Democratic (Party) Direction

they are white house correspondents for reuters

“Hi, I’m Trevor News”

My problem is I have zero idea who @nanditab1 and @TrevorNews are or what kind of sourcing they have access to about what Biden is saying to his advisors and if I took 38 seconds to type in their twitter handle then I can't make this post.

I don't have a Twitter account and don't intend to have one.

But thank you for identifying them for me.

no thank _you_ aimless, for explaining what makes a good tweet

"More radical policies are politically polarising ahead of elections" -- you can just smell the paralyzing fear.

Don't want to polarize people before they go out and vote for one of the two poles in American politics.

Aimless unable to figure out twitter is a similar kind of thing. They don't even want to look, never mind do.

Aimless unable to figure out twitter

fuck off

you literally just said that you couldn’t read a bio because you don’t have an account

fwiw i don't have a twitter account and did not go to these reporters' twitter accounts to find out who they were. i just looked up the reuters article whose headline is visible immediately beneath those twitter handles.

what i'm trying to say is there are many ways you can find things out for yourself if you feel like you're lacking critical information.

Let's not argue about who killed who.

I'm upset AOC didn't include a Wikipedia link for those of us who don't know what a "Biden" is.

"we aren't going to do anything to make things better, but if you don't vote for us it will get even worse"

It's a bold strategy, Cotton. Let's see if it pays off for 'em.

People saying “don’t vote, it doesn’t help:” this is how Trump won in 2016 by 77k votes, and appointed the 3 justices who overturned Roe and more. Want to see how much worse things can get, be apathetic and let Republicans take majorities. This hand wringing is a fool’s errand.

— Amy Siskind 🏳️‍🌈 (@Amy_Siskind) June 30, 2022

I mean, yeah, of course I vote blue in November.

I will also take a dump at some point this afternoon

Bernie or gut bust

tbh probably the most consequential votes I will cast this year were in my local Republican primary in May. A couple of moderate Republicans beat back hard-right challengers, with a certain amount of crossover support from non-Republicans. (I vote in way more GOP primaries than Democratic ones, around here it's the only way to have any say in a lot of offices.)

my heart goes out to the intern that has to keep breaking the news about roe to dianne feinstein every 4 hours

— أنيا anya (@unc00lniece) June 26, 2022

fuck off

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Thursday, 30 June 2022 bookmarkflaglink

Glad I'm not going to be responsible for your care.

you really are a cold-hearted piece of shit julio

every previous time i've started on you it's been the result of direct antagonism but come on, are we all really going to stand by while this worthless nutcase pisses his poison everywhere

sorry to be all "austerity socialism" but in any rational world no nut milks would exist - oats, on the other hand? can be grow in all sorts of different environments and don't haemorrhage water as much. Under socialism it will be only oat milk if you're vegan sorry

— Arbeitology (@Arbeit_Fish) July 1, 2022

can we not live in a socialist utopia where there’s a magical milk alternative with the water-use of oat milk and the low calorie count of almond milk??

does soy milk count as a "nut milk"

I got some nut milk for ya

is it already no nut milk november?

Do nuts "haemorrhage" water?

If a bathing suit can barely contain them.

"if you don't vote for us it will get even worse" is 100% true about Democrats. They suck and it's true. Both things are true at the same time. Democrats did not nominate/confirm justices that would overturn Roe. Republicans did. That's it. I think people want too badly to like and identify with their politicians and should be more calculating and purely see it as what they gain/lose.

In fact, this largely happened because evangelical christians who don't personally like a lot of republicans nonetheless voted for them en masses so they could get supreme court justices that push their agenda.

well at this point we have,,, oh yeah tons of dems supporting fascists while doing nothing.

evangelical christians who don't personally like a lot of republicans nonetheless voted for them en masse

It's been discussed to death, but their ability to sign on to a total piece of shit like Trump, to the point where they're posting memes of Jesus hugging him in the Oval Office, in order to get Roe v. Wade overturned, is really remarkable. Meanwhile, tons of Dems couldn't vote for Hillary because reasons.

I guess the point is that it shouldn't be so remarkable. They realize they don't need to love Trump the man to get whatever the hell they think God wants on earth.

