TUESDAY, AUGUST 1, 2023
...but our thought leaders rushed to perform: So start the dog days of August! High atop the front page of the New York Times, the depressing twin headlines say this:
Biden Shores Up Democratic Support, but Faces Tight Race Against Trump
A New York Times/Siena College poll found that President Biden is on stronger footing than he was a year ago—but he is neck-and-neck in a possible rematch against Donald Trump.
President Biden "is neck-and-neck in a possible rematch" with Trump! Hearing that, we think of what we saw Frank Luntz say on Sunday's Washington Journal:
We're yelling at each other now, condemning each other now. And we collect our news, not to inform us, but to affirm us—and democracies last till they don't.
The Egyptians thought they couldn't be beaten. The Turks, the Ottoman empire, the great German empire, British, Portugese, French? Countries come and they go. China had a dynasty. Who is to say that America lasts?
"Who's to say that America lasts?" For the record, Luntz was referring to America as it is, an entity which has emerged from the ways it has been in the past.
Who's to say that America lasts? In our view, it could be an existential disaster if Trump returns to the White House.
That said, tens of millions of our neighbors and friends—tens of millions of our fellow citizens—disagree with us on that point. Those tens of millions of citizens are part of the American nation too.
Though we disagree with their ultimate judgment, attention must be paid to their views. And no, they aren't always crazy, and they aren't even always wrong.
Yesterday morning, we showed you one tiny part of the state of Florida's newly released, 23-page course of study for what it calls African American History.
The K-12 course of study is quite voluminous. That one tiny excerpt says this:
SS.68.AA.2.3
Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).
Benchmark clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes how [enslaved people] developed skills which in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.
Enslaved people developed skills which could sometimes be applied for their personal benefit! For the record, everyone knows that this statement is accurate, except perhaps for our blue tribe's thought leaders.
As Kevin Drum noted in this post, this tiny "footnote" in the 23-page course of study "has caused an uproar in the lefty community." Over the course of the past week, we ourselves saw a steady stream of cable news hosts and cable news commentators perform the state of their vast outrage concerning this tiny and accurate point.
Within the blue tribe's journalistic guild, this was the talking-point of choice, and everyone rushed to recite it. Decades ago, they and their predecessors had all rushed forward to recite this earlier point:
Al Gore said he invented the Internet!
That's what they were reciting back then. Also many other points, including these:
Al Gore hired a woman to teach him how to be a man! Al Gore doesn't know who he is! Why is he wearing those earth tones?
Warning to all those within our own blue realm:
The people we're offered as tribal thought leaders just aren't especially sharp. Their principal skill is recitation—and as we've seen along the way, those who refuse to recite the mandated points are rather quickly gone.
Back in 1999 and 2000, our nation's careerist mainstream journalists rushed to recite an array of claims about Gore.
(Al Gore grew up in a fancy hotel! He grew up in the Ritz-Carlton!)
The nation's tens of thousands of professors stood silent in the face of this twenty months of manifest public nonsense. Among our blue tribe's useless elites, no one came forward to challenge the blather directed at Gore following Clinton's impeachment acquittal.
So it went in 1999 and 2000! By the narrowest possible margin, Candidate Bush ended up in the White House—and the U.S. army, through no fault of its own, was soon dispatched to Iraq.
We tribals! In the next few days, we'll look at what the state of Florida's task force has said about that one minor part of its 23-page curriculum.
We'll also look at Kevin Drum's description of "the real problem" with that new curriculum. We may even mention a few points we ourselves would have stressed had we built that course of study.
That said, there's no perfect way to teach our nation's frequently brutal history. Last night, though, we saw Rachel Maddow descend to the depths of tribal nonsense concerning Florida's course of study.
Before the week is through, we'll show you what Maddow said. Simply put, there's no excuse for people behaving like this.
Our largely useless tribal elites are currently selling us Us and Them. Especially at times of tribal unrest, this ancient Us and Them theme really sells extremely well, at least on a "cable news" basis.
That said, Who's to say that America lasts? According to the New York Times, Donald J. Trump is currently running even with President Biden—and the people who favor Donald J. Trump aren't always crazy or wrong.
"Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings?"
The famous saying comes from director Frank Capra. It's part of a famous American film in which, at least as things turn out in the film, we the American people were all in it together.
Today, the situation is different. Today, every time our tribunes perform Us and Them, we're all playing with fire.
"Who's to say that America lasts?" The question is scary but salient.
Our elites have thoroughly failed us before. This time, the stakes may be higher.
Still coming: Drum's objection to the curriculum. Also, what the Florida task force has said.
Al Gore lost, in part, because he was a bad campaigner. The mockery Hillary received was much worse than the way Gore was treated. It took Russian interference to keep her out of office. What was Gore's excuse?
ReplyDeleteMany of us here are sick of hearing Somerby whine about Gore when Somerby cannot find the space in his head to understand how Trump was elected in the first place.
Somerby couldn't be more right about what the likes of yappers like Chris Matthews did to both Gore and then Hillary, so as to assist mightily in giving us both the Dumbya and then Trump.
