Democratic (Party) Direction

i'm also not convinced about some of those salary numbers -- how is he defining "household"? and is he giving salaries in cities like new york and san francisco equal weight to ones in poor rural regions? how does income tax figure in? it's kinda vague.

Yeah, I'm not sure about the salary numbers either -- plenty of households still struggle on an income of $60,000 a year. The article gets it right that those people don't receive any government assistance, but that's just where the problem lies -- they end up too well off to get assistance but still unable to afford their debt and medical bills.

or hollywood actor

the article suggested that the dividing line between affluent and poor was $50K per household, but for a married couple where both spouses work that only comes out to $25K per person, which isn't much once you figure in the high cost of living in america. plus, the article doesn't say who in these salary ranges pay for their own insurance and retirement funds.

read: "we won't send your existing jobs to india."

it could happen, provided the elected politicians don't have any vested corporate interests. and monkeys might fly etc.

hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
hohohohoHOHOHOHOHOHOOH
heheheheheHEHEHEHEEEHEHEEEHEEHAHAHAHAHAHASNORTSNORTSNORT!

sorry

Er wait, am I talking about Americans, or ILXors?

it is funny how many "affluent" "property owners" are up to their necks in mortgages and high-interest loans. it's like that commercial where the rich white suburban lawnmower dude says "i'm in debt up to my eyeballs!"

In the vast swaths of country between the megapolises there are people raising families of 5 on $57,000 a year and doing it relatively painlessly. And yeah, economic issues don't mean a goddamned thing to them.

Wow, what an incredible insight. Very novel!

"Environics found social values moving away from the authority end of the scale, with its emphasis on responsibility, duty, and tradition, to a more atomized, rage-filled outlook that values consumption, sexual permissiveness, and xenophobia. The trend was toward values in the individuality quadrant."

I've long thought that if the Democratic party would focus their message on individualism (and the resulting freedom it implies) that they might get somewhere.

Today’s average American “worker” is, in short, very much on his or her own -- too prosperous to be eligible for most government assistance programs and, because of job laws that date back three quarters of a century, unable to unionize. Such isolation and atomization have not led to a new wave of social solidarity and economic populism, however. Instead, these changes have bred resentment toward those who do have outside aid, whether from government or from unions, and an escalating ethos of every man for himself. Against that ethos, voters have increasingly flocked to politicians who recognize that the combination of relative affluence and relative isolation has created an opening for cultural appeals.

"Every man for himself" has been an American credo for hundreds of years. It's the essence of competition, of capitalism, of industry. There's a bridge somewhere between individualism and community--is the Democratic party forcing people over a bridge or seeking one?

American voters have taken shelter under the various wings of conservative traditionalism because there has been no one on the Democratic side in recent years to defend traditional, sensible middle-class values against the onslaught of the new nihilistic, macho, libertarian lawlessness unleashed by an economy that pits every man against his fellows.

Maybe they're taking shelter because they don't think it's an economy that's pitting man against man, it's shelter from the resulting culture war. What are "traditional, sensible middle-class values" anyway? The only hint we get from this article is that candidates should talk about religion and that will mitigate their stance on the death penalty (in Virginia.)

I am happy to see the wasteland that is the Democratic Party looking inward. The Republicans wouldn't dare stare into their own dark abyss.

As for the "average American household" that makes $60K a year, it would have been more informative to see the median income, because the average is skewed upwards by those at the top of the scale - ie., less than 50% of Americans make the "average" income.

Lakoff's extensively written about the need for Democratic candidates and progressives in general to start explicitly talking about values. Also, for campaigns to work at creating more of an overall narrative for a candidate than just a laundry list of policies. It's only his work on the framing aspect that's received attention lately, not so much his work on defining the values systems that right/left folks tend to hold(e.g. "maintaining authority" vs "care & responsibility").

He's offered up Schwarzneggar's campaign as an example of a guy who ran entirely on narrative & perceived identity, and expressively refused to offer up any policy suggestions. Most folks don't have the time/energy/inclination to get into policy specifics, but if they trust your guy, they're trust him to take care of the details.

As he says,

"The pollsters didn’t understand it because they thought that people voted on the issues and on self-interest. Well, sometimes they do. But mostly they vote on their identity -- on persons that they trust to be like them, or to be like people they admire"

which connects to that aspirational bit that the article mentions.

