In the LA Times today, Nicholas Goldberg says the Democratic Party of the past was upbeat and optimistic:
So why do I now wake up feeling I’m preaching the politics of pessimism? How did the Democratic Party and its liberal-to-left followers become the voice of desolation and woe?
The voice of catastrophic climate change.
The voice of masks and mandates and staying home.
The voice of the-American-dream-is-dead and we’re all downwardly mobile. The voice of that-was-an-insurrection and our democracy is collapsing.
....These days, Democrats seem (and scholarly studies back me up on this) less happy than Republicans. And I don’t buy the argument that it’s just the result of a lack of faith and family and community on the left, as some have suggested. I suspect it’s at least partly a conviction — which Republicans apparently don’t share — that with climate change, the pandemic and the threats to American democracy, the world is going to hell.
I think Goldberg makes one good point here but misses another by a hair.
It's true that Democratic messaging has become more and more pessimistic over the past couple of decades. In the case of climate change, the result has been an unending stream of lectures to the public about things they should and shouldn't do anymore, coupled with a related stream of lectures about the hellhole our planet will become by 2040 or 2050 or 2070 or 2100. In the case of the economy, it's been the belief that no matter what the numbers show, practically the entire bottom 99% is on the verge of penury. In the case of civil rights, it's a newfound belief that not only do Black people have it bad, they have it worse than ever. There are other examples, and they add up to a profound pessimism about the liberal project.
So Goldberg's point about this is a good one. I'm not sure what to do about it, but it's a good point.
Goldberg's second point, though, is subtly off. It's true that liberals these days tend to think the country is going to hell. Where he's wrong is in thinking that conservatives don't share this view. Not only do many of them share it, they put liberals to shame in the strength of their conviction.
A large number of conservatives believe that moral degeneracy is threatening to destroy the country. They believe that Democrats have been stealing elections for years and will keep doing it unless someone stops them. They believe that liberals hate white people. They believe that Democrats are deliberately—deliberately—trying to weaken the country because they've disapproved of it ever since Vietnam. And they believe that liberals hate religion and have been trying to undermine it for decades.
My take on this is different from Goldberg's: Republicans are so pessimistic that they're willing to elect Donald Trump president and storm the Capitol when he loses his bid for reelection. That's pessimistic. When have liberals ever done something comparable?
But there's a difference between the parties, even if both tend toward pessimism. Whether this is true or not, Democrats act as if they're the establishment while Republicans act as if they're the revolutionaries. It's hard for establishments to be happy. They can be satisfied, perhaps, if things are quiet, but that's about it. When they feel like they're slowly losing ground, they practically exude pessimism.
Republicans, by contrast, feel more strongly that the country is going to hell, but they also feel like they're the ones fighting back. Their message to the public may be unexceptional, but their message to themselves is that they are fighting to overthrow a corrupt empire and restore the country to its rightful path. That's a fundamentally righteous battle, and it's all due to Donald Trump. He took a bedraggled community that just a few years ago was at the end of its rope and convinced it that it could win.
This is not something that will show up in survey instruments about happiness. But it's where we are. Republicans largely feel like they're an insurrectionary force fighting an unscrupulous liberal establishment. Democrats, by contrast, feel like they're a fundamentally admirable establishment being pecked to death by an insurrection of reactionary zealots—and they don't know what to do about it.
Which of these do you think is going to be the happiest?
Yup.
The GQP establishment -- by which I mean, the part's base, its QAEDA -- were so unhappy with the post-Rmoney autopsy that only the amateur couples counselor Donald J. Trump, fresh from his valiant effort to fix Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart, could offer the Grand Old Party in disarray any hope to go on.
Schematic, cryptic, generally obtuse observation. D+.
To raise your grade, please re-write and explain what you mean more clearly.
Over here in Brexitland, you can see the same thing: the Leavers won the referendum but they continue to present themselves as being the 'plucky underdogs' despite the fact that they won (and then won big again in the general election.)
And anything that is going wrong must be somebody else's fault, because (as with 'conservatism') Brexit cannot fail, it can only be failed.
Vastly different. Many want the UK to die inside and be broken up. Transferring your capital markets from a regional to globalist configuration is what Brexit was really about. Your missing the forest from the trees.
I certainly would be pleased if the UK cracked up.
