is the topic.
I'm wondering how much of Biden's low approval rating is due to progressives who don't feel Biden has done enough fast enough? Hasn't been Green Lantern enough? Any of you out there?
Ding!
And that's a lot of it, too. When a pollster calls a Democrat will venture a considered opinion, a Republican just thinks it's an opportunity to cause damage.
I'm not so sure how much is "Democrats don't hype Biden" as much as "Media doesn't carry Democrats' hyper."
Rather, the Demcrats play the hype game very poorly.
I don’t think Democrats play it at all. We have to figure out how to remain grounded in reality while still boosting our team and trash-talking the other one. Republicans don’t need to cover that first point.
Marketing.
The same game as marketing. Sell your product without being deceived by your own marketing.
Entirely possible.
But one has to stop regarding it as something dirty and distasteful, impure and not meeting the Platonic ideals....
Feels like we Dems think deep down that results work and everyone will see it, but it's going to take a lot more head-smashing before we internalize the falseness of that. Also we feel shame -- a big disadvantage these days.
Yes.
It's not just that the media doesn't carry Dem hype, the media goes out of its way to try to tear everything down for Dems. Remember how the recent increases in average people's wages were treated as a bad thing? And that was after years of breathless praise of stock market increases during the Trump years (even when the market was actually stagnating).
If this blows up in Putin's face, and Russia loses it's international clout, the newspaper's headlines will be "Biden's anxious new world order" and articles will go on and on about how no longer having a bi-polar international arrangement is "fraught" with "unprecedented risks." There will be no joy that a horrid dictator and human rights abuser is gone.
Heartily agree: 'Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.' The time is long since past that Democrats admit that getting it wrong every single time is just a mistake and address it head on. What do they have to lose, especially when Republicans do it all the time?
I imagine FOX, CBS, & the Bernie Bro Haven NBC will carry Rashida Tlaib's SOTU response -- I exclude ABC only because Jimmy Kimmel must do it live -- & then Jon Stewart's puppet Stephen Colbert will be on with Rashida's master, Bernie, right after.
The American news media sucks, full stop.
They bend over backwards so much to be both-sides that they invent story lines based on Republican talking points.
I'm currently getting most of my news by reading the Guardian. Maybe I should also try Al Jazeera.
Et voila a sub-thread exactly highlighting your problem.
Whinging on about the real market and environment you face rather than adapting to and adopting the tactics necessary to operate in such market.
The Oh Woe is Me (in the dating world this would be "Oh woe is me Nice guys never get dates) approach straight to losing.
Tell you what. YOU adapt to the market. Me, I want the truth and I refuse to support with my subscription a news media which distorts it.
Consider the Washington Post's motto "Democracy Dies in Darkness". Yet they failed to editorially take sides when all 50 Republican Senators voted against a good voting rights bill. Pure hypocrisy.
It's not that Biden is just doing well. He's doing phenomenally well. Anyone who doesn't understand that needs to read some history (and change the channel). We still don't know how this will turn out but in one week we've gone from questions like "How can Putin be stopped?" to "How can Putin survive?" It's a real possibility that Putin will go down, and that NATO will end up bigger and stronger after Putin's efforts to divide it. That's largely due to Biden's leadership. He is uniquely suited for this moment.
Yes, Dems are awful at selling their accomplishments. They think the news media will tell their story for them and the only time to crow about the good stuff is in the final weeks of a campaign. Fact is, media is reflexively soft on Rs/hard on Ds, and the only good time for Dems to sell their achievements is always.
Democrats play scientist rock. They're reality-based (more or less) and believe that the results should speak for themselves.
+10
The reason pretty obviously is that the whole thing could go very badly south in one day. Suppose Russia successfully overruns Kyiv tomorrow? Do you want to be crowing now about how great it's all going?
Biden will have his chance at the State of the Union to make the GOP look like the craven suck ups to power they are. Gonna be interesting to see if Putin's sense of PR is such that he tries to disrupt that in some way.
Serious question from a foreigner: does anybody outside the DC bubble give a continental about the State of the Union bullshit?
