As Democrats struggle to rehabilitate their party, there has been an immense focus on which policies and stances alienated working-class voters of all backgrounds.
I donโt think the way of looking at the Democrats problem is a matter of far left to moderate. I think it is a matter of rational thinking vs irrational thinking on an issue. For instance addressing people with gender identity issues is a rational and just position, making sure they can hold jobs and gain housing and medical treatment is also. But trying to convince everyone a boy can be a girl, boys who think they are girls can play in girl sports and children can make life altering decisions is not. I can go through all the top cultural issues and. Have the same debate. The issue is a good one but the solutions are irrational. That is why Democrats are losing so many people. It is not really a left vs right. It is an irrational problem solving that is at the heart of the issue. This is what is what is under the Democrats trust issue. Some may call it common sense. I call it a lack of rational thinking which addresses real social issues
Itโs a combination of rational vs irrational and live and let live. Leaving consenting adults alone to do as they will on their own time and dime will always win the day. Forcing the population at large to accept that a man can become a woman and using the public schools to push your social agenda on other peopleโs kids is the polar opposite of live and let live.
I can see the live and let live philosophy also coming into play for some issues but ones like immigration and keeping cities safe tend to be grounded more in rational thinking I am not suggesting that Trump is a rational problem solver. I tend to think he understands the big picture issue with Democrats and then chooses the opposite of what they are pushing so then he looks rational. Quite a trick that Democrats walked right into.
Iโd also add that this coupled with hiding Bidenโs infirmities and attempts to keep Trump off the ballot are why Democrats canโt get any traction with all of their Trump is a threat to democracyโ rhetoric.
As an institution, the Democratic Party has become malevolent. It hates this country's guts and everything it is ever stood for. I can't imagine voting for a Democrat again, and I say it as someone who supported Democrats for 40 years. They might as well be honest about how much they hate us.
You are so right in that. The Democratic Party has condemned what my father's America, what my America, stands for. You don't insult more than half the citizens of this country by claiming them to "cling to guns or religion" (Obama), calling them "a basket of deplorables" (H. Clinton), or "garbage" (Biden). Respect for others' rights, understanding others' perspectives, and finding an alternative and *_kind_* 'common ground' is the only way forward, IMO.
This analysis raises many important questions, but in the end it's just a theoretical exercise. The wokester Left controls the Democratic party almost everywhere because that faction of the party shows up to vote in primaries at very high percentages; they overwhelm whatever genuine moderates still exist. For its true believers, Wokeism is a badge of moral superiority and confers higher status on them. They won't change - period.
In the end, Democratic candidates in 2026 will only pretend to have moderated on any issues. They may forego the personal insults and other blatant condescension toward non-tribalists. They may smile nicely (e.g. the next Mayor of NYC) and be cordial, but they won't change substantively in any way. The woke Left hopes for a serious economic downturn to win in 2026 and 2028. If - when - they return to power the entire left-wing agenda will be enacted ASAP, not a hint of moderation on any issue.
Another article saying the same things, over and over again, about what the Dems need to do to be relevant. Nothing changes. If you self-described "moderate" Democrats actually want anything to change, then you will need to abandon the existing Democratic party apparatus to the crazy hard Left and start the difficult work of building a new party according to the principles you and others describe and lay out in detail. As a non-Democrat, I don't always agree with your big government-mainstream Democrat policy preferences, but at least we can broadly agree on what the problems are and debate the solutions. No one, including you mainstream Dems, can debate anything with the hard Left. Yes, you will both lose a lot of elections before you get things sorted out but if you actually care, as you say you do, about America, you will do what you can to isolate the dangerous hard Left.
And, if you choose to keep working within the existing Dem party structure, and you want Dem candidates to be more moderate to appeal to centrists and working-class people, you know they can't because they will be attacked instantly by the hard Left for deviating from the party line. And they especially can't even talk to a Republican about anything, much less actually vote with the Republicans, ever, no matter how important the issue, because the Left will almost literally kill them for even thinking about it. Look at the stupid standoff on the continuing resolution going on right now. The Dem demands are ridiculous, they are being offered a clean resolution and the opportunity to discuss what they want and they are rejecting it in favor of hurting everyone in sight so they can grovel at the feet of the hard Left that wants Resistance! no matter what the cost to groups they claim to care about. This will never end until all of you moderates leave the party and let the Lefists tear each other apart all by themselves.
Further, you and others who prescribe ways the Dems might repair their "brand" keep skating around the reality that the official Democrat party positions are poison. We all know they are for making energy scarce and expensive, taking away functional consumer products and replacing them with things that don't work, increasing the cost of living in a single family suburban home to unaffordable levels to force people to live in cities that are unsafe with bad housing and infrastructure. Taking away their children for not wanting them to be subjected to barbaric "transgender" procedures. Forcing their daughters to play sports with boys and men, and for all women to share locker rooms, prisons, and other female facilities with male sex offenders who claim to be women. Violently opposing the removal of criminal illegal aliens, and inviting the world's poor here to freeload on our welfare state and take our jobs. Allowing rampant homelessness, crime, and drug use in cities. Attacking the police for doing their jobs, so making the community unsafe. Allowing the bureauocracy to grow huge and unaccountable, using its awesome power to go after people who are their political opposition (they call them "enemies"). Opposing common-sense election integrity laws, like presenting ID to vote. Using environmental regulation to stop building anything, anywhere, and running up the cost astronomically for anything that does get built. There is a lot more, too much for this space. People know this is what the Dems stand for, they may say they deny it but their actions speak otherwise. This is who the modern Democratic party is, and the more voters realize this, the more will leave the party. Many of these issues are 70/30 or 80/20 with the Dems on the 20 or 30% side. But a lot of voters don't really think about who and what they are voting for,m though I think that is changing.
The GOP's complicit here, though. It is hard to encourage moderation and encourage people to turn away from 'Resistance!' towards your political opponents when those opponents are stationing the military in your cities for no other reason than that their leader 'feels' like they are 'war-zones', and there's zero dissension amongst their ranks about doing so.
If the next Democratic president stations troops outside your door because he thinks your neighborhood "is a war zone" (but has shown no evidence to prove it other than 'I saw it on tv' or 'everybody knows it is'), would you feel compelled towards greater moderation? Even though you lost at the polls?
The fascists of Italy successfully crushed Communist and Parliamentary dissension, neutered and/or took over the courts, restored a state-sanctioned 'racial order', co-opted the central bank, etc., etc.--but one thing they did *not* do was encourage the champions of liberalism they stepped all over to become more tolerant and liberal towards fascists. Orban and Erdogan did not encourage their liberal opponents to become more tolerant of Orbanism and Erdoganism. What reason do Republicans *or* Democrats have to think the 21st century version of fascism, quickly being enacted by the party in power, (and already enacted by strongmen like Erdogan or Orban) will lead to a different outcome?
I think you are missing my point. It appears to me, as I discuss below, that your views on Republicans and their actions are not the complete story, but in large part are derived from leftist talking points and their very careful crafting of a narrative that is anti-Republican and especially anti-Trump. The Leftists are very good at projecting their own beliefs and actions on the other side, and covering up their own failings by evading the issue, blaming someone else for it, or if that doesn't work, just say some event didn't happen when it very obviously did. They were doing a lot of this about the LA riots, when they couldn't rationalize or justify it they started saying there weren't any riots. Same thing in the summer of 2020, everyone remembers the CNN guy standing in front of a burning building and saying the riots were "mostly peaceful".
If the Democrats running those cities were doing even a minimal job at maintaining some kind of order, at least preventing riots, there would not have been any need for the National Guard. If the Democrats would stop trying to block ICE from removing criminal illegal aliens and instead would cooperate with them, there would be no need for troops to protect federal agents and property. The Dems are more at fault, in my opinion. There have been well publicized riots in LA, Portland, Chicago, and other cities that endangered federal agents, property, and the general public. Do you think those riots didn't happen? If the local police won't protect people and property, why do you think the Feds should not step in? Rioters blocked ICE agents recently in Chicago and the local police were told to stand down and let it happen. The ICE agents were removing criminal aliens, which a majority of the citizens want them to do. These protection and enforcement actions have nothing to do with your "stationing troops outside your door because he thinks your neighborhood is a war zone", that is absurd unless there actually is a riot going on and then I would welcome them, as I think so would you.
And what about the people who actually live in the poorer and more crime-infested parts of those cities? From what I read, Washington DC residents appreciated the troops helping to police the streets. Just because the Dem politicians hate the idea of federal law enforcement doesn't mean that the ordinary citizens hate it too.