DeleteExcept that Somerby gives too much power to the media when he claims this is the sole reason Gore lost. Hillary didn't lose because of the media either. Note that Bernie Sanders and his bros were repeating the same lies against Hillary, and Somerby was supporting Bernie during that time period. Russian interference combined with Comey's last minute laptop announcement affected the polling to the point that Hillary lost a very close race in the electoral college. Somerby has never talked about Comey's role in Hillary's loss, nor has he mentioned the Russian efforts to swing the election, obviously successful, given that Hillary won the popular vote by a huge margin.
DeleteChris Matthews was a creep, but he didn't put Trump or GW Bush into office. Republican collusion with a foreign power put Trump into office -- the Russians were grooming him long before he ran. Bush won because Gore was a bad candidate and because Bush concealed his true conservative leanings, appearing to be a moderate when he was not one. Much as the centrist and no-labels candidates are now doing, to pull votes away from possible liberal candidates.
Here is what Judd Legum says at Popular Information:
ReplyDelete"But the so-called "scholars" were a work group that was hand-selected by the DeSantis administration. Some members of the work group were educators from Florida, but the body was reportedly dominated by two members, Frances Presley Rice and William Allen. Both Rice and Allen have a long history of highly inflammatory and partisan commentary, expressing views that are anathema to the vast majority of Black history scholars.
Who is Dr. William B. Allen?
Allen, a retired professor, has emerged as the most vocal defender of the new standards and its approach to slavery. (After Florida's new Black history curriculum was published, Michigan State appears to have removed Allen's bio from its website.) In a statement co-authored by Rice, Allen writes, “We proudly stand behind these African American History Standards.”
But a closer look into Allen’s background raises questions about his credibility and qualifications. Allen has a history of making incendiary remarks and a track record of promoting right-wing ideology. In 1989, when he served as chairman of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, Allen gave a talk at an anti-gay conference titled “Blacks? Animals? Homosexuals? What is a Minority?” He branded “special classes of protection for homosexuals and other minorities as a ‘fatal’ mistake” that heightens “tensions and antagonism” within society. According to his prepared text, creating legal protections for minority groups “is the beginning of the evil of reducing American blacks to an equality with animals and then seducing other groups to seek the same charitable treatment.''
At the time, the rest of the Commission denounced the speech for being ''disgusting and unnecessarily inflammatory.'' When the Commission held a vote to condemn the speech, Allen "was the only member of the commission to vote in behalf of himself."
During his time as chairman, Allen was also charged with kidnapping a 14-year-old girl from an indigenous reservation in Arizona. The girl was at the center of a custody battle between her birth mother and a white couple that wanted to adopt her. “Allen contends that the girl wants to leave the reservation, though the mother has formal custody,” TIME reported in 1989.
Following pressure from the Commission, Allen eventually apologized. But even then, he said he would “not assume responsibility'' for the events. He also refused to step down, and instead called for the resignation of everyone on the Commission, including himself.
In 1996, Allen directed a “state report [in Michigan] that recommended that the state give parents money to send their children to the schools of their choice.” The Washington Post wrote that the “report was lambasted and then junked by state officials who called it a recipe for destroying public education.”
More recently, between 2005 and 2008, Allen led Toward a Fair Michigan, a group that sought to end affirmative action in Michigan. The group’s board of directors included Hillsdale College Professor and former Heritage Foundation Fellow Mickey Craig.
Currently, Allen is the lead scholar of the conservative think tank Center for Urban Renewal and Education (CURE). The group, which was founded by anti-abortion activist Star Parker, describes itself as “a pro-life Christian organization.” According to one report from CURE, abortion “has been particularly harmful to black culture and communities.” Allen espouses similar views — he once publicly claimed that black communities “were being targeted with abortion clinics.” But this argument that access to abortion hurts Black women and contributes to the demise of Black communities is widely debunked. As Shyrissa Dobbins-Harris writes, “instead of properly condemning government actions that harm living Blackwomen and the black community (poverty, police brutality, mass incarceration) genocide myth proponents blame Blackwomen for practicing their own reproductive rights.”
continued below...
More from Legum:
Delete"Allen has also been a vocal critic of the 1619 Project, which is explicitly banned from being taught in Florida schools. In one YouTube video, titled “The Myth of 1619 with Dr. William Allen,” Allen accuses the 1619 project of presenting “a very distorted picture of the country’s past.”
In the video, Allen goes on to claim that “the left lives on the proposition that..there is systemic racism, institutional racism, white privilege.” Accepting the “whole idea of diversity and identity,” Allen says, “is apartheid.”
Who is Frances Presley Rice?
The other key member of the work group is Frances Presley Rice, the chairman of the National Black Republican Association (NBRA). In 2006, Rice made national headlines after running radio ads across the country that claimed Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. (This claim is false — King was neither a Republican, nor a Democrat.) In 2008, Rice made headlines again after the NBRA put up billboards across Southwest Florida with the same message. Rice told the Herald Tribune that she was hoping to “expose the Democratic Party’s racist past” and convince more Black people to vote for John McCain.
