U.S. Politics, November 2024: GARBAGE DAY!!

Do it because he is or because you want to or whatever but clearly it has no political valance whatsoever - the more you label someone without any negative consequences being attached (see: threat to democracy, fascist, felon, etc.) the less it matters.

good Newsroom 2: the Newsing pitch though

No, that's the level where we are today, just constant repetition of even the most basic stuff, like the President is a RAPIST and the people that voted him in and enable his shit are shameful and should be reminded constantly of this until they no longer try to make it ok.

the more you label someone without any negative consequences being attached (see: threat to democracy, fascist, felon, etc.) the less it matters.

I think this is largely true, but it may actually go beyond this and actually start to matter in the other direction, to be worn as a badge of pride which also goes alongside a sense of being hectored which is often actively sought after as a form of negative validation

And in some cases, certainly threat to democracy, this rests on a presumption the charge is viewed as a negative in the first place. The idea people might not actually want democracy didn't seem to be considered as a possibility

I think a more effective message is going to be on the Trump Tariffs. He's talking about implementing them on day one, what he's able to do, what he decides to do, and to what level he's able to put them on I don't know.

Negative effects will be blamed on Biden, so Trump Tariffs needs to be in place early and hammered home relentlessly. On the other hand, he could also inherit the improving economy, not put any tariffs on at all, say he's put the tariffs on regardless, and take credit for the economy

More bad news for #CA13 Rep. John Duarte (R): near-final Stanislaus Co. ballots extend Adam Gray's (D) lead to 182 votes. The chances of a 220R-215D House breakdown (Dems +2 vs. '22 result) just shot up a lot tonight. https://t.co/C4a7JmiGk7

— Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) November 27, 2024

good chance Democrats somehow gained 2 seats in the house

Don't really "get" regretting or not regretting a vote for Kamala at this rate - she didn't win, you don't have to worry about having supported her, it didn't pay off for her.

This is really table's particular 'journey'. But yes...you did or didn't do your 'civic duty'

Now to sip a cup of (expensive) coffee and unite the country (against Canadians).

Part of it is simply reminding myself to not get hectored or scared and act on my instincts, which were to sit the election out. Glad everyone can be so patronizing and creepy though.

In some ways this hectoring thing may be a microcosm of the problem Democrats have in general, but one not easily fixable if it comes from their voters

It was actually part of a postmortem roundup in the Times this morning— many people loathe Democratic voters more than they loathe Democratic candidates or policies, and honestly, I don’t blame them.

I can see that, but given that Democratic voters make up a fairly significant section of society, thats a difficult issue to fix! Policies can be changed, politicians can be swapped out for more palatable alternatives, but if the problem is the voters themselves thats a more difficult thing to fix - especially when voting is an increasingly core part of peoples identities

We are the Loathed. D’s should rally around this the way the R’s did with Deplorable and Garbage.

Need a little FDR here to welcome the hatred of arseholes who’d vote for a felon and rapist.

It was actually part of a postmortem roundup in the Times this morning

link?

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/22/opinion/election-postmortems.html?unlocked_article_code=1.dE4.vizN.S1KR8YN4nUYw&smid=url-share

(fwiw, i do not pay for the times, i get it for free through my work, and so don't feel bad skimming and yelling at it every morning)

thanks. I also get it through work.

Here's the section table is talking about, I think it's more specifically suggesting people don't like leftists than that they don't like "Democrats":

Large shares of Democratic voters remain quite left-wing, and to many Americans they are more visible figures than any politician — their co-workers, their neighbors, those they see on social media. It may well be the case that to the extent that the progressivism of the groups is a problem for Democrats, this is a more straightforward and direct social effect — not mediated by elected officials or their policy positions. And if the conflict is a matter of the broader culture war rather than a partisan dispute, that isn’t exactly something that’s easy for the party to solve. It’s one thing for Democrats to prune their public messaging of anything that might strike the median voter as woke excess — for the most part, they’ve already done that. But appointing Rahm Emanuel to head the Democratic National Committee won’t change the makeup of your H.R. department or the kinds of T-shirts or yard signs you see. At least not overnight.

And since this is one of the points he offers no real substantiation for, I'm going to push back and say the problem is actually the opposite. It's not that too many people know annoying leftists who hector them about things. It's that they don't know ANY leftists and have little exposure to direct messaging from the left — their exposure comes through stereotypes and attacks from the right, which get filtered not only through right-wing media but social media, memes, allegedly non-political messengers like bro-podcasters, etc.

But it does highlight the need for effective, consitent multi-platform messaging from the left, independent of the Democratic Party.

*consistent

the fact that "woke" is practically a slur now says it all. they've been very successful in convincing folks that nobody *really* cares about social justice, some people just pretend to. I just think its a lot easier to play off people's cynicism than it is their hope.

I think this section is relevant:

So why have Americans continued to associate a social-justice agenda with Democrats, if so few of them have been publicly pushing those positions over the past five years? One answer is that the memory of some of those positions still lingers, no matter the positioning of elected officials. But another possibility is that to the extent Americans are feeling alienated by progressives, they aren’t really voting to reject Democratic politicians so much as Democratic voters, many of whom much more closely resemble the stereotype of professional-class bureaucrats and corporate middle managers wielding D.E.I. agendas than anyone actually running for office.

there needs to be a real labor party in this country. i might join. all i've ever done is work. i've belonged to two unions. i've never joined a party before. Dems and Repubs both suck really bad. that's where so much frustration comes from. and liberals/progressives/dems in this country don't know how to fight. they are too comfortable to fight for real.