Your historical notes about fascists are correct, but fascism is a leftist ideology, adjacent to socialism, and the current fascists in this country are the hard Left, who are very much in favor of taking over the courts, establishing a state-sanctioned "racial order" (one that excludes white people in their plans), co-opt the banking system (what do you think that the regulators under Biden encouraging banks to "de-bank" business and people they considered to be political enemies was?) and all the other things you list. The Left hates Republicans and especially Trump because he is reversing their takeover of the government and our institutions.
***โIf the Democrats running those cities were doing even a minimal job at maintaining some kind of order, at least preventing riots, there would not have been any need for the National Guard.โ***
No proof was provided of mass disorder or attacks on federal officers/property in the case of Portland or Chicago, because there wasnโt any. (as judges in the courts later pointed out) Trump simply called them โwar zonesโ, and sent the troops in. Your argument implies that the presidentโs personal feelings (which may be completely detached from on-the-ground-realities) are the only evidentiary standard required to justify deploying the military to occupy a city and perform local policing functions. Do you realize how insanely authoritarian that idea is? The next Democratic president can now cite your reasoning to occupy all of Red America merely by saying โThe nationโs red cities and rural towns are war zones; I am sending the military to police them properly.โ When you demand proof theyโll merely say โTrump didnโt need proof, so neither do I.โ Are you really comfortable with that?
***โAnd what about the people who actually live in the poorer and more crime-infested parts of those cities? From what I read, Washington DC residents appreciated the troops helping to police the streets. Just because the Dem politicians hate the idea of federal law enforcement doesn't mean that the ordinary citizens hate it too.โ***
Unless youโre arguing that those troops should be stationed there indefinitely, then this does nothing to address the underlying causes of crime in those areas; it artificially papers over the problem until the troops leave. At which point a rise in crime can then be cited as a reason to send the military back. Againโyouโre arguing that itโs perfectly fine to have the military indefinitely occupy a city to perform local policing functions. That is a solution pulled straight out of the fascist playbookโit is exactly what fascists in Interwar Italy said to justify the implementation of their authoritarian state. Weโve seen how it ends, and it isnโt pretty.
***โYour historical notes about fascists are correct, but fascism is a leftist ideology, adjacent to socialism, and the current fascists in this country are the hard Left,โ***
This claim only makes sense if you donโt look at the historical reality of fascism. Praytellโif fascism were simply left-adjacent, why were the first, and most violently suppressed, targets of Mussoliniโs blackshirts communists? Why did Mussolini attack moderate, (small l) liberal socialists alongside classical liberals in parliament? Thatโs because fascism is neither โrightโ nor โleftโ in the sense you are using it. It is an illiberal and authoritarian form of populist nationalism. Even a cursory survey of the historical facts can tell you that it was, A.) anti-egalitarian, B.) against democratic principles of governance (democracy being portrayed as โrule by squabbling elitesโ), C.) supportive of traditional gender and racial roles, D.) extremely nationalistic, E.) extremely xenophobic (i.e. โItalian blood mustnโt be corrupted by the lesser races of Europeโ), and F.) extremely corporatist.
Orban, Erdogan, Putin, andโyesโTrump all fit this bill. Not all Republicans, of course, support the whole packageโand certainly not all conservatives. But, again, look at history. The fascists werenโt elected by dyed-in-the-wool fascists. (at least at first) Those represented a smaller base of support that Mussolini relied on. A good portion of what brought fascism to power came from people who were simply willing to be tolerant of fascism, until fascismโs excesses were normalized as acceptable.
And it was helped along the way by tons of false equivalencies like:
***โwhat do you think that the regulators under Biden encouraging banks to "de-bank" business and people they considered to be political enemies was?โ***
As if alleged bias in the regulation of crypto and shadow-banking (with no available documented evidence of coordination) is comparable to the irrefutable fact that Stephen Moran is both A.) working in Trumpโs white house, and B.) sitting on the Fedโs board of governors, and that Trumpโs DOJ has gone after Fed officials whose policy preferences he dislikes with โmortgage fraudโ lawsuits *under his explicit orders*.
One form of corruption doesnโt make a greater form okay. If you havenโt gamed out how that tit-for-tat ends, then you should. Trumpโs authoritarianism may seem like โyour allyโ nowโbut only until it is coopted by someone who is not your ally. Again, one day it could be president AOCโs military stationed outside your doorway.
I do not agree with you or your evidence that riots did not happen. They did, though leftist news sources did their best to ignore them. I do believe that if the local police will not protect federal agents and property that federal law enforcement must do what it takes to protect it. Various far left federal judges have been handing down some very absurd rulings in cases where the Left has a narrative that they want to propagate so cherry-picking some of these rulings is not convincing. I don't know who said there was no evidence of riots in LA, Portland, or Chicago, the pictures were all over the Internet. Crime in Washington DC has been out of control, as it is in Chicago, and parts of many other cities with mostly or all Democratic governance. You are evading that fact by concentrating on what you characterize as "authoritarian" actions to restore order. And except for the limited deployment of National Guard in DC, which the Feds have the right to govern if they see the need, and again, to protect Federal agents and property from rioters in other cities, there has been very little deployment of boots on the ground. Trump says and threatens things as a way of motivating people to do the right thing, and if they do, he backs off. It's a negotiating technique. Your equivalence, that the next Dem president can send troops to occupy Red areas because he feels like it, is frankly absurd because you are operating from a false premise that there was no reason for the limited deployments that Trump did.
Leftists hate Trump and the Republicans so much that they don't actually look at what he does and why, they automatically resist it and attribute all kinds of motives to him that in many cases have nothing to do with the case at hand. Yes, Trump cares a lot about people getting hurt and he does move fast, as businessmen do, to fix something that he sees is hurting people, and that's not the way politics is usually done. Especially Leftist politics, it's quite clear to me that Leftists claim to care about groups in the abstract, but have no concern for actual people who are hurt.
Again, I agree that fascism is authoritarian and illiberal, I did not say it wasn't. The hard Left is not liberal, it is very much authoritarian, as the progressives are today in this country. Mussolini attacked everybody indiscriminately who wasn't a follower so that historical fact does not have much relevance to our current situation, unless you want to compare it to the intolerant progressives who are quite happy to threaten cancellation and/or death to anyone who disagrees with them. They sit back and allow Antifa to carry out the violent part of their program for them and pretend they are unrelated. I do know that Antifa long predates the modern progressive movement and are interested in anarchy and violence for its own sake, but the Progressives don't denounce them.
Biden's bank regulators did encourage banks to de-bank gun-related businesses, for one, and also tried to make it very difficult for oil companies to get financing due to the Left's "green" obsessions. That is true though it was done by inference and plausible deniability.
If you want to talk about corruption and authoritarianism, what about Crossfire Hurricane and Arctic Frost? Those were entirely Democratic operations, and they were corrupt through and through. It isn't clear now, but I think it will be - Obama and Biden completely politicized Federal law enforcement to attack their political enemies. They aren't getting any coverage in the legacy press so you might not know about them but if not you should research what they are about.
And your argument is now that it's totally okay for future President John Q. Democrat to send the military into your hometown, or [insert red county/city X], so long as he says "it's a war-zone" *AND* he can find some pictures online that allegedly show crime being committed there?
How is that any less insane an evidentiary standard?
***"Mussolini attacked everybody indiscriminately who wasn't a follower so that historical fact does not have much relevance to our current situation"***
This statement makes it pretty clear that you haven't read any actual historical accounts of the rise and rule of the fascists. He didn't attack everybody indiscriminately. He avoided attacking members of the property-owning middle class, the military elite, and supporters of the monarchy. In turn they funded he and the 'Fasci's organized crackdown on communists, socialist unions and worker organizations. Then once the fascists organized into a political party (the PNF) and were elected into the legislature, he attacked and intimidated his major critics, while leaving minor ones or middle-of-the-road MPs alone. The refusal of the latter to fully oppose the intimidation tactics and the breaking of liberal-democratic norms during his tenure at PM made it so that by the time Mussolini and the PNF began passing laws that gave them locked-in supermajorities--and thereafter laws cracking down on the free press, on opposition parties, etc.--their (politically fragmented) opponents in parliament were unwilling to impeach the fascists for what they were doing. Doing so would mean accepting responsibility for enabling the crisis of the fascist takeover and also mean inviting fascist violence against them. And they were willing to do neither. The biggest enabling force for the fascist takeover aside from the threat of Communism was the middle-of-the-road politician or voter who shrugged off Mussolini's illiberal actions because they hated his enemies, or because they didn't believe he'd take it as far as he did.
