FRIDAY, JANUARY 26, 2024
So said a trio of sages: Greetings from Yugoslavia! In slightly overstated fashion, Peter Baker describes the two-nation world we ourselves have been writing about.
From today's New York Times:
BAKER (1/26/24): [T]he general election matchup that seems likely after this week’s New Hampshire primary represents more than the first-in-a-century contest between two men who have both lived in the White House. It represents the clash of two presidents of profoundly different countries, the president of Blue America versus the president of Red America.
[...]
“Today, when we think about America, we make the essential error of imagining it as a single nation, a marbled mix of red and blue people,” Michael Podhorzer, a former political director of the AFL-CIO, wrote in an essay last month. “But America has never been one nation. We are a federated republic of two nations: Red Nation and Blue Nation. This is not a metaphor; it is a geographic and historical reality.”
Pordhorzer's portrait is overstated; in reality, his statement is a metaphor. As for Baker's longer portrait, it articulates the well understood reality of our floundering nation's growing tribal division.
This year's election will be fought within that semi-federation. In the past few weeks, three (or five?) anti-Trumpers have offered advice to our own blue tribe about the best ways to proceed at this point.
Presumably, no perfect advice is available from this triumverate. In some ways, the three major anti-Trumpers agree with one another. In some ways, their portraits of the economic lay of the land may perhaps seem to differ.
Some of the sages' advice concerns the short run—the attempt to defeat Trump this year. Some of their advice would serve blue tribe and American interests on a much longer time frame, moving forward into an age when the current candidates no longer define the terrain.
Of the three (or five) sages we have in mind, we'd direct you first to Anand Giridharadas, an MSNBC political analyst who we'd describe as a progressive. In his most recent appearance on Morning Joe, he advocated for the creation of "a pro-democracy movement" on the part of the Democratic Party and the left—a multi-faceted movement which would be built around the working class more than around the current unproductive academy.
In Giridharadas' view, the western world's center-left parties have increasingly become "academia-adjacent parties." As important as some of the prevailing debates and viewpoints are, he says that, as a result of that alignment, we're having "the wrong conversation."
In one major way, his view aligns with that of the third sage we'll cite. We strongly suggest that you watch Giridharadas on the January 18 Morning Joe—but for now, let's just hurry along.
Our second sage would be Roger Lowenstein, "a journalist and the author of Ways and Means: Lincoln and His Cabinet and the Financing of the Civil War." In a recent guest essay for the New York Times, he described his view of Candidate Trump—but he also challenged some of the ways our blue tribe has been performing:
LOWENSTEIN (1/20/24): ...I hope [voters] take noneconomic factors into account, including Mr. Trump’s continued refusal to acknowledge his defeat in 2020, which has poisoned the public square and eroded the civic fabric supporting the country’s democracy. In a phrase, Mr. Trump is unfit for office.
In a pair of phrases, Candidate Trump "has poisoned the public square" and he's "unfit for office." Still and all, having said that, Lowenstein went on to say this:
LOWENSTEIN (continuing directly): That does not mean we should shrink from honestly assessing performance, including economic performance, under Mr. Trump as well as under Mr. Biden. Mr. Trump is so off-putting, many find it hard to evaluate him rationally, as we would anyone else. But it is right to do so, and we learn from having our eyes wide, not shut. And—something Democrats should have learned by now—condescending to Trump voters will not win many of them over.
Say what? Democrats should have learned by now that condescending to Trump voters won't win such fellow citizens over to our own side?
We're strongly inclined to agree with that bit of advice. Accurately or otherwise, here's how Lowenstein set the economic scene at the start of his essay, headline included:
What Trump Voters Understand About the Economy
Why is Donald Trump continuing to poll so strongly with voters?
As unpalatable as a second Trump term would be, many pundits who tackle this question have ignored a striking fact: The typical household’s living standard improved during the three Trump years before the pandemic. Under President Biden, Americans have (at best) struggled to keep even with inflation.
Mr. Trump’s huge personal negatives—his meanspirited personality, his toadying to dictators and shunning of American allies and his unpardonable effort to steal an election—should more than offset his economic record. The old saw that Mussolini got the trains to run on time should not be understood as an endorsement.