This feels more like what leftists don't like about the PMC rather than what "Americans" don't like about Democratic voters

A flaw in his analysis is that in his mind those appear to be the same things — leftist voters are also DEI-minded HR directors. But that’s not really true, and anyway I think that entire section is shaky and poorly argued. Do some non-ideological voters react badly to right-wing caricatures of leftists? Sure. But that’s because of effective messaging from the right.

Adam Tooze is arguing that people are essentially voting against the PMC (professional managerial class), or at least against a certain idea they have of what the PMC is

https://adamtooze.substack.com/p/chartbook-336-trumps-victory-in-2024

which contains this interesting chart...

https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffd0a003a-4d91-4994-aade-0894f4f63da0_1726x1434.png

All election postmortems are fanfic, confirmation bias (Dems lost because of my particular hobbyhorse), and “vibes”.

Yeah I think an anti-PMC reaction is much closer to the mark and in line with other analysis of an anti-establishment vote in general. That is sort of the opposite of a vote against leftist voters as postulated by the NYT column (or more specifically he conflates the two, unhelpfully).

One take that I think ought to emphasized more is that if you want to call the vote a repudiation of anything other than inflation, it’s a repudiation of “experts” writ large. But not many experts want to reckon with that directly, so they’re blaming trans people, DEI, etc.

Table the same guy you approvingly quote to back your vibe that “Democratic voters are annoying “ also suggests Harris should have had a “Sister Souljah” speech about trans people. Do you agree?

what does that even mean, I've now forgotten the significance of Clinton's Sistah Souljah thing

He also quotes American enterprise institute fuckheads too. Fuck this guy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sister_Souljah_moment?wprov=sfti1

Clinton called out Sister Souljah (for saying something about having a day where black people get to kill white people) at an event organized by Jesse Jackson. So it was seen as a willingness to stand up to the "fringe" of the Dem party.

And, as someone in college at the time, literally NO ONE (maybe apart from her friends and family) knew who Sister Souljah was. It wasn’t like an existing controversy he waded into, Clinton *created* the controversy. He chose basically some rando to denounce to demonstrate he didn’t like black people *too* much.

And now Centris pundits think the dems now have to denounce trans activism in the same way.

I knew who she was because of the affiliation with Public Enemy

tipsy otm about exposure to actual leftists and left policy, vs. exposure to stereotypes etc.

which is insane, the one thing that consistently polled awfully were those anti-trans ads, the vast majority of the country does not give a shit about the trans "issue", if there was ever something for the Dems to grow a spine on it would be this

I was into PE at the time and knew about Professor Griff’s controversies, but I admit I wasn’t like a super fan or read the rap press, so only learned about Souljah from Clinton’s demagoguery.

The idea people might not actually want democracy didn't seem to be considered as a possibility

I think it would be most accurate to say that a large mass of voters are entirely focused on whatever outcome they desire and consider the process by which their desires are realized to be irrelevant. They more than willing to discard any process that doesn't deliver the end product they want. If democracy means allowing others to control the power of government, then democracy is bad. It's basically the now-widespread position that 'we'll happily accept the results of any election we win, but any loss feels illegitimate and evil'.

Xxxp to frogbs Exactly. People calling for the Dems to throw trans people under the bus as cold-blooded political analysis are exposing their “vibes” and personal hobbyhorses, not following the facts.

And, as someone in college at the time, literally NO ONE (maybe apart from her friends and family) knew who Sister Souljah was. It wasn’t like an existing controversy he waded into, Clinton *created* the controversy.

The difference now is that Fox News, Libs of TikTok, and others make a routine practice out of elevating the views of randos on the left in order to discredit Democrats as a whole. Democratic politicians who want to distance themselves from the randos are always doing so from a defensive posture, and the right will always find more randos to elevate.

a large mass of voters are entirely focused on whatever outcome they desire and consider the process by which their desires are realized to be irrelevant

Are there a lot of voters whose primary interest is in abstract concepts (“democracy,” “rule of law”) regardless of outcome?

milo, milo….. it’s Aimlesstown

Are there a lot of voters whose primary interest is in abstract concepts (“democracy,” “rule of law”) regardless of outcome?

No. That's just silly. But the fact that you can make a silly statement out of standing what I said on its head doesn't say anything relevant about my statement. I would say that there are many voters who appreciate that the democratic process is a necessary part of distributing power in a way that creates more broadly accepted outcomes, which in turn helps to stabilize society.

I realize there are plenty of ilxors who consider democracy irrelevant and are focused entirely on getting the outcome they desire by any means, but from the left not the right, who also consider it intolerable that the system allows others to exert control over government. Even among people who are in fact living relatively safe, secure, prosperous lives there is an incredible amount of fear, anger and insecurity about (to coin a phrase) the enemy within. From my point of view the relentless othering of the opposition isn't helping, because neither side will feel secure until the opposition is extinguished. Democracy, for all its faults, allows a process that is better than that, even if we've forgotten how to use that potential.

a glimmer of good news from the golden state

Democrat Derek Tran has won election to the US House of Representatives in California’s 45th congressional district, beating incumbent Michelle Steel.

The AP has called the race for Tran after a weeks-long count. Republicans already control the US House, as well as the Senate, but picking up the seat is a big win for Democrats, who lost it to Steel in 2020.

Finally!

ironically it's California that seems the most careful in their counting, it takes forever

sounds like the Democrats also flipped the California 13th District