That summer, Rice launched additional ads accusing Barack Obama's friends of being "unrepentant terrorists." Following Obama’s election, the NBRA issued a “White Guilt Emancipation Declaration” and declared that “white American citizens are now, henceforth and forever more free of White Guilt” because the country elected “a socialist who does not share the values of average Americans and will use the office of the presidency to turn America into a failed socialist nation.”
Rice was also under fire after her magazine, The Black Republican, published a picture of Ku Klux Klan members burning a cross, with the caption, “Every person in this photograph was a Democrat." But this statement is highly misleading. As Princeton University Professor Tera Hunter told USA TODAY in 2020, “this trope is a fallback argument used to discredit current Democratic Party policies” and fails to acknowledge "the realignment of the party structure in the mid-20th century.”
Rice’s magazine also included articles titled “Democrats embrace their child molesters," "Top 10 Democratic sex scandals in Congress," and "Democrats wage war on God.” The content was so egregious that the chairman of the Republican Party of Florida, who had helped Rice secure funding for the magazine, expressed disappointment.
In 2008, Rice also “attempt[ed] to defend the GOP’s infamous ‘southern strategy,’” Rightwing Watch reported. The Southern Strategy was a Nixon-era political tactic that sought to lure white voters through racist dog whistles. Over the years, Republican leaders have apologized for the Southern Strategy. But according to Rice, the Southern Strategy was not about appealing to racism but rather “was designed to get the fair-minded people in the South to stop discriminating against blacks.”
Rice was one of the members appointed by the DeSantis administration to the Black history work group, despite having no academic credentials in Black history. Rice holds a law degree and an MBA, but, according to her LinkedIn profile, no PhD. Nevertheless, she bills herself as "Dr. Frances Rice."
Her experience in Black history education is also limited to the Yocum African American History Association (YAAHA), a group she co-founded in 2018. But YAAHA’s educational content is not always historically accurate, Luke A. Flynt points out on Twitter. In one slide, for example, slavery is blamed on “greedy African Kings.”
More about the commission in FL:
Delete"Florida's abandoned African American History Task Force
In 1994, Florida created an African American History Task Force, but the group went dormant under DeSantis. Despite “state law providing for [the group’s] input,” members of the group said they “had little say in the development of the new standards.” After the new curriculum was created earlier this year, DeSantis began loading the task force with partisan members. Since May, “six of the nine voting members on the African American history task force were appointed by the Commissioner of Education.” In June, the group’s vice chair, Dr. Samuel Wright, resigned “in protest of what he saw as a political coup.”
According to WOKV, “[f]ive of the six
appointees are either directly affiliated with the Republican Party or have previously been appointed to positions” by DeSantis. The sixth new appointee is Florida State Representative Kimberly Daniels (D). Daniels has advocated that “In God We Trust” signs be “placed in public schools in response to a school shooting,” “ranted against witches,” and “claimed to cure someone’s cancer with a CD of Bible verses.”
In 2008, during a guest sermon in Ohio, Daniels said, “I thank God for slavery,” stating that "if it wasn’t for slavery, I might be somewhere in Africa worshiping a tree.” In 2011, Daniels defended her comments, saying, “If slavery wouldn’t have happened, it was an awful thing, I wouldn’t be living in the greatest country in the land today.” Daniels later said her comments were “taken out of context.”
Daniels did not participate in the creation of the new Black history standards but she made clear the standards go too far, even for her. Daniels said she “disagree[s] with and would have immediately challenged and resisted any notion that slavery was a benefit to African Americans.”
This is what Drum and Somerby are defending. This is what David in Cal thinks is a legitimate historical expert about black history. What is wrong with these people?
DeleteRight wing propagandists have taken over the FL education system under the guidance of DeSantis and they are pretending to wish to educate children, while actually advancing white supremacist talking points for political motives. This is what Trump wants to do to the entire country, if he is elected again. But Somerby and Drum are defending such efforts, calling liberals too nitpicky or touchy about black history.
Don't be fooled.
Yet, despite your long screed, this minor part of the proposed curriculum is STILL true
Delete: SS.68.AA.2.3
Examine the various duties and trades performed by slaves (e.g., agricultural work, painting, carpentry, tailoring, domestic service, blacksmithing, transportation).
Benchmark clarifications:
Clarification 1: Instruction includes how [enslaved people] developed skills which in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.
The point is that leftists act like closed-minded tribalists when they can't acknowledge and acqueisce to simple truth like what is stated here.
Rigid, lockstep, kneejerk leftists with tunnel vision who do group think, and who can't simply admit that is a true minor point in the proposed curriculum, are a part of the problem, similar to the problem we have right with the right wing that also cannot deal with or process anything unapproved by their tribe.
Just because someone acknowleges basic truth doesn't mean that they are for slavery, think slavery was a good thing, wish we had slavery now, etc.
It just means that a true point was made by "the other side." And that is OK.
If Florida teaches kids that the United States military is a giant socialist jobs program, why can't they teach some slaves learned trades?