The honest answer is not really — usually. In certain situations when there’s big news happening it’s a rare moment when the prez is actually on all the TV channels in the evening and it’s not a news program. So even if most Americans don’t care about politics, it gets more notice than usual. And who knows, maybe Putin will choose that moment to explode a nuke in the black sea or something to steal Biden’s PR opportunity. After all, it sure looks like Putin waited til after the Olympics to launch this invasion - i.e., he seems to have a PR strategy he cares about.
Well, he can’t afford to embarrass his only ‘friend’, fellow stumpy dictator Xi Jinping.
This SOTU will get more viewers than the usual SOTU and mire than his recent news conferences on Ukraine.
To me, it's kind of complex-- Crissa's right that media don't seem to run with D comments that much, and that's a good place to start. But then D comments generally aren't both pithy and trolling/attention-getting (I almost said "outrageous") in tone, so they're not as well-set-up for soundbites as Rs tend to be.
This second point has ramifications. As a generalization, Ds can tend to over-explain and over-qualify, and can drift into a tone of voice that tv people don't like to run with. Romney is maybe the closest to that on the R side. Even somebody like Amy Klobuchar, though, will make a lot of sense long-form but tend to sound kind of droning in short soundbites. Also Ds can sound like they don't particularly want to have to say out loud what ought to be obvious to anybody with any sense. It's a strength of Buttegieg, imo, that he can be pithy and sound interested in what he's saying and do it in short and long form.
I agree with everybody about what Biden's been doing here. It's really been extraordinary, and Ds *should* be saying so without fawning over him the way the Rs do over their village idiot.
As an addition: this is rather like the comment below by kenalovell. One can call the Republicans method as trolling and dismiss, or one can take lessons (not to adopt per se but to respond).
Whinging on about the Media is rather useless. The Media is what it is, and whinging about it doesn't allow one to play the game.
It rather feels like, to use my favoured personal sport, the cases of a sabre fencer fencing epee and whinging on about how unfair the other guy keeps scoring points on his foot, off-target in sabre, on-target for epee.
The Media game is what it is and barring some massive market reform, you have to play it as it is, not whinge on about how unfair it is. (indeed it may be unfair, but that becomes quite besides the point)
One of the rare times I agree with you. But then again, we're not talking about what should be basic arithmetic.
The media "is what it is" and "no point whinging"? Seriously? The right wing has whinged its way into a free ride and a constant anti-Dem slant by nearly all media outlets. That's how they did it. Constant carping, attacking, whinging. Coining "the Librul Meedia" nonsense.
Lefties need to step up and demand at least equal time. And note, this would mean coverage that's more "reality-based", which one would assume that "news" outlets would welcome.
You have spent the last what, ten-fifteen years ineffectually whinging on about the unfairness.
Very evidently Lefties "stepping up" and engaging in more overly intellectualised whinging on is not going to achieve anything new as you lot keep missing the large component of savvy and proactive marketing and promo (the success of Trump despite his mountain of flaws and general dimness - except for his masterful animal cunning in this area - is merely the most recent example).
Perhaps it's because you're averse to private sector lessons, perhaps because too many of you are intellos, but you're fucking godawful at mass marketing.
Continuing your Oh Woe is US and How Unfair it is without taking actual pragmatic action is typical intello ineffectualism.
No need to get insulting. And no, there has NOT been a grassroots lefty attack upon media coverage, as the wingnuts and their leaders have been doing for near half a century now. Like Democrats, we have failed to speak up for ourselves.
And, as you note, it's about time we started doing it, and figuring out how to make it effective.
That's wrong. Working the refs (media) is one part of a good communication strat.
Where is the Democrat Mike Evans*?
*Flopping dog wideout for the Tampa Bay Fuckaneers.
Definitely worked for the Republicans with National Public Radio. In that case, of course, Congresspersons could threaten to cut public funding. NPR has definitely shifted rightward* - and Republicans cut funding anyway.
*In the past, NPR would interview a conservative and a liberal on political issues. Now, they will often discuss political issues with a conservative and one of their own journalists, who will bend over backwards to be ‘neutral’, by not challenging conservative bullshit.
Crissa is _exactly_ right.
+10
Partly because media coverage of any Democrats who want to talk up their successes begins and ends with "What do you say in response to [insert name of Trump Republican] who claims the president has been [insert appropriate pejorative adjective]."