The earth is warming , burning and flooding. Autocracy is on the march and institutions that have brought progress and prosperity for th elast couple of centuries are being dismantled. I think Democrats are right about being pessimistic and Republicans are being delusional.
why its simple, we feel that our country is being taken over by a bunch of racist assholes who want to turn the US into the Republic of Gilead....and they almost succeeded.
You forgot to mention Covid and their willingness to die. They can see people dying around them but they just don't care if it happens to them. Things have to be pretty bad if you don't care if you die.
Yeah, they are so Happy that they want to die. I should be so Happy, not. By the way, Happiness and his crazy sister Joy are overrated. Satisfaction is where it's at.
They are Crazy and Stupid. That might make them Happy, but I doubt it greatly.
It gets hard to be optimistic when the jobs reports are always disappointing, revisions be damned. ...
PBS was airing a documentary that discussed the Space Race. When Kennedy set the goal of going to the Moon in the decade, he called on Americans to sacrifice, i.e. to pay for it. And though it was unpopular at the time, he was able to garner support, and eventually people supported NASA and the moon missions. Ok, not so much after the initial landings, and mission control had to be in Houston to get their congressman to sign off on the deal....
Today--Just asking people to wear masks is akin to asking them to sacrifice their first born son--for ca. 30% of the population. The concept of shared sacrifice to help our nation and ultimately ourselves has been beaten down.
This is not true re: job reports.
https://www.mattball.org/2021/12/job-creation-and-media.html
Thus far this year, monthly job growth has averaged 555,000.
They are missing new business creation. Something that has been a problem since "reopening" . Biden finally got the message and ignored it, focusing on household employment. NFP is wrong.
"Republicans largely feel like they're an insurrectionary force fighting an unscrupulous liberal establishment."
Right. And this is incompatible with:
"A large number of conservatives believe that moral degeneracy is threatening to destroy the country."
They know perfectly well that they are the insurrectionists attempting to overthrow the order rather than the establishment attempting to preserve it.
And of course they are happier -- they are succeeding.
Not really. They are failing. They can't succeed either, just be destroyed.
I agree that they are failing. That's what is making them so crazy. I honestly wouldn't go so far as to say that "they can't succeed".
I thought conservatives hate white people with their Semitic philosophy???? They ain't Corded Ware, that is for sure.
"Semitic philosophy?" "Corded Ware?" Obscure; intentionally trying to distract and confuse. D-.
To raise your grade, please re-write and explain what you mean more clearly.
Don’t feed the troll. It just grows louder and more ignorant with every acknowledgement of its existence.
I don't think ignoring works on this one. Doesn't seem to care. Don't let him know I said so.
He hasn't had a true, lengthy period of being ignored, so it's hard to say.
Well, I don't know about you but I don't see my repulsive neighbours as being terribly happy. They can't wait to get their guns loaded, parade in front of Planned Parenthood, wave flags at voting centres to scare off the last of the voters, then plan their next storming of government with guns to destroy what is left of democracy. That is the biggest part of repulsives, they seem to hate democracy.
I think this is Kevin's point.
Well, if it is, it sailed right past me.
Ditto.
It is a bit self-contradictory, in part because of a strong bias toward "both sides" at the outset. (Kevin keeps doing this and it drives me crazy.) But the penultimate last two paragraphs lay out the danger.
Seems Trump supporters have a much easier job to complete, and thus more grounds for optimism. They just have to get the good guys (Trump and the like!) elected and then have them replace leaders of major government sectors. (Stop the Deep State!) Assuming you can overcome the Democrats' corrupt methods of fraudulently winning elections, this is achievable. To Trump supporters it seems obvious most Americans would vote for right-wing candidates if the MSM didn't distort the news so much - but this problem can be overcome by electing dynamic leaders like TRUMP!
I feel dirty now.
Yet again another excessively Panglossian assessment of our situation which assumes that because individuals sacrificed themselves in 2020 to protect our democratic institutions that is ironclad proof that those institutions are indestructible. The reality is that most of those elections officials are either replaced by Republican loyalists or are in the process of being bullied into submission. The post election landscape will be vastly different in 2024; just because things have basically worked out okay in the past is no guarantee they will continue to do so in the future.
I think the things that’s worrying a lot of Democrats who are neither of the political class nor the commentariat is the extraordinary passivity of the party’s leadership in the face of what seems to us to be the threat of authoritarianism. They don’t seem particularly energized on critical issues like voting rights and preserving democratic institutions, even to save their own jobs.