DeleteSchools have previously tried to keep propaganda out of the curriculum, imperfectly, but these new standards mandate teaching of propaganda. Neither falsehood should be taught.
Delete@11:26 Are you aware that there were laws forbidding teaching of literacy to slaves during that same time period? Wouldn't that have been of personal benefit to slaves and owners alike? Why was it forbidden by law? To prevent slaves from escaping, just as use of acquired skills to earn personal money would have permitted slaves to free themselves, either by escaping or buying their freedom (at whatever price the owner placed on them). Do you imagine that slaveholders would have permitted such skill use by slaves if it had any actual personal benefit to them? Of course not. It would have been as illegal as teaching slaves to read, had it been something slaves could have actually used for personal gain.
The ad in that South Carolina newspaper shows that the owners considered the acquired skills of their slaves to be their own benefit, not the slaves.
It is a lie when someone like yourself (or Drum or Somerby) insists that some historical benefit was available to slaves that they did not and could not actually use during that time period. A similar example would be to claim that freed slaves could vote because there were laws saying so, even though they could not overcome the poll taxes, literacy tests, or vigilante threats they encountered that prevented them from exercizing that right in reality.
Somerone who cannot acknowledge this point is also not acknowledging what the reality was on the ground for slaves and freed slaves. That kind of ignorance leads to minimizing the wrong committed against black people and makes you a bigot. The idea that you (or Drum or Somerby) are saying that slavery was a good thing is a strawman and no one here has accused you or Somerby or Drum of saying or beliving that. But you clearly do not understand how slavery worked or what was possible for slaves during slavery. And that is the main objection to this new standard -- it would perpetuate ignorance like that you are displayng here.
"As Kevin Drum noted in this post, this tiny "footnote" in the 23-page course of study "has caused an uproar in the lefty community." Over the course of the past week, we ourselves saw a steady stream of cable news hosts and cable news commentators perform the state of their vast outrage concerning this tiny and accurate point."
ReplyDeleteAs I went to some lengths to point out yesterday, it isn't only one tiny footnote that is the problem with the FL standards. Other standards are also problematic. Somerby focuses on only this one point because it was technically possible for some black people to use skills to acquire the money to buy their own freedom. But that didn't happen to the extent implied by the FL standards. The critics of this passage have noted that using factual examples (from Judd Legum at Popular Information):
"Much of the criticism has centered around a provision of the new curriculum that requires instruction about "how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit." That provision was blasted by Black Republicans. “There is no silver lining in slavery,” Senator and presidential candidate Tim Scott (R-SC) said. “Slavery was really about separating families, about mutilating humans and even raping their wives. It was just devastating.” Congressmen Byron Donalds (R-FL) and John James (R-MI) also spoke out against the curriculum. DeSantis responded by attacking the three Black Republicans, claiming they accepted Democrats' "false narratives" and "lies."
DeSantis also defended the notion that enslaved people benefited from slavery. "Some of the folks…eventually parlayed, you know, being a blacksmith into doing things later in life," DeSantis told a reporter while campaigning in Iowa.
Two members of the work group that created the curriculum, Frances Presley Rice and William Allen, issued a press release listing some enslaved people that benefited from slavery. But the statement is full of factual errors. Specifically, according to experts who criticized the release, "nearly half the figures highlighted by the state were never enslaved." Lewis Latimer, for example, is listed in the press release as a formerly enslaved "blacksmith." But Latimer was never enslaved and "worked as an inventor, participating in the development of the telephone and incandescent lighting, among other inventions." Others "did spend time in slavery" but "did not gain their skills from their servitude." Booker T. Washington, listed on the document as an "educator," was illiterate when he was emancipated at the age of 9.
But the problems with the new Black history curriculum extend well beyond that one passage. George Washington is listed as a "key figure" in the "quest to end slavery" even though he never attempted to end slavery and died owning 317 enslaved people. The curriculum describes "disorderly assembly" and "breaking the law" as a characteristic of "irresponsible citizenship," even though Martin Luther King Jr., advanced the cause of civil rights through civil disobedience, regularly engaging in assemblies derided as "disorderly" by segregationists. Throughout the curriculum, aside from a passing mention of "Southern whites" who opposed reconstruction, white people are described only as supporting freedom and justice for Black Americans."
Somerby, apparently blissfully unaware, approvingly quotes Luntz:
ReplyDelete“The Egyptians thought they couldn't be beaten. The Turks, the Ottoman empire, the great German empire, British, Portugese, French? Countries come and they go. China had a dynasty.”
This is so laughably dumb and ahistorical, it’s embarrassing Somerby chose to use this quote.
Furthermore, it was not one “tiny part” of the new Florida standards, as it was touted by right wingers as a triumph against “wokeism”, and harshly criticized even by the few black Republicans in congress.
As others have noted, the revisionism of the history of racist chattel slavery in America was pushed onto the innocent students of Florida by two right wing extremists, who themselves are incompetent and badly misinformed about history.
The awkward folksy charm Al Gore chose to employ during his campaign was indeed cringey, and rightfully criticized, as was his choice in hiring Naomi Wolf as an advisor, someone who has proved to be quite disordered.
