WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15, 2025
Also, how did we earn our way out? Even as we've "moved on" with our subject matter this week, we haven't abandoned this important basic belief:
Those of us in Blue America need to develop a stronger sense of how and why we lost the last election.
More pungently, we need to develop a stronger sense of the ways we Blues may have earned our way out—of the ways we may have managed to drive voters away over the past five or six decades, but also in just the last handful of years.
How did we lose to a guy like Trump? All too often, we Blues seem to have no earthly idea. That led to an interesting discussion on this morning's Morning Joe—a discussion featuring Ed Luce, U.S. national editor at the Financial Times.
You can see the videotape of the segment here. For better or worse, for richer or poorer, the videotape appears at the Morning Joe site beneath this challenging headline:
History will remember Biden as being the "bridge back to Trump." argues writer
Ouch! Is that how President Biden will be remembered? The conversation was trigged by Luce's new column for the FT, with which we largely (though not totally) agree.
Luce's column triggered a solid discussion. Dual headline included, the column starts like this:
Joe Biden’s tragic curtain call
Hubris kept him too long in the presidential race and he will be remembered chiefly for easing Trump’s returnIf the essence of Greek tragedy is that the hero is undone by his flaws, Joe Biden gets star billing. He defeated Donald Trump, stood up to Russia, enacted more reforms than Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and bequeaths a robust economy. That made Biden a hero to America’s left and beyond. Yet most of his achievements will now be erased. His legacy is Trump’s return. After Biden, the deluge. He largely has himself to blame.
The Greek tragic hero’s defect is hubris. Last week, Biden said he could have won the 2024 election had he stayed in the race. This was in spite of the fact that just 27 per cent of Americans last June thought he had the cognitive ability to be president again. It is likelier that Trump would have won a far bigger victory. Whatever blame Kamala Harris deserves, her vote came within 1.5 percentage points of Trump’s.
Much has yet to be reported about the conspiracy of silence around Biden’s waning capacities. Though he was shielded from press conferences and other unscripted events, it was an open secret in Washington that his mind was in decline. Biden’s inner cabinet of family and longtime aides should take some of the blame. It was also a media failing. The rare journalist who blew the whistle risked loss of access and ostracism on liberal social media.
But the buck stops with Biden. Had he redeemed his vow to be a one-term “bridge” to the post-Trump era, the Democratic party would have had time to find a stronger candidate than Harris—someone who could have distanced themselves from what was unpopular about Biden’s economy. Instead, an isolated Biden was cut off from public sentiment...
Will President Biden be remembered as the person who let Trump return to power? We don't know the answer to that, but we'd say it's entirely possible.
We agree with Luce about that possibility. We're less inclined to blame Biden himself for the way he initially stayed in the race, then left in late July.
Why are we less inclined than Luce to blame President Biden himself? Simple! If he was affected by cognitive decline—since August 2023, it has seemed to us that he probably was—we don't know the extent to which he can be blamed for his failure to exercise better judgment.
With respect to that apparent decline, we agree with Luce when he says that a lot of reporting remains to be done—reporting about those within the Biden camp, but also about those within the mainstream press corps.
We don't know what that reporting would show. Moving right along, we'd say this:
In our view, a great deal remains to be said about the various (possible) ways we Blues (may have) lost votes in the past several years—about the various ways we may have earned our way out.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but we humans are disinclined to blame ourselves when things go disastrously wrong. Keeping that basic fact in mind, how did we manage to lose to Candidate Donald J. Trump?
In our view, it isn't as simple as saying that everyone's racist but us. In our view, the possible answers are many. It just isn't that simple at all.
Luce's column triggered a lively discussion on Morning Joe. (Early warnings from David Ignatius and Ezra Klein were mentioned.) We hope many more such discussions will follow.
In our view, we Blues have been earning our way out over the course of the past sixty years. We ourselves were physically present when this whole thing started, way back in the fall of '65.
In November, all this unwise tribal behavior finally hit the fan. We Blues need to discuss our roads to defeat. This morning's Morning Joe provided a bit of a start.
ReplyDelete"Ouch! Is that how President Biden will be remembered?"
Hmm. If that's "ouch", remember that he still has a few days left -- to start a nuclear war. To pardon every Democrat pedo? To send a trillion dollars to his accomplices in Eastern Europe? Damn, who knows what else; I don't even want to think about it.
The question is this:
DeleteDoes the Right-wing Supreme Court's theory of complete Presidential immunity allow Biden to start a nuclear war, pardon every Democrat (sic) pedo, and send a trillion dollars to his accomplices in Eastern Europe, or does it encourage Biden to do so?
The court's immunity decision is misunderstood and misrepresented.