But I agree with Kevin's larger point. Trump bombarded reporters with incendiary tweets that made for great stories. Biden's tweets and statements read like they were written by a committee. Kind of "Biden stares down KGB thug!" watered down to "Administration takes issue with policy choices of Russian president, pursues diplomatic solution". No, Biden can't become a Trumpian buffoon. But my God there's a lot of work to do to present the administration's point of view in a way the media can make it the main story.
Quite valid
While descending to Trumpist buffoonery would be a bad thing - taking some lessons on effective marketing and communication to wider masses outside of Leftist Activist crowd and Democratic egg-head intellectual policy crowd would be well-advised.
More aggressive and effective marketing, dropping academic-infused language and going for simplification and common man feeling (as the lessons of the successes broadly of the Populist right including in Europe convey, this is not purely an American Centre-Left problem). The Democrats and Left in general are too infused with Academic egghead speech (noting in writing this I personally have three graduate degrees, and know well myself that my own perso tendency is indeed to communicate in the same fashion. However self-awareness recommends the realisation this is a shit way to win over the wider public).
' I too can summon spirits from the vasty deep. But will they come when you do call for them?', to Bowdlerize the Bard.
Damn, that should have 'bowdlerize', sigh.
Maybe, but to “stare down” means to cause to waver or submit. And perhaps that will happen, but it hasn’t yet.
Maybe it has. There’s now talks scheduled between Ukraine and Russia about a ceasefire. Possibly about a broader resolution of the conflict. And Ukrainians seem to be taking a pretty tough stance, not approaching the talks as suing for peace.
There you go, doing exactly what I was talking about. The goal is to make an impact on public opinion, not to write a nuanced summary of events.
It’s too soon to boast or give anyone credit. War is a catastrophe. Could it be worse? Of course. It still could all get much worse at any time.
The media, it seems to me, is doing a great job of showing that the the West isn’t willing to sacrifice much for Ukraine. They are being embarrassed by Zelensky into taking some more aggressive actions, but Sanctions are only a good response if they don’t affect us.
Personally I’d like to see a more aggressive response from the US military but we know they are cowards so that’s not going to happen. (Ha! I had to take an shot!).
Anyway, no one cares what I think. So good job 👏 President Biden. I think that’s probably not what Mr. Drum is asking for. He wants other democrats in the media and politicians to give Biden credit.
“Personally I’d like to see a more aggressive response from the US military” because I’m a nihilistic narcissist who assumes (1) every situation needs more destruction/chaos and (2) nothing I recommend (in earnest or just trolling) will ever affect me personally. FIFY.
I would like to hear more about how getting the US militarily involved in Ukraine doesn’t lead to more neverending war for the US and/or nuclear weapons being used. Since you’re safely ensconced in your living room or mother’s basement, I’m sure you can pontificate some more to those of us who oppose any US action that could lead us into WWIII.
Justin's shtick is to preach an enervating cynicism--everything is terrible, but nothing can be done about it, so the best thing is to let it all burn. Advocating that (other) people go fight and die in the name of escalating things to WW3 is uncharacteristically proactive of him, but I guess ultimately on-brand.
Justin is Chaotic Evil Mitch Guthman.
Things can be done about all this awful stuff. Your friends in the media and government just aren’t trying hard enough / doing the wrong things.
Well we could have the US military training the Ukranian refugees who want to go back in and fight. Currently it's mostly women and children but there may be a few that are willing to go back in if their families are safe. Will be particularly useful in the insurgency phase.
We need to send the Ukrainians Javelins and Stingers/MANPADS by the tens of thousands. Make Ukraine unsafe for Russian armor and close air support, and it’s just their infantry facing a numerically superior Ukrainian force* and a hostile populace.
*Ukraine apparently has about a million in its armed forces and reserves. Russia was estimated to have a force of ~200,000, some fraction must remain in the rear echelons to keep the supplies flowing, treat the wounded, etc. Given Russia’s reputation for being bad at logistics, that’s likely to be a higher fraction than, say, the US Army would have.
I think it would be better to let the Ukrainians organize things for themselves. I’ve seen estimates of the new foreign legion as between 50k to 100k. If that’s accurate, it likely resolves Ukraine’s manpower situation and if the foreign legion attracts even a small number of continuing recruits, that influx combined with continuing resupply by EU puts Ukraine on a much more even footing with Russia.
