STORYLINE / NARRATIVES / NARRATORS: Why is the red tribe pulling ahead?

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21, 2022

One part of the problem is Us: Sadly, we live in interesting times. 

Human history is repeating itself pretty much wherever you look. Consider the latest attempts to explain the likely outcome of our congressional elections this year.

At present, almost everyone seems to agree that the pendulum is swinging back in the GOP's favor. Of course, given the way our midterm elections normally work, and given the price of gas and food, everyone has always understood that this should be a "red wave" year.

For a brief "Dobbs decision" minute, it looked like things might be different this year. Now, indications are swinging the GOP's way, and people are trying to explain why this election seems to be going the way everyone always assumed that it would.

For the record, the dumbness of our politics is its defining characteristic. The agreement that we must never say so has long been one of the defining characteristics of our mainstream press.

The American people are pretty sharp, our top pundits always said. In fact, we the people aren't especially sharp at all, and we never have been.

Within the realm of public policy, we the people just aren't real sharp! In this morning's column, Paul Krugman cites a frequently-cited example:

KRUGMAN (10/21/22): [I]t’s hard to think of a worse metric for judging a president and his party than a price determined mainly by events abroad and technical production issues here at home, a price that isn’t even  high compared with, say, a decade ago.

Yet gas prices may sway a crucial election, a fact that is both ludicrous and terrifying.

A sitting president, and his party, have little to do with the price of gas. But go ahead—just try to tell "us the people" that! 

This year, as in other years, the election prospects of a president's party seem to be directly tied to the price of gas. It doesn't matter how many times we're told that this connection doesn't make sense. It seems that we the people persistently vote on that basis, year after year after year.

We the people just aren't super-sharp! Meanwhile, consider David Brooks' assessment of the coming elections, offered in a column across this morning's op-ed page from Krugman's.

Brooks discusses the reasons for the Democrats' (apparently) dwindling prospects. He ends his column like this:

BROOKS (10/21/22): The Trumpified G.O.P. deserves to be a marginalized and disgraced force in American life. But I've been watching the campaign speeches by people like Kari Lake, the Republican candidate for governor in Arizona. G.O.P. candidates are telling a very clear class/culture/status war narrative in which common-sense Americans are being assaulted by elite progressives who let the homeless take over the streets, teach sex ed to 5-year-olds, manufacture fake news, run woke corporations, open the border and refuse to do anything about fentanyl deaths and the sorts of things that affect regular people.

In other words, candidates like Lake wrap a dozen different issues into one coherent class war story. And it seems to be working. In late July she was trailing her opponent by seven points. Now she’s up by about half a point.

The Trump-era GOP should be a disgraced force, Brooks says. But their candidates are telling a compelling story, and it seems to be working.

Those observations seem to be correct—though we'd have to say that Brooks leaves part of the story out.

At his own site, Kevin Drum posts the first of those two paragraphs by Brooks. At the end of his post, he offers this—we'd have to say unwisely:

DRUM (10/21/22): The most discouraging part of this is not that Republicans do it. What do you expect an opposition party to do? The discouraging part is that after 50 years Democrats still have no idea how to fight it.

It's not that we lose every culture war battle. In fact, we win quite a few. But when Republicans sense weakness, they circle the wagons and beat the class war drums loudly and in unison. That's what we don't know how to fight.

Practically all the evidence suggests the United States is fundamentally a strong country right now. Probably the strongest in the world, and with the brightest future. It's extraordinary to think of just how good a place it could be if only we could figure out a way to overcome the debilitating fear that so many people still have of progress and change.

The most discouraging part of Drum's assessment is the way he ends it. He seems to offer this as the blanket explanation for why this Republican narrative works:

It doesn't work because there's a germ of truth to much of that the Republicans have said. It only works because so many people—so many of those hopeless Others—"still have a debilitating fear of progress and change!"

That's why the story works! It isn't because of anything we blue tribe members have said or done. It only works because so many members of the red tribe have a vast "fear of progress!"

We lost a chunk of time today. For that reason, we're postponing our treatment of the recent interview  between Ezra Klein and Rachel.

But as our nation slides toward the sea, the dumbness is general—and yes, that does include Us, the vastly self-assured blue tribe denizens who are found Over Here. 