I appreciate that many here seems me as a tiresome alarmist but that’s certainly not how the signatories to this powerful document would be view by most of the community here. 150 scholars wrote that “midnight is approaching” for our country’s democracy:
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/583211-with-extreme-gerrymanders-locking-in-biden-needs-to-make-democracy
Seriously, please read this.
"I appreciate that many here see me as a tiresome alarmist .... "
I have often wondered if the world were about to enter a sustained period of ecological and authoritarian dark abyss, how would the precursor events differ from what we are experiencing now?
I believe the answer is that things would appear as they are now. Future generations would perhaps look back with anger and regret that we failed to respond to the harbingers of our collapse. But, in fairness, resounding Democratic successes in 2022 and 2024 would probably also be presaged by what we’re seeing now.
“It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future.”
― Yogi Berra
I sometimes have disagreed with you in the past Mitch, but you are not wrong at all and to the extent you are alarmist it's because we all sure as hell should be alarmed. The country, indeed the world is facing major MAJOR problems, first and foremost climate change and all the spinoff problems it engenders and exacerbates (growing inequality among others) but the US, which should be leading the charge cannot move forward an inch while our democracy is held hostage by a cult (the GOP) ... oh, and two wholly bought and owned phony centrists Manchin and Sinema. Of course Democrats, liberals, are downbeat. Heck, I'm not downbeat, I'm really scared. Every sane person in America should be searching their hearts and minds for ways to avert a total train wreck.
David Frum makes an important point about the problems with Democratic passivity:
A handful of brave and principled state-level Republicans laid down their political careers to save the election of 2020 from the anti-democratic forces - and to buy time to protect the country. Half that time has lapsed. How was it used?"
They didn't lay down anything to save democracy. They did it hoping the next coup would look less couplike & more like a difference of degree a la Bush v. Gore.
In fairness, they really did. I doubt if any election officials understood how much of a living hell the Republicans would be allowed to make their lives. But my guess is that the few who stuck their necks out won’t make that mistake again.
Which is another point worth making about Democratic passivity. All those election officials who are dealing with death threats to themselves and their families have surely noticed that the response from Democrats and the Justice Department has been to tell these poor suckers that they’re on their own.
David Frum can fuck right off. He got his paychecks for coming up with “axis of evil,” we don’t need any more advice from him.
That perspective makes it kind of difficult to recruit defectors, no?
In the past, it was said that Republicans look for converts and Democrats look for heretics. I do believe that for the most part that has been turned around. Trumpians are always looking for heretics.
I’m seriously concerned, but also optimistic. There is a path to preserving democracy without bloodshed, and it is for Democrats to turn out in sufficient numbers in future elections as to overwhelm the gerrymanders, the attempted vote suppression, the threats of nullifying Democratic victories. We need better than 55% of the popular vote to overcome the Republicans’ antidemocratic structural advantages - let’s go for it. The mathematics of single-member districts is clear: the more seats a party seeks through gerrymandering, the slimmer its advantage in each district. So the ‘out’ party’s hurdles get lower and lower. So let’s run the biggest get-out-the-vote drive ever. Then let’s see who ends up dispirited and pessimistic.
Addenda
Trump lost the popular vote by over 2,000,000 in 2016, and by over 7,000,000 in 2020 as the incumbent. In 2024 the Democrats will have the incumbency advantage. Meanwhile, Covid has been differentially killing off the stupid, the cultists, the gullible - i.e. the Trump/GOP base. If the hamberders don’t get him, and he runs in 2024, I would expect he’ll get his worst trouncing ever.
Two points:
First, the Democratic leadership doesn’t seem to be mobilizing for either of the next two elections, apparently on the assumption that they will be a repeat of 2028 and 2020 in which voters essentially mobilized themselves. The difficulty with this “plan” is that voters are getting worn out and are starting to discount Democratic promises.
Apart from the lack of progress on substance like health care, child care, voting rights etc, there’s been real progress on the 2018 theme of accountability. You notice that the House still hasn’t gotten Donald’s tax returns. As Napoleon said, if you say you’re going to take Vienna, take Vienna.
