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

I had no idea rural people had the WiFi to read a music site.

infrastructure bill has an allocation to provide broadband and Neutral Milk Hotel mp3s to all of Alabama

and a recording of Donald Trump's 1/6 address on rare yellow Japanese vinyl pressing.

no we're a Belle and Sebastian fan site.

I'm just here for the cardigans.

Good news for railfans:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/transportation/2021/11/08/amtrak-infrastructure-bill-funding/

sick

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/democrats-build-back-better-americans-dont-know-opinion-poll/

Lowering Medicare prescription drug prices:
Support 88%
Oppose 12%
.
Medicare coverage for dental, eye and hearing:
Support 84%
Oppose 16%
.
Paid family and medical leave:
Support 73%
Oppose 27%
.
Universal pre-K for children:
Support 67%
Oppose 33%

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) November 8, 2021

lol
https://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2021/10/10/c45a1a92-aecd-4a4b-9e01-6745792a1066/49-pay-fors.png

did the poll upthread ask the respondents if Biden's fart on Camilla would have impacted who they voted for if it happened in 2020

He should have waited for the Spencer movie to come out to piggyback on the Lady Di revival.

they're doing what to promote the movie?!

If the English didn't have skilled necromancers, Charles would have been king 15 years ago.

Can we have unhinged left-wing media? Why is unhinged conservative media the status quo, when any left-wing media we get is milquetoast, rational and “hinged”? Conservatives are so much better at amplifying their messaging. They scream and they lie and they generate outrage, and that kind of approach gets pooh-poohed by the left, but it’s effective and it drives the conversation. People listen to conservative talk radio in their cars- and more people are working from cars these days!- because it is engaging and not boring. But NPR- milquetoast and boring! Who the fuck wants to listen to that? I want to scream and rant and create outrage about how fucking awful conservative policy and politics are, and I would be glad to listen to someone doing just that. If you can get your message out there and hit hard and not be afraid of repeating yourself ad nauseum, that makes an impact, because it gets the media as a whole talking about what you want them talking about, and it also serves two distinct functions: 1) riling up your base and cementing/feeding them their talking points, and 2) making people who disagree with you feel more alone and question their own beliefs. We are fucking losing this whole game/war/whatever you want to call it because we can’t come to terms with the fact that people just want to be told what to think! And why are there no left-wing comment bots- it’s all conservative talking point amplification and targeting people who are not strong in their convictions, trying to bring more people into the fold by making them question their beliefs, when they see the whole comments section saying things like “there is no way in hell I’m vaccinating my children, I love them too much to harm them and destroy their lives like that”. Let’s have some fucking left-wing and progressive bots amplifying our fucking messaging! WTF we need to get our act together.

but you're describing a hell world. that's the problem. you're probably right, in what you're saying. i was joking upthread about this, just the idea of a left-wing version of conservative media, and how stupid and hilarious and horrible it would be. how awful, really, unimaginable to me, unsupportable to me. that's the problem with the left. the mirror-world versions of what conservatives do don't work on the left, because there are too many people who just won't put up with it. it's too cynical, too terrible, too stupid. functional, sure, but winning by adopting the worst elements of the worst people. a pyrrhic victory, at best.

like, if what the epistantophus post actually came to pass, i think i'd start a secret underground cell of apostates to overthrow the whole fucking new order, just as a matter of principle, like fuck this

everyone else can blow themselves up to hell, but i will be sticking with the people that tether themselves to reality and to trying to do the best we can and not just fucking lie all the time

"The Limbaugh of the liberals" has already been a joke topic on e.g. Prairie Home Companion.

I guess it depends on execution but. If this were a thing that could truly move the needle, it would be out there and doing so.

Daily Show and Sam Bee and many others have tried to occupy a space like this and. Well. Whole lotta choir-directed preaching. Which is fine and pretty harmless. But we are not convincing the unconvinced at this time, and that is concerning.

no $$ there

MSNBC is pretty unhinged, just in an incredibly shitty way. Remember Maddow's tax return bombshell?

Selling people on grievances is easy, that's why political talk radio can cross over so easily with sports talk in style and substance - being mad about the head coach of the Ravens vs. being mad about the head coach of the country.

Which you can totally do from a left perspective, as Air America failed at and Sam Seder/Chapo have succeeded at in their way - but you don't get money thrown at you or Clear Channel stations dedicated to you when you're airing grievances aimed at the corporations buying advertising. So you get safe old MSNBC or the Daily Show getting more toothless over time until it reached the Rally To Restore Sanity.

can’t fathom a cable network with a labor bent. simply can’t happen in this country

MSNBC is pretty unhinged, just in an incredibly shitty way. Remember Maddow's tax return bombshell?

https://cbsnews2.cbsistatic.com/hub/i/2021/10/10/c45a1a92-aecd-4a4b-9e01-6745792a1066/49-pay-fors.png

Yeah I mean I wasn’t being entirely serious, it’s just so frustrating how you can be right and still lose on messaging and culture war bullshit. How does this stuff get more traction than reality? Amplification, understanding of human nature, and skillful use of media, I guess.

People are dumb.