But it is one thing to loathe Mr. Trump and hope for his defeat. It is another to wish away his successes or, as has become common, to ascribe his popularity to voter prejudices or weaknesses of character. The leitmotif in such arguments is that blue voters are rational political actors voting on merit while Trump is appealing primarily, if not exclusively, to irrational semi-citizens devoid of even self-interested calculation.
That might be. But it can’t be ignored that they might also have experienced the pointed rise, after adjusting for inflation, in the median household income—how the typical family lives—before the pandemic...
We can't assess the accuracy of Lowenstein's more detailed economic analysis. Just last weekend, we saw David Stockman, the old Reagan hand, savage Trump's economic performance during an hour on C-Span.
That said, is it possible? Is it possible that some of the people tilting toward Trump are something other than racists and xenophobes? Is it possible that some are responding to something aside from the pathologies we like to diagnose in our tribe's frequent deployment of vast sweeping assessments?
Is it possible that some of those voters really aren't bigots? Is it possible that most of these voters aren't?
Within our tribe, the answer is frequently no. In our view, that's a fairly obvious error—an error which has helped define the fortunes of our sliding blue tribe over the course of the past sixty years, dating back to the Vietnam era.
With this, we return to the center-right sage we've cited in the past two days. We refer to the New York Times' Bret Stephens, a classic pre-Trump conservative but also a down-the-line NeverTrumper.
As we've noted, Stephens sees Trump as a moral disgrace. That said, at one point in this week's Conversation with Gail Collins, he offered this bit of advice:
If we’re going to defeat Trump in November, we’ll have to do a lot better than to just keep repeating, “Orange man bad.”
Memorable, if acerbic. Stephens has a more negative view of the blue tribe ethos than we do, but this is the way he started last week's stand-alone column in the Times, headline included:
The Case for Trump … by Someone Who Wants Him to Lose
Barring a political miracle or an act of God, it is overwhelmingly likely that Donald Trump will again be the Republican Party’s nominee for president. Assuming the Democratic nominee in the fall is Joe Biden, polls show Trump with a better-than-even chance of returning to the White House next year.
Lord help us. What should those of us who have consistently opposed him do?
You can’t defeat an opponent if you refuse to understand what makes him formidable. Too many people, especially progressives, fail to think deeply about the enduring sources of his appeal—and to do so without calling him names, or disparaging his supporters, or attributing his resurgence to nefarious foreign actors or the unfairness of the Electoral College. Since I will spend the coming year strenuously opposing his candidacy, let me here make the best case for Trump that I can.
Begin with fundamentals. Trump got three big things right—or at least more right than wrong.
Stephens claims that Trump got three things semi-right! We'll cite only one. His column continues as shown:
Arguably the single most important geopolitical fact of the century is the mass migration of people from south to north and east to west, causing tectonic demographic, cultural, economic, and ultimately political shifts. Trump understood this from the start of his presidential candidacy in 2015, the same year Europe was overwhelmed by a largely uncontrolled migration from the Middle East and Africa. As he said: “A nation without borders is not a nation at all. We must have a wall. The rule of law matters!”
Many of Trump’s opponents refuse to see virtually unchecked migration as a problem for the West at all. Some of them see it as an opportunity to demonstrate their humanitarianism. Others look at it as an inexhaustible source of cheap labor. They also have the habit of denouncing those who disagree with them as racists. But enforcing control at the border—whether through a wall, a fence, or some other mechanism—isn’t racism. It’s a basic requirement of statehood and peoplehood, which any nation has an obligation to protect and cherish.
Only now, as the consequences of Biden’s lackadaisical approach to mass migration have become depressingly obvious on the sidewalks and in the shelters and public schools of liberal cities like New York and Chicago, are Trump’s opponents on this issue beginning to see the point...
The red tribe has been pushing border issues extremely hard. Until very recently, our own blue tribe was refusing to discuss the transparent craziness of much that seems to be occurring.
When Democratic mayors and governors (and constituencies) finally began to complain, our pundit tribe finally began to respond. But we've long had our heads in the sand, and we've been dancing a bit of a ghost dance.