DeleteThe court ruled that the President can't be held criminally liable for official acts. That doesn't mean every action is legal, just that you can't charge the President with a crime for doing it. If Biden (or any president) sent a trillion dollars to accomplices, any number of federal agencies could block that action or attempt to recover the money. It just couldn't throw Biden in jail for doing it.
As for pardons, the court's decision is irrelevant. That's a black-letter Constitutionally authorized power of the office.
Vagina balls
DeleteThis kind of stuff is always amusing because it suggests the writer doesn't know that every fetus starts out female but develops into a male if it has an XY pair of chromosomes and the right amount of testosterone in utero. That means that the clitoris in a girl baby elongates and becomes a penis, while the structures that form the labia and vagina become balls. That is if the fetus develops normally (as most do). Statistically, a small number of anomalies also occur that result in abnormal genitalia. This may be caused by chromosome combinations different than XY or XX, or by unusual testosterone levels due to a variety of medical conditions and even some medications given to pregnant women. I doubt @5:13 knows this stuff, but was just trying to write something offensive about intersex or biologically anomalous people. That is both juvenile and cruel, but you be you.
DeleteThere is no evidence that Biden’s judgement was impaired, as Somerby claims. The rest of his essay hinges on that unsupported belief.
ReplyDeleteIs “earning our way out” kid slang? It is a phrase that makes no sense. It seems most likely we will find massive cheating on Trump’s part. There is already evidence of that. Sticking by our Democratic party principles is insufficient to explain why Dems stayed home, but the abandonment of Biden, the best president since FDR, would explain it. Somerby can’t considdr that because he was part of it.
ReplyDeleteIn recent days, big name straight-shooting journalists have interviewed Biden and afterwards have indicated that Biden is not suffering from cognitive decline.
ReplyDeleteSomerby is an asshole.
"We ourselves were physically present when this whole thing started, way back in the fall of '65."
ReplyDeleteAuuuughh!
Elites don't like to pass the baton. They are fully capable of knowing how to do so.
ReplyDeleteLiberals are too busy on their armchairs with Kleenex handy thinking of being ravished by rugged conservative goons to find any footing.
ReplyDeleteDoes it make you feel all rough and manly to imagine such a thing?
Delete"First, will convention-chosen candidate X do better than Biden? As I noted on Friday, polling evidence makes that assumption at least highly questionable. That’s not the only question. Is early 21st century America really ready for a party nominee literally chosen by a few thousand party insiders and activists? I have real doubts about that. Will the convention not become a forum for litigating highly divisive issues like Gaza, Medicare for All and the broader contest between progressives and establishment-oriented liberals? The last half century of American politics has been based on the idea that the convention is a highly scripted unity launch event. This alternative would mean a free for all, in which the choice between a number of quite promising candidates will be made by a group whose legitimacy will likely be highly suspect. Not good!"
ReplyDeletehttps://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/no-ezra-klein-is-completely-wrong-heres-why
If you say you don't know people don't be surprised when they don't fuck with you
DeleteOne explanation
Delete“Why This Lifelong Democrat Voted for Trump
By Chris Fenton
January 14, 2025
This past November, I cast a ballot that I never would have expected: I voted for Donald Trump.
As a lifelong Democrat, this decision was not rooted in ideology, but instead born of personal frustration with America’s broken systems – financial, judicial, and political.”
Abov from David in Cal
DeleteLink
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/01/14/why_this_lifelong_democrat_voted_for_trump_152188.amp.html
Another answer:
DeleteVanity Fair contributing editor Fran Liebowitz was being snide when she said that Trump is “a poor person’s idea of a rich person,” but she was also hitting on a foundational element of his appeal. In American terms, Trump is fundamentally aligned with the working poor because he doesn’t look down on them and because, though he has more money than them, he uses it (and regards them) in ways they find appealing. He may have grown up extremely wealthy and moved to Manhattan—but he’s still Donald from Queens. In European terms, Americans voted for Trump in record numbers in 2024 because we have no class.
Unless and until the American Left relearns that lesson, they will remain in the political wilderness.
https://americanmind.org/salvo/unwinding-woke-americas-classless-act/
It is not uncommon for someone to get so frustrated fidding with something they cannot fix that they throw it against the wall, breaking it irreparably. This breaks down when you consider that the object in question is our democracy and the break down will have huge consequences for us all, especially the most exposed and fragile among us. If someone cannot restrain themselves from committing destructive acts out of frustrated, it is better if they don't vote at all.
DeleteThe person out over his skiis in this scenario is Trump. He should look up what happened to Caligula and Commodus (from Gladiator I) and see what happens when tyrants piss off too many people. Engaging in self-harm is self-defeating and that is what voting for Trump is.
