Where Are We Runnin’? - American Politics Thread, May 2022

Nah. Paul Campos otm:

I think what Pelosi was trying to convey was something like "we need a neoliberal party to check the excesses of a genuine social democratic party." (The excesses being taxing Nancy Pelosi et. al. at "unreasonable" rates).

The problem is that we already have the former party. She's the legislative head of it in fact. What we don't have in any form anywhere is the latter. Instead we have a theocratic authoritarian ethno-nationalist party that considers the neoliberals to be the equivalent of Stalin and Mao.

...or Che Quevara!

Desantis is mad today about college students wearing Che Guevara (which he can’t pronounce) tee shirts. Meanwhile, FL has an affordable housing problem facing crisis levels that he doesn’t seem to care about. pic.twitter.com/snic7lBFVD

— Ron Filipkowski 🇺🇦 (@RonFilipkowski) May 9, 2022

Such is the state of the modern day conservative that I can come away from an obit like this thinking, she seemed fun...

NEW YORK (AP) — Midge Decter, a leading neoconservative writer and commentator who in blunt and tenacious style helped lead the right’s attack in the culture wars as she opposed the rise of feminism, affirmative action and the gay rights movement, has died at age 94.

Decter, the wife of retired Commentary editor and fellow neoconservative Norman Podhoretz, died Monday at her home in Manhattan. Daughter Naomi Decter said her health had been failing, but did not cite a specific cause of death.

Like her husband, Midge Decter was a onetime Democrat repelled in the ’60s and after by what she called “heedless and mindless leftist politics and intellectual and artistic nihilism.” Confrontation energized her: She was a popular speaker, a prolific writer and, as she described it, “the requisite bad guy on discussion panels” about the cultural issues of the moment. Her books included “Liberal Parents, Radical Children,” “The New Chastity” and the memoir “An Old Wife’s Tale.”

In 2003, she received a National Humanities Medal, cited as one who “has never shied from controversy.”

Calling herself an “ardent ideologue,” she faulted affirmative action for causing “massive seizures of self-doubt” among Black people. She attacked gays as reckless and irresponsible, and alleged that they had removed themselves from “the tides of ordinary mortal existence.”

Feminism was her special target. “The Libbers,” as she called them, “had created a generation of self-centered and unsatisfied women ‘hopping from marriage to marriage,’ resenting their children for limiting their personal freedom and pressuring themselves to have careers they might not have wanted.

The real agenda of feminism was to leave a woman “as unformed, as able to act without genuine consequence, as the little girl she imagines she once was and longs to continue to be,” Decter wrote.

Her opinions were not left unanswered.

The poet and activist Adrienne Rich once wrote that Decter suffered from “a strange lack of information about the unfilled needs, let alone the enormous destructiveness, of the social order which she so admires.” Responding to a 1980 article by Decter about gay people, Gore Vidal remarked that “she has managed not only to come up with every known prejudice and superstition about same-sexers but also to make up some brand-new ones.”

Decter, Vidal added, “writes with the authority and easy confidence of someone who knows that she is very well known indeed to those few who know her.”

In her early years, Decter did not uphold tradition; she challenged it. Born Midge Rosenthal in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1927, she was the youngest of three girls and, apparently, the loudest. “Annoyingly talkative” was her family’s consensus, she recalled, underlined by “a certain note of turbulence.”

As a teenager, she acted out, 1940s style — cutting school on occasion to smoke, swear, drink “gallons” of Pepsi and talk about boys and sex. She dreamed a liberal dream. Visits to relatives in Brooklyn left her longing for the “bustle and the smells and the variety” of a big city. She dropped out of the University of Minnesota and transferred to New York’s Jewish Theological Seminary.

In 1948, she married Jewish activist Moshe Decter and for a time lived in leftist paradise, Greenwich Village. Her decision to divorce her first husband had a similar ring to the words of an imagined suburban housewife (“Is this all there is?”) in a book Decter would very much dislike, Betty Friedan’s “The Feminine Mystique.”

“Divorce begins in that moment when one looks into the mirror and says, ‘Is THIS all there is going to be forever?’” Decter wrote in her memoir, published in 2001.

She doubted the modern wish to “have it all,” but Decter managed a full life of family, work and material comfort. She was married more than 50 years to Podhoretz and had four children, two with each husband. (All four worked in journalism and son John Podhoretz eventually became editor of Commentary). She wrote for several publications, from The Weekly Standard to The New Republic. She was an editor at Basic Books and executive editor at Harper’s magazine, where she helped work on what became Norman Mailer’s award-winning book “The Armies of the Night.” She founded the anti-Communist “Committee for the Free World” and was a member of the conservative watchdog Accuracy in Media.