We're inclined to disagree with certain parts of Stephens' original column. Within the context of Trump's behavior, his comments about Democratic "election denialism" strike us as borderline nuts.
That said, there is one other point Stephens makes—and here, the conservative Stephens aligns with the view of the progressive Giridharadas. In his column, he criticizes our blue tribe's increasing alignmnet with the worldviews which have emerged from our "elite universities and media:"
Trump’s detractors, including me, often argued that his demagoguery and mendacity did a lot to needlessly diminish trust in these vital institutions. But we should be more honest with ourselves and admit that those institutions did their own work in squandering, through partisanship or incompetence, the esteem in which they had once been widely held.
How so? Much of the elite media, mostly liberal, became openly partisan in the 2016 election—and, in doing so, not only failed to understand why Trump won but also probably unwittingly contributed to his victory. Academia, also mostly liberal, became increasingly illiberal—inhospitable not just to conservatives but to anyone pushing back even modestly against progressive orthodoxy.
Especially regarding those elite universities, Giridharadas was making the same suggestion. Let us say this about that:
Yesterday, we discussed the exceptionally stupid hour which was staged, on Wednesday night, by the dim-bulb Fox "News" program, Gutfeld!
The hour-long program was childish, ugly, offensively stupid. Yesterday, though, we didn't tell you this:
In the mist of all that Dumb and Stupid, the host built one segment around a recent podcast appearance by AOC—by Rep. Ocasio-Cortez.
At one time, her performance on that podcast would have been called "politically correct." Today, it would more likely be described as "woke."
In a silly and childish ghost dance, we frequently hide behind the claim that no one can define that term—but everyone, barring only us, knows it when they see it. (You can't offer precise definitions of "liberal" and "conservative" either, but those terms are perfectly useful.).
We were deeply disappointed by the various things we saw AOC say. Even during Wednesday's spectacularly stupid program, Gutfeld and his dim-bulb droogs were basically right—on the merits and on the politics—in pretty much everything they said during that segment.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. Our tribe, like all large human tribes, is inherently prone to separation, then to self-admiration and error.
There are voters out there who can be won over. Back in December, we saw how well those university presidents performed, and so did everyone else.
Their performance was astoundingly bad. Many Trump voters observed that debacle. Is it time for our flailing blue tribe to form alliances with sharper and smarter allies?
"Orange man bad" may not be enough! Once in a while, it might not hurt to set aside our moral self-admiration and perhaps try a little tenderness.
We're not in Yugoslavia yet. But we sometimes seem eager to get there.
ReplyDelete"Within our tribe, the answer is frequently no."
The bosses inside your silo, Bob, know they aren't capable of winning a competitive election. What they are trying to do now is eliminating all competition.
They've done it in the past too, with Ralph Nader, sabotaging and destroying his campaign. What's happening now is the same shit, only much more advanced and with a lot more institutions (state and media) involved.
And so it goes. We'll see.
Somerby is touting "sages" who wish to deemphasize academia. What a surprise!
ReplyDeleteKeeping up with inflation is a harder task than just keeping the wheels moving on an economy you inherited.
ReplyDeleteKeep in mind that the upper class also suffers in inflation in a way that ironically benefits the working class. Popular debts to them are not always inflation adjusted, effectively wiping up some of the rent-seeking of capital's vampire teeth on the people. So simply fighting inflation but doing it with creativity is really a subtle class war protection, not simply "trying to get people to scrape by." Combined with the advances in union organizing right now, the president has two left fingers on the steering wheel of the country rather than the usual none.
Still, the federal reserve has been clashing openly with real estate, and the natural gas and other fossil fuel lobbies have been raising Cain about simple market regulations on emissions, creating instability across the world and countless famines and refugee crises the center and the far right both blame individualistically on the "bad choices" of the refugees for not dying at the correct distance from the border.
The libertarian cry of anti-Big Brother support for refugees, usually something too toxic for liberalism to talk about when they meet a real life hard right conservative who loves his country so much he'll join a militia on the border, is reassured that Biden has their back. Liberalism finds its peak irony as white radicals on the far right close ranks against refugee crises with the center on border funding with some drama about who gets to be closest to the killing line. Whereas usually liberals are making fun of libertarians for calling basic government functions the Nanny State, here the right-wing nature in liberalism is exposed for what it is. The liberal says with a confused tone that Biden seems to be continuing the border policy of Trump and tries to use this concession to the right wing to keep criticism to a minimum. After all two wrongs make a right, right?