The second problem is that any analysis that relies on the number of votes is sadly out of date. As the article I cited earlier makes clear, the 2024 presidential election very likely will be decided in heavily gerrymandered Republican controlled state’s legislatures. This is a good summary of where we stand and the dangers we will face in 2024 regardless of the size of the Democratic popular majority.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
No, I understand the threat of vote nullification, but it failed in 2020 when only three states were won by less than 1%. The object in 2024 should be to win states by convincing margins, and to win enough states so that any attempt to steal the election would have to be blatant. If six or eight states, including some that were won decisively, would need to be flipped to steal, no politician is going to be the first to stick his neck out, for fear of a noose if the others don’t all follow.
And: the more states that would need stealing, the more paper or e-mail trail of conspiracy there would be.
I don’t see why the vote margin really matters if the premise of the Republican response in the state legislatures is that the electoral votes were obtained by a massive fraud and that, in any case, the will of the state legislative is the only thing that really matters. And, as Barton Gellman’s article makes clear, the Republicans are ready, willing, and able to ignore Democratic wins as illegitimate whether the margin of victory is one vote or a million votes.
As to whether Republican politicians will be deterred by fear of consequences, the Democratic response to the January 6th failed coup d’état suggests that they will be infinitely more afraid of being kicked out of office or even killed by their fellow Republicans. There have been exactly zero consequences for the leaders of the insurrection. And it’s abundantly clear that the policy of the DOJ is to give all of those people a pass.
Republicans are in a can’t lose situation : they can do whatever they want, including using violence and threats of violence, to overturn the election and install Trump as president. If they’re successful, they win the country. If they fail, they know that none of them will pay a price and will be free to get rich and keep trying to overthrow the government (And I do mean rich—the Kracken lady raised $14 million).
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
It’s one thing for voters to say they want fraudulent or illegal votes thrown out; it would be quite a different matter to see their own, and everyone else’s votes thrown out. We’ll see if that will fly. Sure, the cult will acquiesce, but I would think actual swing voters would be incensed. Would the GOP risk antagonizing even a small group of voters? Only if they intend never to allow another election, I guess.
I think you’re operating on the assumption that Republicans basically want to win fair and square but felt like the 2020 election was stolen from the. And, since this is a genuinely held belief, what the bulk of Republicans want is to see every vote counted as opposed to just winning.
This seems like a mistake to me. Neither of us really knows what those people believe. It seems unlikely to me that this is a genuine belief as opposed to a purely transactional and opportunistic one designed to set the stage for another coup attempt, this time with more and better violence. Plus, the use of Republican controlled state governments.
Ultimately the relatively small number of remaining swing voters can feel as aggrieved as their Democratic counterparts but there’s really nothing that the can do about it. This is what we’ve seen with other more modern forms of creeping authoritarianism: once they are in power, the levels and resources of the state itself are mobilized in support of the party and to punish or suppress the opposition; the independent media is cowed or shut down. Even in the near term, gerrymandering will insulate the party from even the most severe backlash by swing voters.
It's not like Raffensperger wasn't secretary of state for Georgia during last weekend's 40+ Democrat flips in local elections.
If he was going to be more accommodating to GQP shithousery, he would have started now, rather than wait for either Kemp or David Perdue to have to stem the tide of Stacy Abrams's corruption.
I think Raffensperger had limits based on what he understood to be the normal boundaries of Georgia politics. And that if transgressed, he pay a price even with “normal” Republicans.
But I think think the political pressure and the constant death threats are taking their toll. Plus, I think he’s seeing a Trumpist shift in what’s politically possible and my guess is that he feels a lot more constrained by both fear and the desire to be seen as a team player.
If there’s a way for him to put his thumb on the scales and be sure of getting away with it, I doubt a Democrat will ever again be elected to anything in Georgia.
Well, I like Garrison Keillor's comment from decades ago, that he had both Republican and Democratic friends, but the Republicans threw better parties, because they didn't experience guilt.
If Dems "seem less happy", look at all for forces they have aligned against them.
* The news media has a distinct bias against Democrats. This has been demonstrated in a recent nonpartisan analysis of coverage by print, teevie, and web sources.
* They're supposedly "in complete control" of DC and the federal government -- but by such slim margins as to prevent them from actually legislating, due to non-unanimity (Hi Joe and Kyrstin!) and moronic Senate rules (see "filibuster").
* The federal courts have been slanted heavily to trumplicans, and Ted "Cancun" Cruz won't permit any vacancies in the judiciary to be filled, due to the moronic Senate rules. Also, the Supreme Court is gone for the next few generations.
* Redistricting is proceeding apace, and Dems foolishly didn't make their moves early enough to control the state legislatures that do it. So the party will be hosed for the next decade, maybe forever.