***"If you want to talk about corruption and authoritarianism, what about Crossfire Hurricane and Arctic Frost?"***
Arctic Frost was done completely legally, through warrants and proper legal channels, and done so to address a legitimate attempt to overthrow--by blatantly authoritarian and extralegal means--the outcome of a legitimate presidential election by a sitting president. Crossfire Hurricane definitely crossed some dubious legal lines when it came to obtaining FISA warrants for people like Carter Page, but the notion that it was 'an attempt by the Deep State to frame president Trump' is an overheated Taibbi-world conspiracy theory, and it investigated a legitimate attempt at interfering in the 2016 election by the Russian state. Both Republicans AND Democrats worked together on the official investigative account that it produced, and both Republicans and Democrats endorsed that account, which confirmed that that interference happened, and did so on the basis of far more than just the Steele Dossier. (which is what Taibbi keeps parroting over and over again)
That is completely different from sending troops into Portland or Chicago over the objections of the governor, the mayor, and the chief of police because you heard some stuff on TV and think it's 'a warzone' and want to intimidate your political opposition. Not to mention engaging in stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos.
They're not remotely comparable in severity--saying so can safely be declared a false equivalency. And there are many false equivalencies on the road to authoritarianism.
I appreciate that you have dialoged with me instead of resorting to insults and invective, but we are not connecting because your version of facts is different from mine and therefore we lack any basis for actual discussion. You are not engaging directly with my comments and I do not know how to engage with some of your statements because I don't believe that they are really true. Much of what you are pulling in about fascist history is not relevant to anything happening today in America except what the extreme Left wants to do, but you are saying it is actually Trump who is doing these things and he is not, except in the Leftist narrative. So I am disengaging now from this comment thread and will avoid any dialog with you in future.
After Trump won easily and signed executive orders in January that pushed back on illegal immigration, too much outsourcing, gender ideology and woke racism, I thought the woke left would at least be less shrill. After all, 70-80% of Americans agreed with him these particular points.
Decisions barring men from competing in womenโs sports and upholding bans on gender affirming care seemed to support the idea that the US and UK, at least, might be starting to see sense.
I was wrong.
Blue states are doubling down on โsanctuary stateโ status, as though confused children in need of help sorting out their very real problems are equal to refugees from Adolf Hitler, who really just need drugs and mastectomies.
The party of womenโs rights defines them almost solely as โthe right to buy contraceptives and have an abortion.โ Fair competition, female-only spaces, and being called a woman (not a cis-woman) are fascist ideas. A man gets nominated for best actress? Trans women are women!
They tell us that SNAP benefits should be valid for soda and processed garbage โfoodโ, because to do otherwise would create an โunderclassโ at the grocery store. Iโm at a loss to see how members of the Whole Foods class could ever think itโs a good idea to raise kids on a diet of Coke and Lunchables, where sugary roll ups count as fruit. They certainly wouldnโt feed that stuff to their own kids in a regular basis. And they certainly look at parents who do as not measuring up.
Math is racist. Good grammar is racist. Being on time is white supremacy.
And meanwhile, weโve given our manufacturing know-how to a communist country so that corporations could increase profits.
And when the pushback comes? Thereโs no contemplation, no soul-searching. Just navel-gazing and proclamations that anyone who disagrees is a deplorable fascist.
And the Dems continue to bleat that theyโre the only ones capable of saving us all.
I know the Rs have huge problems, but as I keep saying, Iโm more afraid of the Dems right now.
So, let's say we're a working class family with an income of $80k per year. In the last few years, food prices have increased 25% or so, electricity 33%, and my landlord installed heat pumps to replace our natural gas heat to get climate incentives. By the way, our rent also went up because an out-of-state non-profit offered to pay 20% above the asking rent so they could house migrants. We have a 13-year old daughter and can only afford clothes from a discount store. Forget about the newest smart phone.
Now, when she doesn't do well and is not popular at school, her teacher says her real problem is that she's actually a boy, and according to the Democratic Party has the right to send her to surgery.
I've no idea where the left or right is these days. Donald Trump is further left on many economic issues than many Democrats, and the Republican Party as a whole is further left on some policies than (I'm talking labor here) the Democratic Party.
I guess this essay touches on some of the ideas of Ezra Klein's essay over the weekend about having a bigger tent that includes everyone. The problem is the various factions that want to encompass the Democratic Party are all very very similar. Upper class elites. Nowhere is there ever a recognition of working class issues. They won't even say the word deportation, and until they can say that word, and explain their version of it. The Republicans win.
Today Bernie Sanders is interviewed in the NYT by David Leonhardt. Bernie blames everything on billionaires and "oligarchs", he used to scapegoat millionaires and billionaires. I figure he doesn't want to alienate his base. He also supports amnesty for 10 million.
Sixty percent of voters are working class, and of the 40% who do have a degree half of them are working at jobs that don't require a degree, often at wages very similar to their working class brethren. It would behoove the Democratic Party to get it's stuff together.
Great comment. I also read Klein. The failure to address mass migration, with anything more than a passing reference was mind boggling. Dems seem to believe it is resolved. All of Biden's 10 million new arrivals will remain, no valid asylum claim necessary. Only violent criminals should be deported.
The real issue is how mass migration affects Americans in the bottom 2 quintiles of US earners. More than 1 of 2 migrants are welfare dependent. This is obviously caused by willingness to accept substandard wages. States with the largest migrant populations have the lowest manual labor wages, especially CA.
Our knowledge economy and 50% housing inflation during Biden's term, renders moving up the economic ladder for low skilled Americans nearly impossible, long before our lousy education system will doom many of their children to generational poverty. More so for migrants lacking English skills, even more sparsely educated.
The US stats of the ever expanding underclass are mind boggling. In 1970 , the US had a population just over 200 million, roughly 8 million were Food Stamp dependent. Today our population stands at roughly 335 million with 42 million Food Stamp dependent. In a little over a 1/2 century, the total US population has increased a little over 60%, while Food Stamp use has increased 5X.
Medicaid numbers are equally sad, CA at 40% enrollment, NY at 35%. 2 of the 4 most populated US states, have large swaths of residents too poor to contribute to their own healthcare costs. We must end the creation of a permanent lower US caste, while we still can.
I have to admit that I spend more time thinking of a "theory of the mind of Ezra Klein" than is healthy. I don't understand how an abundance liberal was a crucial cheerleader for "The Great Awokening" at Vox, and then wrote "Why We're Polarized" in 2020, which was a defense of wokism right as wokism began its descent.
My best guess is that in his heart of hearts he's a true believer in leftist, but is smart enough to realize that most ideologues can't govern effectively.
I thought he was pretty good, Rogan thought so too. Lobbyists, Min wage, taxin Wall Street speculation, lots of good topics. Sounds pretty rational to me.
Oh you made me listen again. I could only stomach it for an hour. Joe Rogan is very non-confrontational, that's not his style.
In the first hour, Bernie - who hasn't worked for a private company in 45 years, says:
1. Government should raise kids from birth (free daycare) through 25 (free elementary school, high school, college, and graduate school). And all these workers will be union, receive high pay, and get defined benefit pensions.
2. Businesses can't lay off workers. If Ford automates and doesn't need the workers, they have to pay them anyway.
3. Mandatory 32 hour work week, with pay for 40 hours.
4. Because people have to wait months (?) to see a doctor, anyone who wants to go to medical should go for free (no matter how stupid they are). FYI, it takes 4 years college, 4 years of med school, 2 years of residency, and internship - and that's if you don't specialize. Med school is brutal. His contention that we should all have free health care for all and that we will face a shortage of ten thousands of doctors, doesn't take into account that it takes 12+ years to go through the medical school pipeline.
5. Government should fund all elections. What could go wrong?
He want to take 90% of earnings over a certain amount. He wants to punish innovation and crush the private market.
Nothing there I have a problem with though I'd rather we just give people the cash for child care to do with as they wish. I wouldn't want to work with having toddlers. I'd also only pay tuition for kids who place highly on standardized tests.
India which has some of the best docs in the world does it in 5.5 years. I'd open the door to Indian docs if they can pass a competency test.
Key to it all is getting money out of elections. Seems like a heck of a lot of white collar workers don't put in that many hours.
I have a hard time disagreeing with much of what Sanders has to say.