Her turn to the right, like her husband’s, was personal and political. She and Podhoretz were longtime Manhattan residents who had socialized with Mailer, Lillian Hellman and others from whom they became bitterly estranged. In her memoir, Decter accused her leftist opponents of not simply disagreeing with their country, but wishing for its downfall — an attitude she feared would spread to her own family.

“Living as I had been, and where I had been, I had been subjecting my own children to danger: the danger they would be worn down and jaded before they ever had the chance, or the spiritual wherewithal, to take on the chills and spills of real adulthood.” she wrote.

“Put those feelings and ideas all together, and they amounted to what would one day come to be called neoconservatism.”

I only learned about her existence reading about her in Vidal essays.

I imagine she’s in straight Christian heaven now, appointed as a celestial servant of rush Limbaugh’s golden mansion

You reap what you sow bitch

DeSantis signed into law House Bill 395, designating 7 November as Victims of Communism Day... DeSantis signed into law House Bill 395, designating 7 November as Victims of Communism Day.

Florida is one of a handful of states to adopt the designation, but is believed to be the first to mandate school instruction on that day.

The instruction will begin in the 2023-2024 school year, DeSantis said, and will require teaching about Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Fidel Castro, as well as “poverty, starvation, migration, systemic lethal violence, and suppression of speech” endured under their leaderships in the Soviet Union, China and Cuba respectively.

Educators in Florida are banned, however, from teaching students about racial issues, including the history of slavery, if it makes them “feel uncomfortable”, according to DeSantis’s recently signed Stop Woke Act.

STOP THE WOKE, Y'all

stwoked

Chris Smalls is making good trouble and helping inspire a new movement of labor organizing across the country. Let’s keep it going. pic.twitter.com/oHMuVqf6TS

— President Biden (@POTUS) May 11, 2022

credit for this stuff, and for not getting us into a nuclear war

Hahaha!

A state judge struck down new congressional districts in north Florida on Wednesday, saying that Governor Ron DeSantis, who drew the lines, had made it harder for Black voters to elect the candidate of their choice...

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/may/11/florida-election-congressional-map-ron-desantis-judge

NEW: "The public views inflation as the top problem facing the United States – and no other concern comes close." https://t.co/EgdzfEDyPG pic.twitter.com/ZunGMPBDil

— John Gramlich (@johngramlich) May 12, 2022

20% believe gun violence is 'not a problem at all'? wtf

Obviously the real problem is the economic structure that makes at least half the country so vulnerable to simple price fluctuations, but when you're drowning it's hard to view the larger perspective.

20% believe gun violence is 'not a problem at all'? wtf

20% believe it's a "small problem". it looks like about 4% believe it's "not a problem at all". that seems about right to me - i'd say at LEAST 5% of the country are the ones who not-so-secretly harbor a desire to shoot someone before they die

not sure if this absolutely scandalous situation and incredibly frightening has been discussed here, but you'll be glad to know the government is on top of things

Just called Sen. Feinstein’s office to ask about plans for addressing the infant formula crisis, and they had no idea what I was talking about.

— Lila Byock (@LByock) May 12, 2022

yes, but not enough gun violence could also be seen as a problem

xp

The committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a pro-Trump mob has subpoenaed five Republican members of Congress, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.), after they refused to cooperate with the panel’s inquiry.

Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.), who chairs the select committee, said Thursday that the panel has subpoenaed McCarthy and Reps. Mo Brooks (Ala.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Scott Perry (Pa.) and Jim Jordan (Ohio).

They'll continue to stonewall because they know there won't be any serious repercussions for them by doing so.

Oh for sure. The question is what happens when they ignore the subpoena. I’m guessing it will be unprecedented, both sides will be shocked, and somehow it will be up to the upstanding voters of the United States of America to make their voice heard clear in an election, at which point hundreds of others of new problems will be more pressing. Just like all those lawsuits against trump which are definitely going to end with some real consequences at some point


btw trump sold the old post office pavilion that he converted into a hotel for wannabe fascists to suck his dick. It was obviously a gigantic conflict of interest from day one, no one even bothered to pretend, the contract even had a clause saying that it could not be used for anything that would provide a political benefit, etc etc. It took 6 years but they finally Settled earlier this year. I’m too lazy to look up the settlement on my stupid phone, but it was peanuts and had absolutely ZERO value of deterrence. After the settlement costs and other meaningless bullshit, trump is estimated to have made about $100M in profit on the sale. All while doing the illegal things in plain sight and bragging about it.