Today’s struggle between left and right, is the same struggle that has been ongoing for the last 10k years, the societal struggle between equality and dominance.
The a historicity and racism of soulless neoliberal grifters like Somerby and Drum are not bugs, but features of those looking to manufacture ignorance. Their insistence to acquiesce to right wingers in light of that cohort’s dominant forces of slavery and fascism that have ruled our society for generations, is the worst kind of servility.
Yet,that statement in the curriculum is still true. And you can rant and bash all you want, but everyone who can take a step back from the tribe they belong to and stop calling names for moment or two, knows that statement is true.
DeleteSince that statement is true and you can't admit the most obvious because it breaks with your tribal orthodoxy, you are therefore suspect as being someone who can't be trusted. In other words, YOU, and others like you, are why, despite the right wing's atrociious behavior, the polls are still so close.
Because you can't admit what is true and insist that you are the expert in all matters, and can NEVER BACKTRACK when presented with any sort of common sense pushback, is why LEFTISTS like you ARE DESPISED worldwide. It's why people who DESPISE LEFTISTS so much simply cannot pull the voting lever in the Democrat's favor no matter what, and no matter what the far right wingers and very sick narcissists like Trump do badly.
Can you not understand that?
No, it is not "true" in any real sense. See the historical article I excerpted here yesterday, about the reality of self-emancipation and the ability to keep funds earned using skills acquired as slaves. Note the ad taken from a newspaper of that time, claiming that any slave offering services for pay was defrauding his owner.
DeleteThis statement in the curriculum is about as true as the idea that ANYONE can become president of the USA. Technically, anyone can run but can anyone win? Obviously not.
Despise whoever you want. You don't need a specious mental contortion like this one to excuse your hate.
Sorry 11:37 but your comment does not compute, it’s not even a clever troll.
DeleteThe “experts” that wrote the false new standards put out a statement defending their actions (because even Repub Sen Tim Scott was harshly critical) that was full of historical errors - as they smugly proclaimed their righteousness, they were in fact revealing their incompetence.
Here’s what I can understand: voters have pulled the lever more for Dems in 7 out of the last 8 national elections, including the last presidential race, that’s a funny way of voters showing despise.
Gaining political power in America, particularly for the Right, mostly has to do with how much corruption (voter suppression, gerrymandering, etc) you’re willing to engage in.
Electoral analysis shows that voting is mainly about motivation, not persuasion, and that providing for people’s material needs and pushback against oppression (leftism) is highly motivating for Dem voters.
If it weren’t so effective, you wouldn’t be here whining about it, and until you resolve your own internal issues with Others gaining equality, or even just basic rights, you’ll keep scratching that itch of making moroninc comments.
"Today, the situation is different. Today, every time our tribunes perform Us and Them, we're all playing with fire.
ReplyDelete"Who's to say that America lasts?" The question is scary but salient."
Who is the Us and Them that Somerby is describing? "Them" is plainly a Republican effort to pack an education working group with conservatives in order to return propaganda to school districts in FL (and in other red states who are following their lead).
We (the "Us" in Somerby's formulation) do not want Republicans to teach our children incorrect information about race and racial history in the US. We ("Us") support civil rights for black people and do not wish to return to Jim Crow days.
There is a battle in the field of education, in which Republicans (conservatives) are trying to control what gets taught in schools. They consider liberal learning to be brainwashing and they want to get their hooks in children early on (as they believe Democrats have been doing), to find a source of voters who will sustain their obviously waning political power.
Somerby's focus on what he calls tiny points ignores this larger problem of right-wing infiltration of boards and their effort to enact policies that harm not only black people but also other protected groups, including LGBTQ+ and women (whom they would like to force back into traditional gender roles).
Neither Somerby nor Drum have children. They have each functioned as pseudo-journalists. They are each old men who have drifted rightward over the past decade and now support right wing talking points. They read each other's blogs and are a mutual-admiration society of two. When they talk about destruction of America, they repeat Trump's threat that the right will have no country unless they elect him -- the idea that if Democrats prevail, all will be lost. Because the right attracts voters via fear, not by stating actual policies and ideas for making ours a better country.
While I have sympathy for Somerby's recent elective surgery, I despise his ongoing attack on values I think are important, whether you frame this as a matter of teaching children the truth or one of keeping predators like Trump out of power. Somerby and Drum are on the wrong side in this dispute. I suspect that their younger selves would cringe at what they write these days, but their personalities are not the point. Trump and the right wing are a real danger to all of us and they need to be stopped. It is as simple as that. The new FL standards exist as a set of statements that echo white supremacist literature, expressing views that can be found on white supremacist webpages. The attempt to whitewash slavery and black history has no place in any classroom. And no, this is not a trivial concern, despite Somerby and Drum's efforts to minimize it (and thus slip by changes that are pernicious to both education and race relations).
Bob wrote: "In our view, it could be an existential disaster if Trump returns to the White House."
ReplyDeleteI don't know why people guess what would happen in a Trump Presidency when we already know what happened in a Trump Presidency.