I saw a vid of Vance and he was asked which Dem's policies would he most like to see enacted or something like that. Vance said Sanders, Warren, Gabbard, in that order. Nothing wrong with being pro worker.
Bahn, meaning house or village, nock I don't know, different tone means bird, combined though in bahn nock it means a provincial, hick, bumpkin, unsophisticated from the countryside.
One core idea that might help is to center the idea of representative Democracy.
Voters are essentially hiring politicians to represent their desires and interests. The power that politicians wield is legitimate because it is supposed to represent the will of the people.
When that power is used instead to push forward pet projects that voters not only didnโt want but actually oppose, that legitimacy is lost. If they donโt get a good choice in the other direction, if theyโre mad enough, theyโll take a bad choice.
Politics does not work well when itโs used to impose personal moral values on the unwilling. Shifting views is what persuasion is for. People who disagree resist and get angry when forced, whether itโs the idea that life begins at birth or that high school sports should be by gender identity.
Persuasion works. It lets society evolve and find consensus. You have to do the work.
Good article (as usual.....best $5 we spend each month)
We want to add something not covered that we believe shaped a lot of voters.'
That is that in major liberal publications (e.g., NYT and even WaPo) articles and comments to articles communicate the following by progressives:
And that is that all of our problems are due to white people (who are all racist), men (hopeless), baby boomers (stole all of our country's wealth), financially successful people (not the rich, just ordinary middle class folks) and police officers.
And Trump said to all of these people: "You're great!"
Talk of positions on issues matters, of course, but the major issue for people in life is their pride. Trump made Americans feel proud. Progressives tell us we should feel ashamed.
Look at the comments that state "low information voters," or "people voting against their own interests," or "uneducated" voters. "Racists," "Authoritarians," etc.
Progressives believe they are morally superior to everyone else. And people voted to stick that belief in their eyes.
They will vote this way again, despite how much they may dislike Trump, because, as we said, it's their pride that matters the most to people. And progressives still can't admit to how much they look down on other people.
On the economic front, applying the abundance mentality to issues abundance advocates sometimes overlook could help:
Lower medical school tuition dramatically to help get more doctors into the workforce, and make it easier for nurse practitioners to work without doctors attached.
Keep drilling for oil to keep gasoline prices down, while also filling the SPR to react quickly to price spikes.
If an area suffers from high food prices but has lots of land with nothing but abandoned buildings and empty space, make it easier to clean them up and turn them into farmland.
Some simple regulations can help, like capping the prices health insurance companies are allowed to charge enrollees, or the interest rates banks are allowed to charge homeowners. Public options can help, too: health insurance, postal savings bank.
Dems should also look for new ways to tax the affluent beyond just raising income tax rates at the top. Like taxing financial transactions, cryptocurrencies, big banks' assets, corporations' spending on AI.
Remember, no matter how we vote, or try to influence politicians, when someone who donates 7 figures speaks, politicians listen. The wealthy have different priorities and the donor class is quite a bit to the left of voters.
The Democratic Party does have another alternative, one that many Democrats will not like to hear. At the Presidential level, a minority party can on occasion elect a Grover Cleveland, a Woodrow Wilson, or a Dwight David Eisenhower. The rest of the time, it can choose to resemble the Republican Party of the late 1950s, whose leadership as seen on television on election eve seemed to have no thought of taking control of Congress. Some number of politicians will hold office, the consultant class will continue to be gainlessly employed, supportive voters in places where Democrats are a majority can cheer for their winners and say critical things about voters of the other party, elections will be as thrilling as elections to the Massachusetts legislature, and politics will be in a state of stasis..
The basic premise of this country is the government represents the people and their wishes. That is no longer true. We have seen the human outcome of being raised by government. Failing schools, failing higher education and citizens unable to be an asset to this country after all that "education". Has college-prep-is-the-only-to-go improved this nation for all? The fear mongering of either go to college or live a miserable and poor life is a bogus bogeyman.
There are plenty of places people can go to to live the life Bernie wants. From the thoughtful way this country was put together to almost any topic you want to talk about today, we are the United States of America. We are unique. We don't want to be like the rest of the world. None, very few, of them have a better life style than this country. We have poor sections, always that way because of government intervention. Even our poorest are in the top 20% of wage earners world wide.
Can you show me one country that follows Bernie's warped view of society/government, that is better off, or even equal too, the life style of this country?
Bernie is a millionaire with three or four really nice houses on the East Coast. Why isn't AOC going after him? He's rich. He just hates those richer than himself? AOC was a bartender. When was the last time you heard her complain about her wages after becoming a congresswoman. The smart move is to help those you know are downtrodden and help them to move up into the lifestyle Bernie and AOC have.
Bernie has no ideas that are good enough to make this a better country. Just a more controlled by big brother govenrment. That isn't how we got here. It isn't how we need to improve.
One problem is that too many Democratic leaders and members view workers as sub-human. Maybe that's too harsh. Maybe it's that too many Democrats look down their collective pampered noses at ordinary people.
I'm a 73 year old white male. I believe if you can't take care of your own, you have no business wasting money on others until you get your own house in order. People are poor, well off and even very rich. It is no up to me to determine if someone who worked to get where they are at has too much money that they don't need. We are a unique country starting with our Constitution which no other country has then like of. That for the most part is good. Nothing is perfect though. If you don like it, the method for changing the Constitution is contained in the Constitution.
Does that make me a white nationalists? What if Trump isn't the lawless one? Maybe if the left quit worrying about Trump, they might come up with a platform many independents could support.
Trump is correct in that offices part of the executive branch, are accountable to the President. Do you really want unelected bureaucrats running our country? Do you not want someone you can hold accountable for the way those who work for him fulfill their responsibility? And yes, like any employee, they work for him. but their higher duty is to then people and the Constitution. They have a right to make that known up the chain of command until it gets to the top. But if the top person doesn't agree, then they have the right, responsibility, to fire you. Why would you want to work for a boss you don't agree with on such basic but important principles. Very little more stupid comes out of the Dem's mouth than you can't be loyal to the guy who hires you. (we can say the same thing with a Dem president in charge) Talk about their principles and see how dedicated they are to them. Although I realize, Dems are the party of relative principles and therefore don't put much stock in them.
I donโt think the way of looking at the Democrats problem is a matter of far left to moderate. I think it is a matter of rational thinking vs irrational thinking on an issue. For instance addressing people with gender identity issues is a rational and just position, making sure they can hold jobs and gain housing and medical treatment is also. But trying to convince everyone a boy can be a girl, boys who think they are girls can play in girl sports and children can make life altering decisions is not. I can go through all the top cultural issues and. Have the same debate. The issue is a good one but the solutions are irrational. That is why Democrats are losing so many people. It is not really a left vs right. It is an irrational problem solving that is at the heart of the issue. This is what is what is under the Democrats trust issue. Some may call it common sense. I call it a lack of rational thinking which addresses real social issues
Itโs a combination of rational vs irrational and live and let live. Leaving consenting adults alone to do as they will on their own time and dime will always win the day. Forcing the population at large to accept that a man can become a woman and using the public schools to push your social agenda on other peopleโs kids is the polar opposite of live and let live.
I can see the live and let live philosophy also coming into play for some issues but ones like immigration and keeping cities safe tend to be grounded more in rational thinking I am not suggesting that Trump is a rational problem solver. I tend to think he understands the big picture issue with Democrats and then chooses the opposite of what they are pushing so then he looks rational. Quite a trick that Democrats walked right into.
๐๐๐๐จ๐ซ๐ ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐๐ฎ๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ข๐ง๐ ๐ฉ๐จ๐ฅ๐ข๐๐ฒ ๐จ๐ซ ๐ฉ๐ฅ๐๐ญ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ฆ ๐๐ก๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ฌ-- ๐ฐ๐ก๐๐ญ ๐๐๐จ๐ฎ๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐๐ญ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ญ ๐ข๐ง ๐๐๐๐ ๐ฆ๐๐ง๐ฒ ๐๐๐ฆ๐จ๐๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ฌ ๐๐ข๐ ๐ง๐จ๐ญ ๐ก๐๐ฏ๐ ๐จ๐ฉ๐๐ง ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ข๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฌ?
๐๐๐ฆ๐จ๐๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ข๐ ๐ฏ๐จ๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ฌ ๐ก๐๐ ๐ง๐จ ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐ญ๐ข๐๐ข๐ฉ๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง ๐ข๐ง ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ข๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐ญ๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐๐๐๐๐ซ๐ฌ' ๐๐๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐ฌ.
๐๐ง ๐๐๐๐ ๐ ๐ฅ๐จ๐ซ๐ข๐๐ ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ฅ๐๐ฐ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐๐ฆ๐จ๐๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ข๐ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐๐ฌ๐ข๐๐๐ง๐ญ๐ข๐๐ฅ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ข๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐ฐ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐๐ง๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐๐. ๐๐ฅ๐๐ฌ๐ค๐, ๐๐ง๐๐ข๐๐ง๐, ๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ข๐ฌ๐ฌ๐ข๐ฉ๐ฉ๐ข, ๐๐จ๐ซ๐ญ๐ก ๐๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฅ๐ข๐ง๐, ๐๐ง๐ ๐๐๐ง๐ง๐๐ฌ๐ฌ๐๐ ๐ก๐๐ฅ๐ ๐ฉ๐ซ๐ข๐ฆ๐๐ซ๐ข๐๐ฌ ๐๐ฎ๐ญ ๐ฅ๐ข๐ฌ๐ญ๐๐ ๐จ๐ง๐ฅ๐ฒ ๐๐ข๐๐๐ง ๐จ๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐๐๐ฅ๐ฅ๐จ๐ญ ๐๐ฎ๐ ๐ญ๐จ ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐ญ๐ฒ ๐๐๐๐ข๐ฌ๐ข๐จ๐ง๐ฌ. ๐๐๐ฆ๐จ๐๐ซ๐๐ญ๐ข๐ ๐ฏ๐จ๐ญ๐๐ซ๐ฌ ๐ก๐๐ ๐ง๐จ ๐ฉ๐๐ซ๐ญ ๐ข๐ง ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ญ ๐๐ฅ๐๐๐ญ๐ข๐จ๐ง. ๐๐ฅ๐ฅ ๐ญ๐ก๐ ๐ฉ๐จ๐ฅ๐ข๐๐ฒ ๐๐ก๐๐ง๐ ๐๐ฌ ๐ฐ๐จ๐ง'๐ญ ๐ฆ๐๐ค๐ ๐ ๐๐ข๐๐๐๐ซ๐๐ง๐๐ ๐ข๐ ๐ฐ๐ ๐ฌ๐๐ ๐ญ๐ก๐๐ญ ๐๐๐ง๐๐ข๐๐๐ญ๐๐ฌ ๐๐ซ๐ ๐๐ก๐จ๐ฌ๐๐ง ๐๐จ๐ซ ๐ฎ๐ฌ ๐๐ฒ ๐ฅ๐๐๐๐๐ซ๐ฌ๐ก๐ข๐ฉ.
Iโd also add that this coupled with hiding Bidenโs infirmities and attempts to keep Trump off the ballot are why Democrats canโt get any traction with all of their Trump is a threat to democracyโ rhetoric.
Don't forget the government-directed censorship of social media for stories like Covid origins and Hunter's laptop.
Sometimes I run across old platform documents that my DEC worked on with such earnestness and feel--now-- it was a charade.
I know what you mean. I've begun to consider the Democrats a threat to democracy. As a former life-long Democrat, it rather makes me sick.
As an institution, the Democratic Party has become malevolent. It hates this country's guts and everything it is ever stood for. I can't imagine voting for a Democrat again, and I say it as someone who supported Democrats for 40 years. They might as well be honest about how much they hate us.
Totally. ๐ฏ
You are so right in that. The Democratic Party has condemned what my father's America, what my America, stands for. You don't insult more than half the citizens of this country by claiming them to "cling to guns or religion" (Obama), calling them "a basket of deplorables" (H. Clinton), or "garbage" (Biden). Respect for others' rights, understanding others' perspectives, and finding an alternative and *_kind_* 'common ground' is the only way forward, IMO.
This analysis raises many important questions, but in the end it's just a theoretical exercise. The wokester Left controls the Democratic party almost everywhere because that faction of the party shows up to vote in primaries at very high percentages; they overwhelm whatever genuine moderates still exist. For its true believers, Wokeism is a badge of moral superiority and confers higher status on them. They won't change - period.
In the end, Democratic candidates in 2026 will only pretend to have moderated on any issues. They may forego the personal insults and other blatant condescension toward non-tribalists. They may smile nicely (e.g. the next Mayor of NYC) and be cordial, but they won't change substantively in any way. The woke Left hopes for a serious economic downturn to win in 2026 and 2028. If - when - they return to power the entire left-wing agenda will be enacted ASAP, not a hint of moderation on any issue.
Another article saying the same things, over and over again, about what the Dems need to do to be relevant. Nothing changes. If you self-described "moderate" Democrats actually want anything to change, then you will need to abandon the existing Democratic party apparatus to the crazy hard Left and start the difficult work of building a new party according to the principles you and others describe and lay out in detail. As a non-Democrat, I don't always agree with your big government-mainstream Democrat policy preferences, but at least we can broadly agree on what the problems are and debate the solutions. No one, including you mainstream Dems, can debate anything with the hard Left. Yes, you will both lose a lot of elections before you get things sorted out but if you actually care, as you say you do, about America, you will do what you can to isolate the dangerous hard Left.
And, if you choose to keep working within the existing Dem party structure, and you want Dem candidates to be more moderate to appeal to centrists and working-class people, you know they can't because they will be attacked instantly by the hard Left for deviating from the party line. And they especially can't even talk to a Republican about anything, much less actually vote with the Republicans, ever, no matter how important the issue, because the Left will almost literally kill them for even thinking about it. Look at the stupid standoff on the continuing resolution going on right now. The Dem demands are ridiculous, they are being offered a clean resolution and the opportunity to discuss what they want and they are rejecting it in favor of hurting everyone in sight so they can grovel at the feet of the hard Left that wants Resistance! no matter what the cost to groups they claim to care about. This will never end until all of you moderates leave the party and let the Lefists tear each other apart all by themselves.
Further, you and others who prescribe ways the Dems might repair their "brand" keep skating around the reality that the official Democrat party positions are poison. We all know they are for making energy scarce and expensive, taking away functional consumer products and replacing them with things that don't work, increasing the cost of living in a single family suburban home to unaffordable levels to force people to live in cities that are unsafe with bad housing and infrastructure. Taking away their children for not wanting them to be subjected to barbaric "transgender" procedures. Forcing their daughters to play sports with boys and men, and for all women to share locker rooms, prisons, and other female facilities with male sex offenders who claim to be women. Violently opposing the removal of criminal illegal aliens, and inviting the world's poor here to freeload on our welfare state and take our jobs. Allowing rampant homelessness, crime, and drug use in cities. Attacking the police for doing their jobs, so making the community unsafe. Allowing the bureauocracy to grow huge and unaccountable, using its awesome power to go after people who are their political opposition (they call them "enemies"). Opposing common-sense election integrity laws, like presenting ID to vote. Using environmental regulation to stop building anything, anywhere, and running up the cost astronomically for anything that does get built. There is a lot more, too much for this space. People know this is what the Dems stand for, they may say they deny it but their actions speak otherwise. This is who the modern Democratic party is, and the more voters realize this, the more will leave the party. Many of these issues are 70/30 or 80/20 with the Dems on the 20 or 30% side. But a lot of voters don't really think about who and what they are voting for,m though I think that is changing.
The GOP's complicit here, though. It is hard to encourage moderation and encourage people to turn away from 'Resistance!' towards your political opponents when those opponents are stationing the military in your cities for no other reason than that their leader 'feels' like they are 'war-zones', and there's zero dissension amongst their ranks about doing so.
If the next Democratic president stations troops outside your door because he thinks your neighborhood "is a war zone" (but has shown no evidence to prove it other than 'I saw it on tv' or 'everybody knows it is'), would you feel compelled towards greater moderation? Even though you lost at the polls?
The fascists of Italy successfully crushed Communist and Parliamentary dissension, neutered and/or took over the courts, restored a state-sanctioned 'racial order', co-opted the central bank, etc., etc.--but one thing they did *not* do was encourage the champions of liberalism they stepped all over to become more tolerant and liberal towards fascists. Orban and Erdogan did not encourage their liberal opponents to become more tolerant of Orbanism and Erdoganism. What reason do Republicans *or* Democrats have to think the 21st century version of fascism, quickly being enacted by the party in power, (and already enacted by strongmen like Erdogan or Orban) will lead to a different outcome?