You might also remember that our training has been extremely ineffective. We spent billions training the Iraqi and Afghan militaries and both dissolved instantly as the money stopped flowing. I think it would be prudent to let others take the lead on training.
I have my own home thank you very much. And my mother died of Covid in December 2020 so… I’ve done more to save your pathetic behind (and many millions more) than you can even imagine.
Clearly, this is a different "Justin" from the one that constantly proclaims his hatred of war and of humanity in general. Can usernames be co-opted? Is there a blank space at the end of this username, or some invisible embedded character? Where's the old misanthropist that we all know and love?
This is an actual defensive war… unlike the wars of aggression and revenge from the last 20 years.
An intervention here is more like the liberation of Kuwait or the ones in Bosnia or Kosovo. Of course I don’t want any of it. But… maybe this is one worth some effort. So if Biden wanted to be more aggressive I won’t criticize. If his advisors are going to throw around rhetoric like this from last summer…. Well.
“Joe Biden is now the "leader of the free world", according to his national security adviser, Jake Sullivan. The White House aide made the comment on Thursday, claiming "I really do not believe that it is hyperbole to say that @POTUS returns from this this trip as the clear and the consensus leader of the free world."
Sullivan didn’t say NATO… he was much more ambitious. Maybe that was ill advised. Maybe not.
Here’s a chance for the military to redeem itself after two decades of failure.
But if you all think it unwise, I’ll defer to you.
Reading the comments from Erickson, trump, bannon, and dreher… I still hate all humanity! 😂
Well from what one can ascertain, the centrist Democrats are averse to boasting and marketing themselves.
This regrettably leaves them almost solely with onlyin comms terms a loud faction that is not averse to making noise is the Purity Pony faction that rather than celebrating getting steps towards a goal, rather prefers attacking the impure on their own side for not achieving pure and just goals fully.
Contrasted with the opposition which is broadly quite ready to pivot and celebrate the most meager steps (or even faux steps that are mostly mirages) and keep the majority of their fire heavily concentrated on the opposition (not to say there is no RINO attacks observable but comparatively they do a rather better job of not engaging in fire on "own tribe")
So you rather end up with a predominance (as perceived from the outside, which is one should think nevetheless your communciation target in large part) of Democrat & Left comm which rather the celebrating achievements, rather concentrates on bemoaning lack of complete purity in the achievements, and contains a rather baffling preference for attacking perceived impure fellow-travellers over the opposition
Possibly this extreme and self-destructive modesty is part of their upper Midwest roots. The Lutheran tradition is to not brag on yourself, to minimize your achievements, to not make it seem as if you think you or your actions are any better than anyone else's. Just go quietly about your business and let the results speak for themselves. God knows what you've done.
Trouble is, God doesn't vote.
Lutheran, and living now in Minnesota. But lived half my life in New England, which has gone from moderate/liberal Republican to solid moderate/liberal Democratic since the 1960’s, but kept its reputation for being taciturn throughout. It works fine there - the Democratic First Selectman of my (sadly, former) Connecticut town just won his seventh term unopposed, on the basis of doing the town’s business efficiently and effectively. Same for the longtime Town Clerk - ran her office well, she and her staff always pleasant and helpful, and was endorsed by both major parties and the Independent voters. It’s not just the Upper Midwest.
That's a Lutheran thing?!?! I was raised in a Roman Catholic household (and schools) and was taught (indoctrinated!) that I should not speak well of my self and let my actions speak for me.
I'm in my sixties and I still interview for jobs VERY poorly (last interview was late 2019.)
"Outrageousness" in any subject garners headlines and news conferences.
Trump's in-your-face style - with outrageous claims is STILL getting headlines and column space.
Just look at the headlines on any news site. "Trump's to blame", "Trumps wealth inflated", Trump Jr "Cocaine is not my drug of choice".
It is a carefully crafted campaign to keep him and the republicans in the news until the next election
We eat this crap up unfortunately
It's remimiscent of our self-destructive craving for sugar.
Democrats do trip themselves up....
1. For progressives, nothing is ever good enough. Perfection to the detriment of the good.
2. Moderates are deathly afraid of the "liberal" label--and shy away from the national party.
But look at the Congressional aids--Republicans have PR people, Democrats have policy people.