Fran Leibowitz would never have written for americanmind.org and she no doubt does not endorse any conclusion drawn from her own remark about Trump.
DeleteThere is no question that some of the working poor find Trump appealing (God knows why) but Trump absolutely looks down on the working poor and has nothing to do with them, as much as possible. He hires immigrants to do his own menial jobs and will do nothing to keep the promises he has made to them (such as lowering food prices or mortgage rates or increasing access to health and social services that the poor depend on). People in NYC reviled Trump when he lived there and they did not vote for him, despite his being a nominal "favorite son".
The Claremont Institute should not be telling such lies about Trump.
I would rush right over to read your link, Dickhead, however I just ate dinner.
DeleteI am more aligned with The Rude Pundit.
....I'm a fan of simple explanations, and the simplest explanation, by far, is that the majority of Americans of voting age are stupid. I mean that in a few ways. If you stayed home and didn't vote because you don't care about any of this, you're stupid. If you didn't vote because you hated both candidates, you're stupid. People on the left who didn't vote or voted third-party because of specific issues? Stupid. If that includes you, then I mean you. Letting Donald Trump back into office is the stupidest thing this country has done since at least the Vietnam War. (Yes, it is stupider than electing him the first time.)
By far, though, and it's no contest, the absolutely stupidest voters were the ones who voted for Trump. Let me qualify that: if you voted for Trump, you're stupid or evil or some unholy combination of both, in which case you've probably been tapped to be in Trump's administration. I've gone on at length before about my contempt for Trump voters and my refusal to try to "understand" them. (As I've said, I won't treat them like children. I'll treat them like adults who made an adult decision that's objectively wrong and respond accordingly.)https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/
You like that because it shifts the focus away from Democrat's responsibility for the election loss. It's a deflection mechanism. Everyone else is stupid, therefore, any uncomfortable examination of our own messaging, strategy, or policies is not needed. Your sense of superior intelligence and moral superiority remains intact - which bad news for anyone who would like to see the party win again, let alone survive another decade.
DeleteI didn't say I like that explanation. It is just depressing reality. Nothing I can do about it.
Delete@6:33 The Rude Pundit is missing the point. Maybe the majority of voters are stupid. But they were equally stupid in 2020 as in 2024. So, the question is why Trump did better in 2024.
DeleteYou can't blame the people who voted against Trump for Trump's election. Deflection is meaningless in this context. Rude pundit is providing his explanation. I agree with it. My own observation of those around me who voted for Trump and those who didn't, is that the Trump voters were not the brightest bulbs. We tried to educate them but they preferred to look at Hunter Biden's dick pics. Today MTG is saying that the Dems in CA should have used their weather-generating machines (that cause the hurricanes) to stop those strong winds so the fires could be put out. How smart is that? And you own her, she's one of yours.
DeleteYou keep talking about intelligence but actually, all that Republicans need is to focus on facts and educate themselves instead of believing lies and propaganda -- you included.
Reality always wins because "it is what is." Look at Trump and see what he really is. One way to start is to compare his campaign promises in 2016 with what he actually accomplished. Did he make covid go away? No. Did you get tired of winning? No. Did he even close the border? No. He didn't even build his wall (but he did keep the money people donated). Easy to blame Democrats for being intelligent, when we are nearly always right about this stuff. But that isn't actually the flaw you think it is.
David, do you not believe that part of the explanation is that mail-in ballots were used in 2020 due to covid, but not in 2024 when there was increased suppression of Democratic votes and even bomb threats used to close black polling places? Do you not believe that racism and sexism affect Harris's ability to attract the bro voters? Do you not believe that voters needed more time to get to know Harris and her shortened time to campaign may have affected her support? Do you not believe that the rift over Palestine may have driven a wedge in the Democratic party between progressives who supported Gaza and those supporting Israel? Do you not think that the campaign against the Bidens spreading unsubstantiated accusations of corruption involving Hunter might have given some voters misgivings about the Democrats?
DeleteThese are all explanations that Somerby never considers. That suggests he is not really interested in figuring out what happened, but merely wants to call Democrats names and accuse us of being mean to red voters. Republicans have been hating Democrats, calling us the spawn of the devil, demons, evil pedos for decades now. Anything we say against Republicans is mild compared to that ongoing hate campaign,. But Somerby says we lose elections when we do such things, whereas the Republicans only win bigger when they say Hillary was eating children during Pizzagate or Biden had sex with his own daughter. There is an imbalance here and Somerby is perpetuating it, not challenging it. Who attacks Democrats? Republicans. That's why some of us do not believe Somerby when he pretends to be liberal or to have Democratic interests at heart. If he did, he would sound a lot different here, a great deal less like a conservative and a lot more like a normal person on the left.