I think you are missing my point. It appears to me, as I discuss below, that your views on Republicans and their actions are not the complete story, but in large part are derived from leftist talking points and their very careful crafting of a narrative that is anti-Republican and especially anti-Trump. The Leftists are very good at projecting their own beliefs and actions on the other side, and covering up their own failings by evading the issue, blaming someone else for it, or if that doesn't work, just say some event didn't happen when it very obviously did. They were doing a lot of this about the LA riots, when they couldn't rationalize or justify it they started saying there weren't any riots. Same thing in the summer of 2020, everyone remembers the CNN guy standing in front of a burning building and saying the riots were "mostly peaceful".
If the Democrats running those cities were doing even a minimal job at maintaining some kind of order, at least preventing riots, there would not have been any need for the National Guard. If the Democrats would stop trying to block ICE from removing criminal illegal aliens and instead would cooperate with them, there would be no need for troops to protect federal agents and property. The Dems are more at fault, in my opinion. There have been well publicized riots in LA, Portland, Chicago, and other cities that endangered federal agents, property, and the general public. Do you think those riots didn't happen? If the local police won't protect people and property, why do you think the Feds should not step in? Rioters blocked ICE agents recently in Chicago and the local police were told to stand down and let it happen. The ICE agents were removing criminal aliens, which a majority of the citizens want them to do. These protection and enforcement actions have nothing to do with your "stationing troops outside your door because he thinks your neighborhood is a war zone", that is absurd unless there actually is a riot going on and then I would welcome them, as I think so would you.
And what about the people who actually live in the poorer and more crime-infested parts of those cities? From what I read, Washington DC residents appreciated the troops helping to police the streets. Just because the Dem politicians hate the idea of federal law enforcement doesn't mean that the ordinary citizens hate it too.
Your historical notes about fascists are correct, but fascism is a leftist ideology, adjacent to socialism, and the current fascists in this country are the hard Left, who are very much in favor of taking over the courts, establishing a state-sanctioned "racial order" (one that excludes white people in their plans), co-opt the banking system (what do you think that the regulators under Biden encouraging banks to "de-bank" business and people they considered to be political enemies was?) and all the other things you list. The Left hates Republicans and especially Trump because he is reversing their takeover of the government and our institutions.
***โIf the Democrats running those cities were doing even a minimal job at maintaining some kind of order, at least preventing riots, there would not have been any need for the National Guard.โ***
No proof was provided of mass disorder or attacks on federal officers/property in the case of Portland or Chicago, because there wasnโt any. (as judges in the courts later pointed out) Trump simply called them โwar zonesโ, and sent the troops in. Your argument implies that the presidentโs personal feelings (which may be completely detached from on-the-ground-realities) are the only evidentiary standard required to justify deploying the military to occupy a city and perform local policing functions. Do you realize how insanely authoritarian that idea is? The next Democratic president can now cite your reasoning to occupy all of Red America merely by saying โThe nationโs red cities and rural towns are war zones; I am sending the military to police them properly.โ When you demand proof theyโll merely say โTrump didnโt need proof, so neither do I.โ Are you really comfortable with that?
***โAnd what about the people who actually live in the poorer and more crime-infested parts of those cities? From what I read, Washington DC residents appreciated the troops helping to police the streets. Just because the Dem politicians hate the idea of federal law enforcement doesn't mean that the ordinary citizens hate it too.โ***
Unless youโre arguing that those troops should be stationed there indefinitely, then this does nothing to address the underlying causes of crime in those areas; it artificially papers over the problem until the troops leave. At which point a rise in crime can then be cited as a reason to send the military back. Againโyouโre arguing that itโs perfectly fine to have the military indefinitely occupy a city to perform local policing functions. That is a solution pulled straight out of the fascist playbookโit is exactly what fascists in Interwar Italy said to justify the implementation of their authoritarian state. Weโve seen how it ends, and it isnโt pretty.
***โYour historical notes about fascists are correct, but fascism is a leftist ideology, adjacent to socialism, and the current fascists in this country are the hard Left,โ***
This claim only makes sense if you donโt look at the historical reality of fascism. Praytellโif fascism were simply left-adjacent, why were the first, and most violently suppressed, targets of Mussoliniโs blackshirts communists? Why did Mussolini attack moderate, (small l) liberal socialists alongside classical liberals in parliament? Thatโs because fascism is neither โrightโ nor โleftโ in the sense you are using it. It is an illiberal and authoritarian form of populist nationalism. Even a cursory survey of the historical facts can tell you that it was, A.) anti-egalitarian, B.) against democratic principles of governance (democracy being portrayed as โrule by squabbling elitesโ), C.) supportive of traditional gender and racial roles, D.) extremely nationalistic, E.) extremely xenophobic (i.e. โItalian blood mustnโt be corrupted by the lesser races of Europeโ), and F.) extremely corporatist.
Orban, Erdogan, Putin, andโyesโTrump all fit this bill. Not all Republicans, of course, support the whole packageโand certainly not all conservatives. But, again, look at history. The fascists werenโt elected by dyed-in-the-wool fascists. (at least at first) Those represented a smaller base of support that Mussolini relied on. A good portion of what brought fascism to power came from people who were simply willing to be tolerant of fascism, until fascismโs excesses were normalized as acceptable.
And it was helped along the way by tons of false equivalencies like:
***โwhat do you think that the regulators under Biden encouraging banks to "de-bank" business and people they considered to be political enemies was?โ***
As if alleged bias in the regulation of crypto and shadow-banking (with no available documented evidence of coordination) is comparable to the irrefutable fact that Stephen Moran is both A.) working in Trumpโs white house, and B.) sitting on the Fedโs board of governors, and that Trumpโs DOJ has gone after Fed officials whose policy preferences he dislikes with โmortgage fraudโ lawsuits *under his explicit orders*.
One form of corruption doesnโt make a greater form okay. If you havenโt gamed out how that tit-for-tat ends, then you should. Trumpโs authoritarianism may seem like โyour allyโ nowโbut only until it is coopted by someone who is not your ally. Again, one day it could be president AOCโs military stationed outside your doorway.
I do not agree with you or your evidence that riots did not happen. They did, though leftist news sources did their best to ignore them. I do believe that if the local police will not protect federal agents and property that federal law enforcement must do what it takes to protect it. Various far left federal judges have been handing down some very absurd rulings in cases where the Left has a narrative that they want to propagate so cherry-picking some of these rulings is not convincing. I don't know who said there was no evidence of riots in LA, Portland, or Chicago, the pictures were all over the Internet. Crime in Washington DC has been out of control, as it is in Chicago, and parts of many other cities with mostly or all Democratic governance. You are evading that fact by concentrating on what you characterize as "authoritarian" actions to restore order. And except for the limited deployment of National Guard in DC, which the Feds have the right to govern if they see the need, and again, to protect Federal agents and property from rioters in other cities, there has been very little deployment of boots on the ground. Trump says and threatens things as a way of motivating people to do the right thing, and if they do, he backs off. It's a negotiating technique. Your equivalence, that the next Dem president can send troops to occupy Red areas because he feels like it, is frankly absurd because you are operating from a false premise that there was no reason for the limited deployments that Trump did.
Leftists hate Trump and the Republicans so much that they don't actually look at what he does and why, they automatically resist it and attribute all kinds of motives to him that in many cases have nothing to do with the case at hand. Yes, Trump cares a lot about people getting hurt and he does move fast, as businessmen do, to fix something that he sees is hurting people, and that's not the way politics is usually done. Especially Leftist politics, it's quite clear to me that Leftists claim to care about groups in the abstract, but have no concern for actual people who are hurt.
Again, I agree that fascism is authoritarian and illiberal, I did not say it wasn't. The hard Left is not liberal, it is very much authoritarian, as the progressives are today in this country. Mussolini attacked everybody indiscriminately who wasn't a follower so that historical fact does not have much relevance to our current situation, unless you want to compare it to the intolerant progressives who are quite happy to threaten cancellation and/or death to anyone who disagrees with them. They sit back and allow Antifa to carry out the violent part of their program for them and pretend they are unrelated. I do know that Antifa long predates the modern progressive movement and are interested in anarchy and violence for its own sake, but the Progressives don't denounce them.
Biden's bank regulators did encourage banks to de-bank gun-related businesses, for one, and also tried to make it very difficult for oil companies to get financing due to the Left's "green" obsessions. That is true though it was done by inference and plausible deniability.
If you want to talk about corruption and authoritarianism, what about Crossfire Hurricane and Arctic Frost? Those were entirely Democratic operations, and they were corrupt through and through. It isn't clear now, but I think it will be - Obama and Biden completely politicized Federal law enforcement to attack their political enemies. They aren't getting any coverage in the legacy press so you might not know about them but if not you should research what they are about.
