Democratic (Party) Direction

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

hahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
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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.

I don't think it's necessarily too liberal, but it definitely lacks the primal grip of "values"

I mean, we all value things, right? We value ethics, for example, since honesty, fairness, & justice are core principles.

not necessarily, but quite possibly, and yes, respectively.

name one

I don't think they need to use the words "morals" or "values" at all, but on the other hand I don't think "ethics" is necesarily what we're talking about either. "Ethics" to me connotes a branch of philosophy - ie., sterile debates which have little to do with people's daily lives. What they need to communicate is that they are decent people who voters would admire/like/agree with. If the voters think you're a good person, then they will gloss over lots of little policy details. If they don't think you're a good person, you can promise them the moon, but they won't believe you. Unfortunately, things like abortion and gay rights have become a short-hand for some voters on figuring out whether a candidate has values. That is probably a moral fundamentalist fringe whose votes the Dems will not be able to win and probably shouldn't even want to win. But they do need to capture the votes of more moderate voters who worry about rampant sex on TV and loose values among their childrens' friends.

also, we should probably clarify who we're talking about here. "Dems" includes everybody from DLC types like Clinton & Biden to guys like Feingold...

Also, it seems like we're only limiting this to talking about a very specific range of national politics(akin to referring to states as "red" or "blue"), but this doesn't address the other aspects, like state elections(e.g. Montana electing a Democratic governor and Democratic State House & Senate)

There was some major (spring?) 2005 poll all the progressive press was reporting on that found Americans favor Canada-style healthcare, taxing the rich, full domestic rights for gays, etc. Was it Quinnipiac? Can't find it...

It's pretty simple - the population is much more interested in pulling troops out asap. The Dem leadership is not - in fact, many still appear to be trying to out tough Republicans. You know things are odd when it's people like Murtha who are the furthest left on an issue like the war.

yeah, exactly. I think these things just get talked about in some simplified media narrative(again, "your state is RED," etc), and this narrowing just plays into the hands of guys like Rove who are pretty good at taking advantage of such limitations.

OTMFM

Yes, OTM.
I read an article to the effect that Dean is putting most of his effort & resources into rebuilding the party at the local level, precinct level basically, which seems urgent and key. Karl Rove has prob always been a right wing ideologue but he started out doing direct mail, not working on message or on policy. I am not a huge fan of Dean whenever he opens his mouth but if he's getting stuff done at the ground level, it's about time.

I'm not sure which one this was either, but there have been numerous similar studies going back years that support this. In fact the point made upthread about the Dems latching on to movements like civil rights, women's rights, etc supports this as well.

to be really reductive, perhaps unfairly, Lakoff is essentially arguing that Democrats should reframe their most liberal policy positions in a secular language of values and presto change-o, they win. the people in Ruta's article are arguing that Democrats shouldn't just give passionless names to their values, they should talk about where those values come from - family, community, place, country, religion, work, as relevant.

tombot's observation is most otm. while i don't think the work discussed in the piece is free from problems or contradictions, the key takeaway is that there are lots of potential Dem voters who aren't voting Dem because they really believe in the myth that Dems are hedonists, or at least permissiveness freaks, found most often in your big bad cities or somewhere else where people act in ways that folks like you don't (or can't). the Tim Kaine example suggests that if you show them upfront that their stereotype doesn't apply, they will revert to their better nature and vote for you, which they kinda sorta want to do.

He's not even in the "center" if you allow the spectrum to go from the farthest left Democratic senator to the farthest right Republican senator.

I guess I just don't buy this. What's your reason for thinking so? He votes with the Biden administration a lot more than he votes against it. The farthest right Republican senator... I'm not really sure who I think that is but I know they're somebody really, really far right! Like someone who is very different from Joe Manchin! Not somebody who'd be voting to confirm all these liberal judges!

The idea that Joe Manchin represents the "center" or "median" of American political thought is bullshit that only someone as stupid as, say, Chuck Todd could ever truly believe.

