US Politics, January 2022 — a pro-God, pro-family, pro-bitcoin state

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2022/01/08/far-right-school-boards/

A little slice o' life on this very topic: https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/28/us/minnesota-school-board-transgender-hate/index.html

anyone ITT considering sucking it up and running for school board or other local elected position?

I had in the past, but not after watching a close friend get elected to a local school board. Even in a very liberal district and setting aside the stress of dealing with the pandemic, her description of it has been "nightmarish" - multiple rounds of death threats leading to the entire board's houses requiring security oversight, months where she spends 50-60 hours per week on this unpaid, volunteer gig. Don't get me wrong, I am thankful daily that she is fighting the good fight and advocating for the right things, but I know I could not deal with what she's had to go through.

NYC doesn't have school boards but I did run (unopposed, no one wants this job) for a very bottom level seat in the Dem party machinery and--surprise!--we spend all our time fighting the corruption and stagnation in the county party structure. Good times.

― Ima Gardener (in orbit), Wednesday, January 12, 2022 2:03 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

thank you for your service (not a joke)

i'm starting to think about taking one for the team assuming we're a democracy by the time i'm a citizen.

surprise!--we spend all our time fighting the corruption and stagnation in the county party structure. Good times.

Apart from the fact that I'm a reporter and can't very well run for office and keep doing my job, this kind of bullshit is what makes me averse to party politics of any kind. (Or ever identifying myself as "a Democrat.") BUT I have a lot of respect for those willing to put in the work to make it better.

At the moment the reform movement within the county party is still growing, and until we pass a certain tipping point, we don't have the numbers to force the leadership to deal with us, so it's kind of like asking people to sign up to suffer strategically lol. In December 2020 there was a zoom meeting that lasted TWELVE HOURS because they kept pretending to have technical issues and disappearing for hours to try to wait us out of casting a vote on something. And then months later they nullified our vote anyway by hiring a pet parliamentarian who turned out to be married to the chairperson iirc?

Now I've volunteered to be one of the people who calls innocent souls in my election district to try to convince them to run for a seat and petition their neighbors to get on the ballot in 2022. I'm feeling a little bit uninspired but I will try to do it for democracy!!!

Our county Democratic Party here went through a maybe similar change a decade ago, during the Obama era. We're in a very red county, and the local Dem leadership at that point was old Yellow Dog Democrats — left over from when Tennessee was still a majority-Democratic state — who hung around hoping to get appointed to boards or whatever. They were forced out over the course of a few years, and we've had a succession of local Dem leaders who are younger, smarter and much better organized than the local GOP at this point — not that that's hard to do, since the local GOP just coasts on assuming that they'll win most races (which they will) and engaging in dumb intramural fights among themselves. That difference hasn't really added up to shifts in electoral outcomes so far, but the Democrats are arguably making some inroads.

New Quinnipiac poll

Biden's approval: 33% (!)

Generic House ballot: GOP+1

59-33% say Trump should NOT run for president

57-34% say there WASN'T widespread voter fraud in 2020

70% say economic is “poor” or “not so good”

58-37% say US democracy is in danger of collapse

— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 12, 2022

Kinda seems like actually governing would make Democrats/Biden more popular since people generally still can't stand Trump or GOP conspiracies.

worrying that it's so low but the Dems actually do seem to sometimes respond to things like this so whatever, put the pressure on. I would vote "disapprove" too

The 33-37% group there points to the MAGA core basically being the same arch-reactionary group that's comprised the GOP base since the '50s and isn't expanding even with this dogshit Administration in charge. You probably would have had 20% agreeing that Eisenhower was a commie spook in 1956.

IIRC Phyllis Schlafly launched her career by calling Eisenhower a pinko.

Yeah that was a big Bircher thing.

well he did visit Europe

and had a mistress

Almost shirked his duty for a dame.

a traitor to his ass

In orbit, my hat’s off to you.

we've had a succession of local Dem leaders who are younger, smarter and much better organized than the local GOP at this point

I've lived here for 10 years and never had the chance to vote for a single progressive candidate, the only choice was Dem machine people who put in their time. The first wave of challengers to them was white socialist types NOT from the community, which is something I personally didn't support in this context. I am SO HAPPY to have a real choice of young Black progressive leaders to vote for in more districts!! Sadly my city council member is not one of them.

Kyrsten Sinema ran from the kids who wanted to ask her questions & ducked into the bathroom because she thought it was illegal to film there.

Sinema asked police to charge students with felonies — so that they’d be “held accountable.”

Accountable!https://t.co/hjLo39m980

— Jordan Zakarin (@jordanzakarin) January 12, 2022

we don't have the numbers to force the leadership to deal with us, so it's kind of like asking people to sign up to suffer strategically lol. In December 2020 there was a zoom meeting that lasted TWELVE HOURS because they kept pretending to have technical issues and disappearing for hours to try to wait us out of casting a vote on something. And then months later they nullified our vote anyway by hiring a pet parliamentarian who turned out to be married to the chairperson iirc?

