You have undoubtedly heard about the mysteriously leaked recording of Hispanic Los Angeles city council members mocking their Black colleagues and trying to figure out how to redistrict LA in a way that benefits themselves. This has consumed LA for the past couple of weeks, and last night town halls were held around the city to give LA residents a chance to express their opinions:
The most common message that came from dozens of residents at “L.A. in Crisis: The Call for Change,” hosted by The Times and KTTV Channel 11, was that Councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo should resign. Both have been stripped of their committee assignments but have resisted calls to leave office.
This is . . . not a turnout that suggests ordinary Angelenos are super concerned about whether Kevin de León resigns from office. (Cedillo also has refused to resign, but it hardly matters since he lost reelection earlier this year and will leave in a couple of months anyway.)
I have a theory about this entire affair: most ordinary folks figure that every LA politician—white, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish—talks this way when they're in a safe space (or think they are). The racial politics that dominate Los Angeles are well known and have been around forever.
Now, ordinary folks might be wrong! Who knows. I don't live in Los Angeles so I can't pretend to know about this in any depth. But I'll bet that's what most people believe, which probably means they're a little unimpressed by the "I am shocked, shocked" response by non-Hispanic politicians to the taped recording.
And who the hell bugged the room, anyway? The recording was made a year ago and then posted on Reddit in September—obviously timed for the upcoming mayoral election. But nobody cared for weeks until the LA Times wrote about it in October. And its effect on the November election seems like it will be minimal:
The timing of the leak, in the run-up to the mayoral election and other key races, suggests a classic October surprise designed to kneecap a candidate on the eve of voting. Yet experienced political hands said that although the leak hurt the elected officials involved, it did not seem to benefit — or harm — anyone on the ballot.
“Not in any huge way,” said former Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, who was the first Latina on the L.A. City Council. “Whether it affects people’s decision on who to vote, I don’t think so.”
So wtf, anyway? Someone educate me, please.
Voters are going to elect Caruso mayor because he is a white man who buried the African American woman in smear ads.
Serious question: Why did Karen Bass, safely sitting in a congressperson till you quit or die district, run for mayor? Big city mayor strikes me as one of the worst jobs in politics. I don't know much about her personally, but I really wonder why a nearly 70 year old person would do such thing.
Voters aren't NPCs and they deserve the blame.
They're voting for Caruso because he's closer to who they really are.
My take is Caruso is running for mayor of 1955 LA and is going to lose badly. We shall see.
Tired of DC's cold, damp winters and muggy as hell summers?
Well, I don’t live in L.A. (grew up there and much of my family still lives there) but I was pretty shocked and no, I don’t think most liberal politicians talk like that when they think they are in a “safe” space. I was particularly shocked by the comment that the rambunctious 3 year old deserved a “beat down”.
If a Republican was caught on tape saying what was said in that meeting every one of those Councilmembers would be demanding their resignation. Their failure to resign is hypocritical.
That's not what Kevin said. He said *voters believe* that politicians talk like that. That's different from whether they do in fact.
Also because a lot of us lack the context of how bad this particular slur was. I have never heard it before in my life and I am a fluent Spanish speaker, just not of Mexican descent.
Voters don't care because they are tired of cancellations and would like to elect people who do what they want, not act like how elites say they should.
Democrats lose because everything for them is "should" instead of is.
Who are these “elites” who tell us what we “should” do? Are they telling us not to be bigots, racists and hypocrites?Shame on them!
I suppose we should be like the Republicans who say what they want without fear of being cancelled. I’ll ask Liz Cheney what she thinks about that.
THAT attitude is exactly is morrospy is talking about.
Rather than trying to understand the point that is being made, whether or not you agree with it, you IMMEDIATELY
(a) switch to condescending language
(b) project a set of attitudes and assumptions onto someone about which you know nothing.
This is pretty much the definition of elitist behavior, and, believe me, Americans are well aware of it, and pretty damn sick of it. There's a reason why, in a year when Democratic victory should be a slam-dunk (new ugliness around Trump discovered every month, overall foreign policy and economy are doing reasonably well given a difficult situation) Republican control of the senate seems plausible.
If there is one skill that the Left have perfected in the US over all others, it is snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. EVERY TIME.