-- Israel made peace with several neighboring countries
-- No new war was started.
-- The economy boomed, until covid.
-- Russia made no effort to annex parts of Ukraine.
Even if you think the Jan 6 riots were an attempted revolution, it failed.
"attempted revolution". LOL.
DeleteA bunch of Right-wing snowflakes threw a childish temper tantrum, just because black peoples votes were counted in the 2020 Presidential election. I'd hardly call Republican branding "an attempted revolution".
Voter suppression and the fake electors scheme Republicans tried to pull, on the other hand...
You forgot some of Trump's accomplishments:
Delete-- Trump appeased Russia, giving them whatever they wanted, including top secret info, a free hand in Syria, the Crimea free and clear, weakening of NATO, etc.
-- Putin was permitted to occupy the Crimea and Eastern Ukraine setting up the Hitler tactic of claiming that the residents there wanted to be Russian
-- hundred of thousands of preventable deaths occurred because of Trump's mishandling of the vaccine roll-out
-- covid resulted in a tanking economy until Biden's economic measures were enacted
-- Trump appointed a series of incompetent and corrupt cabinet members
-- Trump destroyed long-standing alliances with foreign leaders and was considered a laughing stock worldwide
-- Trump sold out to the Saudis, giving them military secrets, failing to prosecute an obvious public murder of a journalist, accepting bribes for himself and his relatives, and furthering support for Israel's right wing leader
-- Trump used his office to direct the IRS to persecute his perceived political enemies
-- Trump was impeached twice for abusing his office, first to attack Biden by blackmailing Ukraine and then by fomenting an insurrection and claiming to have won an election he lost.
-- Trump grifted and stole money while in office, then stole classified documents and refused to return them after leaving office, showing them to people without proper security clearances (and who knows who else).
-- Trump committed sexual abuse (characterized by a judge as "rape") and then defamed his accuser while president.
-- Trump stacked the lower courts and the supreme court with underqualified judges in order to gain political advantage, abusing the judicial system.
-- Trump persecuted asylum seeking migrants by putting children in cages, separating them from their parents, losing the paperwork so they could not be reunited.
-- Trump's tolerance of white supremacist hate groups (who organized and conducted his insurrection) has resulted in major increases in hate crimes, especially mass shootings by right wing extremists. No one is safe from gun toting vigilantes inspired by his focus on "enemies". School board members, teachers, public officials, librarians have quit nationwide because of the terrorizing threats they have received at Trump's direction.
-- Trump made many promises that he never kept, including failing to restore jobs in Midwest areas of industrial decline. His tax cuts only benefitted the rich, not middle class people. He failed to improve Obamacare.
-- Trump overturned environmental protections and global warming measures intended to combat climate change, eliminated restrictions on industry that harmed the environment during his term. Biden has reversed these changes, but meanwhile our planet is getting hotter and we are running out of time to prevent global catastrophe.
Yes, we all know what to expect from a second term, especially because Trump has been describing his fascist intentions in his public appearances.
We are not participating in the war in Ukraine that started when Putin invaded an adjacent country. Russia is the clear instigator of that war. We are trying to help Ukraine defend itself without entangling the US or NATO and we have no "boots on the ground" in Ukraine.
DeleteThere is always armed conflict somewhere in the world. If you do not recognize what was occurring during Trump's term, it is because of your ignorance of world affairs. Russia's invasion of Ukraine does not constitute a "new war" for the US, not even a new war for Ukraine, since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. Ukraine intends to regain the Crimea by defeating Russia during this continuation of their conflict.
I did not mean to imply that Biden had gotten us into new wars. I only said that Trump had not gotten us into new wars.
DeleteIt's a fact that Russia annexed Crimea when Obama was President and Russia annexed other parts of Ukraine when Biden was President, but Russia did not annex any of Ukraine when Trump was President. Does Trump deserve credit for discouraging Russian aggression. I think he does. That was a situation where a reputation as a "loose cannon" was an advantage. IMO Putin hesitated to act, because he didn't know what Trump would do in response.
Trump's outright contempt for Republican voters makes it tempting to vote for him (the enemy of my enemies, being my friend), but at the end of the day, the fact that he's Putin's bitch makes it impossible for me to do so.
DeleteFYI, Israel did not “make peace” with neighboring countries, it opened diplomatic relations with some minor regional players over common pseudo concerns about Iran, which was merely performative and achieved nothing but to personally enhance Trump and his family.
DeleteThe main issue, the Israel-Palestine conflict, only worsened under Trump.
Under Trump, the economy continued its trajectory set by the Obama admin, until Trump grossly mishandled covid, sending our economy into a tailspin - unless you were already rich, in which case it was a boon. Before covid, Trump’s only contribution was to handicap the economy for working Americans by cutting taxes for those already rich, making bone headed decisions on trade, and allowing companies to more easily pollute our air and water. Wow! With a president like Trump, who needs a Bond villian?
Thankfully Biden has been able to correct Trump’s disastrous incompetency. At least by many economic metrics, Biden is stomping all other presidents this century.