* Voting rights are being dismantled nationwide by said Republican legislatures. Specifically, to prevent Dems from voting, and post-election, from winning.
* Global warming. And the unwillingness to do anything significant against it.
* Increasing gun violence, now moving rapidly into how government "works", and the unwillingness... etc etc.
Note that Democrats tend to have feelings of responsibility, a desire to abide by the law, respect for norms, ethics, and all that stuff that the Rs have jettisoned. So basically, the Democratic Party is doomed, and we're moving to a nation red in tooth and claw.
Six Conservatives on the Supreme Court & Liberals are the Establisment?😨
Aw come on!
Six Catholics, one them a Democrat appointee. Ergo, bothsides.
“They believe that Democrats are deliberately—deliberately—trying to weaken the country because they've disapproved of it ever since Vietnam.”
That’s funny. I disapprove of the country and if I really wanted to weaken it, I would have voted for Donald Trump.
On the other hand, I feel like this is somehow still correct. “… but their message to themselves is that they are fighting to overthrow a corrupt empire and restore the country to its rightful path.”
I also believe the US is a corrupt empire. We invaded countries in the Middle East and wasted our so called super power capabilities on endless useless losing wars. And killed millions. Sent millions more fleeing for their lives. We allowed Wall street and corporate finance to sell out our economic power to enrich themselves and impoverish the middle class. Their analysis of the problem is, I think, basically correct. No one can agree on how to fix it. The political class is essentially useless. The media are profiting from the chaos. And so it goes.
"I disapprove of the country and if I really wanted to weaken it, I would have voted for Donald Trump."
That's what Putin did in effect.
Indeed.
Well, sure. But the trumpublican Party isn't going to fix anything on your list of legitimate complaints ... they're going to expand all those things! One person's "corrupt empire" is another Angry White Man's Paradise.
Yeah. Kind of funny. No one really likes America today.
We've come a long way...
I also believe the US is a corrupt empire. We invaded countries in the Middle East and wasted our so called super power capabilities on endless useless losing wars.
I think there's an increasingly strong affirmative case for the breakup of the country. I would have been intensely opposed to this idea even six months ago, but, I'm starting to come around. If the US were divided into two (or, better yet, 4 or 5 smaller) countries, it would necessarily trim the empire's sails. Let's put it this way: the chance that the US Empire gets in an actual shooting war (which very likely means nuclear war) over Ukraine or Taiwan in the near term isn't microscopic. And that's basically because it's a huge power with sprawling, global ambitions. So, making the US much smaller would inevitably reduce the successor states' thirst for imperial adventures.
(The United States of America did perfectly well for many decades while Taiwan and Ukraine were constituent parts of the Qing and Russian empires, respectively. But now apparently these are places we should be prepared to commit national suicide over).
So, you oppose the ‘US Empire’, but you don’t have a problem with other countries altering national borders by force of arms? You’re OK with the nation that invaded and annexed Crimea, and invaded and de facto annexed Abkhazia and Northern Ossetia, invading and occupying the Donbas? You’re OK with the nation that invaded and annexed a defenseless Tibet, and is attempting to eradicate its culture, and that of the Uyghurs, invading and annexing Taiwan? Do you expect that that will bring about “peace in our time?”
So, you oppose the ‘US Empire’, but you don’t have a problem with other countries altering national borders by force of arms?
Not sure why you think opposition to going to war with nuclear armed states—a war that could kill 250 million Americans and possibly even end human civilization —means anyone is "ok" with the existence of evil, imperialist aggressors. Have you ever heard of the term "cost-benefit analysis?"
But, to answer your question directly: I don't have a sufficiently large problem with these situations enough to want to risk a nuclear holocaust over them, no, that's true. And in any event the unbroken up USA that actually exists is already treaty bound to defend Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Canada and nearly the entirety of Western and Central Europe. You're free to urge the government to add Taiwan and Ukraine to the list. (Although why stop there? Surely increasing the number of potential hotspots that could trigger a nuclear exchange will make you sleep better).
Democrats act as if they're the establishment while Republicans act as if they're the revolutionaries.
On many key issues, that's absolutely true.
The general bias of liberals is toward progress. Not only do we want to see reform where needed, fixes for problems, and advancement of all peoples, we want to preserve the progress that this country has achieved over its history. In that sense, liberals support the status quo.
The general bias on conservatives is against progress. They are against reform, fixing problems, advancing the cause of others, if any of it affects them in the slightest (especially if it costs them one dime more). Not only are they against progress now, they want to reverse all progress achieved during our history. In that sense, conservatives are the true revolutionaries.
Countless examples exist for each of those claims.
But why the pessimism today? Like the stock market, liberals are forward-looking and they see two giant threats that should be unifying calls to action where nothing nearly adequate is being done about the problems: a) climate change, and b) autocracy.
A government of the people would be expanding democracy and fixing these problems, but government is broken. Media, for what it's worth, is too often useless -- derelict at times, filled with dangerous propaganda otherwise.
See below for good analyses of our democracy problem and the threat we face. These are from not knee-jerk pessimists, but sober-minded views of how things are different than they used to be, with good reasons for why we should worry.
‘Fools, drunks, and the United States of America’
Whether or not Bismarck ever said that God looked after creatures in these categories, it's a way of asking whether the U.S. has relied too long on providence and sheer luck.
James Fallows on the "calcifying system" that is American government today
https://fallows.substack.com/p/fools-drunks-and-the-united-states
Trump’s Next Coup Has Already Begun
January 6 was practice. Donald Trump’s GOP is much better positioned to subvert the next election.
Barton Gellman on how a stolen election in '24 is not just possible but likely
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/01/january-6-insurrection-trump-coup-2024-election/620843/
At least half the editorial staff at the Atlantic wants a Trump coup. If for nothing else than to stop wokeness.
Believable. I have seen some pretty strange shit on the pages of the Atlantic. So much so that I no longer subscribe to it.
The number of Atlantic writers, like Conor Friedersdorf & Benjamin Wittes, who abjure Wokeness & beseech totally open discourse on college campuses & in the public square more generally, and then block all dissenters on Twitter, is hilarious.
21st century schizoid mag.
King Crimson references always get a thumbs up from me 👍
Salamander and Mitch Guthman have pretty much laid it all out for us...there is good and sufficient reason to be very depressed....and the overhang of Covid with variants are not helpful.
I also would like to make the argument that Mr Biden simply is not a good and effective and inspiring speaker. Having watched many of Mr. Biden's addresses and press interactions....he just doesn't inspire me, and I'm his target audience. I'm sympathetic...I just wish he would grab me more and show me there is a light at the end of this dark forest.
I just don't hear THAT from Mr. Biden...policy.wise I think he is great, selling it not so much.
Best Wishes, Traveller
i think another excellent point from David Frum relates to your concerns about Biden:
“ Big part of Biden's appeal in 2020: he was a politician from a more normal time who refused to accept Trump could represent the future.
Big part of Biden's troubles in 2021: he is a politician from a more normal time who refuses to accept that Trump could represent the future.”
We are a nation of Violets Beauregard.
But with guns. Lots and lots of guns. A little candy, too. But mostly guns.
Well, given that Mr. Biden saved us from 4 more years of Trump, and was the only one who could have, I am willing to cut him some slack. If in addition this nation needs him to be an inspiring orator, well, then so much the worse for this nation.
We work with who and what we have. Things could have been, a hell of a lot worse. Wallowing in negativity and fear is debilitating and self-defeating. Get realistic expectations. We never had a utopia, and never will.
The issue with Biden is less his not being a commanding orator but more his refusal to act to preserve voting rights and to impose consequences on the coup plotters responsible for the January 6th insurrection. A failed coup that doesn’t result in severe punishment for all involved is just a rehearsal.
You speak as if it was his decision to make by fiat. Losing even one of the 50 Dem Senators would make him powerless in this regard. No, Mitch, there is nothing he can do to force Manchin and Sinema. They have minds, interests and egos of there own. I regret that this is the case.
I agree with you. But, if that irretrievably the case, then Biden is worse than powerless. He can’t really run on his agenda because it’s being blocked by members of his party (one of who. Is actually in the leadership). He can run against the Republicans because, in a manner of speaking, they’re not the ones who are stopping him from getting things done.
Therefore the party leadership need to very seriously consider making ultimatums to the two assholes. Become team players or learn the meaning of the word vendetta. Biden and the Democrats will commit maxim resources to primarying them and, equally as important, there will be reprisals against their backers.
And the Democrats need running to run against the assholes in the 2022 primaries, in the sense of arguing that they are basically Republicans disguised as Democrats so make them and the Republicans the supervillains who are blocking Biden’s agenda. Really campaign on an agenda and, this time, campaign against the Republicans and their asshole stooges.
I think that’s the Democrats only hope. Treading water, looking weak and ineffectual in the hopes that the two assholes will relent is just killing the party’s chances in 2022 and 2024.
The Bernie Left wants a strongman the same as the Trump Right does.
They don't fear autocracy. They just want to be the autocrats.
+1
You know who is REALLY downbeat these days? Liberal high school students.
Democrats do stupid stuff, over and over again. They put forward candidates like Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama because they think America will accept them (and we did, of course), when they're just place-holders for Republicans to tide things over while Republicans slowly take hold. The timidity of the Democratic Party in this country, since JFK (President John F Kennedy) in 1960 is astounding. The only "Democrat" since the late sixties preaching fire-and-brimstone Democratic Party principles has been Bernie Sanders. And of course, they snuffed him out almost as effectively as they did Howard Dean in 2004.
Let's face it, the Democratic Party long ago ceased to be what it was under Roosevelt and Truman. By the time the war was over, our Democratic parents thought everything was great, maybe running a little hot, so they gave us Nixon and Reagan. The rest was inevitable. Democrats tried to undo Nixon and succeeded, sort of. Reagan legitimized the rule-breaking.
Most of us knew democracy in the United States was over when Reagan was elected in 1980. None of this is news.
I’m going to disagree with most of this. You characterize Obama as a ‘placeholder’ but he passed the first significant expansion of healthcare access since LBJ. Then his party ran away from that accomplishment, and got shellacked. And your chronology would leave Johnson among the “timid”. Really?
Reagan’s Iran-contra subterfuge directly undermined the will of Congress, but democracy survived. There was an investigation, some of those responsible were held to account, although most never paid any price, except to their reputations. There is still a chance that the January 6 committee can do better.
As to Sen. Sanders, nobody ‘snuffed him out’; he was was beaten in open primaries, closed primaries, caucuses. Doesn’t mean people don’t like his policies; just that they thought there were better choices for the Presidency.
As much as the Dirtbaggers & other assorted Revolutionaries hate Neoliberal Hillary & her husband, I think their antiidentitarian selves will always be more in a twist over Known Poofter Mayo Pete Buttigieg defeating El Santo Socialista in Iowa in 2020.
Democrats are rightly depressed that so many Americans are not only racist but also incapable of the most elementary critical thinking. It makes them sad, and so it should.
I believe surveys about "happiness" are inherently flawed, mainly because of the subjective, ill-defined nature of the variable being measured. From my observations, the most common emotions displayed by Trump Republicans are anger, resentment and fear. They're not qualities I associate with happiness.
Yeah for a group of people allegedly “happy,” they sure do get angry, nasty and/or afraid in public a lot of the time.
As usual I'm way too ate to the festivities here. Lots of interesting comments. I'd like to throw in something that I've been thinking about for quite a while. I think that the Democratic party, top to bottom, should be looking to a different historical Roosevelt president as the role model (granted, only in certain selected aspects of his mythology: TR, not FDR.
What we need is Trust Busting, Preservation of our natural common lands (keep the mega-corps from despoiling them), and anti-corruption.
The Repubs are getting votes from people who hate the the huge corporations that have captured our government, but their party does nothing about it. D's can steal that thunder. The party of Rump is so obviously corrupt, the D's can motivate independents by actually doing something about corruption. And nobody wants environmental wreckage of their hometown (undrinkable water, irreparable flooding damage, uncontrollable wildfires, corporations dumping toxic waste into the environment).
All the R's have to offer is the cold "comfort" provided by mirroring grievances. Do something about problems and they'll have nothing to go on.
Actually, I'm surprised the Rs have given up the "Reagan optimism" thing to the Democrats. But I guess they needed an excuse for the 2008 recession plus the Iraq War and with a half-black guy as President they reached for the nearest weapon in the cupboard - the wogs are taking over! Which is pretty negative - and I think will come back to haunt them. Or at least will impede their return to power, since for the moment the Ds are able to argue persuasively they are the party of economic good times.
Guthman still doesn't get it. When capital markets go, so do the Republican party and their prosperity gospel morons. Mass hunger, state bankruptcies, liquidation of small business. You won't have to worry. The liquidation itself will trigger mass migration in the US itself.
2ndly, Guthman is too dumb on how DOJ to state DOJ's work. My guess the waves of indictments may finally educate this idiot. Trump's coming from multistates.
You are so close, but you've missed a key point. Goldberg missed another that you caught, but you missed a key in your turn.
Blacks and women aren't saying that things have never been worse - that's misunderstanding. They are saying that they are losing rights that they won in the 60s-70s.
This is not a "Black people have it ... worse than ever" moment. It's a "Our rights are being taken RIGHT NOW" moment.
Voting rights? Being taken by Republican state legislatures all over.
Abortion rights? Being denied by the Supreme Court.
The right to protest and not be shot by rightwing teens? Gone in Wisconsin.
The right not to be assaulted by cops? Ha ha, silly liberal, you never had that.
The New Deal and the entire safety net? Under heavy assault, and the R's are really gunning for it.
It's not that "Black people have it bad, they have it worse than ever" - their rights are being stolen in front of your eyes, but the Rs hope you're too white to see it when you look.
Women are being legally forced to bear children to term against their will, preferably for the Christian adoption industry (yes, there is such a thing, and Amy Covid Barrett referenced it during questioning).
The Dem despair is that white men (like you, and also most pundits) don't look at issues from anyone else's viewpoint, and too often just accept the frames offered by the Rs because they're all taken from the traditionalist perspective (which in turn means white patriarchal, but they don't like that pointed out).
The new deal was for white men. Lazy post. I mean, you don't get it.
Capitalism is a anti-indoeuropean ideology. But the patriarchal organization was for socialism as well. You best remember that. Liberals and Socialist view of equality is very different.
Talk about lazy. You epitomize it. One sentence exactly: "The new deal was for white men."
In the absence of further explanation, I have to assume you are racist. Prove me wrong.
I grew up Mormon (though I'm not now), and I feel that one largely unappreciated things about Republican politics is that a very large number of Republicans belong to some form of conservative-leaning Christian religion, and many people in conservative-leaning Christian religions (leaders and rank and file alike) REALLY BELIEVE THE WORLD WILL BE COMING TO AN END SOON. My entire life I was told that the forces of evil and darkness were gathering, and that Satan and his minions were getting stronger and stronger as we approached the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which would be preceded by various and sundry apocalyptic events. This was not some doomsday group within the Mormon church--this was the mainstream view among Mormons, and I suspect that it's not that different among many evangelical Christians.
I grew up Mormon (though I'm not now), and I feel that one largely unappreciated things about Republican politics is that a very large number of Republicans belong to some form of conservative-leaning Christian religion, and many people in conservative-leaning Christian religions (leaders and rank and file alike) REALLY BELIEVE THE WORLD WILL BE COMING TO AN END SOON.
My entire life I was told that the forces of evil and darkness were gathering, and that Satan and his minions were getting stronger and stronger as we approached the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, which would be preceded by various and sundry apocalyptic events. This was not some doomsday group within the Mormon church--this was the mainstream view among Mormons, and I suspect that it's not that different among many evangelical Christians. If you think the apocalypse is nigh, this helps fuel a certain kind of hysteria.
The kind of apocalyptic rhetoric that I once imbibed on the Right is becoming common among writers of the Left. Some of it is for clicks. Obviously it's harder to draw attention to your piece by writing "Everything is just peachy-keen here in America! We have nothing to complain about.". I mean, one used to ridicule the figure in a long beard wearing the sandwich sign saying: "The End of the World is Nigh!" while walking the streets. Now that fella's an editor these days.
However, onemerlin made a very good point: "It's not that 'Black people have it bad, they have it worse than ever' - their rights are being stolen in front of your eyes, but the Rs hope you're too white to see it when you look." And if lives on the coasts and has seen the worse of climate change up closer and personal from fires in California, deadly heat waves in the Pacific Northwest, flooding in Manhattan subways and basement homes, then you are going to be more than just alarmed at climate change because you've experienced. Likewise, political reporters, having also experienced, up close and personal, a Trump rally or an interview with an MAGAite or Qanon freak, yeah you're probably going to believe strongly our democracy is under threat from some very scary people. So it's not all just about trying to gain eyeballs by saying the most extreme things.
I will say this about the Gellman article in The Atlantic. If a governor refuses to sign an electoral certification or a state legislature on its own volition decides to replace one set of electors with another because it doesn't like the way the popular vote went in their state, then we truly are fucked and civil disorder will be the result of such unbelieveable actions.