This comment is simply more blame-shifting and moral superiority. You raise good points about the need for critical thinking but the dismissal of any self-reflection only serves to help you avoid dealing with more complex explanations for Trump’s appeal. And understanding those explanations is the only way Democrats can get up off the mat and live to fight another day. I do realize that it's a completely psychological phenomenon that is driving you.
DeleteI guess the one small thing we can all be thankful for is that you haven't yet devolved into your nightly ritual of acting like a total jackass after becoming bereft of anything meaningful or interesting to say.
Delete@7:52 - Yes, your explanations all make sense. Maybe they fully account for Biden's loss in 2024.
DeleteHowever, suppose you think about the question of why Biden lost in terms of how the answer provides guidance for the Dems in 2028? What changes should the Dems make to win in 2028? The only changes the Dems can make are their own behavior. Most of the things you list are not under Dems control.
Biden's loss was slim. That means that a combination of several small factors could have produced it. The guidance for 2028 is, in my opinion, to pick a strong candidate, run as good a campaign as Harris did but longer, avoid splitting the base and creating rifts within the party, and follow the suggestions of the campaign experts. No one has suggested that the Dems did anything major wrong, except for shoving Biden aside and leaving Harris too little time to campaign. That is easily solved. Many have pointed out that Harris ran the same campaign as Biden did, but under different conditions. I think Dems are already planning to address the voter turnout concerns and deal with right-wing voter suppression through the courts and locally. Dems are focused now on limiting the damage Trump may do and building stronger local party efforts. Progressives are working on financial inequality issues, such as getting money out of campaigns, limiting the influence of billionaires and preventing our system from becoming more of an oligarchy. We liberals are focusing on protecting immigrants from abuse, protecting the social safety net and helping the needy in our local communities. We expect that Trump is a unique one-off candidate with an unusual combination of charisma and stupidity. He will retire or die and politics can then return to normal, hopefully without becoming an autocracy before that happens. Limiting Trump's damage is an important task and someone needs to care enough to do it.
DeleteI guess it's true that anything you believe is going to come from the blogs you read. Any healthy self-reflection has to come from the top down in cases like yours and the other members of the vindictive bubbles of groupthink that now run amok.
DeleteAnd you aren't running amok at all, I suppose?
Delete
DeleteGood comeback. Touche'.
As Mitch Hedberg said, "I told the crowd to fuck off the other day, but then I felt bad so I said alright, fuck back on."
Delete"History will remember Biden as being the "bridge back to Trump." argues writer..."
ReplyDeleteNo, history will remember Biden as the president who fought covid, reduced deaths and kept our economy out of trouble as we recovered from the pandemic. Biden was challenged as few presidents have been, and he rose to that challenge, producing a robust economy, keeping the US out of foreign wars, making progress against threats to the environment and global warming, legalizing marijuana, and moving forward with a large number of progressive and Democratic party initiatives, including support for unions, erasure of as much student debt and the courts would allow, and protecting public lands as National Monuments.
As time goes by, the accomplishments of Biden will out-last the smear campaign of the right wing and the public will appreciate his hard work. That will happen because history gives perspective, but also because the lies will fade but his successes will persist.
It is to Biden's credit that he didn't quit on the job after the election but continued his work. He produced the cease-fire and surrender of Hamas, not Trump's blowhard threats. Threats without negotiations are useless. Trump is incompetent and does not have the staff to sort through all of the loose ends needed to bring a close to the Gaza conflict (for the time being). Biden did the hard work to bring that to completion and he did it during his own term, working against the deadline of Trump's transition to office. Under similar circumstances, Trump was so petty that he hid the pencils from the incoming administration, while plotting a coup that he was too incompetent to accomplish. Trump is a joke. Biden is a mensch.
Referring to "ostracism on liberal social media' is important too - there is an echo chamber there that does not discuss issues in good faith. Or in comment sections on liberal blogs like 'Lawyers Guns and Money', any dissent from the party line whatsoever is not tolerated. Like a cult, they have conversation ending cliches to stop any good faith discussion. For instance in discussing important issues, like repeating debunked Russiagate novels, instead of dealing with the substance they will simply say “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer” as if that ends all discussion and absolves the Democratic Party of having made mistakes of overreach. They will do anything to not own up to the mistakes the Democratic Party has made and to not own up to the fact they are not that smart and people don't like them. Even after this latest trouncing. You see it in these comments all the time - desperate children, in some cases resorting to acting like total jackasses, in others resorting to flights of tortured and bizarre reasoning - all to avoid healthy self-reflection that would prevent losses like this last one. The history books will write abut how social media created an entrenched authoritarian echo chamber that resisted all change, even when faced with massive amounts of evidence that their current approach was leading to failure. Which it did.