Look at news shows:--what's the head count of Republicans vs Democrats making up the talking head tally?
Even the latest set--Republicans go hard on Putin, and This Week finds one of the few anti-Putin people (Tom Cotton) to put on TV. Talk about giving them cover.
+10
In fairness, they allowed Cotton to thoroughly embarrass himself.
I think we know by now there's no possibility of a conservative embarrassing himself.
Tom Cotton remained resolute in the face of George Stephanopoulos's liberal gotchas.
One other note--Republican administrations break things. A huge amount of effort by any Democratic administration is to repair the basic tools of governance. Trump kept trying to defund the CDC--even during the pandemic. Congress restored the money--but that takes a great toll on those working there, and those who can, leave, because they see the writing on the wall. Institutional knowledge goes away, and effectiveness wanes. And that happens across gov't.
Trump kept trying to destroy our alliances. Biden had to spend a lot of time behind the scenes to repair things.
Making bombastic announcements is easy. Actual governing is hard and a lot of it is boring. Which do you think will get covered?
In my long years I haven't seen a single Democratic President where the basic position of Democratic lawmakers hasn't been to put distance between themselves and the President. And I have no idea why.
It's hilarious because the presidents ratings are a huge determinant. Notice how Manchin only got really frisky after Afghanistan chaos when Biden ratings really began to slide
Well, Biden's approval has risen in swing states. Manchin then errored.
The subtleties and time-taking nature of Biden’s success are difficult to acknowledge in the face of increasing refugee counts and hits to the Dow. An imploding Russian economy does not have the same visceral “doing something” effect as would an exploding Russian tank. That is at the root of the messaging problem.
Eh, nope.
To some degree, Rick is right. From what I saw on tv yesterday, that video of a single Ukrainian drone exploding on a Russian vehicle got more play than “ruble collapses, bank may fail.” … maybe if we can get a Russian banker to jump out of a bank window …
True, even though TFG’s ‘successes’ were imaginary - his cult believes he built a wall on the southern border, and made foreign powers ‘respect’ us ‘again’.
If El Tio Demento had actually filled his White House foreign policy desk with hard-core Democrat leftists, no, Erick Erickson, the Biden-Harris regime wouldn't be leading the global response to GQP Final Boss Putin's Ukraine annexation. But, in fact, the Biden FP shop is largely composed of the same realists who, seeing the error in neglecting Rwanda (spurred, in no small measure, by knowing how Bush-41's Somalia mission ended under Bill Climpton), went hard after Serbia in 1999. Biden is doing it right, & more smartly than El Jefe Maralagano ever would have.
The only reason other Democrats are softpedalling the success is the same reason Chuck Schumer tweets about canceling student loan debt: to avoid the poisonous deza of the Democrat-Socialists of America who can jillstein 435 House races & 32 Senate races come November (with the aid n' comfort of their paymasters on Savushkina Street).
I stopped reading at "El Tio Demento."
You should have stopped earlier.
Big IF true.
Because whenever you talk to democrats you’ve got to parse your words and tiptoe to the myriad of minefields about pronouns and pacifism and maybe somebody somewhere won’t like it. Political correctness has turned us into a bunch of stuttering( did I offend people with a stutter?) although our Stutterer in Chief is doing a remarkable job…..over explaining..thin slicing bores. No wonder no one wants to vote for us. We’re too scared to say what we think..in case we get an argument.
Or downplay someone's lived experience
This problem originated long before the invention of "political corretitude", it has been around at least since the Carter administration.
This problem originated long before the invention of "political correctitude", it has been around at least since the Carter administration.
The 'problem' originates in the MSM, which will gleefully air any sort of 'mistep'. And if there are no large targets, they will misconstrue something some Democrat said somewhere and manufacture large ones.
I would love to see some kind of data on this (though I'm sure it would be a bit hard to quantify), but I definitely think Dems are far less prone to brag about their wins, and that this is probably a characteristic innate to most people of liberal/progressive mindset. And that is a perfectly encapsulated example of a caveated, mealy mouthed, democratic sounding sentence. Pending data... I think maybe...then some science shit. With a refusal to make a definitive statement. It's who we are, and in most contexts, it is the correct thought process for learning, problem solving and getting stuff done. But NOT in politics or more generally PR and marketing.
