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.

yeah the committees are going to have equal members under this agreement

I guess the question for me is whether there *needs* to be an agreement at all. The narrative around the Senate since November has been that the Democrats would win control with a 50-50 split because Harris would break ties. From that perspective, any discussion of "power-sharing" looks like feckless deference on the part of Democrats. Like, you have a majority, act like it!

On the other hand, it's possible that the actual operation of the Senate requires some minor adjustments when there is a 50-50 split. And it might be the case that the Democratic majority is seen as more of a functional majority (because of Harris) rather than an intrinsic one -- although the fact that Dems will be committee chairs does make it seem like an actual majority.

I guess my question is - what if Schumer decided he didn't want to do that? What would happen?
(My guess is that, they do this as a sort of handshake agreement to appease the other side and hope that the Republicans will treat them fairly in other situations, which, lol)

xp jaymc right, that's what i'm wondering

I shared this in the other thread: https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/18/politics/mitch-mcconnell-chuck-schumer-power-sharing-deal/index.html

yeah what Nhex said, that's what I'm trying to understand - are Democrats getting something out of this that they wouldn't already have with the tiebreaker seat, and is what they're getting worth whatever they're giving up?

They're upholding Norms!

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/cheers/images/7/7f/Norm1.jpg

Seriously though, they're not losing anything really, so it's not worth the bad press they'd get by breaking with tradition

Sure as hell hope none of those six senators who objected to the electoral vote are on these committees

shame on you for these unbipartisan hopes

https://media3.giphy.com/media/B88DHpHV7Wd0c/giphy.gif

"The Democrats have given unto you these two thousand... FOURTEEN hundred dollars"

I have to admit, I am genuinely happy about the payments for families with children in the stimulus bill (avoiding referring to them as a "child tax credit" because I think that undersells how good they are and obscures that they will most likely be monthly checks). I feel like maybe the Clinton/DLC era of the party is finally ending, and it almost makes me want to cry happy tears.

I won’t be happy til I get my childless tax credit

They only get half credit as long as it's a one year bump, we'll see how negotiations go for a longer term plan.

I feel like maybe the Clinton/DLC era of the party is finally ending, and it almost makes me want to cry happy tears.

Yesterday's Pod Save America episode title was "The Era of Big Government Is Back." :D

lol, big government never went anywhere. But welfare did.

• The average household in the bottom quintile of America’s economic ladder will see its annual income rise by more than 20 percent.

• A family of four with one working parent and one unemployed one will have $12,460 more in government benefits to help them make ends meet.

• The poorest single mothers in America will receive at least $3,000 more per child in government support, along with $1,400 for themselves and additional funds for nutritional assistance and rental aid.

• Child poverty in the U.S. will drop by half.

• More than 1 million unionized workers who were poised to lose their pensions will now receive 100 percent of their promised retirement benefits for at least the next 30 years.

• America’s Indigenous communities will receive $31.2 billion in aid, the largest investment the federal government has ever made in the country’s Native people.

• Black farmers will receive $5 billion in recompense for a century of discrimination and dispossession, a miniature reparation that will have huge consequences for individual African-American agriculturalists, many of whom will escape from debt and retain their land as a direct result of the legislation.

• The large majority of Americans who earn less than $75,000 as individuals or less than $150,000 as couples will receive a $1,400 stimulus check for themselves and another for each child or adult dependent in their care.

• America’s child-care centers will not go into bankruptcy en masse, thanks to a $39 billion investment in the nation’s care infrastructure.

• Virtually all states and municipalities in America will exit the pandemic in better fiscal health than pre-COVID, which is to say a great many layoffs of public employees and cutbacks in public services will be averted.

• No one in the United States will have to devote more than 8.5 percent of their income to paying for health insurance for at least the next two years, while ACA plans will become premium-free for a large number of low-income workers.

• America’s unemployed will not see their federal benefits lapse this weekend and will have an extra $300 to spend every week through the first week in September.

hopefully this won't be the only thing that passes

sorry, meant to link to the original, which has sources for most of those claims:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/03/what-is-in-covid-relief-bill-stimulus-checks-biden-progressives.html

i got to the fourth item and, just for a moment, let myself feel good. it's only half, but cutting something that important by half is huge.

lol, big government never went anywhere. But welfare did.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, March 9, 2021 10:49 PM (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, but "welfare" is what Clinton meant when he said "The era of big government is over."

ok yeah, I figured that was probably what they were ironically referring to but I don't listen to the show

I assume (but IDK) that part of the reason it doesn't cut child poverty by even more is that a lot of the poorest people don't file taxes, and it's still based on last year's taxable income.

thanks for that list Karl - there's a lot i didn't know about in there

Feinstein, asked about some Dems saying they'd choose democracy over the filibuster: "If democracy were in jeopardy, I would want to protect it. But I don't see it being in jeopardy right now."

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) June 10, 2021

phew

Cool-ass party IMO.

odds that Feinstein even remembers 1/6?

her 16th birthday party, back in 1832? hell yeah she remembers that! that was the night before she sold her soul to satan and swallowed her puke for $2!

Aged 16 in 1832 ? Then she was born at the dawn of The Era of Good Feelings! Maybe that explains it.

On Hugh Hewitt's show, McConnell says it's "highly unlikely" he'd allow Biden to fill a Supreme Court vacancy in 2024 if he's majority leader. He also doesn't commit to allowing a vote on a nominee if a seat opened up in *2023*.

"Well, we'd have to wait and see what happens."

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) June 14, 2021

oh for real?

when you lol the loud part loud

So Breyer’s really gonna keep riding this one out to see what happens, huh…

Why not? The Democrats are doing the same.

6pm:

What a wonderful bipartisan women Senators dinner at our @VP’s residence! Thank you Kamala! I am so proud of you! pic.twitter.com/l5sVNWO7lU

— Sen. Debbie Stabenow (@SenStabenow) June 16, 2021

8pm:

Sisterhood, solidarity and a late night Chinese dinner is our fuel 😘 pic.twitter.com/atZcEY8bNs

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) June 16, 2021

Andrew Yang: "Yes, mentally ill people have rights, but you know who else has rights? We do!" pic.twitter.com/l6AJ4xpqWV

— KnowNothing (@KnowNothingTV) June 17, 2021

d-fens

NYC left twitter was AWASH this morning with responses to that hot Yang take. Bleh.

It's scary that people take Yang seriously given how much of a complete and utter clown he is

Yeah. It seems like the clownishness, which is actually kind of chaotic, like, accelerationism??? appeals to ppl who think politics is a sport that you watch for entertainment. Ie, I guess, people who already have all the rights so they don't care because it doesn't affect them.

Is he likely to actually win?

(Genuinely curious, have not been following the mayoral race)

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams holds a solid 11-point lead in the Democratic primary for mayor, according to a new survey released Wednesday.

Adams is the choice of 26 percent of likely Democratic voters, with entrepreneur Andrew Yang in second place with 15 percent support, the poll conducted by the lobbying firm Capalino & Company with the Honan Strategy Group.

rank choice makes this unpredictable though

I am never getting past "YEEEEEEEEEEAH"

How old is that poll the last major one i saw was adams by like 2 over garcia and adams is no one’s second choice

yesterday i think

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/adams-garcia-wnbc-poll-nyc-mayor/3104963/

^^ from a couple of days ago

https://www.capalino.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Capalino-Honan-Election-Infographic.pdf

I think the end message is "too many people take Yang seriously"

Enough of New York City loves rich people telling them what to do, sadly.

been laughing at yang campaigning on "re-opening our schools" when schools have basically been open for months already.

his whole campaign is based on targeting low-information voters.