Joe Money, Joe Problems: the November 2021 U.S. Politics Thread

We ask an open ended why did you vote for Glenn Younkin? Some of the responses.

"All McAuliffe had to say was he was like Trump. Listen to Youngkin talk, that's just silly."

"Democrats have to get gas prices under control I wanted to send a message."

— Danny Barefoot (@dannybarefoot) November 8, 2021

Will consultants still try to run against Trump in 2022?

Yes.

Congratulations, Mr. Youngkin! You’re Governor but also Gasoline Czar

"Biden 2024 - an electric car in every driveway, never pay for gas again!"

Absolutely true that McAuliffe had no message.

Quite agree. "Don't vote for the Trumpy guy" works for me. In fact it is all I needed. "NOT THEM" works fine for me, in fact it has been my entire politics for decades, more or less.

But for loads of voters "Don't vote for the Trumpy guy" was insufficient, and Terry never quite put forward a positive case for his own election.

One thing to consider though: the governor of Virginia typically doesn't do shit, or control mich of anything. It was intentionally written as a weak office where term limits effectively limited the degree to which any particular governor could move the political football in any direction.

When people turn their attention to the Virginia governor's race, it is WAY MORE about what it means in terms of the horse race - who's up, who's down, who's dispirited and who's emboldened - than actual stiff happening in the world.

Which is why my main disappointment with the race is that it emboldens the wrong people. My life will continue more or less as it has. Might need to keep getting weed from DC, though. Bummer.

Some of the responses.

Drive down the street can't find the keys to my own fucking home
I take a walk so I can curse my ass for being dumb
I make a right after the arches stinking grease and bone
Stop at the supermarket people stare like I'm a dog
I voted Youngkin

Best Springsteen song in ages

thought that focus group said a lot, at least for suburban women. the democrats win on policy but lose badly on culture issues, and the culture war beats policy

Democrats made school a bummer for our dear little Kameron and Kaitlyn.

:)

That focus group confirmed something I had sort of assumed, which is that school COVID restrictions were more of a factor than "CRT." But all ended up getting wrapped up together.

lol Neanderthal

yes lmao i just got it

That focus group confirmed something I had sort of assumed, which is that school COVID restrictions were more of a factor than "CRT." But all ended up getting wrapped up together.

I’m sure California had even more of a lockdown than Virginia ever had but Newsom survived recall easily.

and Newsome ran on WHOA NELLY TRUMP'S GONNA GETCHA too, no?

Yeah, the old lesson that who the candidates are actually matters is an important part too. Which tbh does not give me warm feelings about the road ahead, but maybe there are some great candidates out there I don't know about.

It is a good left-progressive talking point tho, that the real lesson of Virginia is no more warmed-over Clintonistas.

_ I’m sure California had even more of a lockdown than Virginia ever had but Newsom survived recall easily._

and Newsome ran on WHOA NELLY TRUMP'S GONNA GETCHA too, no?

McAuliffe got more votes than Northam so idk if the answer is necessarily "his campaign sucked"

Also there is going to be a CA election next year, anyway, whereas in VA the Gov literally is not allowed to serve consecutive terms, iirc, so the voters *had* to make a choice, vs. CA pointlessly and impatiently forcing people to make a choice early at the behest of, yeah, lotsa loons.

"the democrats win on policy but lose badly on culture issues, and the culture war beats policy"

and this is depressing, because I'm never going to agree with these choads on culture war shit, but more and more the country is drifting that way. Ban CRT, keep schools open during pandemics, teachers' unions are evil.... seems to me that much of the country is drifting this way.

I question "much of the country."

Enough of the country, then.

ok, enough of a percentage of the voting populace seems to be moving that way. I think school closures broke people's brains.

McAuliffe got more votes than Northam so idk if the answer is necessarily "his campaign sucked"

This is an important point too often overlooked by hack-ass political journalists (and others). Political engagement across the board is spiking. People are paying attention, and participating, at much higher rates than in the past. So if they're paying attention to poorly sourced, inaccurate/conspiratorial information you're fucked unless you counteract that shit, because there's gonna be hordes of ill-informed and riled-up motherfuckers voting. It seems like Democratic candidates have not yet a) noticed that there are hordes of potential voters available now or b) figured out how to corral them.

We should just make it harder to vote.

xposts

Yeah, good points. But I don't think the lesson is that McAuliffe, e.g., did great because he got more votes than Northam. The fact that someone running an apparently not very good campaign still got more votes tells you there are more votes to get — and it will be necessary to get them.

"Teachers' unions are evil" About 3,220,000 results (0.60 seconds)

This has been going on for quite a while, Betsy Devos was only the most recent/visible manifestation.

"teachers unions are evil"
About 4,970 results (0.46 seconds)

you have to put it in quotation marks in google. otherwise it will come up with results where "evil" and "teachers" were in two different places on the website, rather than as the exact phrase

for example,

you should never do a double decker to a friend's toilet
About 52,700,000 results (0.92 seconds)

No results found for "you should never do a double decker to a friend's toilet".

lol thx for pro tip!

i've been googlin in quotes for many years...time was, that was pretty much all there was to do on the internet

and also, if we wait a week, will there now be ONE result for "you should never do a double decker to a friend's toilet"??