What surprises me is that the democratic party hasn't been able to hire PR people who have the personality to do the bragging that our elected officials don't seem able to do. Or perhaps they hire them and then don't listen.
There were a few Dems who could really communicate the outrage, with great visceral appeal. Anthony Weiner. Andrew Cuomo. And a few others whose names I can't recall. But they all crashed and burned on sexual misdeeds.
Today, we have AOC and The Squad. But they're
(1) Women. Uppity, talky women.
(2) Liberal/progressives.
(3) Not slaves to Israel.
(4) Young and good looking. Therefore, clearly bubbleheads.
+2 Americas in the John Edwards Cinematic Universe
AOC is a Russian lackey. She is done.
No lies detected.
Re: weiner/cuomo atc, yeah, the dems who are the best and most shameless at PR cheerleading are the worst actual people. Which is why the GOP is so much better. Re:AOC, I'm a big fan, and she's a great communicator, but her roll hasn't been a ton of Dem cheerleading and positive PR. She's great at attacking the GOP and pushing progressive policy, which as a left leaning, early career congressperson makes sense. Which is why I think we need staff and consultants who are more cutthroat and shameless.
I agree that the Biden administration has done a good job, given a very difficult set of circumstances. However, there are limits to marketing his situation:
1. For many true ‘success’ would have avoided an invasion. But this is likely an unfair bar, I believe that goal was out there.
2. The Trump as a Russian agent, under the influence of Russia etc makes this complicated. Yes, there are many theories why Putin didn’t invade Ukraine with Trump in office but bottom line this happened with Biden (and Obama) in office and not Trump. Further, there is lots of video of Biden talking tough about Russia being afraid of him. Once again un fair but it’s a factor
3. The future is unknown. You brag about Ukraine THEN there is horrible news and the administration has egg on its face
4. I THINK the sanctions are, by design, more for show than impact. By basically excluding oil and gas, being honest, the impact of these sanctions will not be that significant.
Incorrect. The Oligarchs dark money, money laundering scheme is collapsing. It's the real reason why base equities have been in "correcting mode" lately. If Oligarchs can't run it, their property debts and banking system will collapse in the west. A number of hedgies are going under. The Trump Organization included. You need a nostril grab. Wait until Republican and to a lesser extent, some Democrats wash up on the beach as dead bloated corpses.
This is totally wrong. That sanctions are cataclysmic. In fact they may have been too much since energy is the ONLY sector left to sanction and even then cutting off central bank payments hurts that too. There is almost no room to ratchet it up. People are talking a possibility of 1998 default depending on how long this goes.
Special Newb - to avoid a significant spike in energy prices and possible spot shortages in Europe, oil and gas was basically excluded from the sanctions: we excluded Russia's primary export....
"Russia's main exports are: fuels and energy products (63 percent of total shipments, of which crude oil and natural gas accounted for 26 percent and 12 percent respectively); metals (10 percent); machinery and equipment (7.4 percent); chemical products (7.4 percent) and foodstuffs and agricultural products (5 percent)."
https://tradingeconomics.com/russia/exports#:~:text=Russia's%20main%20exports%20are%3A%20fuels,agricultural%20products%20(5%20percent).
Dude, energy is irrelevant. Their capital markets are toast. Their oligarchy is collapsing. When Russians have no food or energy, those exports mean little.
Oil and gas exports are important to Russia because they are paid for in currencies that can be used to buy imported goods. Restrictions on exports to Russia, and on banking transactions, reduce the value to Russia of those currency holdings, no?
I think the energy sector won’t be hit with sanctions since that would hurt our allies at least as much as it would damage Russia. The existing sanctions and the isolation of Russia have done tremendous damage to the Russian economy. This reaction has been far deeper, more virulent, and more widespread than anyone could have predicted (example being the Swiss who’ve abandoned being a neutral safe haven for black money and frozen Russian oligarchs assets).
The next step in the tightening sanctions regime is apparently going after the assets of the few sanctioned oligarchs. The US and EU are looking to seize bank accounts, landed estates, and super yachts. My guess (and hope) is this is intended to be an object lesson to the other oligarchs and motivate them to take action.