Then who does? Joe Biden? Amy Klobuchar? I would love it if I thought the median American political sensibility was like Amy Klobuchar but I look around and I just don't think that's true, I think Americans are, on median, more right-wing than Amy Klobuchar.

see, this is what the democrats, i think, don't understand about politics - what it means to _walk away_.

like, viborg, you've said something which i take to be a pretty offensive personal insult. and, i don't know, under certain versions of european culture the way of handling that would be to "demand satisfaction", to challenge you to a duel. now, don't get me wrong, i am a _big fan_ of dueling. unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, bayard, you are not a lesbian, and since i cannot use the tip of my rapier to push up your chin when i have you at my mercy, dueling is not a possible solution to our problems.

am i _satisfied_ with our little contretremps? no, not really. it bothers me, viborg, it bothers me that you can say something like that without consequence. that's why i'm not on social media, not even instagram. this is the only place i engage on the public internet, the only place where i make myself vulnerable to people like you saying shit like the shit you said. on the public internet, behavior like yours is considered normal and acceptable, and i don't really consider it either.

i've walked away from this board in the past, in large part due to the tenor of the political discussion here, and i may well do so in the future. am i going to do it _now_, because you falsely called me a "tankie" in a political thread? nah, i don't think i am.

if i did, you know, if i did and said so, people would talk about, i suspect that a lot of people would see it as an overreaction on my part, perhaps even some sort of fragility. seen in isolation from the larger context, yeah, probably it is. and democrats have this tendency to see _everything_ in isolation, to separate things out from their larger context. they divide and divide and subdivide, and this is what makes conquest possible.

it's like porpentine talks about - allostatic load. a lot of liberals who are in positions of relative privilege are ignorant of allostatic load, of the different burdens we all carry. i don't know what burdens you carry, viborg, whether they are heavier or lighter than mine. i only know that they are _not_ the same as mine.

and what happens with allostatic load is that maybe the load at some point becomes too great to bear, and i put it down and walk away. that's what i've done with the democratic party. the democratic party is _institutionally hostile_ to me and my values. the culture it encourages is a culture in which there isn't anything _wrong_ with you calling me a "tankie" because my values are not the same as yours, because i will not "ally" myself with you, meaning subsume my interests to your own.

and we walk away, and you don't concern yourselves with us, with where we go, i mean you are sad, but you hope that one day i will learn, that we will come crawling back, and you, in your benficience, will forgive us for our folly. liberals are so convinced, so doggedly convinced, that we _need_ them, and honestly, i'm inclined to agree, why i am a fool who returneth to my folly. i do think we _need_ liberals, but i also am not sure whether i can _trust_ liberals. whether it is _safe_ for me to trust them. because there's no reciprocal sense of need, on reciprocal sense of _obligation_. we owe them everything, and they owe us nothing. and so right now? right now i don't think it _is_ safe for me to trust a lot of liberals. i don't think it's safe for me to trust the national democratic party.

ilx is a moribund institution, and i do not think this is bad or unnatural or wrong. it is a social organization and it is tied to a particular place in time, a particular generational group of people, and over time the number of us who find a home here are fewer and fewer. when i walk away there is no one to take my place. and some people miss me, and a lot of them, i miss them in return. i've lost a lot of people out of my life because there is nowhere for me to talk to them.

and some people i've known, they become alone and isolated and bitter and i am sad for them, everyone needs to have a place where they feel comfortable, everyone needs to have a place where they belong. i've felt that way in the past, alone, isolated, bitter, and i don't now. and if i leave ilx, there are other places for me, there are places i have had to _make_ in order for there to be a place for me and for others, just like people had to _make_ ilx when usenet started dying.

with the democratic party it is different. people treat it like a social club, sometimes, like the liberal protestant churches, they treat their churches like social clubs, but what is left are people who are suffering, people who have needs, and these places, what power they have, they do not use it. they amuse themselves in their dotage.

those of us who walk away from the democratic party, we try and make new places for ourselves. and we don't have the power or the expertise or the _real estate_ but we try anyway, we meet in each others' houses and we fight and the country club democrats sit and laugh at our naivete, laugh while we struggle, and say "if only they did things our way..."

and maybe when their club falls apart completely, some of them will bring what they know and help us, and maybe we will do things that we couldn't do before. or maybe, you know. maybe putin will come in and a boot will stomp on a human face forever, which has _nothing at all_ to do with orwell's late-in-life pastime of ratting out all his old socialist friends to the secret police.

anyway, that went a little longer than i expected, i gotta go, another hard day of packing, moving day is tomorrow, i wish the landlords had given me the key, would've made it a lot easier, but oh well. got some friends coming over in a bit, it'll be good to see them. it's hard times, but yesterday was a good day. it's good to have friends, good to have people who are there for me when i need them.

(glad to hear you found a physical place to live!)

There isn’t a center or median of American political thought.

Yeah, true, if the claim is "Joe Manchin isn't the median of American political thought because there's no such thing because that's a totally wrong model for American political thought" I'm on board

I agree that America is too atomized for the idea of a “center” to even be comprehensible. Manchin’s not even the center of the Senate/the Meet the Press universe, though. Someone like Gary Peters (who? exactly) is.

however Manchin is always MTP and today, apparently, wouldn't answer a dumb question about whether he'd prefer a Dem majority this fall.