The voices of the people are crying out every day all over the world and the white moderates can't hear them because they are solipsistic hall monitors, telling you what fits with their gatekeeping of honorably serving the correct lines of animosity they're experiencing on any given moment.
What? Biden is backing militias at the border? In what universe? I dislike Biden's immigration policies and have said so, but that doesn't make Democrats nativists, none of us have abandoned our belief that immigrants are good for our economy, we are the only ones supplying aid to those caught in the crossfire (the immigrants themselves) and we have not abandoned them. The statements about Biden hewing closely to Trump's policies were made here in response to David in Cal's assertion that Biden favors open borders (he clearly does not). The diplomatic attempts to resolve immigration pressures by working with the nations that migrants are fleeing, to help people stay in their original homes, is also an important part of Biden's border policies.
DeleteI don't know who you are, but you appear to tell more lies than Trump does.
The lawsuit that got the supreme court to order removal of the razor wire was brought by Biden's administration. How does that help Texas militias? And yes, I know that Abbott is ignoring the decision.
DeleteOut of one side of its mouth, the liberal says global warming is real. Out of the other side of his mouth he tells the climate refugee to get lost.
Delete11:44 AM
DeleteBiden is sending weapons to fund the largest anti-refugee movement in the world, the state of Israel.
Central American border patrols are trained by this ally as well. The history of these two geographic regions with violence against refugees is subservience to colonialism.
Delete"Out of one side of its mouth, the liberal says global warming is real."
The thing we're supposed to be scared of is called "climate change".
Because having global-cooling today and global-warming tomorrow is too confusing.
12:05 PM
DeleteAre climate refugees real too?
No. I don't think anyone claiming to be "climate refugee" would be granted refugee status by any judge anywhere on Earth.
Delete
Delete12:14 PM
What would be your choice of words for a persons or groups of persons who, predominantly for reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that adversely affect their lives or living conditions, move within their country or abroad and are obliged to leave their habitual homes, or choose to do so, either temporarily or permanently?
The best outcome for Palestinians would be if Hamas was eradicated and the Palestinian population were was integrated into Western Civilization by the Israeli "colonizers".
DeleteThe best outcome for you would be to stop being a clueless western supremacist imperialist.
DeleteSee even 1:41 PM and the conservative agrees its colonialism.
DeleteAnonymouse 1:41pm, no one is more clueless than people who think as you do. And all the gods on Mt Olympus were less designing and autocratic.
Delete"We may tell them whatever we like about the innocence of our aims,
Deletewatering them down and sweetening them with honeyed words to make them
palatable, but they know what we want, as well as we know what they do not want.
They feel at least the same instinctive jealous love of Palestine, as the old Aztecs felt
for ancient Mexico , and their Sioux for their rolling Prairies"
Zionist propaganda 4.11.1923
2:08 PM, you were born too late. We live in the post-colonial era now. The white man's burden is not what it used to be. But you don't know it. That's how I know you're clueless. That wasn't an insult. It was a statement of fact.
Delete"[W]hen 2.5 million people live in a closed-off Gaza, it's going to be a human catastrophe. Those people will become even bigger animals than they are today, with the aid of an insane fundamentalist Islam. The pressure at the border will be awful. It's going to be a terrible war. So, if we want to remain alive, we will have to kill and kill and kill. All day, every day."
DeleteZ.P. 2009
Yes, female emancipation and laws against torture and human sacrifices are so unromantic.
Deletehttp://web.archive.org/web/20040829142317/http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1085023337456&apage=4
DeleteIt's not emancipation to make women do your dirty work.
DeleteThe laws against female emancipation were codified by the British over a hundred years ago.
DeleteThe reason you can be killed for blasphemy in Central Asian states is the fundamentalist Islam was the chosen inheritor of the half-revolutions against colonialism.
DeleteThe West has been holding Central Islam in place from developing for decades now. England funds the wahabbis.