Mitch Guthman - I HOPE your perspective is correct. As I see it, the purpose of sanctions is either (or both) to influence a current policy or change future actions.
Do you think that Putin will materially change what he is doing in Ukraine because of the sanctions ? To me, that goal seems unlikely...
Do you think Putin will change his future actions because of the current sanctions? I guess its possible but, once again, its pretty speculative on this question.
Thus, my conclusion that the sanctions will cause some pain but they are not likely to have a strategic impact on Russia/Putin.
Did you read what Mitch wrote? I agree with him; the sanctions are unlikely to change Putin’s decisions, but if enough oligarchs feel enough pain, he may find himself in Nikita Khrushchev’s former dacha on the Black Sea, where he can gaze toward Krim, and reflect on his ‘glory’ days.
KenSchulz - my point sanctions are either designed to change a current or future behavior or they are intended to communicate disapproval.
I believe that the current sanctions are not not adequate to change Russia/Putin's behavior. Frankly, history shows its VERY difficult to design and sustain sanctions that change a country's behavior.
Therefore, the current set of sanctions are mostly symbolic and will cause limited pain FOR the key Russians/these sanctions were expected are are the cost of 'doing business' in a Putin frame of the world.
That is just silly. Russian oligarchs didn’t get to be oligarchs by being passive. They are ruthlessly aggressive and acquisitive people who will not patiently accept massive losses of their fortunes. And it won’t be the people who want to continue Putin’s mistakes who depose him.
I think the sanctions and ostracism is having on significant effect. I don't know whether Putin will change but in a mafia state like Russia, there's a very real possibility that as the sanctions get stronger (hopefully directly targeting and permanently seizing oligarchs assets abroad) there will be elements within Russia which had never been willing to take the risk of making a move on Putin will feel both emboldened and terrified of sanctions. As a mafia state, there's no old rulers home so the other oligarchs and whoever they buy in the secret police will whack Putin and all the members of his family which would, I believe, end the Ukrainian crisis.
Also happened under The Decider.
2008 Georgia incursion was during the 2nd Term of Bush-43.
& that guy, like El Jefe, knew how to read Putin. He looked into Vlad's soul.
The reason Democrats don't do this is obvious to me:
Democrats get punished for their hypocrisy and Republicans basically never do (unless it ends in a terribly run war effort in Iraq).
Republicans boast and brag about all their efforts and as soon as things go a different directly they just start saying the opposite. Or they double down and claim they are right but we haven't waiting long enough yet. Their voters continually reward this behavior to the point that they are incentivized to keep it up.
Democrats are the opposite. If you say one thing and reality turns out to be the opposite, you're just f***ing done. So Democrats always hedge their bets.
Democrats can't shake their devotion to highly-paid consultants, whose answer toe the question "What's our message?" is always -- no matter what else is happening in the world -- "Focus on the 'kitchen-table issues' that hard-working families REALLY care about! Your voters are too dumb and/or self-centered to understand anything else. And it doesn't matter because 'the midterms'!"
Hearing some whispers of the Rogan podcast is being told to trim its budget. Pretty damning. Name, Yoe Roganvitz(the real name, much like Green/Greene are surnames for Greenberg) is no independence thinker. He is part of the con.
Yes, I would agree that Rogan is part of the con if I knew what you meant by "con".
We already know that repulsives,s as repulsive as they really are, get far more coverage. The media is out to cover them and not the Dems. Unfortunately, the Dems don't crow about their successes. These are usually picked apart by the media and shunned. We can't seem to win at this game.
What Democrats might say has to go through the media. The papers are not going to headline "AOC/Pelosi/Schumer say Biden's actions have been great". But actually the media seem to be taking a fairly standard nationalistic line which is in support of Biden's actions. NY Times: "U.S. Escalates Sanctions as Russia's Economy Staggers". WaPo: "Russian careens toward economic crisis"; "The war in Ukraine isn’t working out the way Russia intended". (You don't need a subscription to check out the headlines). When they mention Trump and Republicans' reaction, the MSM have been pretty hostile. This is all to Biden's benefit.
Of course the right-wing media are a different matter, but the MSM have a much greater direct reach than Fox News and other wingnut media.