There isn’t a center or median of American political thought.

― papal hotwife (milo z)

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.

So here's a thing. This week I'm basically taking over this thread by the way until I get bored or enough people tell me to shut up and go away.

One of my friends posted a link to a FiveThirtyEight article analyzing the results of a recent poll on Americans' feelings on LGBTQ rights. I don't really read a lot of 538 - I was kind of a junkie for it in 2016, looked for reassurances that Donald Trump would definitely, totally lose from Nate Silver's reasoned analyses, and I kinda re-evaluated my coping strategies when Trump won.

But a friend posted a link to the article and so I needed to read it to figure out how much I should panic. I'm still reasonably disinclined to panic. I mean, any more than I'm already panicking. There's still a fairly significant chance that I might be systemically exterminated within the next five years, after all.

What fascinates me about this article is that it uses a term I hadn't heard before - "cross-pressured". As far as I can tell, this is used to describe a situation where poll results show that one person holds two mutually incompatible beliefs - that they exist in a state of cognitive dissonance. When it comes to trans rights, an _extraordinarily high_ number of people are "cross-pressured".

In this light it makes perfect sense that the Democrats have no coherent platform. They're trying to appeal to the electorate, and the beliefs and desires of much of the electorate are meaningless and nonsensical.

But there is perhaps sort of a vicious circle happening here, in that the incoherence of the Democratic party _legitimizes_ incoherence in the population. People who call themselves "moderates" turn out to, in practice, model severe cognitive dissonance more closely. In other words, the electorate, as well as the Democratic leaders, are fundamentally incapable of coping with empirical reality.

The funny thing is, as a trans person, I don't really see this as a _new_ way of thinking. I think there was _always_ a certain amount of contradiction and incoherence when it came to normative beliefs about trans people. As long as nobody digs too deep, as long as nobody asks too many difficult questions, everything _seems_ to make sense.

But it doesn't. The principles I was raised from birth to live my life by, they don't make sense. They are, in fact, batshit crazy. And people are coming up with more and more ridiculous euphemisms to disguise this increasingly obvious fact. "Cross-pressured" is apparently one of the more recent. I can't wait to see what the wonks think of next.

“Puppies have a nap, now it’s time for you to have one,” Elizabeth Warren told Feinstein.

(NB: Warren is not speaking harshly, but that doesn't change the context of the exchange)

the joker before blowing up a bus in gotham pic.twitter.com/fx2Gde4yeC

— ༺𝒢𐀔𝒥༻ (@gothjafar) November 10, 2022

every video i see of kamala harris is so fucking funny pic.twitter.com/pmgA2eBESt

— bebonk ⋆˙⟡♡ ⤮ (@beaaprill) November 15, 2022

I actually think she participates quite well in this music and dance sequence.

struttin on her way to put some more people in jail

it's true, she can do that as veep

she’s walking on sunshine courtesy of prison labor

“The thing about Florida Democrats is we keep learning with every passing year that just when you thought you had hit bottom, you discover that there are new abysses to fall deeper and deeper into,” said Fernand Amandi, a veteran Democratic operative in the state. “There is no plan. There’s nothing. It’s just a state of suspended animation and chaos — and, more than anything, it’s the mournful regret and acceptance that Florida has been cast aside for the long, foreseeable future.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/01/22/florida-democrats-losses/

Good morning!

NEW: a PAC fighting progressive primary challengers is funded by one man who happens to be the richest person in Pennsylvania, a GOP mega donor who has avoided $1 billion in taxes: Jeff Yass. Biden’s former campaign manager is the PAC’s only consultant https://t.co/t0p8eunM1m

— Akela Lacy (@akela_lacy) January 25, 2023

a story of two men who can discern which side their bread is buttered on

Congress must join the AI revolution.

— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) June 21, 2023

AI President

You can call me Al

AI Qaeda

Weird AI

AI President

AIbraham Lincoln

Dwight AIsenhower

AIke was with us when AImerica needed hAIm

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luv 2 have a pro-union president

"This is not an attempt to ban TikTok. It's an attempt to make TikTok better. Tic-Tac-Toe. A winner. A winner."

-- Rep. Pelosi pic.twitter.com/ExkX6bxz0O

— Howard Mortman (@HowardMortman) March 13, 2024

pokemon tik-tok-toe to the polls

Sippin Ace of Spades, I do
Got the K Street everywhere I go