Under Trump, the right wing imperialist Putin had his way (along with all the other autocratic world leaders), playing with Trump and the US as a puppet, this is not something to brag about.
Under Biden, Putin has been exposed as weak and vulnerable, and he’s getting his ass handed to him.
1:11 here's a list of the near monthly sanctions that Trump put on Russia, .... as you seem to be completely misinformed on the matter ... to the point where almost everything you've asserted is false.
Deletehttps://www.brookings.edu/articles/on-the-record-the-u-s-administrations-actions-on-russia/
6:21 big smug talk, but you didn’t bother to actual gain knowledge of the circumstances; a) that list is mostly of non partisan long term government bureaucrats making routine statements about Russia - not sanctions, b) it was Congress that sanctioned Russia/Russians, Trump signed the bill but made it clear he did not like it, and then never enforced the sanctions.
DeleteTrump was a complete puppet of Putin. Putin was laughing his ass off at misguided suckers like you carrying water for him, all the way until Biden was elected and started enforcing the sanctions. Later, Putin/Trump misjudged the Biden admin, and made one of the most epic blunders of all time, as now Putin is getting his ass handed to him.
Someone had made the claim that "Trump let Russia proceed with its plan to annex the entire Ukraine by failing to work with allies to sanction Russia" which of course is a false claim as that document proves.
DeleteThe Republican Party is leaving the dog-whistling to the Jason Aldean's of the world.
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/uRgTPyTFPMM
DeleteRachel Maddow, a student of history, is right and Somerby is wrong. Jealousy is unbecoming in Somerby. He has hated Maddow for years, because she is successful as a journalist and has the nerve to make jokes that many people enjoy. But she has earned her position with efforts that Somerby has been too lazy to pursue. Maddow has actually studied history and public policy (Wikipedia):
ReplyDelete"Maddow holds a bachelor's degree in public policy from Stanford University and a doctorate in political science from the University of Oxford and is the first openly lesbian anchor to host a major prime-time news program in the United States." (She was outed by her college newspaper.)
In comparison, Somerby reluctantly pursued an undergraduate philosophy major at Harvard and then went into teaching to avoid the draft (by his own admission). He didn't put the work into educating himself, even in political science or history, the way Maddow did. Of course people pay more attention to what Maddow says than Somerby's repetitive endorsement of Al Gore, more based in friendship than factual accuracy.
Why did Al Gore lose? According to Somerby it is because he was lied about by the mainstream media. According to those of us who were there, Al Gore had difficulty connecting with voters, much like DeSantis is having now. His attempts to connect appeared awkward and phony. But worse was his sanctimonious morality which led him to abandon and run without mentioning the palpable achievements of the Clinton administration. Gore abandoned Clinton because he felt Clinton has lied to him personally and abused his trust. Over a blowjob that was nobody's business but central to Republican efforts to destroy Clinton and his legacy. In that way Gore furthered the right wing's attack on Clinton.
Gore's second mistake was to put Joe Lieberman on his ticket as VP. Lieberman also attack Clinton's morality and conveyed the same sanctimony. Given that the public supported Clinton and half of voters didn't even consider a blow-job to be actual sex, this was a huge political mistake, an attempt to rub Clinton's nose in his actions, not a choice that helped Gore's ticket in any way.
And then there was Tipper's crusde against rock and roll. She thought there was too much filth in song lyrics and engaged in a national campaign to protect American youth, even debating the rock icon Frank Zappa (and losing in the opinion of music lovers). She made a fool of herself and Gore by coming across as the ultimate "Karen" even before that term was invented. This was a huge political mistake that lost Gore the youth vote as well as the open-minded adult Democratic vote.
And then there was the campaign scandal over Gore's Chinese bundler who solicited illegal campaign donations in CA, and the scandal over Gore's use of public resources to campaign. Democrats care about such things, no matter how widely they are now being done by Republicans, so that hurt Gore's stance as an impeccably moral guy, making him to appear a bit hypocritical. So, when the media started exaggerated Gore's claims about the internet and Love Canal and even Love Story, the public was ready to see him as a sanctimonious hypocrite trying to inflate his own image by taking credit from others. DeSantis is having the same problem because he is the same kind of guy, and Somerby is defending DeSantis too. George Bush capitalized on this public dislike by portraying himself as a genuine, flawed but genial regular guy that anyone would enjoy having a beer with. No one could imagine Gore drinking a beer -- same with DeSantis now, who is repeating Gore's mistakes, even to putting his wife Casey out to do culture-war battle for him. The only thing worse than one sanctimonious zealot is two of them.
Somerby has never acknowledged or discussed any of this, but Gore is more to blame for his loss of an election he never fought to win, than Maddow or the media or anyone else, including Naomi Wolf (you cannot make someone into something they are not without the public sensing the hypocrisy).
Dumb comment
DeleteAs PeeWee would say, "I know you are, but what am I?"
DeleteIt seems likely that Somerby will start supporting No Labels once they nominate someone. Even though the major funding for No Labels is coming from Republican mega-donors and Joe Lieberman (no longer a Democrat) is rearing his ugly head again.