And always in exactly the same way – because the US elite are faux elitists who actually couldn't give a fsck about the weak and poor EXCEPT insofar as those can be used as pawns in the power games of those elites. It's been that way since the 60s, and the actual poor and weak are well aware of it, even if most of the junior Leftists are too stupid to understand that that's what's going on.
I’m still not sure who you think are the “elite” that you and the rest of “Americans” are sick of. Perhaps you could educate me on the subject. By the way, I was under the impression that I was an “American” but I guess I was wrong about that. Perhaps you you could also educate me as to haw I should behave to join you in that grouping.
A party which is a multi-racial coalition is not going to tolerate when one member of that coalition insults the other, whether behind closed doors or not. and others in the room take it in like its no big deal. Thus it was no surprise even President Biden spoke in favor of their resignations.
most ordinary folks figure that every LA politician—white, Black, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish—talks this way when they're in a safe space (or think they are). The racial politics that dominate Los Angeles are well known and have been around forever.
That may well be but as you well know "ordinary people" don't drive politics, activists do and in LA (according to an LA Times story I read on the situation) those activists, pretty much all on the Left, feel betrayed, especially by de Leon who once was the "Progressive" alternative to Dianne Feinstein but now acts like a Tammy Hall warhorse trying to find ways to divvy up the ethnic spoils. To an older generation of Angelenos it may well be politics as usual but for the young looking for that "multracical, working class coalition" they always dream about, this is a gut punch.
And that's really what this is all about. If everything is "identity politics" in certain quarters of Left, then what's going is exactly the end result of it. Why wouldn't Hispanic voters not be concerned that with half the city's population, that Hispanics don't have half the representatives on the city council while Blacks have far more representatives than their number eight percent would allow for if you judged it in a strictly quota situation? Certainly that's a situation which has led to protests from black activists in many cities over the years. Would not the same be true in this case?
And if not "identity politics" then how does one build a "multiracial, working class" coalition when not everyone is working class, where that working class is very much undocuimented immigrants not allowed to vote let alone be "active", where small business plays a big role in the community and the activists and their funders are all college graduates?
Again, just so many contradictions here its only because the Republicans are such assholes that Democratic survives.
The lefty media and extremist / activists stir the pot and the rest of us yawned.
The right wing media is much better at this... hence you get all grievance all the time to the point where it finally breaks through to the right wing nut jobs.
It's another "Democrats shocked when the whole world isn't a faculty lounge" episode.
At one level at least the whole episode is a great example of all people being the same under the skin…
Find (and shoot) the messenger Kevin? Were you that curious when the draft decision overturning Roe was leaked? Would you be if it were a leak of Richard Riordan speaking back when he was mayor?
i'm much more curious about who leaked the roe decision, and it was widely speculated upon. but i'd also be curious to know who bugged and leaked this. don't see how that's "shooting the messenger".
Eh. They were caught on tape talking the way ordinary people do when they're amongst friends. They should pay the price but it's hardly shocking enough for people to care enough about to attend some hearing.
You know, I grew up among "ordinary" people, if by "ordinary" you mean working class and no college. I spent a lot of time with them.
They didn't talk like this and that was 50 years ago. I mean, maybe NW WA and LA are different, how would I know?
I think what's more likely is that people vote on policy not manners. I mean, if the policy differences presented in general elections were small, they might vote on manners, but generally these days, they aren't small.
I have a masters degree. Most of my friends have masters or doctorates (medial doctors). I don’t know anyone that is politically correct in private conversations.
We shall know you by the company you keep. Heh, my circle of folks do not talk like this and the few that have in the past I've called out even in private conversations.
Should Trump numbing be studied as a cultural phenomena?
I dunno. Part of the reason turnout might have been so small is because it’s a formal event hosted by 2 establishment institutions who may not be trusted by the protesters. The turnout has been much higher in the streets and at a city council meeting. This tv event looks like an ad with unhappy residents used as props.
News you may have missed,
https://mobile.twitter.com/WUTangKids/status/1583571265998442496
Canada freezes handgun ownership.
"The racial politics that dominate Los Angeles are well known and have been around forever."
LAPD has districts completely dominated by criminal gangs organized along racial lines. So, yeah.