Drum has long been our favorite blogger. But today's assessment is amazingly lacking in insight, and his tribally self-assured commenters took it from there.

Stating the blindingly obvious:

A lot of what the GOP peddles is built on a germ of truth. For example, the idea that our blue tribe is soft on crime is plainly tied to the horror show in which some of our most visible members created "Defund the police" as a political slogan.

For the record, our self-impressed team is so dumb that we still can't identify the principal problem with that self-defeating slogan—the fact that it was so unclear what it actually meant.

That said, our failing blue tribe has routinely allowed itself to be defined by the least discerning among us. Meanwhile, as a basic stance, we insist on calling The Others names. After that, we're surprised that they won't rush to do the various things we recommend.

The current state of our failing nation's politics is extremely poor:

The reds are full of crazy belief, and there's nothing the Kari Lakes aren't prepared to tell red tribe voters. Meanwhile:

On cable news, but elsewhere too, our vastly self-impressed blue tribe is often amazingly dumb. We can't reasons our way through a wet paper bag. In the main, we're just skillful at name-calling Others.

We're dumb and unpleasant and nobody likes us. Everyone knows this but us!


64 comments:

  1. This is a very good article by Jamelle Bouie:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/opinion/minority-rule-majoritarian-democracy.html

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  2. Somerby praises bothsiderist assholes and announces he has given up on the midterms because the media has been reporting another red surge. Meanwhile, Stacy Abrahms has produced a huge surge herself in the number of mail-in ballots submitted in GA. Does Somerby think they are being submitted in support of Walker and Kemp?

    I think it is likely that polling models will be wrong because of the unusual circumstances of this election. I fully expect that blue wave to materialize, partly driven by newly registered women (who do not show up in polls of "likely" voters -- which refers to people who have voted before) reacting to Roe v Wade being overturned, but also driven by Republican backlash against Trump and his crime family of MAGA Extremists. I have faith in American voters. Somerby apparently does not. We will see who is right in November, but meanwhile, why discourage and damper the enthusiasm of Democratic voters by writing today's shit?

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    Replies
    1. “ Meanwhile, Stacy Abrahms has produced a huge surge herself in the number of mail-in ballots submitted in GA.”

      Shocker.

      Don’t count your chickens before they are hacked.

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    2. Stacy Abrahms? Is that the BlueAnon lady who's saying that people wouldn't care about high prices if only they could have more abortions?

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    3. The margins might be big enough to overcome Democrat cheating.

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    4. Meh. They'll keep counting until they "win".

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    5. "You're a racist if you don't vote for our party" is not a super great platform.

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    6. If Christopher Rufo tells Republican voters it's a super great platform, they'll have no choice but to accept it, obviously.

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    7. I don't know one single Democratic candidate who is using "You're a racist" as part of their campaign. They are talking about infrastructure, jobs, student loan forgiveness, good schools and accessible health care and protecting social security and medicare. And they are talking about local issues for state offices. My state senatorial candidate is talking about what he has done while in office and what our state needs in the future. All of that has nothing to do with calling anyone racist. The Republican candidates are using fear tactics, such as posing with guns, claiming they support family values (even when they don't) and and claiming the Dems spend too much money (even when they don't). The appeal is pretty different, but maybe it leaves me cold because I am not the kind of person it is aimed at. When I see guns I think about Columbine and the Boulder King Sooper shooting, not fun in the sun with my kids.

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    8. What is the net worth of your state senatorial candidate?

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    9. "Bennet has a lot of professional work experience, both in and out of politics. He was a managing director for the Anschutz Investment Company, the superintendent of Denver Public Schools, as well as being the chief of staff for the Denver mayor’s office.

      While at Anschutz, he led the team that would restructure debt and merge three movie theater chains into what would become the Regal Entertainment Group. His role in that endeavor led him to receive $5 million in Regal stock and options. [Note that Regal is in Chapter 11 now.]

      While he holds real estate as well as stocks and hedge fund investments — along with a salary that starts at $174,000 per year — he made most of his fortune in the private sector. As of 2020, Bennet represents an estimated net worth of more than $15 million, per Forbes.