ReplyDeleteSilly. The point isn't whether the statement is true, but whether it is pertinent. Skills picked up while being subservient to someone else as a slave are incidental. Should we also call out that they got room and board? Freedom is invaluable and all these other things pale in comparison.
ReplyDeleteNow I don't know how the Left is reacting to this, and don't really care. I assume their making it worse. When do we project to return to sanity as a nation? Or has that been permanently put off in favor of acting like a bunch of idiots?
"Silly,"
DeleteAs is your both-siderism.
"THE TRIBAL IMPULSE: The tiny point was plainly true..."
DeleteI agree that Freedom is invaluable and that it is not a tiny or silly thing to the person involved. But I disagree, for exactly that reason, that this is focusing on a tiny point.
That slaves COULD NOT buy their freedom in any meaningful sense and COULD NOT use their skills whether manual (unskilled) or trained, is exactly the point and it is what made them slaves.
The right wing authors of these news standards are working hard to portray history in a positive light, including minimizing what it meant to be a slave by pretending slaves learned things that were later useful to them -- when the examples provided do not show this at all. Nor do other historical sources. And this is not trivial or tiny or silly, because it concerns the nature of slavery -- the lack of freedom and the lack of benefit to those enslaved. Arguing that housing was provided (without choice) is similarly specious.
Nor does it make the left "idiots" that we care about telling children what slavery meant to the slaves, since those children will grow up and need to guard and stand up for freedom themselves -- so they'd better understand what freedom is and is not.
I was at a ball game and idiots in the stands applauded (interrupting the singing) when they heard "o'er the land of the free," not waiting to hear "and the home of the brave". What is the point of freedom if we are not sufficiently brave to protect it, even when right wingers are assiduously trying to portray slavery as free to our children, putting in a position of not understanding why we fought a civil war to protect the freedom of ALL people under our flag.
This is not silly or tiny or trivial to me. I hope you will read my comment and change your idea about it yourself. Fascists do not want any of us to be free except those at the top who curry favor with a dictator who loves gold plated toilets much like the right's dear leader. And that is not both-siderism. On one side is the willingness to protect the freedom of the least among us. On the other is the unwillingness to allow freedom in any guise that might threaten the well-being of those at the top. You choose at the polls, if your state will still let you.
"Silly" describes the endless game of bumper sticker national discourse. Where we debate whether small slivers of fact bereft of context are true or not. In lieu of nuanced discussion. It takes two sides to accomplish this abysmal feat.
DeleteUntil you all accept that, we will be stuck in this vortex. The Left is much better equipped to make this pivot, and stop playing along with the Right's child-like level of discourse.
I think this comment should be addressed to Somerby and Kevin Drum.
DeleteTruth is not truth if it is not defended against falsehood. If we stop complaining about revisionism, then the revision becomes fact in people's minds and reality is distorted for everyone. FL should not be defining what occurred during slavery for political purposes.
Nuanced discussion does occur among historians about things like this supposedly true falsehood inserted in FL's standards. Those standards are historical documents themselves and will define what future historians know about our time period. If this "tiny obviously true fact" is permitted to pass as knowledge because no one disputes it, then our time may be characterized as an extension of the Jim Crow years that preceded this century. And these tiny but untrue factoids define the context in which discussion occurs.
You are right that it takes two sides but without objection, lies stand, so our side needs to defend truth, even ones that the other side prefers to remember as tiny instead of integral to the definition of slavery.
You are welcome to step out of the vortex. There are many uninvolved people who do not read and do not vote and do not otherwise participate in democracy. It is every person's right to be uninvolved, just as much as it is their right to vote and express their views. The people who are engaged with the "Right's child-like level of discourse" are not children, they are often voters and this is part of the political process, like it or not.
Sure, okay. You're taking the conversation somewhere else.
Delete"You are welcome to step out of the vortex."
You seem to have either not have fully grasped the few words of my comment, or extrapolated something out of them that I did not write. I'll wish you a good day and move on.
Disagreement isn't necessarily misunderstanding.
DeleteIf a subject is fully known and understood, there is no nuance.
DeleteThe solutions to most of society’s problems are known and relatively easy to implement; the actual problem is that the Left wants to engage in these solutions because they support equality, while the Right is opposed to these solutions because they interfere with their singular goal of attaining and maintaining dominance.
Today, Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog compares the climate change policies of Trump to his various competitors for the presidential nomination, and compares Romney's position to Obama and Biden. His point is that it isn't just Trump who has stymied measures to address global warming, but also H.W. Bush, G.W. Bush and Romney, and the rest of the Republican party going back decades. Opposing Trump is necessary, but the idea that Republicans would do anything to address climate if Trump weren't around is ridiculous, historically speaking.
ReplyDeleteIf you think the government should do something to address climate change, you need to vote for a Democrat (as many Democrats as you can, up and down the line). We are all going to hell if you leave it to Republicans. That may be what Somerby means about America failing, but perhaps he got a few tiny details wrong about who and why we are going down.
https://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2023/07/not-everything-is-trumps-fault-part.html