"I don't know who said there was no evidence of riots in LA, Portland, or Chicago, the pictures were all over the Internet."
A Trump-appointed judge said so, not some 'far left whacko'. See: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71481149/134/state-of-oregon-v-trump/
And your argument is now that it's totally okay for future President John Q. Democrat to send the military into your hometown, or [insert red county/city X], so long as he says "it's a war-zone" *AND* he can find some pictures online that allegedly show crime being committed there?
How is that any less insane an evidentiary standard?
***"Mussolini attacked everybody indiscriminately who wasn't a follower so that historical fact does not have much relevance to our current situation"***
This statement makes it pretty clear that you haven't read any actual historical accounts of the rise and rule of the fascists. He didn't attack everybody indiscriminately. He avoided attacking members of the property-owning middle class, the military elite, and supporters of the monarchy. In turn they funded he and the 'Fasci's organized crackdown on communists, socialist unions and worker organizations. Then once the fascists organized into a political party (the PNF) and were elected into the legislature, he attacked and intimidated his major critics, while leaving minor ones or middle-of-the-road MPs alone. The refusal of the latter to fully oppose the intimidation tactics and the breaking of liberal-democratic norms during his tenure at PM made it so that by the time Mussolini and the PNF began passing laws that gave them locked-in supermajorities--and thereafter laws cracking down on the free press, on opposition parties, etc.--their (politically fragmented) opponents in parliament were unwilling to impeach the fascists for what they were doing. Doing so would mean accepting responsibility for enabling the crisis of the fascist takeover and also mean inviting fascist violence against them. And they were willing to do neither. The biggest enabling force for the fascist takeover aside from the threat of Communism was the middle-of-the-road politician or voter who shrugged off Mussolini's illiberal actions because they hated his enemies, or because they didn't believe he'd take it as far as he did.
***"If you want to talk about corruption and authoritarianism, what about Crossfire Hurricane and Arctic Frost?"***
Arctic Frost was done completely legally, through warrants and proper legal channels, and done so to address a legitimate attempt to overthrow--by blatantly authoritarian and extralegal means--the outcome of a legitimate presidential election by a sitting president. Crossfire Hurricane definitely crossed some dubious legal lines when it came to obtaining FISA warrants for people like Carter Page, but the notion that it was 'an attempt by the Deep State to frame president Trump' is an overheated Taibbi-world conspiracy theory, and it investigated a legitimate attempt at interfering in the 2016 election by the Russian state. Both Republicans AND Democrats worked together on the official investigative account that it produced, and both Republicans and Democrats endorsed that account, which confirmed that that interference happened, and did so on the basis of far more than just the Steele Dossier. (which is what Taibbi keeps parroting over and over again)
That is completely different from sending troops into Portland or Chicago over the objections of the governor, the mayor, and the chief of police because you heard some stuff on TV and think it's 'a warzone' and want to intimidate your political opposition. Not to mention engaging in stuff like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastman_memos.
They're not remotely comparable in severity--saying so can safely be declared a false equivalency. And there are many false equivalencies on the road to authoritarianism.
I appreciate that you have dialoged with me instead of resorting to insults and invective, but we are not connecting because your version of facts is different from mine and therefore we lack any basis for actual discussion. You are not engaging directly with my comments and I do not know how to engage with some of your statements because I don't believe that they are really true. Much of what you are pulling in about fascist history is not relevant to anything happening today in America except what the extreme Left wants to do, but you are saying it is actually Trump who is doing these things and he is not, except in the Leftist narrative. So I am disengaging now from this comment thread and will avoid any dialog with you in future.
After Trump won easily and signed executive orders in January that pushed back on illegal immigration, too much outsourcing, gender ideology and woke racism, I thought the woke left would at least be less shrill. After all, 70-80% of Americans agreed with him these particular points.
Decisions barring men from competing in womenโs sports and upholding bans on gender affirming care seemed to support the idea that the US and UK, at least, might be starting to see sense.
I was wrong.
Blue states are doubling down on โsanctuary stateโ status, as though confused children in need of help sorting out their very real problems are equal to refugees from Adolf Hitler, who really just need drugs and mastectomies.
The party of womenโs rights defines them almost solely as โthe right to buy contraceptives and have an abortion.โ Fair competition, female-only spaces, and being called a woman (not a cis-woman) are fascist ideas. A man gets nominated for best actress? Trans women are women!
They tell us that SNAP benefits should be valid for soda and processed garbage โfoodโ, because to do otherwise would create an โunderclassโ at the grocery store. Iโm at a loss to see how members of the Whole Foods class could ever think itโs a good idea to raise kids on a diet of Coke and Lunchables, where sugary roll ups count as fruit. They certainly wouldnโt feed that stuff to their own kids in a regular basis. And they certainly look at parents who do as not measuring up.
Math is racist. Good grammar is racist. Being on time is white supremacy.
And meanwhile, weโve given our manufacturing know-how to a communist country so that corporations could increase profits.
And when the pushback comes? Thereโs no contemplation, no soul-searching. Just navel-gazing and proclamations that anyone who disagrees is a deplorable fascist.
And the Dems continue to bleat that theyโre the only ones capable of saving us all.
I know the Rs have huge problems, but as I keep saying, Iโm more afraid of the Dems right now.
You canโt make this stuff up. Any of it.
So, let's say we're a working class family with an income of $80k per year. In the last few years, food prices have increased 25% or so, electricity 33%, and my landlord installed heat pumps to replace our natural gas heat to get climate incentives. By the way, our rent also went up because an out-of-state non-profit offered to pay 20% above the asking rent so they could house migrants. We have a 13-year old daughter and can only afford clothes from a discount store. Forget about the newest smart phone.
Now, when she doesn't do well and is not popular at school, her teacher says her real problem is that she's actually a boy, and according to the Democratic Party has the right to send her to surgery.
Yes, I'm voting for that.
That's a working class family with a fairly good income. Many are in the 40K to 50K range. The second quintile topped out at 58K in 2022.
I've no idea where the left or right is these days. Donald Trump is further left on many economic issues than many Democrats, and the Republican Party as a whole is further left on some policies than (I'm talking labor here) the Democratic Party.
I guess this essay touches on some of the ideas of Ezra Klein's essay over the weekend about having a bigger tent that includes everyone. The problem is the various factions that want to encompass the Democratic Party are all very very similar. Upper class elites. Nowhere is there ever a recognition of working class issues. They won't even say the word deportation, and until they can say that word, and explain their version of it. The Republicans win.
Today Bernie Sanders is interviewed in the NYT by David Leonhardt. Bernie blames everything on billionaires and "oligarchs", he used to scapegoat millionaires and billionaires. I figure he doesn't want to alienate his base. He also supports amnesty for 10 million.
Sixty percent of voters are working class, and of the 40% who do have a degree half of them are working at jobs that don't require a degree, often at wages very similar to their working class brethren. It would behoove the Democratic Party to get it's stuff together.
Great comment. I also read Klein. The failure to address mass migration, with anything more than a passing reference was mind boggling. Dems seem to believe it is resolved. All of Biden's 10 million new arrivals will remain, no valid asylum claim necessary. Only violent criminals should be deported.
The real issue is how mass migration affects Americans in the bottom 2 quintiles of US earners. More than 1 of 2 migrants are welfare dependent. This is obviously caused by willingness to accept substandard wages. States with the largest migrant populations have the lowest manual labor wages, especially CA.
Our knowledge economy and 50% housing inflation during Biden's term, renders moving up the economic ladder for low skilled Americans nearly impossible, long before our lousy education system will doom many of their children to generational poverty. More so for migrants lacking English skills, even more sparsely educated.
The US stats of the ever expanding underclass are mind boggling. In 1970 , the US had a population just over 200 million, roughly 8 million were Food Stamp dependent. Today our population stands at roughly 335 million with 42 million Food Stamp dependent. In a little over a 1/2 century, the total US population has increased a little over 60%, while Food Stamp use has increased 5X.
Medicaid numbers are equally sad, CA at 40% enrollment, NY at 35%. 2 of the 4 most populated US states, have large swaths of residents too poor to contribute to their own healthcare costs. We must end the creation of a permanent lower US caste, while we still can.
I have to admit that I spend more time thinking of a "theory of the mind of Ezra Klein" than is healthy. I don't understand how an abundance liberal was a crucial cheerleader for "The Great Awokening" at Vox, and then wrote "Why We're Polarized" in 2020, which was a defense of wokism right as wokism began its descent.