      I don't hold any of that against him. He has worked in the public sector when he could have been making more money and he consistency represents the interests of his constituents, not the 1% (as a Democratic senator). He is on his way to winning without difficulty, especially after Trump trashed his opponent, Joe O'Dea.

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    10. Here is the net worth of our senator's Republican opponent, from the same source:

      "O’Dea has been the CEO for CEI Constructors, Inc for 36 years. He also owns many properties including the Denver Ironworks and Mile High Station.

      His net worth is believed to be between $17.5 million and $77.4 million, according to the Durango Herald, which got its information from his financial disclosures.

      Joseph O’Dea was born on January 20, 1962. He was adopted soon after his birth and his dad was a Denver police officer. After graduating from high school, he attended Colorado State, but dropped out to work in carpentry and eventually started his own multimillion dollar construction business, which currently employs more than 300 Coloradoans. "

      Note that O'Dea has no prior public service sector experience whatsoever and thus is not qualified to serve in the senate. Business experience, especially as the CEO of a corporation, is not a good preparation for serving the public in a deliberative body like the senate. Note also the difficulty pinning down how much he is worth. That is a pretty huge range and somewhat reminiscent of Trump's shiftiness about his wealth. O'Dea says he is interested primarily in fiscal issues and not social issues, which is a small blessing, but he does not say on whose behalf.

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    11. Why did Trump trash O'Dea? Because O'Dea would not kowtow to him. There are MAGA voters in CO, but not enough to win statewide on a Trump ticket, so O'Dea is smart to have evaded Trump's endorsement, in my opinion.

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    12. Contractors, which is what O'Dea is, are about as honest and sincere as Trump.

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    13. What did he say about jobs when he talked about it?

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    14. Are you familiar with the concept of the revolving door? Someone gets a degree from Yale, goes into politics, drops out of that for a while to work for the biggest scumbags of the country - M&A investment bankers, makes millions of dollars and then gets back into politics.

      And from there you feel like they will represent the interests of their constituents over the banks that made them rich and financed their campaign?

      I think that is naive.

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    15. But please tell us all what this multi-million dollar investment banker Yale graduate said about jobs when they "talked" about jobs.

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    16. Michael Bennett is a perfect example of the complete and total corruption of our political system.

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    17. He says he wants to get rid of red tape for small business. But talk is cheap. Believe me, he could care less about it.

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    18. I am familiar with the revolving door that involves someone making enough money to be comfortable then devoting themselves to public service. That is the order in which Bennet did his work. He isn't being paid off now in a plush job for corporations. He worked in the private sector then switched to public service after gaining experience in the real world of business.

      O'Dea knows nothing whatsoever about what the job of the senate consists of, how to get things done there, how the public sector is different than the private sector, what constituents expect of him, and how to achieve whatever his goals happen to be. He is much like Ronald Reagan, who didn't know what the job of governor consisted of and had to be told what to do all day, after his election. Same with Trump. He didn't know what to do as president, and that is dangerous because there are plenty of people around to tell an incompetent office holder what to do. Amateur politicians who love money will succumb to opportunities to make it because that is all they know how to do. Like Trump grifting over his Washington DC hotel and helping Ivanka buy patents in China. There is nothing in O'Dea's statement that says he knows how to do anything except cut taxes and remove regulations on business. How will he create jobs and why didn't he say anything about those in rural areas of a state that has farming and ranching as main industries?

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    19. The rich boy Yale graduate m&a investment banker scumbag says he cares about small business and you believe it? He cares as much about small business as he does ants crossing the sidewalk.

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    20. Your ignorance is beneath me.

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    21. In CA we also had CEOs who thought they could buy their way into public office, but who knew nothing about how to run a state or work in congress. The thing they have in common is that they don't understand about how politicians work their way up into a more responsible office. They all seem to want to start at the top, which is disrespectful because it implies that there is nothing they need to learn about how to serve the needs of their state or how the system works or even how to be a politician when interacting with people.

      One of the ways that Republicans have damaged our democracy is their belief that someone who is entirely unqualified to hold office should be elected because their role is to starve the beast or shake things up, and not to provide serve to those who elected them.