It's also a matter of organization. They belong to organizations that reinforce that message, whereas Democrats just kind of personally browbeat people for not voting the right way.

iirc the GOP went out and expressly courted evangelicals right? it may have been more two-sided than that, w evangelicals showing a little leg and then implementing some coercion when their politically motivated flock proved too large to ignore (I’ve only read Nixonland but I’m guessing Invisible Bridge and Reaganland get more deeply into it).

I just can’t see the Democratic Party (as currently constructed) going out and doing anything to attract DSA/ fellow travelers or apolitical poor and working people. I mean, democrats *hate* those people.

yeah there was definitely some two-way reinforcement going on there

I think "Vote for Trump even if you don't like him because you will get something you want" is a better message than "Vote Hillary you idiots Trump is bad!" even if the latter is arguably a good enough reason to vote Hillary

"Vote for Biden because he'll...make a lot of promises and follow up on none of them, nor actually advocate for any of them in any substantive way"

I guess Poppy and his types were pretty uneasy w evangelicals, but they liked winning more than they were embarrassed by a bunch of Christ-bitten rubes. Also, white values voters with an inclination to fear communism don’t upset capital

I think "Vote for Trump even if you don't like him because you will get something you want" is a better message than "Vote Hillary you idiots Trump is bad!" even if the latter is arguably a good enough reason to vote Hillary

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Friday, July 1, 2022 11:50 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

sure, but it must be said that Hillary got 3 million more votes in 2016, and Biden 8 million more in 2020, a big part of the issue for Dems is they have to win by so much more. for god's sake look at the Wisconsin legislature, Dems won the popular vote by like 10 points but only got a third of the seats. I mean all these conversations are worth happening but issue 1A for them has got to be making sure that Democrat votes count just as much as Republican votes and they've failed miserably there.

of course one other issue re: "getting what you want" is that the satisfaction is so much more immediate for Republican voters as their foremost priority, as they've articulated time and time again, is to make people they don't like upset. doing blatantly evil things will do that. I vote Democrat even if most of their policies wouldn't directly benefit me, and yeah that's a big part of why things feel so stagnant, personally. I don't even get the satisfaction of watching these idiots get pissed off because, who's gonna argue against stuff like the Child Tax Credit, or wind farms on the East Coast? it doesn't trigger anybody, it's just common sense

I will argue against wind farms on the east coast

There is more to the NIMBY/"you're ruining my view" people.

Offshore windfarms devastate local marine ecosystems, and invite non-native marine life to inhhabit the artificial reefs that such wind farms create. That's only the beginning—

the idea that we can solve problems of emissions and climate change by engaging in acts that wantonly destroy ecosystems and lead to habitat loss is absolutely fucking bonkers and the height of hubris.

And don't get me started on the emissions caused by building, transporting, and maintaining windfarms in places like Wyoming and etc. It's like tote bags— they do a fine job for what they're used for, but they aren't actually all that eco-friendly.

It's been so dispiriting to see how ill-prepared the Democrats seem to be in the wake of Dobbs--it feels like they had nothing in the can for this eventuality. This was a scenario with a high probability of occurring--shouldn't a major political party have a filing cabinet full of contingency plans for the end of Roe, a repeal of ACA, etc.? Isn't that what all these think tanks, consultants and wonks are paid millions of dollars for?

I understand the plan is "vote harder/elect a bigger majority"--but then what? Why can't Pelosi/Schumer/whoever assure us that they have a strategy? Hold a press conference and announce, "If we gain a majority, we'll 1) introduce and pass a law containing a, b, c and d; 2) Do X to ensure Y; 3) Safeguard future rights by doing Z."

Instead, it feels like the situation is, "Give us a majority, and then we'll figure something out. You know, explore our options, brainstorm."

That would require them to have a strategy. Or even desire a strategy.

the idea that we can solve problems of emissions and climate change by engaging in acts that wantonly destroy ecosystems and lead to habitat loss is absolutely fucking bonkers and the height of hubris.

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table), Friday, 1 July 2022 17:30 (six hours ago) link

What can we do to solve problems of emissions and climate change that doesn't have any ecological consequences whatsoever? I'm pro-nuclear power for example, but I imagine if you don't like wind farms you don't like those either. Mining of the minerals needed to make lithium batteries and solar panels is pretty dirty business too. These are conservative talking points.

or I guess I should say fossil fuel industry talking points