Democratic (Party) Direction

he did criticize Hillary tho which may be a dealbreaker for book fans

btw just wanted to say I WAS RIGHT:

(...) The only development that would actually seriously shock me is if, in 2018

ah, but it's not 2018 yet

this is good

We must replace the money bail system with a risk assessment system. We need to reform our broken bail system.

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) October 1, 2017

nevermind, I was wrong and it just sounded good lol

https://theamericanscholar.org/weapons-of-math-destruction/#.WdI489VSyUl

That is an excellent book btw.

I had a hunch the former prosecutor wasn’t making that statement on behalf of the accused

I hate to "politicize a tragedy" but the thought crossed my mind that it would be pretty sweet justice if a million or so Puerto Ricans resettle in states like Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and register to vote there.

Holy shit, I was saying the same thing yesterday to my neighbor (whose PR neighbor on the other side was greeting her just-arrived parents fleeing Puerto Rico).

Good news! The Sanders-backed mayoral candidate in Birmingham won the race.

Nice!

And a socialist won in Jackson, Mississippi.

I've had some major criticisms of Bernie's strategy and messaging in the past but he's been killing it over the last couple months on quite a few fronts, and his stumping work seems to be paying off.

Daniel Biss, who's getting surprising traction though is still a longshot in the Illinois Dem Gov primary, releases a proposal to "Rewrite the Rules"

https://www.danielbiss.com/rewriting-the-rules/?utm_medium=social&utm_source=dbfb&utm_campaign=signup&utm_content=20171007_db_read_rules_all&source=social_dbfb_signup_20171007_db_read_rules_all

Planks include: nonpartisan districting commission (in one of the states where gerrymandering helps Democrats), ranked-choice voting (which helps third parties by allowing voters to choose a third-party candidate while still asserting preference between D and R), term limits for party leadership, etc.

No voluntary nonpartisan redistricting in blue states without some kind of reciprocal agreement imo. That's dumb.

nevermind, I was wrong and it just sounded good lol

https://theamericanscholar.org/weapons-of-math-destruction/#.WdI489VSyUl

― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Monday, October 2, 2017 9:04 AM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That is an excellent book btw.

I had a hunch the former prosecutor wasn’t making that statement on behalf of the accused

― El Tomboto, Monday, October 2, 2017 9:34 AM (five days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm not sure if that part of the book holds up though; here's a paper that finds replacing judge discretion with an algorithm

our results suggest potentially large welfare gains: a policy simulation shows crime can be reduced by up to 24.8% with no change in jailing rates, or jail populations can be reduced by 42.0% with no increase in crime rates. Moreover, we see reductions in all categories of crime, including violent ones. Importantly, such gains can be had while also significantly reducing the percentage of African-Americans and Hispanics in jail. We find similar results in a national dataset as well.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w23180

in general i think the overall argument of WMD is extremely valuable but a lot of the inference in it is sloppy casual pop social science, and lots of better future work in that vein will be way more informative. i see the book as more of a warning/wake-up call than a conclusive indictment of the algorithms she discusses

when i was ten there was a word for a lot of "data science": gigo. i don't know why that acronym fell out of use, because the behavior it describes has become increasingly prevalent.

people still say garbage in garbage out all the time. but data has gotten significantly less garbage. the point of the paper i linked is that judges are more biased/racist and trigger-happy than the algorithms, suggesting less garbage out

all i get from that paper is that "people who pretend to be 'objective', particularly white people, aren't". it's nice to have data to back that up, but i'm skeptical about any potential policy impact. how long have we known, for instance, that the "war on drugs" was a terrible, terrible idea?

how long have we known

I'm not so sure about "we". I've known it since about 1975.

the point is removing some human/judge discretion can lead to more fairness and less punishment, which is the opposite of cathy oneill's fears (that the algorithms will just reify discrimination in a black-boxed gigo way and amplify it potentially in some sort of positive feedback loop)

i'm actually not sure how directly this applies to the policie K Harris was suggesting tho so i should stfu

I made a thread for this discussion dudes

"Data" Professions - what's the shittiest

here is something relevant to this thread topic though

http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a12781302/democrats-alabama-mississippi-progressives/

If the Democratic Party weren’t so terminally bumfuzzled, and if many of its activists could get over the wounds their delicate fee-fees suffered during the 2016 presidential primaries, the party could see a great advantage in coordinating efforts between the formal party apparatus and what could be described as the progressive shock troops that carried Woodfin to victory in Birmingham.

Right now, for example, if you can believe it, the Democratic National Committee seems to be slightly baffled about what to do as regards the race for the open U.S. Senate seat in Alabama. The Democratic candidate is Douglas Jones, the former U.S. Attorney who sent to prison the last of the terrorists who bombed the 16th Street Baptist Church in 1963. The Republican candidate is a lawless theocratic nutball named Roy Moore, who lost his job as chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court twice because of flagrant judicial misconduct.

It would seem to the casual observer that people generally should realize it to be their patriotic duty to keep Moore out of the Senate for the good of the country. However, as reported by The Daily Beast, the Democratic Party apparatus can’t even decide if it should go all in for Jones.

OK, I'll bite -- why is that crazy? "When we have a choice to spend a dollar in a race against a terrible Republican that's pretty close, or in a race against an even more terrible Republican we're very likely to lose, where should we spend it?" That seems like exactly the kind of choice that actually presents difficulties if you take the job seriously. (I'm aware of polls showing Jones not-as-far-behind-as-you'd-think, I have sent Jones my own personal dollars, etc.) I mean, James Inhofe is as horrible as just about anyone, should the Dems be taking money out of defending Tammy Baldwin's seat and giving it to his opponent instead? (Baldwin's opponent will almost surely be a terrible Republican who's less of a threat to America than Moore or Inhofe.)