      How would you like to visit a Dept of Motor Vehicles office that was staffed by folks who think their job is to provide as little service as possible to as few people as they can? That's how Republicans seem to think, while nominating idiots like Herschel Walker or Dr. Oz.

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    22. "The rich boy Yale graduate m&a investment banker scumbag says he cares about small business and you believe it? He cares as much about small business as he does ants crossing the sidewalk."

      You are confused. The Republican O'Dea is the one who says he cares about small business, and I agree that he is unlikely to do anything to help such businesses. They have different needs than the large corporation that O'Dea ran or than landlords and property owners.

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    23. This take is just ridiculously cloistered and ignorant.

      You don’t arrive at being a massively successful business person without serving on of all sorts of deliberative bodies, local and state, professional and private.

      The mirror image of this argument would be to claim that academics, many of whom have had oversight roles managing their departments, are unsuited and unqualified for legislative bodies because they have no first hand business experience and are therefore ignorant of such governmental purview and oversight.

      Both these constructions are bunk based upon partisan stereotypes rather than real-world experience.

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    24. "A bill that would weaken oversight of the banking industry is up for debate this week in the U.S. Senate, where Colorado Democrat Michael Bennet’s support of the measure is drawing heat from its liberal opponents who warn the proposal could lead to a repeat of the 2008 financial crisis.

      Bennet was one of more than a dozen Democrats who joined with the Republican majority on Tuesday to help the measure clear a procedural hurdle and set up a final vote in the coming days.

      Its advance drew fire from Democrats such as U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who said the legislation was “all about helping big banks.”



      This is how it works. Sleazeball politician gets a job with sleazy investment banking firm - makes 10's of millions (leaving the companies they "restructure" flat broke), then runs for Senator by "talking" about infrastructure, jobs, student loan forgiveness, good schools and accessible health care, then gets elected and does nothing about infrastructure, jobs, student loan forgiveness, good schools and accessible health care and instead - DEREGULATES BANKS!!

      A Democrat! And all this happens under the radar of the people who voted for him because they are totally focused on the fact that he simply isn't a Republican.

      This is how the game is played and why people that buy into either side are suckers.

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    25. "O'Dea knows nothing whatsoever about what the job of the senate consists of, how to get things done there, "

      You can say that again. Doesn't know how to talk about jobs and infrastructure and healthcare and then deregulate banks.

      Ie. how to lie to the people who support him and reward the banks who pay for his election.

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    26. You don't know what you're talking about, as usual.

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    27. Notice the impact on small business borrowers and agriculture:

      "At its most basic, the measure would ease regulations on smaller banks and roll back some of the oversight rules put in place after the Great Recession — notably the way the country’s biggest banks are monitored by the Federal Reserve.

      Under current law, banks with more than $50 billion in assets are required to adhere to special rules, including undergoing stress tests and keeping enough money on hand to absorb a bad loss. The idea is to prevent a “too big to fail” financial institution from dragging down the rest of the U.S. economy.

      The new measure would raise the bar from $50 billion to $250 billion, thereby exempting 25 of the 38 largest banks in the U.S. from additional oversight, according to the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.

      The change “would result in fewer assets being subject to enhanced prudential regulation and would thus increase the likelihood that a large financial firm with assets of between $100 billion and $250 billion would fail,” wrote analysts with the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

      Bennet and other supporters of the Senate bill have argued that the measure would keep in place adequate safeguards for the U.S. economy while freeing small banks from onerous regulations.

      For example, the legislation would leave intact the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a longtime target of Republicans that was created in the wake of 2008 financial crisis.

      “There’s been a lot of misinformation about what this legislation does and doesn’t do,” Bennet said in a statement. “In reality, it maintains these core protections but also provides narrow relief for Colorado’s small financial institutions so they can extend credit to consumers, small businesses and our rural communities.”

      A number of provisions in the bill are targeted at banks with less than $10 billion in assets. One provision would alter the leverage ratio of capital to assets for community banks.

      “Thus, institutions could hold assets with a greater risk profile than they do now without having to hold any additional capital,” the CBO analysts noted.

      Don Childears, the president and CEO of the Colorado Bankers Association, said the method in which the measure adjusts regulations would make it easier for community banks to make loans to customers who have struggled to get them in the past, including the newly employed and the recently retired.