DeleteNear and Central Asian states*
DeleteYou’re very selective in your romancing.
DeleteYou're victim blaming because you want to feel the world is safer than it really is.
Delete2:24 PM, you really do think that your western culture is universal and superior, don't you? And you really do want to civilize the others, and make them happy, even if against their will? There are many words describing this attitude. The least insulting I can think of is 'hubris'. It doesn't end well. Everyone hates you. Which is well-deserved, but unfortunately they also hate me, because I look like you. And that's why I dislike your attitude.
DeleteAnonymouse 2:30pm, so that’s your answer for suggesting that Enlightenment principles wouldn't be the thing that happened to them?
DeleteAnonymouse 2:38pm, oh, my goodness, yes. Absolutely.
DeleteYes, @2:38, I really do think that my western culture is universal and superior. I think the subjugation of women, and rape and torture and kidnapping and murder of innocents are universally bad. I think tolerance of other races and religions is universally good. YMMV
DeleteThis is confusing. So, why there is so much "subjugation of women, and rape and torture and kidnapping and murder of innocents" in your culture?
DeleteYour culture kills far above and beyond of any other culture. Not too long ago, less than 100 years, your culture was gassing people on industrial scale and making lamp shades from their skin. Right now it's carpet-bombing the most densely populated are in the world. Something's weird about your pride.
Cecelia, Israel doesn't want the Palestinians to integrate into its civilization. It wants them to go away.
DeleteZionists used to need them for cheap manual labor. But it seems that they prefer to import labor from Thailand now. Similar to Westerners in America preferring Africans over the natives.
DeleteRight now Israel humiliates the prisoners of its occupation with forced stripping, they have to walk through military checkpoints to go to work. But tell me how it's great they let women do the taxes for men who don't work cause they're too busy studying religion. How that's so much more Enlightened than going to a Mosque.
DeleteAh, the European Enlightenment. European Enlightenment is many, many things. Some of them controversial, some contradictory. Sort of like the Bible. Doesn't it also entail tolerance? Tolerance towards other cultures? Live and let live.
DeleteGosh, we have to walk through forced checkpoints every time we go to a baseball game. Are we feeling humiliated? Not so much. Mostly we feel safer because of it. The problem in Israel is that Palestinians keep engaging in suicide bombings and armed attacks on Israelis, so it takes a lot more for them to ensure the safety of the non-Palestinians
DeleteI would want Palestinians to "go away" too, if they kept attacking me and my family and friends.
Delete"England funds the wahabbis."
DeleteEngland is a large place. Could you possibly be more specific?
A vague statement like that is nothing more than propaganda.
"We can't assess the accuracy of Lowenstein's more detailed economic analysis."
ReplyDeleteIf Somerby cannot assess Lowenstein's economic analysis of Trump's performance as president, then it leaves Somerby with selecting Lowenstein as a sage only because he has said something Somerby agrees with, that we should not "condescend" to Trump voters (whatever that means). Because most of what Lowenstein talks about is economic, being unable to evaluate those ideas leaves Somerby touting someone who may be considerable "off the mark" and advancing a guy who most of us on the left believe had no economic accomplishments beyond helping the rich and rewarding corporate and billionaire donors. What did Trump do for the poor? That is a more important question than whether we on the left condescend to the right wingers, in my opinion.
Poverty Rates for Blacks and Hispanics Reached Historic Lows in 2019
Deletehttps://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/09/poverty-rates-for-blacks-and-hispanics-reached-historic-lows-in-2019.html
"In 2019, the poverty rate for the United States was 10.5%, the lowest since estimates were first released for 1959."
This is what I found from the census when I googled poverty rates for black and Hispanic people:
Delete"U.S. Poverty Statistics – Race
While the poverty rate for the population is 11.5%, the rate varies greatly by race. Blacks have the highest poverty rate at 17.1%, and non-Hispanic whites and Asians have the lowest at 8.6%. The Poverty rate for Blacks and Hispanics is more than double that of non-Hispanic Whites."
It doesn't sound like what you posted at all. I suspect it is because you focused on the overall rate and not the specific rates for minorities, which are much higher.
If find your comment deceptive.
"When Democratic mayors and governors (and constituencies) finally began to complain, our pundit tribe finally began to respond."
