US Politics, October 2018: next week will be even longer

Stone with the profile view This Facial Expression there

In truth, the most formidable obstacle to responsive government in the U.S. is — and always has been — the disproportionate power that economic elites wield over its political system. Influencing elections and legislative processes requires investments of time, money, and attention. Wealthy individuals and corporations can easily shoulder such expenses; ordinary voters can’t. This simple reality — that economic power is easily converted into the political variety — is an inherent constraint on popular sovereignty in all (capitalist) democracies. But it’s a constraint that can be more or less restrictive, depending on how unequally wealth is distributed, how easily large masses of ordinary people can organize politically, and how effectively outsize political spending is regulated or socially stigmatized. More concretely, policymaking tends to be more responsive to popular concerns in nations with strong labor unions, as such institutions help secure workers a larger share of economic growth, while also enabling working-class voters to collectivize the costs of political engagement.

In the contemporary United States, however, unions are on the verge of extinction; the richest 0.1 percent of the population commands as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent; and legal restrictions on political spending are effectively nonexistent. The Koch Network plans to spend $400 million electing its preferred Congress this November; corporate America is poised to spend upwards of $2 billion lobbying it next year. Given these conditions, one wouldn’t be expect policymaking to reflect popular preferences, no matter the social makeup of the nation’s two political parties.

After all, the last time organized labor was this weak and wealth, this concentrated, it was the Gilded Age. And that era was plagued by governance so unresponsive to public needs, the average height and life expectancy of ordinary Americans declined during it, even as their nation grew immensely wealthier. It is true that Democratic and Republican voters were bitterly divided and socially isolated in this period. But few would cite a dearth of “cross-pressured” voters as the principal reason why the federal government did not provide more relief to the unemployed during the Panic of 1893; or immiserated small farmers with deflationationary monetary policies throughout the late 19th century; or routinely massacred striking workers. The disparate economic power — and political organization — of corporate elites and ordinary workers is a much more intuitive explanation for the government’s failures in that period. It remains so in ours.

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/polarization-tribalism-the-conservative-movement-gop-threat-to-democracy.html

Thanks for that.

who in dis bitch has voted already?

King County (WA) absentee ballot arrived Saturday, with a bonus option of dropping ballots at local libraries to save a stamp. Will be turning my ballot in this week. Every day's mail brings several ads pro/con initiatives. It's fun to read why a certain state initiative is incredibly bad for voters, and then check the sponsors to see that petroleum manufacturers are benevolently looking out for the little people.

this is incredibly fucked up:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/22/middleeast/saudi-operative-jamal-khashoggi-clothes/index.html

i fucking loathe writing this, but uh these guys weren't very PRO and i am sure i don't begin to know (nor do i want to know) what PRO means in wet work.

I voted already. NYC.

the plankton with a hairpiece (© alfred) brings his nuanced understanding of world affairs to the khashoggi murder

https://preview.redd.it/gomojookvqt11.jpg?width=727&auto=webp&s=e39fa01ad36f93a89177b382e580f14b973705ec

The grief of Khashoggi's friends and loved ones and the outrage of everyone who values justice pales in comparison with the inconvenience felt by our beloved leader. This whole thing is just like so annoying, you guys, seriously. Sad!

it's totally harshing the prez's mellow

If the GOP hasn't wholly succeeded in purging anything that would've made them seem identifiably human, they're very nearly there.

how could we have known this country which did 9/11 would one day cause an international incident

tbf, telling trump he has been disrespected (or any other kind of public personal appeal, see, e.g. https://la.curbed.com/2018/10/11/17961850/beverly-hills-purple-line-walkout-trump-schools) seems like the most effective way of changing his mind about something.

"You winning in 2020 would be disrespectful to your legacy!"

'You should really stick it to that disrespectful warning label by guzzling the entire bottle of drain cleaner.'

WSJ op piece explains it all for you

https://splinternews.com/the-premier-voice-of-average-non-fancy-americans-is-th-1829905801

I'm kinda of the opinion at this point that human beings need to maybe just shut the entire fuck up for like a decade or so until they learn how to use words for something other than barfing out torrents of garbage.

https://youtu.be/-AfYWg1t0R4

fuck yeah

eat in hell mitch

perhaps of note that that was in Louisville and not DC

"lmao" in a dark hopeless way at Mitch's press sec railing against left-wing mobs while in the meantime Nancy Pelosi had Proud Boys who were rallied by the local GOP in Florida chasing her down.