      The bill gives these banks the “flexibility to accommodate a lot of customers they can’t now,” Childears said.

      It also could provide a lifeline to smaller banks and the communities they serve, said supporters.

      In the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and Congress’ response to it, the “number of independent commercial banks shrank by 14 percent — more than 800 institutions,” according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond."

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    28. You really believe anything they tell you, don't you? "The scumbag investment banker turned congressmen from Yale told me his bill that rolls back the rules on some of the biggest banks in the country is good for consumers, therefore it is! Yeah!!!!"

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    29. "Ya ask the president the Colorado Bankers Association, he'll tell ya the same!"

      ;)

      You're a sucker, girl.

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    30. "The number of independent commercial banks dropped by 14%! Oh my god! How will we survive? We better make that a legislative priority over jobs, healthcare, infrastructure structure, gun control and everything! Thank God for the Democratic party and their noble moral priorities!"

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    31. Let's all come together to thank Brooks for forgetting to remind his readers that Kari Lake, who has built a narrative about elites taking advantage of the common man, supported Trump's HUGE tax break for the rich and corporations.

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    32. It rolled back restrictions for smaller banks, and you might be more concerned by their disappearance if you needed a farm loan.

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  3. Well, the despised Dems have won the popular vote in 6 of the last 7 elections. This seems to have convinced Republicans they can’t win elections legitimately, hence the amazing/appalling “we’ll accept results if we win” stance. Not
    that such things bother Bob.

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    Replies
    1. Our founding fathers planned specifically for checks against mob rule by deranged leftists.

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    2. 12:24 They did? So that's the article in the constitution about declaring "If the election is not won by bone stupid religious fanatics they are entitled to declare
      "We automatically win!" in any election?
      I was wondering what that was in there for.

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  4. tl;dr
    This, however: "A sitting president, and his party, have little to do with the price of gas. But go ahead—just try to tell "us the people" that!"

    ...is demonstrably false.

    You liberal-globalist cult undoubtedly did create the current energy crunch. You'd need to be totally brain-dead not to know it.

    ...but then of course your liberal cult is trying hard to temporarily suppress the price of gas for purely political purposes. First by pressuring the Saudis to postpone oil production cuts for one month (is this impeachable?), and then by draining the American strategic oil reserves (is this one impeachable?).

    Oh well. But of course you'll never hear it from your dembot Krug or anyone/anywhere else in your dembot media...

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  5. Fascism! Racism!

    Turns out both sound better than front hole surgery for your son under threat of imprisonment for not affirming the mental illness of Democrat bureaucrats.

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    Replies
    1. The idea that it would take Democrats mutilating the bodies of innocent children to get Republican voters amped-up to vote for bigots, might be the dumbest thing you'll read on the internet today.

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    2. That’s it 12:29, I’m transforming into a killer lizard. I can do an Alligator too. Watch your back and ankles.,

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  6. Well, Bob was unimpressed with the new information
    shattering his already stupid claim that "we can't hold
    Trump responsible, he might believe what he said!
    Bob continues to hide behind a IDIOTIC solution
    to a country wrecking problem.
    Is the Post's reporting on the nature of the
    documents he stole from the White House
    credible?
    Bob doesn't care.

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    Replies
    1. “ Well, Bob was unimpressed with the new information
      shattering his already stupid claim that "we can't hold
      Trump responsible, he might believe what he said!”


      That worked for Mr. Danchenko. He was acquitted of the charge of lying to the FBI because he believed the info he passed on was true.

      That defense had the 1/6 committee scrambling.

      Another charge of Danchenko lying about NOT having talked to a certain contact was dropped by the judge on the basis of the defense arguing that Danchenko denied it because he had not actually “talked” to the contact, rather they had communicated through email.

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    2. He was charged with lying, not insurrection.

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  7. Somerby spewing his usual bitter hate for Dems, eschewing evidence for fear of rebuttals so obvious that a 3rd grader could easily best Somerby in a debate.