Jim Wallis has talked about several of these same issues over the last year as well, especially with on the whole "onslaught of the new nihilistic, macho, libertarian lawlessness unleashed by an economy that pits every man against his fellows" bit.

Wallis has written about conversations his group has had with Frank Luntz and some other Repub pollsters who were quite open about their m.o. being to get voters so caught in such intense issues that they vote against their economic interest.

As other folks have pointed out, the Republicans have been better that bring the polls to them(gay marriage is the biggest thing you care about) vs the Democrats moving to where the polls now seem to be(well i guess we need to move rightward on gay marriage).

That's the thing, innit? If you build up an entire apparatus to both promote & reinforce certain narratives, people will believe them even if they have no basis in fact. George W. Bush is steadfast & strong, Kerry's a weak-willed flip-flopper, Republicans are all about a smaller government, supply-side economics works, etc

oh fuck yeah this is a major bit of it, too. But since when did we start promoting self-reflection and critical thought?

For real despair, look at how Sen. Rodham Clinton is pandering to libs and righties on alternate days. "Congress run like a plantation," "I'd bomb Iran," etc.

xpost

Please God, take Hilary quietly so she won't fuck up the party with a presidential campaign. WORST POSSIBLE CANDIDATE EVER.

Huh? He's only been going this stuff in the press for about two years. Second, there are plenty of other folks who have made the connection, but have gotten shit for coverage(not fitting in with "religious = rightwing conservative" media narrative?), even when they got arrested for it on the Capitol steps.

For real despair, look at how Sen. Rodham Clinton is pandering to libs and righties on alternate days. "Congress run like a plantation," "I'd bomb Iran," etc.

DLC-candidate-in-centrist-message shocker

very much otm. The change will come from the outside.

Re the direction of the party, past actions indicate the party will be quicker to line up behind someone with Clinton's politics as opposed to Tasini's. I'm not too hopeful when it comes to the future of the Dems.

do you think it's necessary for dems to use the religious right's language ("morals" and "values")? would a less-loaded word like "ethics" skew too liberal?

my question is, when do they not? unless a voter has completely descended into some cynical nihilism, of course.

i mean, yeah, "values" has come to signify a very specific set of values, which just goes to further show that democratic types do need to start talking about theirs.

If the CIA could do that well running some small town mayor’s campaign Bernie probably should have tried to steal them away imo.

The “Pete is CIA” thing is a solid example of not learning the lesson of the Chinedu debacle

That sentence is almost coherent.

god i'm so glad big don abernathy is a regular poster now

two things can be true xp

what would we do without your input big don

split other hairs and not your hairs, that's what

Daou is obviously not to be trusted, he turned left after the failure of the fact check thing and then not having his loyalty to Clinton repaid.

But his face turn is hilarious and since he has no power in the world, and no one laughing at the idea of Chairman Daou has any power in the world - who fuckin' cares?

yes, he's fundamentally a funny figure. his house music is not bad too.

Yeah that’s true

"Grifter" seems to mean something like "social media influencer for politics" now. Given how con-artist-like or at least -adjacent other kinds of influencers are, I can mostly forgive how broad the term has become, even though it does imply people are cashing in on twitter or podcasting to a degree that is probably literally impossible.

imo "grifter" means you are materially benefitting from a genuinely outsized, possibly fraudulent rep and not from doing an actual thing. eric garland for instance I happily call a grifter because he leveraged #resistance paranoia into (possibly?) lucrative paywalled content despite making no sense ever

peter daou's album of "piano elegies for america" currently stands at 275 views so I suspect if he is attempting a grift he is v v bad at it

I guess seeing it applied to (imo) lavishly overpaid consultants that seem to only fail upwards doesn’t really bother me

like maybe Neera doesn’t make much more than a higher ranking associate at a Big Law firm (also overpaid), but those folks have to actually produce, bill ~2k hours etc.

and I wouldn’t even begrudge them these salaries if they were at the least out pushing for genuine improvements in the lives of the people who have to bring them their DoorDash and handle their Amazon packages. during a gd pandemic.