ReplyDeleteWell, that phrase about loving it was true. You don't rebut it by saying it is a cliche. Russia did collude with Trump. They're still doing it -- Trump is still Putin's lapdog. This election wasn't about whether the Dems are smart or not. It was about whether we should elect an honest president or a crook like Trump. People chose the crook and they will have to suffer because of that choice. What would have prevented this? A justice system that worked faster, a media that pointed out lies instead of repeating them (they tried but it was half-hearted at best), stopping Trump's collusion with foreign countries and charging him with treason for sharing those classified docs, Republicans with integrity (more of them), putting Trump in jail where felons go. Republicans apparently do not care how many crimes he commits. Now he is talking about invading Greenland. How is that tolerable by either party? What is impeachment for, or Article 25?
DeleteTrump can cheat his way through life, but he can't change the laws of nature. I predict that he will have a heart attack or other major health crisis midway through his term and then JD Vance will have to show what kind of person he is. Or maybe Trump will try to nuke Denmark and an adult will step forward and take away his toys. We can only hope.
Meanwhile @7:06 says Dems aren't taking responsibility and yet he clearly supports this orange baboon in all of his crimes. How's that for not taking responsibility and avoiding good faith discussion? Who gets to show top secret classified docs to unauthorized people, while storing nuclear secrets in his bathroom, AND NOTHING IS FUCKING DONE ABOUT IT?
You are continuing to shift blame entirely to external forces (Trump, Republicans, media failures) without addressing whether Democratic strategies could have contributed to their historic defeat. By framing your comment as entirely about Trump’s wrongdoing, you avoid engaging with issues like the potential shortcomings of Democrats. This reinforces the very echo chamber behavior I mentioned. You even throw in a couple of conversation-ending cliches! These are all natural, self-defense mechanisms. At this point, the issue is so wrapped up in your ego that admitting any faults would be basically the same as death.
DeleteRight, I do not believe that Democrats lost the election by using the wrong words or campaigning on joy or being too woke, or whatever Somerby's silliness of the day happens to be.
DeleteHarris ran an issues-oriented campaign, much more than Trump did. She gave solid interviews and won the debate. She appealed to the base but also reached out on social media (more than Trump did). She had major endorsements from everyone except the right-wing newspapers and the papers that sold out to Bezos and the new owner of the LA Times (another billionaire). She had no major gaffes and ran an excellent campaign, according to experienced campaign managers. None of that has anything to do with Democrat egos. It is what happened. And yet she lost. Because there is not much she could do differently according to most analyses (she can't magically become white or male), the answer to why she lost must be outside the campaign itself and that means looking at external factors.
I know for a fact that I didn't go around being super intelligent and annoying my friends and relatives, while carrying an "I am a Democrat, cope with it" sign. So how exactly did I cause Harris to lose? What fault could any of us have that would drive people to Trump? No, those folks voted for him willingly, attracted to fakery because they were too stupid to think well. Their vote for Trump shows that.
So, if you or Somerby is going to tell us that we caused Trump to win, you need to specify how that happened. So far, Somerby has not done so. Simply telling people they are annoying when they act all smart, doesn't close the loop. Are we supposed to all become Gomer Pyle during election season? What exactly did we do to cause such a shift?
I believe the right wing fascination with ball tanning and their anxieties over manliness caused them to vote for Trump. That may be a backlash to feminism and more women in more visible jobs everywhere (judging by Musk's attack on DEI and female Fire Chiefs), but the solution is not to roll back gains for women and return to the middle ages. Right wingers can elect as many Trumps as they can suffer, but women are not going back to the bad old days. Notice that this is not a mea culpa either, but I think it has some truth. My contribution would be to have had a professional career and one child instead of being a trad wife with 11 and counting (Musk's brood). Musk is doing that because he thinks he has superior genes. Why doesn't that drive Republicans away from Trump when he says it?
You are still focusing on external factors and dismissing opposing views, which avoids the hard work of understanding why the election was lost and how to win future ones. You are still employing moral absolutism by emphasizing your own intelligence and virtue against that of the stupid, insecure Trump voters. What you say about them may be true but it still avoids the self-reflection and emotional labor that is needed to truly understand the reasons for the loss and adapt for future success. This is a natural human reaction that protects your ego and maintains the very groupthink that played such a big part in the last defeat.
DeleteI just introspected on my responsibility for what is going on, and this guy doesn't recognize what happened.