    Drum gets it partially correct this time! Right wingers (aka Republicans, and yes, aka fascists and racists, general oppressors, if you like) do fear - they have those outsized amygdalas - and are unable to reasonably process those fears - they have that teeny tiny front cortex - but it is not progress they fear, it is losing their perceived dominance. It is interesting, right wingers will let their leaders fuck their partners while they stand idly aside, yet they want to whip The Others into submission. What a mess! This mess is borne from unresolved childhood trauma, for the most part...

    Dems outnumber Repubs, but Repubs are way better at getting their voters to actually vote while coming up with clever ways to prevent The Others from voting. Persuasion has never been an effective electoral strategy, it is all about motivation - except not quite...

    Today Ryan Grim talked to Sam Seder about his new article covering how pro Israel pacs are drowning Dem hopefuls with money for their opponents. Basically pro Israel pacs are keeping Republicans in office, along with center right Dems. As important as this stuff is, he mentioned something not directly reported in his article, but that he learned through his research, that there is a formula for Dems losing, it is something like this:

    If Dems are outspent 5:1 or more, Dems always lose

    If Dems are only outspent 3:1 or less, Dems always win

    If leftist Dems have equal spending, they always win

    So Somerby and his cadre of fanboys are full of shit. First, Dems are losing because they fail to motivate their own voters, and second, with equal funding leftist Dems always win. Equal funding, leftist dems always win!

    This is because what right wingers call leftism or socialism bla bla bla, is actually supported by a majority of Americans - even flag waving, red blooded, white, christian, male Americans. This can be seen in polls (granted always take with a grain of salt) that show that Americans actually support leftist policies when they are not framed as leftist. And this is because, while right wingers are obsessed with dominance and would rather suffer than see a Black person get a crumb, they are not brain dead or necessarily evil, so of course everyone should have good healthcare, good housing, good education, good nutrition, and leftist Dems are the only ones proposing policies that can get us there.

    Defund the police, or defund fill in the blank, is not the issue Somerby wants us to believe. Yes, the president has little to do with the price of gas, and similarly the police have little to do with crime rate. Police are just another way to keep Whites slightly higher in social hierarchy than Blacks.

    Check out Katie Porter's hearing on inflation, her chart shows that at least 54% of current inflation is just pure profiteering (in reality it is about 100%), and that current profiteering is about 5 times as worse than in previous times of inflation.

    Katie Porter deserves a gold star, Somerby needs to take his hate spewing and seal it off with that particular pointy hat and go stand in the corner.

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  8. "On cable news, but elsewhere too, our vastly self-impressed blue tribe is often amazingly dumb. We can't reasons our way through a wet paper bag. In the main, we're just skillful at name-calling Others.

    We're dumb and unpleasant and nobody likes us. Everyone knows this but us!"

    It seems to me that Somerby is gloating before his red tribe has even won any elections.

    Is this how Somerby motivates blue tribe voters? By tell us how bad we are?

    All the Democrats I know like other Democrats. We don't think we're stupid and there is no objective evidence that we are stupid either. So why does Somerby say this? I get it that he doesn't like us, but why not? I don't think it is possible to be a self-hating blue tribe member and still have any credibility when it comes to talking about upcoming elections.

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    Replies
    1. Who are you voting for?

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    2. Democratic straight ticket. I live in a blue state. No MAGA assholes with any chance in my district, thank God (who I assure you, likes Democrats better than Republicans).

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    3. One can vote for anyone they want; however, the worst Dem is miles better than the best Repub.

      Repubs view elections as a sport, Dems see elections as opportunities to improve society.

      Capitalism is always squeezing the workers so that all the wealth goes to the top one percent, if you are in the top tier, you do not want things to change.

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    4. Do you want to go vote together?

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    5. It is easier to vote by mail.

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  9. Yesterday Somerby said:

    "Tomorrow: When Ezra interviewed Rachel"

    And today, nothing about Rachel or Ezra, who conducted a very interesting interview in which Rachel said that we have two choices, both bad: (1) hold Trump accountable for his crimes, (2) ignore Trump's crimes and become the kind of country that does that. Rachel blamed Ford for not prosecuting Nixon and said that now we have a tradition of not prosecuting criminal presidents (remember Iran Contra too). Both choices suck. But both Rachel and Ezra described the way traditions and norms have been violated by the right in the name of winning and holding power, and they both said that we cannot maintain our democracy while one party behaves that way.