Dem machine politics in Philly are like Philly itself: dirty, nasty, and laughably corrupt, at every level.

this CDC director kinda blows, doesn't she?

CDC in general has not made life easy for those of us trying to navigate this thing responsibly. Under Trump at least you could blame it on deliberate obfuscation, now it just looks like indecisiveness and bad messaging.

maybe top physician/Scientists are not necessary the best people to run this large operations? IT should be a scientist sure but someone who's strengths are communication and coordinating which is not really in the wheelhouse of someone who spends most their time in a lab.

yes

https://newrepublic.com/article/164988/rochelle-walensky-cdc-covid

and yes https://www.statnews.com/2021/11/08/rochelle-walensky-cdc-faltering/

she was a bad choice, and she's not being helped at all by the white house.

not sure the white house is helping anybody at this point

I think Biden is contagious.

.@craigmelvin asks if it’s time to change admin’s strategy on Covid, Harris says:
“It is time for us to do what we have been doing. And that time is every day. Every day it is time for us to agree that there are things and tools that are available to us to slow this thing down” pic.twitter.com/8I52Q43050

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) January 13, 2022

Meanwhile: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/13/us/politics/republican-presidential-debate-dispute.html

I don't know if it really matters whether we have presidential debates, everybody on all sides always ends up mad about them and I don't know if there's any evidence of them affecting the vote much. But as a symbol of mutual commitment to a larger project of democratic governance, it at least acknowledges the legitimacy — or existence, anyway — of the other side.

every quote i've ever seen from an anonymous biden admin. official has been a giant disaster. they're scaring themselves out of simple, popular solutions in fear of annoying some, and instead offering twisted technocratic solutions that piss off everyone.

i'm not surprised by this cowardice, but that doesn't make it any less infuriating

Man the GOP is such a bunch of crybabies.

why don't they just say that one day it will just disappear like a miracle xp

But as a symbol of mutual commitment to a larger project of democratic governance, it at least acknowledges the legitimacy — or existence, anyway — of the other side.

I would be way more concerned about whether the other side's legitimacy and existence were being acknowledged... if they ever shut up for a single. goddamn. second.

Seriously the "other side" has all the flags and MAGA hats and boat parades and "Let's Go Brandon" bumper stickers and the single most-watched channel in the history of television and and and. AND they're shoving it in my face all the time about how much they're being silenced and oppressed and forgotten.

No solution being forwarded here or any larger point, I'm just... tired.

As for the other stuff I generally agree but personally don't think a non-cowardly Biden or a non-incompetent Biden admin would be doing all that much better, because (see above)

RNC pre-emptively requiring "candidates" (lol plural, there will only be one) to refuse to participate in debates is how you know trump is running again.

can't wait

2024 election gonna be wild imo

It would be great if the RNC were punished at the ballot box for all their anti-democracy bullshit. But.

Maybe there's more money in being inelectable cunts than being in power, I dunno. Before he got elected the Trump campaign had strong Springtime For Hitler vibes.

The Republicans don’t need to “win” majorities per se they can use the existing anti democratic/ anti majoritarian aspects of our existing system such as controlling the Supreme Court and the Senate. They’ve shown this for thirty plus years now. What we are heading for is entrenched minority rule.

Actually we are already there.

Yeah, we're most of the way there already, between the Senate's inherent Republican bias, the House gerrymandering, and of course SCOTUS. The presidency is the one thing they can't reliably win even with the Electoral College, hence all the efforts to even further skew the scales on that front.

And the tyrannical minority has, ahem, accomplices in the alleged majority so we r fuct

-Bob Marley

In my rhetoric class last semester I already started using my rhetoric of science component to analyze how government officials use rhetorical lessons from Gorgias to Andrea Lunsford as a way to explain the impact of COVID.

The CDC did not hold up well in November 2021.

getting a lot of "end of the empire" vibes between this, the "tyranny of the majority" comment, and the proposed ban on teaching students that Nazis were actually bad

On the other hand:

WASHINGTON (AP) — Founder of far-right Oath Keepers militia group Stewart Rhodes, 10 others charged with seditious conspiracy in Jan. 6 Capitol attack

— Hugo Lowell (@hugolowell) January 13, 2022

thats cool and all but until charges get pressed against Trump I still think the system is irreparably broken

Fox News anchor Sandra Smith: "When you go back to the warning to Mitch McConnell, why would you do that in this moment in a midterm election year?"

Lindsey Graham: "Are you not listening?!"

Smith: "I am!"

Graham: "It’s not a warning." pic.twitter.com/frcO04RsF0

— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) January 13, 2022

the shit Trump must have on this guy