No one who strives to erode the foundations of a society should be allowed to effortlessly enjoy that society's fruits. I sincerely hope this increasingly becomes the norm.

i think it would be a good idea for people to start carrying around little index cards with prepared speech-rants for specific political figures. that way when you see mitch mcconnell in the booth by the window you don't have to improvise

i agree but it's a slippery slope, that justification could be used when a Dem senator is poisoned at an IHOP because they want to give Medicare to everyone.

Well but see the subtle difference in what I'm suggesting is that it involves making elected officials feel uncomfortable because of social pressure from constituents as opposed to the discomfort caused by a poisoning.

perhaps of note that that was in Louisville and not DC

I was just on the Berkeley campus yesterday and was stopped by a couple of students doing a project on the importance of voting who wanted to record my response to a question or two. I was about to say something but stopped and asked for a bit to get my thoughts together first. Which I did and I think because of that I was relatively lucid and coherent.

Fuck yeah: finally some Democrats who know how to fight Trumpists.

https://youtu.be/msxropCGhls

After this and Andrew Gillum's performance last night, I feel temporarily good.

it would be interesting if decades of Saudi-friendliness in DC starts slipping away in part b/c of WaPo putting "Remember the Maine" on the front page every day for a month

“Shock report: US paying more for illegal immigrant births than Trump’s wall” https://t.co/FX3ljN7kPS

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 22, 2018

who is shocked by this, I spent more on coffee today than the US has paid for Trump's wall

This was cheesy, but feel good. I am a sucker for girl groups.
https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/beto-orourke-may-not-win-election-supporters-winning-internet/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=Web+Social&utm_content=campaignvideos&fbclid=IwAR0mqPCPSdeyJBkNcQmgHdaEcWDAetWi93UAYsWUcqoeBZkeMO0rESNfizg

waiting for the trump admin to do predator drone strikes on the caravan from honduras

Uh - what the fuck?

re: hyperlink I posted above - I'm convinced the Georgia GOP is run outta Stone Mountain.

can't they just be satisfied eating their carp po' boys with extra chuckle?

i mean its pretty standard these days to have a Name attached to your turnout texts -- "Hi Justin, this is Alyssa Milano/Elizabeth Warren/Pres. Obama, can I count on you to vote for our guy?"

if anything this is probably a 'did our people actually go vote or not' strategy that, granted, preys on the same kind of people every THIS IS NANCY PELOSI, I'M BEGGING YOU email does

THIS IS PRES. TRUMP, I TOUCH YOU TOOTRBUSH WITH MY THING, YOU BETTER VOTE FOR GOP OR ITS UPPER DECKER CITY FOR YOU

“He’s not ‘Lyin’ Ted anymore. He’s beautiful Ted,” Trump told reporters on the White House’s South Lawn.

Trump also said that he calls him Cruz and “Texas Ted.” He said he doesn’t regret claiming that Cruz’s father killed former president John F. Kennedy. “I don’t regret anything,” said the president.

“It’s going to be a public relations nightmare for our president if he doesn’t get ahead of this thing. The person who has apparently been financing this thing is George Soros. Now, we don’t have hard evidence on that, but that’s the suspicion; that the George Soros foundation has somehow been providing money because somebody has been paying those people off. My suggestion is that the Justice Department needs to get a warrant to search the books of the Soros foundation to see if indeed they have been setting this thing up. The whole idea was to use these people to embarrass the president just before the election.” – Pat Robertson

i know there is no god because pat robertson has yet to be reduced to cinders by a bolt of lightning

we are at that particularly irritating point in the political-reportin-on-an-election cycle where the media outlets are pivoting their narratives from "this thing we were talking about being a MAJOR POSSIBILITY" to "now maybe not so major after all, gonna be a real NAILBITER OH NOES TIME TO PANIC", even though there have not been a whole lot of substantial changes. Democrats still have huge cash advantages on hand, Dems still favored to win the House, Senate likely not to shift too much. Races that people expected to be tight are (surprise) still pretty tight. Heitkamp is doing worse than hoped for, but on the other hand it looks like Nelson is doing better than expected. Still, I'm kinda hating this proliferation of "has the blue wave already faded away????" handwringing puff pieces.

the press still desperate to create trends and waves and suspense

it's all A New Story for a New Day, full stop

did not see this one coming: https://www.yahoo.com/news/alaskas-independent-governor-drops-election-043757868.html

a rare selfless decision in american politics in 2018

can't george soros sue these people for libel?

lol Gorby

President Trump’s announcement that the United States would withdraw from a nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia drew sharp criticism Sunday from one of the men who signed it, Mikhail S. Gorbachev, who called the decision reckless and not the work of “a great mind.”

and that's from a guy who negotiated with Reagan