    Somerby meanwhile is pretending that an election is a popularity contest, in which Democrats must be better liked than Republicans, and voters cannot tell who is competent and who is not. Rachel described how the right has been dismantling democracy for a long time now, and we have been letting them do it (as when Obama didn't get his Supreme Court nominee because Republicans bent the rules to obstruct him).

    I am hoping that the DOJ will go ahead and indict Trump, but I doubt that is what Somerby wants -- based on what he says about not impeaching him either, and his rule against putting any criminals in jail. He will probably point out that we will be even more unpopular among right-wing MAGA Extremists if we do something like that. Meanwhile, Somerby loves him some more Brooks.

    I find myself wondering why Somerby does not consider these teases to be promises and work harder to actually talk about what he says he will. Personally, I think it is Somerby who is dumb dumb dumb and who nobody likes. But Somerby isn't on any ballot, so I will have to vote out some Republicans instead come Nov 8. I have been voting with my money for quite a while now. It will be a relief to finally do it with my ballot.

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    Replies
    1. Yes. It’s all the sadder that Bob
      once served a useful purpose and
      successful called our bullshit
      and group think on both sides.
      Did he develop a drinking
      problem? Was he bought off?
      Did he become justifiably
      appalled at the left’s inability
      to navigate the corporate press
      with any tenacity or smarts?
      Doesn’t much matter anymore.
      He’s pretty much done.,

      Delete
  10. I don't care what Kevin Drum says or what Somerby says, anyone who supports a president who does this is unfit for office. I would have to question the judgment of any candidate who let Trump endorse him or her, after committing the crime of stealing these documents (never mind what he did on 1/6). This is treason and there is no excuse for it:

    "Donald Trump reportedly stashed some of the most highly sensitive classified information in the world at his Mar-a-Lago resort.

    The former president kept at least one document describing Iran's missile program and documents detailing highly sensitive intelligence operations aimed at China, according to sources familiar with the matter who spoke to the Washington Post.

    “The exceptional sensitivity of these documents, and the reckless exposure of invaluable sources and methods of U.S. intelligence capabilities concerning these foreign adversaries, will certainly influence the Justice Department’s determination of whether to charge Mr. Trump or others with willful retention of national defense information under the Espionage Act,” said David Laufman, a former senior Justice Department official, who worked on cases involving mishandled classified materials.

    The documents posed multiple risks if they fell into the wrong hands, including endangering intelligence operations and collection methods, and other countries could potentially retaliate against the U.S. for those clandestine actions."

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  11. In my local district, the Republicans are running relentlessly negative ads against Lisa Cutter, showing her in black and white (against a color background) with an unflattering hairstyle and blaming her for things that were not her fault. I cannot tell you who the Republican candidate is, because it is ALL negative advertising. But at least I know who to vote for -- it will be Lisa Cutter.

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  12. In Lauren Boebert's district, Republicans who ran in her primary are endorsing her opponent, Democrat Adam Frisch. I think that suggests that Boebert is considered dumb dumb dumb and no one likes her around Rifle CO. This is my reality on the ground and it is nothing like what Somerby describes.

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    1. Who will you be voting for?

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    2. You’re kidding, right?

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    3. I'll pay you for the information.

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  13. Polling is not an election. The only election that counts is on Nov 8.

    Somerby complains about the media hyping things that don't matter, then he does it himself by doubling down on their horserace nattering, apparently forgetting that the media doesn't care what the polls show as long as it is close enough to build an audience. Somerby's "many" experts are saying that the polls can be interpreted various ways by selectively focusing on some numbers instead of others.

    We will know who won after Nov 8. Not now and not based on uncertain predictions by various self-interested individuals, including Somerby chief among them, since he obviously has an axe to grind here and is far from a neutral observer.

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    1. Yes, yes, and yes. Bob is hardly the only fence sitter we would have thought
      more of. Yet he is a very sad disappointment. Was cowardice
      ever so lazy?

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    2. He’s among millions radicalized by Rachel and other blue tribe misfits. If only Democrats knew how to be normal.

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    3. Liberals want to make it illegal for Republicans to support trust-busting and anti-monopoly regulation and enforcement.
      Pass it on.

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