ReplyDeleteThis is a misrepresentation by Somerby. Those Democratic mayors and governors have been asking for funding to deal with the influx of migrants, not "complaining".
I’m not dismissive of the notion AOC would and has said things I strongly take issue with. Yet I’m very suspicious Bob leaves out the outrageous comments he uses to tip in his argument because maybe they weren’t that outrageous?
ReplyDeleteProgressives have always sought common cause with the hard right or bullies who speak for them because they truly hate the more centrist lefties. Why? There are a lot of reasons, none of them are very good. Somewhat vaingloriously, they seem to see themselves as the only ones with the strength of their convictions, or they want what they want and don’t care who gets hurt. Admittedly, this has been a tougher dance in the age of Trump.
“Well you have a point Mr.,Churchill,” the comic Robert Klein once said mocking the both siderist, “but Mr. Hitler has a point too.” That pretty much sums up Bob he the age of Trump. There is no reason to believe he has considered the phenomenon with any seriousness. The important thing is to always hate on MSNBC.,
The rest of today's essay aligns with right wing claims that the left is woke, PC, believes academics who have told us that we have been racist, sexist and misguided in our past and need to change in order to achieve civil rights and social justice. Somerby has been against social progress for a very long time now, and today he picks out Gutfeld and Anand Giridharadas to tell us that we should back off our support for civil rights (human rights) and traditional Democratic issues because they are supported by the academy and attacked in the right wing culture wars. Somerby has found better allies than Bill Maher.
ReplyDeleteWhy would one of them be characterized as a progressive? Because the Bernie Bros decided that so-called identity issues distract from economic ones and ignored the intersectionality involved in women and minorities being among the poored economically speaking, to call for an exclusive focus on economics and class issues, setting aside other social problems. That leaves some progressives as fellow travelers with the right wing, perhaps for the same reasons -- Bernie wasn't very inclusive in his campaign and his bros may suffer from some of the same bigotries as he right. Including Somerby.
That is no reason for our party to abandon our traditional coalitions and concerns, including civil rights.
Fixing economic issues has powerful intersectional effects.
DeleteThe ability to deprive women and minorities of power comes as a function of the egoistic side of societies financial winners who take credit for inventions funded by the state or protected by a strict patent system. The need as Karl Marx said to have a class of people with nothing but their labor to sell is the chain worn around the neck of the world's proletariat, but heavily falls on what's called the minority population, but is especially those who have experienced racism, slavery and colonialism, which are all economic agendas that have to be defeated.
The Nanny State to the degree that it exists, has protected male doctors with the abortion issue. It gives media airwaves to a handfull of rich people who teach us to scream at each other and not them. The US media profitted off of Trump because he is a walking meme.
The ability to fight this was and is still being built in American culture, but depends on the politicians actually listening to us. We have to turn off the hate news and create campaign finance reform, so political action comittees are not standing in for what we call identity politics and we can have real actual involvement in choices beyond a simple vote every 4 years. We shouldn't have to march for so many issues just for one of the parties to listen to the collective's need for healthcare and education debts to be controlled through new funding streams.
If you think intersectionality means pretending economics isn't the main motivation for sexism, racism, and so on, then you are walking around looking through mirrored glasses.
We are stuck with this new guy until the election. Pro-Trump forces have brought in their troll to attack Biden from the supposed left. Smart progressives won’t be helping Trump but trolls just do this for the money.
Delete
Delete"It gives media airwaves to a handfull of rich people who teach us to scream at each other and not them."
This.
Well said, except it probably ain't "rich people" per se (Friedrich Engels wasn't poor), but rather something like 'upper-class institutions' or 'elitist institutions'.
Bro how do we know you aren't being funded by Wealthy Martian Crocodiles to make fun of Bernie. Relax I'm a third generation union organizer.
DeleteNot only is she funded by shape-shifting alien reptiloids, she is actually one of them.
DeleteAnyone can go on substack and write a regular column. Anyone with some tech know-how can start a podcast. It doesn't take money. There are no longer a limited number of broadcast frequencies administered by the FCC, but anyone can have a voice via the internet and there is nothing that even governments can do about it.