DeleteSorry, but he sounds like an AI now, just repeating some pop psychology crap.
DeleteThat's still avoids any self-reflection.
DeleteAIs cannot self reflect so how would they know whether I am doing it or not?
Deletei gave this a lot of self reflection, and what i gather is I made a huge mistake listening to Somerby, who in turn asked me to listen to "the others'. The bigotry dripping from every pore of their being as they explained why they would vote for Trump blinded me to the fact that that was all they really cared about, and that no matter what Biden did to help the citizens, the others would still not be happy because it might have also helped a black person.
DeleteMy bad.
I watched Michael Fanone on MSNBC recently reflect on the anniversary of January 6. Fanone had been abducted by the mob on Jan. 6 and nearly killed when a MAGA-hatted rioter who believed Trump's lies about the 2020 election drove a stun gun into his neck. His own mother has been harassed and swatted by trump loving maggots. He summed it all up neatly. The people who voted for trump simply don't give a shit about any of that.
DeleteAt the end of the day, a majority of Americans wanted Donald Trump to be president, and they didn't give a damn about anything else. They hate what he hates. They want to see retribution agains the imagined foes he's conjured. They did this even with everything they knew about him and his extravagant criminality and treason. They simply didn't believe it or they liked it. His voters might have been misinformed about a lot of things, but they know who Trump is, and they're completely fine with it. Where we see a rapist and a felon and a coup leader, they see a Tony Soprano-like antihero. Where we saw a competent and accomplished Democratic candidate, they saw a communist harridan who will force schools to give sex changes to children and let Venezuelans take over towns out west. You laugh, but they hold this as true. God, they want to punish immigrants and women and trans people so fucking badly they can taste it. They want their tears and blood and screams to bathe them. https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2024/11/america-is-floating-island-of-garbage.html
Losing an election doesn't mean we "earned" the loss. Trump won in 2016 by cheating.
ReplyDeleteIf Somerby cannot pinpoint what we did wrong, I am not going to accept his nebulous blame. I consider everyone who voted for Trump to have earned their way out of the category of good decent people and brought disaster on all of our heads. Somerby should be concentrating on convincing those guys that they did wrong. We Dems didn't bring this on our country, especially not via mild complaints such as being too self-satisfied without our own virtue (or however Somerby is framing this idea today). It was a virtue to avoid voting for Trump and I am proud to be among those who didn't get taken in by his huge con, even if Trump won (most likely using tactics like vote suppression, gerrymandering, lying, appeals to racism and sexism, buying off media, and other shenanigans we may not yet know about. We did not do the wrong thing when we pointed out that Trump is a convicted felon, rapist and con man. That should have been obvious even to Republicans.
There is no shame in running a clean race and losing to a cheat. We have our integrity and the right will get their comeuppance, if only by being milked into poverty by their cherished billionaires like Elon and Zuck.
Somerby is both an asshole and an idiot when he repeats this tiresome and insulting theme.
You feel this way because it deflects from an introspective examination of why Trump's message resonated with voters. The election outcome shook your belief in the moral superiority of Democrats. Labeling Trump voters as morally deficient allows you to reinforce your sense of virtue without reconsidering Democrat's approach or assumptions.
DeleteCheating, vote suppression, gerrymandering, and media manipulation may be real concerns, but they have to be considered along with the discomfort of examining any strategic missteps or blind spots within the Democratic Party. And you are not capable of doing that. It requires a vulnerability you are too afraid to access.
My introspection tells me that Trump is an idiot and a criminal. I have thought that about Trump forever, including before he ran for president the first time. I get why his message appealed to idiots, but that doesn't make him or them right. It makes them dupes. And yes, they are morally deficient when they elect a rapist and traitor president, after being told exactly what he did.
DeleteIf you can see strategic missteps or blind spots, please list them. Somerby promised to list reasons why good decent people might have voted for Trump but has so far not done so. If you have insights you think are being ignored, produce a list. It should not include things like "you're all too arrogant and full of yourselves" unless you think WE were the ones who ran for president. Hint: we didn't.
Unless you have a degree in psychology or counseling, I suggest you avoid using words like vulnerability when you clearly don't know what they mean and are using them mainly as name-calling and to whine about people not agreeing with your opinions.
Another similar word (perhaps the one you were looking for) is insight. Trump has the least insight of any man on the planet. Other narcissists are similarly lacking in insight because any introspection would challenge their belief in themselves as supreme beings entitled to use others as pawns for their own self-interest. There is some irony in you accusing touchy-feely Democrats of lacking insight when your own Dear Leader is the biggest example of someone who cannot admit any vulnerability, weakness, mistake, need for improvement ever. If being unable to introspect due to inability to be vulnerable were a liability during an election, Trump would have lost bigly. It didn't seem to hurt him though. Why do you think that is? Perhaps it is because Trump voters identify with his supposed strength and think they will win along with him, because he says so and makes them feel important. Are you perhaps suggesting that Harris didn't win because she didn't blatantly manipulate her voters the way Trump does? If so, good for her.