That’s how I expect the Jan 6 commission’s subpoenas to work out, more or less

feels like a microcosm of US politics that prominent democrats are not aware of the problem while republicans are aware of the problem and are immediately trying to use it to call for genocide pic.twitter.com/6zlNCjjKNZ

— flglmn (@flglmn) May 12, 2022

That's a dumb tweet the way it's arranged. I put on boots to wade into Nehls' Twitter feed and, maybe I'm wrong, but it looks like he was responding to the Byock tweet, not getting ahead of it.

obviously nehls is not responding to byock? it's two tweets about the same thing.

American baby formula should go to American babies.

— Troy Nehls (@SheriffTNehls) May 12, 2022

Thanks -- just after lunch too.

Troy Nehls favors strict government control over which babies get formula and which babies don't? I'd love to hear more about this new government program for ensuring all American babies get all the infant formula they want or need! Sounds wonderful!

personally i'd like to hear what the democrats plan to do about this one.

Feinstein has all the formula cause it’s the only thing she can eat these days

Give baby food to illegals.

Dianne Feinstein gave birth in 1957 https://t.co/d0gnzuLeFy

— Nausicaa Renner 🪱 (@nausjcaa) May 12, 2022

i'm a shitposter not a logistics expert but this seems ... minimal

Here are the steps the White House just announced to help relieve the baby formula shortage: Increased flexibility for the WIC program, calling on the FTC and state AGs to crack down on price gouging and allowing more imports of baby formula --> pic.twitter.com/FLUOZAqK1s

— Kevin Robillard 🇺🇸 (@Robillard) May 12, 2022

Yikes, if one of the main responses includes “calling on state AGs”, that’s worse than nothing. Almost a third of those state AGs are aligned with the guy who hates immigrants so much that he wants their children to die first

Who hates immigrants so much that their children dying first is not only something he has thought about something he believes is common sense and a good political tactic to highlight

Just killing the children is the moderate position

Meanwhile Steve Schmidt has serious crazy-guy-with-a-sign-with-too-many-words-on-it energy.

I meant it pic.twitter.com/9MWlmDdXQz

— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) May 12, 2022

https://frinkiac.com/img/S05E09/889487.jpg

oops
https://frinkiac.com/img/S05E09/889487.jpg

tl,dr something about trade federations

In THIS household
We are NOT AFRAID of anyone
We HOLD THE LINE
We are not taking ONE FUCKING STEP backward
We are sick of the BULLSHIT
And we will beat your ass

Yikes, if one of the main responses includes “calling on state AGs”, that’s worse than nothing. Almost a third of those state AGs are aligned with the guy who hates immigrants so much that he wants their children to die first

― Bruce Stingbean (Karl Malone), Thursday, May 12, 2022 3:27 PM (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

the immigrant thing is a distraction intended to flood the zone with shit and i regret posting it here. the problem is not: do we give formula to one group of babies or another. it's: stores don't have enough formula to feed even a small fraction of babies.

In THIS household
We are NOT AFRAID of anyone
We HOLD THE LINE
We are not taking ONE FUCKING STEP backward
We are sick of the BULLSHIT
And we will beat your ass

And that's OK. And here's why.

Many XPs. FWIW, Troy Nehls was the corrupt & racist sheriff of my home county in Texas.

Fun Fact: my Mom had an encounter with him after he was brought in to deal with a multi-part pileup she was in heading to work one afternoon. Apparently the car that instigated the wreck had a Hispanic passenger with priors, and Nehls himself tried (and failed) to lean on my Mom and others to say they saw him throw drugs out of the car after their search turned up nothing.

Corporate greed is at the heart of the baby formula crisis America's parents are facing. Just five months ago one of the leading manufacturers of baby formula — Abbott — spent $5 billion on stock buybacks for wealthy shareholders, despite safety and production issues.