DeleteThis shibboleth about elitists and corporate control is becoming increasingly obsolete. We all have voices now.
Lowenstein refers to Trump's "toadying to dictators and shunning of American allies." Conservatives are given an opposite view of reality.
ReplyDeleteConservatives are told that when one looks at policies, one sees that Trump more than Biden supported our allies and opposed our enemies. We are told that Trump strongly supported allies like Israel and UK, more strongly than Biden. And, we are told that Biden is the one who toadies to our enemies, such as Iran.
Similarly, liberals are told that Trump tried to undermine NATO. Conservatives are told that Trump strengthened NATO.
Uncritical toadying to BeBe is not supporting Israel. He’s the “strongman” who allowed the attack.
DeleteHistorically the reason wars end is when there are too few weapons not too much support.
DeleteOne side overpowers the other forcing them to realize they cannot win.
DeleteThe strange thing about today's harsh split between red and blue America is that there is little disagreement on goals. We all want clean air and water, good education, peace, racial advancement, low crime, good economy, etc. No major issue divides us.
ReplyDeleteCompare this with with real past differences, such as slavery, or monetarization of silver, or whether to enter WW1 and WW2.
How have we become so divided when there is no big issue between us? How can the situation be improved?
I'll agree with you on this point, David. Our discussion too often begins with issues and devolves into accusations of faulty values. We need to start with values which are more widely shared.
DeleteHere's a problem, however. Let's start with a couple of value ideas: 1) Our nation's borders should be secure and orderly; 2) Our elected members of Congress should create necessary laws and fund enforcement agencies to enact those laws.
Agreed so far? Ducky.
Now the past several months have seen a great hue and cry from some of our representatives that our policies on allowing migrants into the country is too lax and that we're not adequately funding enforcement of our existing laws. Members of both major parties have spent months doing their jobs, for once, hammering out an agreement to more stringently limit the number of migrants coming across our border. Hooray!
But! Uh-oh! Now leading Senate Republicans find they are in "a quandry"! They plainly hold values 1) and 2) above. They've spent many hours telling us so. They've finally dragged their adversaries to the bargaining table and won long-sought concessions. They're getting precisely what they have loudly declared .was in the nation's best interests. So whenceforth this "quandry"?
Why, candidate Trump has won a primary election and Senate Republicans don't want to do anything that might undermine his candidacy. There is, evidently, an unknown x-value that supersedes shared values 1) and 2). This x-value wasn't part of the months-long negotiations in Congress nor is it even acknowledged in public.
And this is just one recent example. One party has pulled the Lucy-and-the-football gambit repeatedly across a range of issues. You ask how this situation can be improved? One way is apparent: one party needs to stop placing this unspoken x-value ahead of our shared and acknowledged values. Then we might start solving some problems.
Come on DIC. Trump's Red Supreme Court is decimating the EPA and other
Deleteregulatory agencies. Your Red leadership has no problem poisoning
folks, just as long as it impacts the blahs and not us. Republican
leadership in Mississippi and Michigan have no problems with lead in
black folks pipes. Under Trump, DeVos worked to gut public education
in favor of $$ charters. Fix your leadership who works only to help
their oligarch funders and maybe I will agree with you on some of your
hooey.
We are divided on purpose. It benefits the elite. Divide and conquer is the oldest trick in the book and they play it on us as perfectly as any rulership ever has in history.
DeleteThe Creel Comission was started in 1917 for WW1 and created propaganda for war. That was a major milestone, the war industry narrative.
DeleteThis narrative weaves around corporate erasure of collective agency, 1939 in "Management and the Worker" where corporations began the tone of "Sorry that's a problem for you, but we can't help."
In 1945 the marketing army of capital was sent to Washington to block Harry Truman's reasonable healthcare-for-all reformist tactic, calling it too Communist.
July 1958 Eisenhower realizes the Arab nations have a good reason to hate us in a staff discussion as the US continues imperialist aggression, in 1965 the US drops its first bomb on North Vietnemese Communists who ally with Ireland and Libya against Western empire.
Fast forward 3 years after Jimmy Carter was elected, a group of right-wing liberals decided to start shielding capitalists from the criticisms of progressives, in a 1982 manifesto for "neoliberalism."