Here are some Democratic mistakes and opportunities for healthy self reflection that may have drove good, decent people to vote for Trump. Somerby mentioned these last week:
Delete- Failing to engage meaningfully with the erosion of American discourse and intellect.
- Ignoring the apparent dysfunction in President Biden’s policies, particularly at the southern border.
- Ignoring President Biden’s refusal or inability to address major issues openly.
- Focusing excessively on the idea of "Locking Trump Up" rather than addressing substantive policy concerns.
- Spending countless hours neglecting issues important to the electorate.
- Disappearing topics that matter more to the electorate, such as economic and social issues.
- Looking down on "the basket of deplorables" and perpetuating disdain for certain demographics over decades.
- Pursuing extreme or absurd positions in "woke" ideology without self-awareness or critique.
- Refusing to acknowledge the plain absurdities in some tribal manifestations of progressivism.
- Refusing to recognize or address concerns about President Biden’s apparent cognitive or leadership issues.
- Claiming, against visible evidence, that Biden was "sharp as a tack."
- Remaining oblivious to their own intellectual failings, which are apparent to others.
- Failing to self-reflect and course-correct despite clear evidence of missteps.
1. This one is too vague to be meaningful. How exactly did Dems fail to engage when they attempted to use a variety of means of communication during the campaign? Erosion is Somerby's opinion of the changes involving social media and independent media, but there is no going back to his good old days, so we had to engage with what exists, which we did well.
Delete2. Stats do not support your assertion that Biden did not address the Southern border. Crossings and encounter decreased dramatically during his term reaching their lowest level this month.
3. This is usually code for "Biden should have admitted he was senile" except that Biden is not showing cognitive decline. He is more open than Republicans on other issues. Name one that you consider him to have been not open on.
4. Biden didn't do this. It is a lie that he directed the DOJ to prosecute Trump. The media did this, but Dems do not control the media or what happens on cable news. Like Somerby you are confused about what Dems said and what the mainstream (corporate) media said. Dems want justice to be done for Trump's manifest crimes. That means we want the system to work even against Trump, not that we want to weaponize the justice system. I think you are misunderstanding Dem positions, based on this and the preceding items.
5. Different parts of the electorate have different concerns. This complaint is code for ignoring economic (kitchen table) issues, except that Harris did not do this. Objectively, she spent a lot of time touting Biden's accomplishments on behalf of economic issues affecting working people.
6. What specific issues do you think were disappeared?
7. Harris did not say anything about deplorables. Going back to Hillary when she is not running is just a way of knocking Harris who expressed no disdain whatsoever about any demographics and tried very hard to be inclusive of Republicans as well as Democrats. This is unfair to Harris.
8. Harris did not do this either. She mostly affirmed the rights and said she would address the needs of all people, as president of everyone in our country. The right has tried to saddle her with extremism and wokeness but she has never been that person in her other positions either.
9. Harris tried to run a positive campaign explaining what she planned to do as president. She couldn't reasonably be expected to spend her limited time attacking progressives (which would split her base) the way Bill Maher does, while claiming to be a positive solutions-oriented leader. Progressives are sometimes Democrats but not all Democrats are progressives and Harris was not responsible for or urging or supporting those extremes.
10. Biden is sharp as a tack. There is a great deal of visible evidence of that, including doctor's exams and the experiences of members of congress (of both parties) and foreign leaders. There is only the debate (which was explained) suggesting otherwise. He is competent to the point of continuing to accomplish goals in his job even today, as the ceasefire was announced. That "visible evidence" consists of doctored video produced by Russia and spread by the Wash Post suggesting he is feeble, when the original video was produced and shows he was as competent as those around him, doing what they did as appropriate to the situation. No one should believe those deep fakes, but the right spreads them anyway. That is election fraud.
11. This is ridiculous, another complaint that people who disagree with you are not yielding to your arguments when they remain unconvincing.
12. I haven't seen much evidence of missteps. I do consider the removal of Biden to be a misstep, but I couldn't do anything about it. However, it contradicts your claim that Dems failed to "course-correct". If replacing Biden with Harris wasn't a course-correction, nothing is. The problem is that there was no clear evidence that needed to happen and I believe it hurt the Dem campaign fatally.