Signaling matters

is there evidence for that?

agree with eephus that all else being equal, scarce resources should go to where they will do the most good -- assuming the candidate were diverting resources to has met minimum standards we expect of national democrats

I mean yes! Democrats should contest every race with all their might! 50-state-strategy! I believe in this too! But every dollar and every hour and every volunteer that's in Alabama isn't in Virginia fighting for Ralph Northam and fighting for Danica Roem and the rest of the Virginia House of Delegate seats, all of which up for grabs, and where Democrats stand to make real gains. It's not like the choice is "fight Roy Moore or light the money on fire."

xp Maybe Dems should be signaling that they care as much about the long hard process of building majorities in state governments as Republicans do, because that, more than anything else, is where the party has failed. They have a lot of Senators but they have fuck-all when it comes to statehouses.

And with the Supreme Court we're gonna have in 2020 you better fucking believe people don't want GOP supermajorities in their less-and-less constrained state legislatures.

Sorry, I said "fuck" too much, I'm not even really mad, it just gets to me when people act like running a political operation is simple and the decisions are all easy.

IMO the time and money available can be increased by showing that you are not cowed by Ossoff's defeat, and you can use "we're trying to get a (D)-Alabama in the Senate" as fanfare to get more Virginians to step up. Fuck!

I'm not sure why I'm defending Pierce's point, I think we're all okay here. It would be phenomenal to see Jones beat Moore though.

Sorry, I said "fuck" too much

sorry to butt in here but i just want to say that for purely selfish reasons i oppose the precedent of apologizing for this

Beto O'Rourke interview!

https://www.spin.com/2017/10/beto-orourke-ted-cuz-senate-seat-interview/

OK, I'll bite -- why is that crazy? "When we have a choice to spend a dollar in a race against a terrible Republican that's pretty close, or in a race against an even more terrible Republican we're very likely to lose, where should we spend it?" That seems like exactly the kind of choice that actually presents difficulties if you take the job seriously. (I'm aware of polls showing Jones not-as-far-behind-as-you'd-think, I have sent Jones my own personal dollars, etc.) I mean, James Inhofe is as horrible as just about anyone, should the Dems be taking money out of defending Tammy Baldwin's seat and giving it to his opponent instead? (Baldwin's opponent will almost surely be a terrible Republican who's less of a threat to America than Moore or Inhofe.)

― Guayaquil (eephus!)

would the democratic party like to be a regional party, or would they like to be a national party?

...for that matter, the tendency of the democratic "mainstream" to define political action exclusively in terms of allocation of financial resources is potentially problematic. the democrats need to quit trying to buy america. they can't afford it.

would the democratic party like to be a regional party, or would they like to be a national party?

national party

the tendency of the democratic "mainstream" to define political action exclusively in terms of allocation of financial resources is potentially problematic

I guess I thought that's what the article meant by "the Democratic Party apparatus can’t even decide if it should go all in for Jones." If they didn't mean money, but just full-throated opposition and mobilization of public opinion then... isn't the Democratic Party apparatus doing that? I feel like I have been getting nonstop "Roy Moore is a madman who must be stopped, good thing we have THE GUY WHO PUT KLANSMEN IN JAIL FOR KILLING CHILDREN as our candidate" messaging from every Dem.

but hey remember Ellison and Perez are basically the same!

https://splinternews.com/the-dnc-purges-trans-poc-members-from-partys-left-wing-1819682542?rev=1508435189722

though not directly about democrats, I feel like a friend's fb post is pertinent here:

Results for the UChicago grad student union vote come out tomorrow and I have a lot of feelings, one of which is that the UChicago administration getting in bed with the Trump administration to fuck over its workers (sorry "life of the mind community") really demonstrates the power of organizing. When you're unorganized a lot of scumbags who share whatever culture crap with you will try to play it like you're in the same boat, but organize for power and suddenly the sides become very clear. My alma mater's with Trump like all the bosses; I'm with the workers and long may they reign.

At @LATimesEvents Summit @NancyPelosi says, “Wouldn’t it be nice if @MittRomney was President today?!” Huge applause.

— Lynn Vavreck (@vavreck) October 19, 2017

lmao

it would undeniably be better if Romney were president

as much as Nance can imagine, anyway

better =/= nice. Again, tired of people acting like Trump somehow changed the objective standards of goodness.

And also, though I don't know the context (was everyone talking about Romney for some reason?), of all the counterfactuals to publicly indulge...?

Yeah, I mean I might be overreading it, but the counterfactual with Romney being president would be one in which he beat Obama in 2012 and then won reelection...

Maybe the joke was that the other 16 GOP candidates were so horrible that she can't imagine even using them rhetorically.

not to mention that a Romney presidency right now would probably mean a much smoother and easier time passing lots of horrific republican legislation, so no thanks

x-post up--- Perez's purge of the Ellison folks is not a good sign

how many thinkpieces will call it "divisive"?

Is it clear that the purged staffers were disproportionately bernie-wing/that that was the motivation? I just want to make sure before I start going on a social media rampage about it.

Keith Ellison for one (who had input in the hirings) plus this... pic.twitter.com/sRnCf5sbEl

— Zachary 🇪🇺 (@zatchry) October 18, 2017