The meetings in 1917, 1945, 1958, and 1982 are the real historic dates of when those in power who chase money have realized they were pushing us around.
They pushed Americans away from the levers of power and have to be corrected by a combination of good journalism and structural changes to political financing, especially the environments where we meet face to face, require integration between the classes and so -called races mixed: school, neighborhood, job.
The corporations call on our demons to overcome our intellect, and they want us to think we can consume our way out of every problem selfishly, when really we need to find some peace and organization with ourselves.
fast forward five years*
DeleteArty - exaggeration like yours is a way to maintain the blue/red divide. The EPA that you call "decimated" has a workforce of 18,742 employees and a budget of $12,083,000,000.00.
DeleteGibberish @3:53, paranoid conspiracy theory nonsense
DeleteDick in Cal, lived through the turbulent '60s, where people fought and died for civil rights, and the Vietnam war tore this country apart, but you notice those two examples didn't make his list of "real past differences". The country was never more united once we entered WW1 or certainly WW2. Anyone know what the fuck Dick in Cal is talking about?
DeleteHow have we become so divided when there is no big issue between us?
When you die, why don't you ask Rush Limbaugh and Rupert Murdoch, ok champ?
The EPA that you call "decimated" has a workforce of 18,742 employees and a budget of $12,083,000,000.00.
DeleteWhat the fuck does that matter when the bought and paid for Supreme Court continually undermines their ability to act?
Denial is not just a river in Egypt, Dic.
Dave, one guy named Leonard Leo has handcuffed those 19,000 employees. Google Supreme Court and EPA, or Supreme Court and Chevron. You are really poorly informed. When the USSC took away over half of the country's wetlands, benefitting Harlan Crowe, one of your two favorite black men failed to recuse himself. I mean it is like you never heard the conservative get out the cry of destroy the administrative state.
Delete"Is it possible that some of those voters really aren't bigots? Is it possible that most of these voters aren't?"
ReplyDeleteHere's how my own father-in-law put it: "I don't care that he's racist. I'd vote for him again."
So if a perfectly kind and open-hearted voter is aware of Trump's past and is willing to set it aside because of his economic policies, is that voter deciding in a way that can be called racist? It's not unreasonable to say so.
Trump is not a liberal. So, how can he be racist? Your imaginary father-in-law can't be serious.
DeleteTe anecdote with the father-in-law avoids the question.
DeleteTrump used to be a Democrat. Ask yourself why he might have switched parties.
DeleteWhat did AOC say? The linked transcript doesn’t really say.
ReplyDelete"Donald Trump affirms insecure men's idea of masculinity. Affirms insecure people's ideas of wealth. Insecure white folks idea of race."
DeleteI still love and admire AOC.
DeleteThis is my last comment. If you see any more comments from “Corby” you’ll know they’re fake. Farewell. I am Corby.
ReplyDeleteI'll miss you, Corby. Compared to the rest of the commenters, you're a breath of fresh air.
DeleteAnonymouse2:22pm, you’re a hoot.
DeleteDiC - Core PCE 2.9% YoY! Things just keep getting better all the time, don't they?
ReplyDeleteWant economic good news to continue? Vote for Biden and the Democrats.
DeleteI agree George. The current economic news is generally excellent.
DeleteThis is an example where David is more cognitive than Cecelia.
DeleteDiC - (This is a general comment, not a political one.)
DeleteWhen times are bad, you know it. When times are good, you don’t really realize it until they’re gone.
When times are good, you do realize it. You know when you're better off today than four years ago. And for most people it's not the case today.
DeleteBut YMMV, maybe for you it is. Good for you.
“And for most people it’s not the case today.”
DeleteWant to bet? What stat do you want to use? Median income? Median wealth? You pick. And you pick the stakes, too.
George, when you win the bet, how are you going to collect?
Deletehttps://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
DeleteThanks - this shows real information. And adjusted for inflation, too. Median income peaked right before the pandemic and fell thereafter through 2022. Unfortunately, it doesn’t give info for 2023, the boom year. So - we could have a true bet. Think 2023 will be higher or lower than 2019? (I’m going with the over.)
Delete