(Cont.) You seem to have pulled a bunch of Somerby's complaints from his essays. What are your own thoughts? If I wanted to know what Somerby thinks, I could have gone back and done this myself. It is not a list of reasons why a good and decent Republican should have voted for Trump. It is Somerby vague, contradictory, and wrong-headed list of grievances against the Democrats. I believe it is too non-specific to allow anyone to know how to respond to it, but that is always Somerby's problem, and a key indicator that he wrote this stuff, not you (assuming you are not Somerby). Much of this list seems to blame Democrats for being Democrats and not Republicans. Some of it is factually incorrect, displaying Republican misinformation.
DeleteThese were all mentioned in one post last week. I understand your reaction. I'm sorry you had to take the time to respond to each one as I know you disagree with all of them. You have defended Democrats in the same way many times.
DeleteThe way for Dems to win elections is not by becoming Republicans. If that is what Somerby is trying to accomplish, it is a lost cause. It does support my belief that Somerby is batting for the other team.
DeleteThe issue being addressed is the way for Dems to stop losing elections.
DeleteDemocrats got razzle-dazzled by Republicans, who while complaining about big-government, high taxes, and the deficit, were really crying out for Biden to be the Big Daddy they expect to solve all their problems.
Delete(cont'd)
DeleteThe moral of the election: Don't ever expect a good faith argument from a Right-winger. It's never going to happen.
ReplyDelete"How did we lose to a guy like Trump? "
That's because we are pathetic losers. We are retarded, brain-dead, corrupt, smug, arrogant losers, who haven't done a single day of honest labor in their life. Everyone hates us.
This has been another installment of obvious answers to simple questions.
The main thing is to defeat Republicans. If Democrats can’t do it, someone else will have to.
ReplyDeleteWhatever they do, don't be honest with voters. Can you imagine Trump running on giving the rich and corporations a huge tax break?
DeleteEasily.
DeleteTrump could have kicked his campaign off promising to give corporations and the rich huge tax breaks, and still won the election, as long as he gave Republican voters the bigotry they crave like children crave candy.
The Democratic Party is dominated by billionaires and consultants whose disinformation rhetoric only succeeds with a small group of white men and wine moms who already agree with it. The Party is as unpopular as it has been in decades and the Democratic President is leaving office as the most unpopular president of modern times. Democratic policies on inflation and immigration didn't work and were very unpopular. The party's support eroded among Latinos, Black men, and younger, nonunionized working-class voters. And they want to tell you that they haven't made any missteps and don't see any need for self-reflection. That is music to their opponent's ears.
ReplyDelete"The Democratic Party is dominated by billionaires and consultants"
DeleteI don't know what that means. Political party is a vehicle with the purpose of serving its constituency in the field of politics.
Most of the time it existed, the Democrat party was serving the interests of southern slaveholders and large southern landowners. Then there was an uncertain, unsettled very short period between early 1960s and mid 1970s.
And now we have this: the Democrat party serving the interests of globalist financial capital. That's all.
Sure, they hire consultants, and they get money (billions of dollars) from billionaires. But that's secondary.
Where have you seen Democratic party members saying they haven't made and mistakes? That is totally opposite from what I have seen democratic politicians saying almost daily. It is a bullshit premise.
DeleteUnite.
We must unite our Party around long-term plans to organize, recruit, and build teams to compete at every level in every state. We need a reckoning—not recriminations—about what works and what needs to change. We win by growing our big tent and focusing on the values and the fights that bring us, and most Americans, together—and defeat the divide-and-conquer attacks of GOP oligarchs.
Fight.
What we fight for shows voters who we are. But we don't win if voters only get their news about Democrats from Republicans. To make clear that Democrats are on the side of working families everywhere, we have to shape the information environment, training and deploying great communicators to authentically deliver the most effective messages in every place and on every platform.
Win.
We have a moral obligation to win—because the real measure of our work is the difference it makes in people's lives. That means competing to win at all levels—in local, state, and federal races, in red, purple, and blue states alike. This means recruiting talented staff and volunteers, raising a ton of money, and getting resources to the people who can use them best, on the front lines.
Ben Wikler running for DNC Chair.
"The Democratic Party is dominated by billionaires .."
DeleteMakes sense that Republicans still call the Democratic Party "Marxists" and "Communists", since Republicans have zero understanding of economics.
The GOP is a club, and you aren't getting in it if you know anything about economics.
DeleteAnonymouse 9:10am, the Democratic Party is the party for Marxists and communists. It’s the party for globalists capitalists too. The Marxists and commies have entered into a bargain with the latter group. You will ignore their economic policies (unless it’s a smattering of talk at election time) and they will support you in running the general social culture of the country.
DeleteCecelia, that’s the Democrat party.
Delete