— Ron Wyden (@RonWyden) May 12, 2022

Mr. Choppy for the executives and board of Abbott IMO

Better: force them to eat baby food at bayonet point for the rest of their lives.

let's think outside of the box. inside the box, democrats are going to get absolutely destroyed in the mid-terms. that wasn't preordained, even though people have been saying it since Biden won the primary. but now, on their current path, having seen how they've responded to criticism and the experience of failing and are now doing....nothing? nothing at all??...it is time to get outside of the box.

here is my idea. they need to just start lying their asses off and reinventing the past. for example, BBB. that was a massive failure. the good news is that americans have NO idea what BBB is. i estimate that it's around 2-4%, tops. and those 2-4% definitely already know who they're voting for. the solution: don't worry about BBB! that didn't happen! if they get asked about it, just fucking lie. say you don't know what it is. better business bureau? but that's still there! why would we need to pass a law to create one? see? it's easy. just lie. THEN, try your do best to do ONE thing that is remotely fucking helpful for anyone, ever, and then if it happens, hold a parade and hire the blue angels to buzz the audience and then have little popsicles float down with tiny umbrellas. the kids will love, the adults will love it. just do stuff like that. forget about policy, forget about BBB, forget about saving lives or stopping fascism or any of that stuff, just ascend to the land of make believe and hold court there. "you take the earth -- we'll take the clouds" should be the slogan

THEN, try your do best to do ONE thing that is remotely fucking helpful for anyone, ever, and then if it happens, hold a parade and hire the blue angels to buzz the audience and then have little popsicles float down with tiny umbrellas.

and we should be iterating on the good ideas and expanding on them indefinitely. i look at my suggestion above and see that it's not going to work. it involves the democrats doing something remotely fucking helpful first, and then trumpeting that fact. so let's do away with the helpful part. let's just start with the parade and the popsicles with umbrellas. maybe THAT's the helpful thing that democrats can really do. and then tell the people about that, let them see what democrats do

remember when they stopped the eviction moratorium and jen psaki said it's ok because they were encouraging lawyers to represent tenants in eviction court? everything they do has that same energy of "we'll just ask people to follow the rules"

I get how Manchinema have blocked legislation, but it would help if the DNC and Senate/House reelection campaigns, with their considerable cash, would pay for vulgar mendacious attack ads aimed at the GOP.

as usual i've been following along with josh marshall as he tries to figure out what the hell is going on. lately he's been going on about the idea of running on the idea of getting 52 senators - explicitly telling voters that if they can get them to 52 votes (or 53, possibly, hopefully not more than that), then they "will" abolish the filibuster and codify Roe (too little too late, possibly, with that, but at least something concrete). on an abstract level i think this would be great. i would absolutely love to get a list of legislation that WILL be passed if the Democrats can gain a couple members to offset Manchin and Sinema (both of whom should wreck themselves before they wreck themselves). i think that really would be a powerful motivator in races across the country, to have that guarantee to Democratic voters that THIS time, they're pledging to do x y and z, that they know they'll need to abolish the filibuster and they have at least 2 members who choke on shit, so they need 2 more. it would be energizing to have some of reconnection between cause and effect.

however -- back in real life, which fucking blows, that's a terrible idea. it only makes sense to the 73,516 people in this country who even know how many senators there are, or how many votes are needed to pass something, or that it's technically 50 but in reality it's 60, or how many senators the democrats have right now, or who joe manchin or sinema are, or how long a senate term is, or how long a supreme court term is. even if you could somehow get that message out, "we need your help to get to 52, and that's what when we'll do these things", the natural response among the vast majority of people who don't know and are just guessing is "but if you already have 50, and you already have 50, why do you need 52?", and if you explain why well, because we actually need 60 because of this thing that sounds like it's a 1920's theme bar, but we need 50 votes to end that, and 2 of the votes are..." NOPE!! you already lost!!! it's too complicated!! lol

and that's before you even get to the gerrymandering in the house which forces Democrats to win several percentage points more than 50% in the national election in order to maintain a majority. good luck explaining that one.

I think republicans understand this. what is the most complicated issue they present to their base? what is the most complicated thing they ask them to understand?

xp

i'm on day two of zero meds (after tapering) and i am cranky as fuck, i'm sorry

honestly i think the most complicated issue they present to voters is stuff like "should i tolerate people who kneel during the national anthem?" people rightly criticize that as culture war bullshit, but that is an ethical dilemma that comes close to overloading the systems of their patriotic fascist base, one which can only be resolved by looking at each other and nodding along as they all listen to big daddy tell them "no, the people who kneel are bad americans and they are lying about racism"

explicitly telling voters that if they can get them to 52 votes (or 53, possibly, hopefully not more than that), then they "will" abolish the filibuster

Approximately five people would believe this.

cue film of Joe Biden promising people $2k if they elected Warnock and Panera Boy