People are acritical. Almost as if the people in power planned it that way. But that's the root of the problem and where a helluva lot of reform needs to happen. Teach the children how to identify propaganda and logical fallacies, etc.

https://hillreporter.com/report-pence-aides-and-staff-forced-into-hiding-on-jan-6th-because-they-were-locked-out-of-their-offices-117343?fbclid=IwAR2oMDptSTGcAErPYG8lfKYUr44Fg5LbGil7YeEODsuUO7eGt02BV7gyMt8

People overthink the intelligence of the average voter. I asked my uncle why he voted for Trump and he couldn't give me a reason besides recognizing Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

He's a black man who's never stepped in a church and can't state 1 thing about Jews or Palestine.

— Darrell Owens (@IDoTheThinking) November 10, 2021

Regarding a follow up tweet in that thread - my suspicion about Trump fans has always been that a lot of them are just assholes and like the idea of an asshole President who can be their king.

That's my uncle and his wife, they loved having a president that gave them free reign and reasons to treat the "other" as horribly as possible.

that's a big part of it but also having someone who validates every idiotic opinion you've ever had and sticks it to those who use pesky things like "facts" against you has a hell of a lot of appeal

Oh absolutely, that was a huge part of Trump's appeal and of me-first conservatism in general. The freedom to look out for #1 and not give a shit about anyone else. But it also squares with those policy preferences above, which are mostly variations on "more stuff for me" and "make other people pay (for more stuff for me)."

One reasonable progressive approach to that would be to lean into it and really go full-bore on fuck-the-rich, just like the right leans into fuck-the-poor/fuck-everybody-else-who's-not-like-me. But liberals have been scared off of that both by a century-plus of "communist/socialist" screeching from the right and of course by a good number of their own disproportionately influential donors.

FDR was pretty good at that, rhetorically. He wasn't shy about rattling cages. But most Democratic presidents since have been selling variations on the "we're all in this together/gotta look out for each other" theme — which as any 1st-grade teacher can tell you is a much harder sell.

can you believe a Dem president sounding like this? Using these terms? What would Peter Baker say?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjSTQwamo8M

One reasonable progressive approach to that would be to lean into it and really go full-bore on fuck-the-rich

Interesting idea. Maybe people could, like, occupy a street or something? Maybe in some place like New York?

Nah. You're right. Silly idea. That's why no one has tried it.

One reasonable progressive approach to that would be to lean into it and really go full-bore on fuck-the-rich, just like the right leans into fuck-the-poor/fuck-everybody-else-who's-not-like-me.

kinda tough to do that when you're raising millions of dollars off those people though

Well exactly, to the two posts above. Which is where "reasonable progressive approach" and "likely Democratic approach" diverge paths.

pareene has been banging the liberal media drum for a while

https://newrepublic.com/article/162723/liberals-propaganda-democratic-autopsy-ads
https://newrepublic.com/article/159876/liberals-losing-journalism-wars-brian-timpone

NEW: Prominent Democrats (including @RepAdamSchiff @RepMalinowski) slam Biden's decision to sell $650 million in new weapons to Saudi Arabia, citing its continued brutality in Yemen. pic.twitter.com/UXF1qXEG7v

— Akbar Shahid Ahmed (@AkbarSAhmed) November 10, 2021

I want to scream and rant and create outrage about how fucking awful conservative policy and politics are, and I would be glad to listen to someone doing just that.

Pod Save America is kind of like that, and the hosts/founders have basically said that they started the Crooked Media company to provide an unabashedly partisan media platform on the left.

I know DSA types like to make fun of it and consider it too establishment or whatever ("Obama bros"), which is probably true to some degree, but maybe not as much as one might think. The podcast is definitely pro-Democratic Party in the sense that it treats the party as the primary locus for political action, though the hosts don't shy away from criticism of individual Democratic politicians when the situation calls for it. Their sympathies generally lie on the progressive side of the Democratic coalition; I think one of them admitted that he voted for Elizabeth Warren in the primary, which probably gives you some idea.

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/11/10/scott-fairlamb-jan-6-sentencing-520592

I guess that's cool unless you put it in the context of black people getting 5 years in prison for illegally voting by mistake

Oh great, the ever popular "That is not Scott Fairlamb, that’s not who I am" confession.

If you can’t handle me at my punching a Capitol cop you don’t deserve me at my not punching a Capitol cop.

Sad lol, but assuming Rittenhouse hasn't already been set free, did I just see that the psycho judge's ringtone went off in the middle of the trial and it was (reportedly? allegedly?) that Lee Greenwood song?

Haven't been paying as close attention this week, but it certainly seems to be a common line that the prosecution did a pretty shitty job. Surprising to me that they'd put him on the stand at this point, seems like allowing themselves to fumble.

I think I heard that since his is largely a self-defense claim it would be kind of weird *not* to take the stand.

Which makes sense, but I also saw some (alleged, self-proclaimed) experts saying that would normally be true, but that the prosecution's case was so weak that there was a greater chance of it doing more harm than good.

I keep seeing people saying the prosecution is weak and blowing the case, but I can't seem to find any explanation of where they are going wrong. What's the story?

Essentially it sounds like they've just done a sloppy job in general, but specifically didn't do a great job with the survivor's testimony, from what I've read it only strengthened the self-defense argument. But I should emphasize this is just what I've gleaned via twitter and reddit quick takes.

Prosecutors in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial rested their case Tuesday after presenting more than 20 witnesses, many of whom explicitly or inadvertently made statements that supported the defense's self-defense case.