My best guess is that in his heart of hearts he's a true believer in leftist, but is smart enough to realize that most ideologues can't govern effectively.
I think he evolved. He is ok at seeing reality and has to accomodate what he is seeing with what his beliefs were.
Please, please listen to the Bernie Sanders interview on Joe Rogan. He is 100% cuckoo.
I thought he was pretty good, Rogan thought so too. Lobbyists, Min wage, taxin Wall Street speculation, lots of good topics. Sounds pretty rational to me.
Oh you made me listen again. I could only stomach it for an hour. Joe Rogan is very non-confrontational, that's not his style.
In the first hour, Bernie - who hasn't worked for a private company in 45 years, says:
1. Government should raise kids from birth (free daycare) through 25 (free elementary school, high school, college, and graduate school). And all these workers will be union, receive high pay, and get defined benefit pensions.
2. Businesses can't lay off workers. If Ford automates and doesn't need the workers, they have to pay them anyway.
3. Mandatory 32 hour work week, with pay for 40 hours.
4. Because people have to wait months (?) to see a doctor, anyone who wants to go to medical should go for free (no matter how stupid they are). FYI, it takes 4 years college, 4 years of med school, 2 years of residency, and internship - and that's if you don't specialize. Med school is brutal. His contention that we should all have free health care for all and that we will face a shortage of ten thousands of doctors, doesn't take into account that it takes 12+ years to go through the medical school pipeline.
5. Government should fund all elections. What could go wrong?
He want to take 90% of earnings over a certain amount. He wants to punish innovation and crush the private market.
And that's only in the first hour. He's cuckoo.
Nothing there I have a problem with though I'd rather we just give people the cash for child care to do with as they wish. I wouldn't want to work with having toddlers. I'd also only pay tuition for kids who place highly on standardized tests.
India which has some of the best docs in the world does it in 5.5 years. I'd open the door to Indian docs if they can pass a competency test.
Key to it all is getting money out of elections. Seems like a heck of a lot of white collar workers don't put in that many hours.
I have a hard time disagreeing with much of what Sanders has to say.
I saw a vid of Vance and he was asked which Dem's policies would he most like to see enacted or something like that. Vance said Sanders, Warren, Gabbard, in that order. Nothing wrong with being pro worker.
Oh come on Ben. None of this is workable. It would cost trillions of dollars. He's peddling unicorns, I can't believe you're falling for it.
Bahn, meaning house or village, nock I don't know, different tone means bird, combined though in bahn nock it means a provincial, hick, bumpkin, unsophisticated from the countryside.
One core idea that might help is to center the idea of representative Democracy.
Voters are essentially hiring politicians to represent their desires and interests. The power that politicians wield is legitimate because it is supposed to represent the will of the people.
When that power is used instead to push forward pet projects that voters not only didnโt want but actually oppose, that legitimacy is lost. If they donโt get a good choice in the other direction, if theyโre mad enough, theyโll take a bad choice.
Politics does not work well when itโs used to impose personal moral values on the unwilling. Shifting views is what persuasion is for. People who disagree resist and get angry when forced, whether itโs the idea that life begins at birth or that high school sports should be by gender identity.
Persuasion works. It lets society evolve and find consensus. You have to do the work.
Good article (as usual.....best $5 we spend each month)
We want to add something not covered that we believe shaped a lot of voters.'
That is that in major liberal publications (e.g., NYT and even WaPo) articles and comments to articles communicate the following by progressives:
And that is that all of our problems are due to white people (who are all racist), men (hopeless), baby boomers (stole all of our country's wealth), financially successful people (not the rich, just ordinary middle class folks) and police officers.
And Trump said to all of these people: "You're great!"
Talk of positions on issues matters, of course, but the major issue for people in life is their pride. Trump made Americans feel proud. Progressives tell us we should feel ashamed.
Look at the comments that state "low information voters," or "people voting against their own interests," or "uneducated" voters. "Racists," "Authoritarians," etc.
Progressives believe they are morally superior to everyone else. And people voted to stick that belief in their eyes.
They will vote this way again, despite how much they may dislike Trump, because, as we said, it's their pride that matters the most to people. And progressives still can't admit to how much they look down on other people.
On the economic front, applying the abundance mentality to issues abundance advocates sometimes overlook could help:
Lower medical school tuition dramatically to help get more doctors into the workforce, and make it easier for nurse practitioners to work without doctors attached.
Keep drilling for oil to keep gasoline prices down, while also filling the SPR to react quickly to price spikes.
If an area suffers from high food prices but has lots of land with nothing but abandoned buildings and empty space, make it easier to clean them up and turn them into farmland.
Some simple regulations can help, like capping the prices health insurance companies are allowed to charge enrollees, or the interest rates banks are allowed to charge homeowners. Public options can help, too: health insurance, postal savings bank.
Dems should also look for new ways to tax the affluent beyond just raising income tax rates at the top. Like taxing financial transactions, cryptocurrencies, big banks' assets, corporations' spending on AI.
Remember, no matter how we vote, or try to influence politicians, when someone who donates 7 figures speaks, politicians listen. The wealthy have different priorities and the donor class is quite a bit to the left of voters.
The Democratic Party does have another alternative, one that many Democrats will not like to hear. At the Presidential level, a minority party can on occasion elect a Grover Cleveland, a Woodrow Wilson, or a Dwight David Eisenhower. The rest of the time, it can choose to resemble the Republican Party of the late 1950s, whose leadership as seen on television on election eve seemed to have no thought of taking control of Congress. Some number of politicians will hold office, the consultant class will continue to be gainlessly employed, supportive voters in places where Democrats are a majority can cheer for their winners and say critical things about voters of the other party, elections will be as thrilling as elections to the Massachusetts legislature, and politics will be in a state of stasis..
The basic premise of this country is the government represents the people and their wishes. That is no longer true. We have seen the human outcome of being raised by government. Failing schools, failing higher education and citizens unable to be an asset to this country after all that "education". Has college-prep-is-the-only-to-go improved this nation for all? The fear mongering of either go to college or live a miserable and poor life is a bogus bogeyman.
There are plenty of places people can go to to live the life Bernie wants. From the thoughtful way this country was put together to almost any topic you want to talk about today, we are the United States of America. We are unique. We don't want to be like the rest of the world. None, very few, of them have a better life style than this country. We have poor sections, always that way because of government intervention. Even our poorest are in the top 20% of wage earners world wide.
Can you show me one country that follows Bernie's warped view of society/government, that is better off, or even equal too, the life style of this country?
Bernie is a millionaire with three or four really nice houses on the East Coast. Why isn't AOC going after him? He's rich. He just hates those richer than himself? AOC was a bartender. When was the last time you heard her complain about her wages after becoming a congresswoman. The smart move is to help those you know are downtrodden and help them to move up into the lifestyle Bernie and AOC have.
Bernie has no ideas that are good enough to make this a better country. Just a more controlled by big brother govenrment. That isn't how we got here. It isn't how we need to improve.
One problem is that too many Democratic leaders and members view workers as sub-human. Maybe that's too harsh. Maybe it's that too many Democrats look down their collective pampered noses at ordinary people.
I'm a 73 year old white male. I believe if you can't take care of your own, you have no business wasting money on others until you get your own house in order. People are poor, well off and even very rich. It is no up to me to determine if someone who worked to get where they are at has too much money that they don't need. We are a unique country starting with our Constitution which no other country has then like of. That for the most part is good. Nothing is perfect though. If you don like it, the method for changing the Constitution is contained in the Constitution.
Does that make me a white nationalists? What if Trump isn't the lawless one? Maybe if the left quit worrying about Trump, they might come up with a platform many independents could support.
Trump is correct in that offices part of the executive branch, are accountable to the President. Do you really want unelected bureaucrats running our country? Do you not want someone you can hold accountable for the way those who work for him fulfill their responsibility? And yes, like any employee, they work for him. but their higher duty is to then people and the Constitution. They have a right to make that known up the chain of command until it gets to the top. But if the top person doesn't agree, then they have the right, responsibility, to fire you. Why would you want to work for a boss you don't agree with on such basic but important principles. Very little more stupid comes out of the Dem's mouth than you can't be loyal to the guy who hires you. (we can say the same thing with a Dem president in charge) Talk about their principles and see how dedicated they are to them. Although I realize, Dems are the party of relative principles and therefore don't put much stock in them.