On the topic of media and backing or lack thereof we have: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2022/02/how-we-let-ukraine-and-the-world-down/
Utterly depessing comment/question from an old friend who was the business:
What are the current checks on Putin's control of the Russian nuclear arsenal?
As worried Americans learned during the Trump Administration, there are no formal - two keys needed is the term used - blocks on a President authorizing a nuclear strike.
This won’t make you or I sleep any better at night. And I remember ‘duck and cover’ days.
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/375340-getting-russias-nuclear-strategy-mostly-right
Why don’t hypertext tags (‘a’ tags) work?
Pasted exactly the same link in both comments
I think think I've used the anchor tag before. Let's see if I'm misremembering.
I've been reading today that US dollars are a popular currency among the average persons in Russia.
I don't have any comment about it, I was wondering if anyone knows how true this is and if it may be enough that it has some effect in the situation.
Putin doesn’t give a shit about average Russians, they aren’t in any position to depose him. The oligarchs are; they are the ones who must be made to suffer.
Is there anything he can't do?
Zelensky was the Ukrainian voice of Paddington,
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/ukrainian-president-volodymyr-zelensky-paddington-voice-1235100949/
There's nothing to brag about re Afghanistan and I don't know about Covid but there's a war on and this is not a time to turn it into domestic politics. So good for those who hold off the crowing about how good they are or their president is. That can come later. Right now it's teamwork with Europe. Biden is playing that just right by not taking credit all the time and so is his party.
Btw as a European I really resented Clinton taking all the credit for ending the Bosnian war when Chirac did much more than he did and kept quiet about it.
Bidan has done a good job in a way Dems usually don't, which is to successfully categorize this action in a far better way then the 2008 Georgia action and the 2014 Crimea action were spun by US administrations.
In both of those, essentially the same thing happened.
If you read even a Wikipedia level analysis of the Georgia situation, the pattern is virtually the same. This is what it appears to be:
1. Former part of Soviet Union (as to Ukraine, check)
2. Country is on some sort of democratic, towards Europe, path. (check)
3. In a couple of parts of said country, a "pro Russia" group emerges, and insists, with some violence, on autonomy. (check).
4. Russia recognizes these "parts" (check).
5. Russia sends in military to "support" (in Georgia they were actually called "peacekeepers") the "parts." (check)
6. After a flurry of negotiations, Russia withdraws from what's left of the country, remains to some extent in the new parts. (To be determined)
7. The "parts" are pro russian. The military action by Russia raises the stakes to a level that the rest of the world has not choice but to recognize the "parts." (To be determined)
8. The remainder of the country continues, but with a memory of the cost of being too pro-European. (TBD)
I hope for purposes of saved lives this is how it plays out in Ukraine. But Biden has done a far better job than prior Presidents in spinning what Russia undoubtably views as simply supporting pro-russia separatists into an invasion of a sovereign country.
To some degree its already happening, with news outlet saying "this is turning into a Putin loss." Not really, only if you say that what Putin wanted to "win" was taking over all of Ukraine. If Putin just want's the Donbass regions to be officially recognized he's going to get it, getting more than whatever is in the Minsk accords.
The real issue for Putin and the world is that one of these things is not like the other: Iraq, Afghanistan, Georgia, Chechnya, Ukraine.
Ukraine is viewed as part of Europe, the others on the list are like the guys in the red shirts in Star Trek: nobody actually says they are "expendable" but you're never sure if they survive the episode either. Ukraine is like Spock dying, it only happens in a movie and then not really as Spock is not expendable.
If he just wanted "Georgia, round 2" it looks like he will get it.
I hope for purposes of saved lives that your buddy Putin is deposed and replaced by someone at least smart enough to withdraw and let Ukrainians decide what is best for Ukraine.
Any unbiased person who was truly concerned about the welfare of ethnic Russians and Russophones in Ukraine would realize that membership in the EU would require Ukraine to protect ethnic and linguistic minorities.
Anyone who was paying attention would know that Putin has stated his objective as demilitarization and ‘de-Nazification’ of the of Ukraine, i.e. he will replace the elected government with his toadies.
No more than a few rogue states and Russia will extend diplomatic recognition to the self-proclaimed ‘republics’ of Donetsk and Luhansk, the same few that recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia.