On the one hand I’m glad things are going well, on the other hand I’m increasingly furious at how easy it appears to be to beat the GOP at their own game and how we could have been doing this from the start but the Dems have been too chickenshit to play until now.
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One of the most frustrating things has been treated like we don't understand strategy just because we have more radical politics than Joe Manchin.
if Dems had spent as much time mocking and insulting the right as they spent mocking and insulting leftists and progressives, we wouldn’t even be in this mess.
There are reasons why I call Bill Clinton the president who ratified Reaganomics.
Politically, Pelosi and Biden, the Byrds and Feinsteins, financially, the Kochs and Buffets, these people are not boomers. They are a big part of the problem.
My issue is your broad brush, which includes Bush II and Walz.
Plus, we have lots of the receipts, if not all, on the corrupt SCOTUS.
He made his choices, and I am gratified his legacy will be taking a hit for those choices.
🙏
By finding a hook for the press and the social media generation, Dems have hit gold because every right-wing counterattack attempt simply results in MORE WEIRDNESS.
Really, bruh? So where are their measured responses? I don’t see them.
and he's left laying on the ground, flailing and crying, and gets stomped by a 50-foot-tall animatronic dog
It really didn't work against Trump. So it might be that it needed to be someone peripheral to Trump.
I think it might be a combination of factors. Throwing them off with a different candidate and different energy than they've grown used to might be part of it, too.
But they couldn’t because Bill Clinton was there.
Also, people weren't willing to be funny and genuine with their mockery. It has to be funny and genuine or it just lands badly.
His base liked him because they think he's funny and the attack dog they wish they could be, and now he's just not
Anyway, that's not what worked to rock the GOP.
I think it's a lot of factors like who's involved (relatively blank slates that can be projected on) and the use of humor and not really direct insults.
I love the "weird" thing so much because it's a reaction to the underlying message without being trapped into debating their made up non-arguments.
And it not working doesn't mean Dems stopped using it.
And YES, it looks like I did.
2016 was just the point where the absurdity finally got to be too much for even the frogs and dogs who’d been saying “This is fine.”
Ridiculous.
The bullying stopped.
I want so badly for them to take a self defense course, but they refuse.
But I had a harasser in high school who, to this day, I wish I’d punched. I was too embarrassed.
They didn’t go away. They became more frequent and cruel.
I mean....robbie mook...amirite?
And ffs that was a POLITE description!
That and eight years of Trumpism have passed since then.
I am over fifty and it’s all I can remember.
Carter won because Watergate.
B Clinton won because Ross Perot.
Obama won because Mortgage Crisis.
Ceding patriotism and family values and then stacking up the Ls, relying on the other side to fail so badly you can’t lose is not a strategy.
As I recall, both candidates moved right which led to defections for both.
It was a wild election and doesn’t fit the usual patterns.
Must wash clothes…
Bush’s unpopularity was sudden, he went from >80% ratings from the gulf war and then tanked along with the economy, then he raised taxes. He alienated his base.
“Losers try their best. Winners go home and fuck the prom queen.”
Been shouting this since Trump came on the scene. Yep. ALL THAT WASTED TIME!
Still writing. Working on a YA near-future fundie-dystopian Southern-gothic road-trip novel right now; rough draft is written, moving into edits. (Got a few finished MG novels in the tank too, but no agent; sigh.)
Paying work is ecological landscape design! Very rewarding.
Bullies and trolls don’t deserve class they deserve to be humiliated and talked down to.
https://youtu.be/MAbab8aP4_A?si=hqnx3SI4GbcaZxQW
Language barriers should not deter people from being able to be active in the political system.
It's not necessarily generational: Warren is closer in age to Schumer than she is to AOC, but Warren got into politics much later than Schumer and it makes all the difference.
But both their political careers began in this century, and it makes a world of difference.
Been waiting for over a decade for Dems to understand GOP normal didn't just leave the building, it left the galaxy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/09/opinion/trump-vance-harris-walz-weird.html
https://www.eschatonblog.com/2024/08/the-rahm-era.html
Bouie's article on Dem electeds formative experiences in the 1980s and 1990s is a help.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/09/opinion/trump-vance-harris-walz-weird.html
It's important to understand why that this isn't purely generational (again, see Warren) and how you break through it.
Do any of you understand what “participatory democracy” actually means?
And well, these aren’t very bright people, and things got out of hand.
The failure of the old guard is just the Ginsburg failure again: "I am immune to aging and too important to die." All other failures extend from that one.
The losses have NOT been acceptable 💔
Not actual election wins
Saying "you're weird" wouldn't have worked on Reagan or Bush or Romney.
It will work on a cult.
No! You really don’t!
“Rising above” or “just ignoring” it does not work.
Finally someone got the message.
"Surely if we're decent, they'll be reasonable" NO THEY WON'T! JUST WIN!
those in positions of trust had these capabilities this entire time, but it took a dangerous inflection point for them to actually use them
But sadly, voters really are afraid of “lefties” & “progressives” now because the bullshit & degrading language has gone unchecked for too long.
The kinds of choices they made were the right ones to get the Dems back in power & hold it for a while. But it took them far too long to realize Newt & his ilk really, truly meant it, & they didn't adapt
I could be wrong, but... it explains so much
I also suspect that the audience for hardball has grown after the loss of Roe.
Also what's with the brunch slam? Brunch is a nice meal. Everyone needs to eat after all.
His brother was governor of Florida, though. That much is true.
That died violently in 1994 and the leadership never moved on. Game went from beer league slow pitch to MLB and they just never noticed…
We'll see what happens after a few months, of course. Donors are Boomers.
All these Democratic leaders and the NYT quietly think that "the Trans thing" has gone too far and that DEI training is a moral cancer.
but Bush v Gore...yeah, fuck. Dems just didn't have the belly. I hope they do now.
Roger Stone and three young justices staged their first coup https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/10/17/politics/bush-v-gore-barrett-kavanaugh-roberts-supreme-court