Yeah, it seems pretty apparent that the McAuliffe loss has a lot more to do with him being a bit of grease left on the griddle of the Clinton era, and people are done with that shit. Of course the pundits and moderates are all blaming CRT because actually thinking about white supremacy would require rethinking capitalism, and that just won't sit well with donors.

Also I get fundraising emails from various Dem wings and all the McAuliffe ones were headed I’M SORRY or WE ARE DESPERATE or similar, not the way a winner communicates.

this will go well

"Illinois became the first state to require one unit of media literacy for all high school students this summer, and now it's debuting a rough draft of the curriculum." https://t.co/o3veHMeiQ2

I doubt that American democracy is strong enough to do this without a CRT-type fiasco.

— Jay Rosen (@jayrosen_nyu) November 9, 2021

something i've long advocated for (basic media literacy education). but in the year 2021, this will be immediately interpreted as "government trying to brainwash my children to watch msnbc and indoctrinate them" by at least 40% of the population

It should also be treated skeptically from a left or even left-liberal perspective, given the way public schools work.

"I would use the analogy of financial literacy classes," says attorney Maaria Mozaffar, who helped write the legislation.

So we didn't have financial literacy classes but my economics teacher in high school based his lesson plan on Friedman and Hayek when he wasn't showing us documentaries about wonderful self-made entrepreneurs like Bill Gates.

https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-political-scene/inside-the-democrats-battle-to-build-back-better

this is a great story and while extremely depressing, makes me happy that jayapal is in the leadership position she's in

"the democrats win on policy but lose badly on culture issues, and the culture war beats policy"

and this is depressing, because I'm never going to agree with these choads on culture war shit, but more and more the country is drifting that way. Ban CRT, keep schools open during pandemics, teachers' unions are evil.... seems to me that much of the country is drifting this way.

― akm, Tuesday, November 9, 2021 10:51 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I question "much of the country."

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 9, 2021 10:52 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Enough of the country, then.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 9, 2021 10:53 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ok, enough of a percentage of the voting populace seems to be moving that way. I think school closures broke people's brains.

― akm, Tuesday, November 9, 2021 10:55 AM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Couple things going on here.

One is: Almost everybody who doesn't think like a Republican moves to a city in which almost no one thinks like a Republican.

Hence, inside cities, you have basically no Republicans. Outside cities, you have... mostly Republicans. This, THIS is what is exacerbating the structural shit like gerrymandering, and the Electoral College and the filibuster.

Unlike most of y'all I am like an actual parent with school-age kids in Virginia. And I am not even a little bit troubled by the various bits of culture-war bullshit being trumpeted by school board moms. But to "school board moms" these bits of culture-war bullshit are paramount in their decisionmaking.

To counter them requires better messaging than "the things you are concerned about are not actual things." You have to figure out how to counteract that with a better story. We are not, currently, coming up with that better story. Expect more damage to occur until the messaging gets persuasive to THOSE folks.

We're doing fine communicating to one another. We are NOT doing a good job changing minds or persuading the unpersuaded.

Unlike most of y'all I am like an actual parent with school-age kids in Virginia. And I am not even a little bit troubled by the various bits of culture-war bullshit being trumpeted by school board moms. But to "school board moms" these bits of culture-war bullshit are paramount in their decisionmaking.

Do you show up to school board meetings? I got into a short discussion with a dude on Twitter where I argued that this kind of thing is where the "a liberal is someone who won't take their own side in an argument" thing comes from - because only the right-wing maniacs show up to the school board meetings, and they shout until they get their way. What seems to be called for is for sane people to show up and shout down the maniacs. (Or run for the school board, if that's what's needed.) I don't have kids, so I don't give a fuck what happens in schools in NJ. But it seems to me that if you do have kids in school, then it behooves you to show up and be a loudmouth asshole advocating for your position, otherwise you're gonna get steamrolled in absentia.

unperson - showing up to a school board meeting and saying basically "you are doing a good job! keep it up!" might be an interesting experiment but it is not headline fodder and it is not as interesting/motivating as shrieking at them that their poisoning the minds of the youth.

*they're

one of the interesting effects of covid on nimby-dominated planning meetings is that they're less ... nimby-dominated because they've been online. that's partly because people with weaker views show up more because it's logistically easier, and partly because people with weaker views show up more because being screamed at in person by reactionary boomers is unpleasant.

the upshot is that the #1 likehack to deradicalize these things it turn them into zoom meetings.

(unrelated, sorry, but that rep. Gosar video is fucking WEIRD)

it is fucking wild that the one profession where you could tweet out a video of yourself murdering a coworker and not get fired is Republican Congressman

honestly i barely even noticed any murder scenes in there. the whole thing is just fucking bonkers from the very start

i knew AOC was in there, for example, and I'm not sure I even saw her. did they map her face onto one of the characters for a few seconds in the middle?

what's also weird is that absolutely everyone in it looks like a villain, including Gosar! he looks like the arch villain, actually! he looks like such a fucking dick

Rep. Jayapal in re: Congress, as quoted in that NYer article Kevin linked:

“Things around here are weird,” she said. “Nobody does anything. They sit on their bums for nine months and do nothing. And then, in three days, you achieve more than you ever thought was possible.”

Life comes at you fast

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/580752-pelosi-calls-for-ethics-criminal-investigations-into-gosar