The Mothership/Neera/think tank grifter call comes down to whether or not you think their goal is to win elections and make policy, or if their goal is essentially no different from any other marketing/PR firm (ie to skim money off the top) regardless of results.

imo Mothership: grifters, Neera: not grifter, just a person with shitty politics but she does appear to want to govern

Sure dude

Xpost

fair point

xp

you got it dude Don

This Mothership?
https://mothershipstrategies.com/

Yes, they're the people behind the constant IF YOU DON'T SEND ME $5 RIGHT NOW MY DOG WILL BE KILLED fundraising e-mails.

Can their "scare old people into giving money" tactic work possibly as well it does for Trumpers? I hope not honestly

It's extremely effective at getting people to donate AFAICT.

Less effective at winning races - they made their name raking in the cash for 2017 Ossoff

did they do McGrath bc wowowowow

people who thought Daou wasn’t on the level before but he is now

I mean, the job might have been a grift on society but the sentiments seemed genuine in the past? I have no real way of gauging it, and maybe it's all posturing in search of a job or increased clout. But it's the same vague hollering into the void of twitter. I did not mean to imply that he was a reliable source of information or that his tweeting was worse then than now, just that he's pivoted.

and I think sic's link was about the video clip, not that it was Daou tweeting it. even a dude like Daou can spot a banana

It doesn’t matter what his link was about. Conversation shifted in ways that were beyond my control and it will probably happen again.

It doesn’t matter what his link was about. Conversation shifted in ways that were beyond my control and it will probably happen again.

You're the one who shifted it by bringing up grifting!

I remembered it being more of a fluid collectively driven and gradual conversational shift but maybe your right.

you’re

A Mothership email

lol pic.twitter.com/E3xEb8e3Bg

— da jdpon joker (@Hegelbon) December 23, 2020

and I think sic's link was about the video clip, not that it was Daou tweeting it. even a dude like Daou can spot a banana

yeah Daou is a clown but it was too late at night to bother looking for another source on the clip

Verrit was his hilarious "a numerical code to prove memes are true" project btw

also tbh I do feel happy for him that he saw through the emptiness of Sorkin centrism, even if he keeps being the same level of teethgrindingly earnest about actually positive pro-human policies. so if the thread drift came from gabbo aiming to clown me, fair enough

small rustled jimmies

“Sorkin Centrism”

That should be a thing we don’t say.

I guess if you don't say it then we won't be

Dianne Feinstein has filed with the FEC to seek re-election until 2030, when she will be 96.

Uh

Barbara, come get your girl

file and forget

Don't really know anything beyond this tweet, but FWIW:

Even candidates that literally say I AM NOT RUNNING AGAIN file this paperwork, it has to do with transferring campaign money around https://t.co/gplOW9cF2U

— metal dot txt (@metaltxt) January 13, 2021

Yeah, the amount of the national Democratic Party infrastructure is just consultancy grift and media buys to their friends isn’t really understood by most people, especially not by those who are paid to comment on them on air

thanks, this also sucks!

Say what you will about the Democrats, at least they're all going to vote for a second time to impeach and convict Donald J. Trump. Who else is going to do this public service on our behalf? The Republicans?

Reporting today says Biden picks Jaime Harrison as DNC chair, but I don't get it -- I thought DNC chair was a thing there was an election for, not a thing the President picks, am I confused?

Yeah, I've been confused about that, too.

Here's what the NYT said:

"Incoming presidents traditionally take control of the party committees, installing their own chair and staffers. Former President Barack Obama chose to try to establish his own political operation outside of the committee, a decision that many D.N.C. members say damaged state parties and led to years of dysfunction at the national level. Far more of a party institutionalist, Mr. Biden has promised to rebuild state parties and deepen investments in the committee."

So, I guess there was a DNC election in 2017 because there wasn't a Democratic president in the White House?

Also, Wikipedia says that the 2017 election was the first contested DNC race since 1985.

The general way it works is that the DNC is notionally the president’s operation when a democrat is in office. They set the national direction for the party, etc.

Obama shunned the DNC, which might have been OK for him but was disastrous for all the things the DNC is supposed to do. Debbie Wasserman Schultz arguably tanked the whole thing, and all he had to do to was wave his hand and she’d have been replaced

There would have been both pros and cons to him just installing a portion of his Obama for America staff directly in the DNC office, but in my opinion... it would have been a better idea than pretending he was independent of their operation