U.S. Politics, November 2022: “I don’t know, you hear the same things I do”

Get on your goddamn library board.

The economic moment is a large problem. Campaigning with low gas prices + no inflation makes selling positivity easier.

perfect time to run on legal weed for all

It is hard to see why or how anyone sensible or sane could think it was a good idea to vote Republican in the USA today.

― the pinefox, Tuesday, November 8, 2022

And this is why we're losing Hispanics. We can't patronize them.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, November 8, 2022 6:50 AM (twelve minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

But hopey-changey buzzword shit is also patronizing— it might work, but it is patronizing. And tbh, pinefox is right— anyone who can't recognize that the Republican party wants them and their children and their children's children (if that even happens) to work as wage slaves and then die, preferably early, well...that's on them, afaic. It's not patronizing to be truthful, and anyone voting Republican is a fascist, a moron, or both. Period.

And this is why we're losing Hispanics. We can't patronize them.

Is that patronizing, though? It's very difficult to see what the appeal of the Republican message is now. Maybe it's just a failure of empathy on my part.

the one happy part about voting this year is that I was reminded Austin had some redistricting and I am now in Lloyd Doggett's district instead of Mike McCaul's. First time I've had a Democratic congressman representing me in many, many years.

yeah I was also happy to discover that I get to vote for Doggett again!

But hopey-changey buzzword shit is also patronizing— it might work, but it is patronizing. And tbh, pinefox is right— anyone who can't recognize that the Republican party wants them and their children and their children's children (if that even happens) to work as wage slaves and then die, preferably early, well...that's on them, afaic. It's not patronizing to be truthful, and anyone voting Republican is a fascist, a moron, or both. Period.

― poppin' debussy (the table is the table),

Political slogans are always implicitly condescending. Who cares? When they work as they did in 2008 and 2012, it doesn't matter.

I agree with everything you say -- you're not the one I've been trying to persuade the last two weeks. Instead of merely pointing out what the other side will do, though, we have to say what we DID and what we WILL DO.

Is that patronizing, though? It's very difficult to see what the appeal of the Republican message is now. Maybe it's just a failure of empathy on my part.

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux),

Yes. You're telling the people whose votes you're courting that they're repulsive and stupid for voting GOP. Most people react violently against being shamed even when they agree with the shamers.

But, y'know, don't mind me -- a Hispanic surrounded by these people in a county about to take the biggest rightward swing in 20 years.

in orbit exactly right.

People are allowed - even encouraged - to regard voting as an act of self-interest and self-care. That is, they make their decisions based on what affects them directly.

It is a hard sell to get people to regard voting as an act of empathy for others. Personally I am very privileged (and also very imperfect), but my cradle politics was always based on sympathy for the downtrodden. If my family and peers had designed a politics purely around what benefited us, it would be fucking horrible.

Um, I guess I mean, even MORE horrible.

there's probably a good article written about this but the GOP's strategy of being comically evil actually does seem to work for them. it allows them to shame the media for being "biased" whenever they try to report accurately on the things they're doing. and it makes the Dems look bad for constantly pointing out how blatantly evil they are. I have two kids - when one is annoying the other, and the other starts complaining and screaming, that's the one you get mad at. even if it's the first one's fault.

xxp The problem is that so much of the Republican platform is repulsive and, if not stupid, then profoundly cynical. And it's a direct threat to some of those I hold near and dear. Maybe that doesn't make every Republican voter stupid or repulsive, but at a minimum it makes me question their judgment.

You're right, Alfred. I think there are ways to couch my more strident last few sentences in a better way, but I'm obviously not a political sloganeer.

"The Clinton and Obama years were the most prosperous years the US has seen in the past few decades— don't you want prosperity and hope over mean-spiritedness and constant seething anger?"

It doesn't have a ring to it, and tbh, lauding Clinton and Obama at all gives me the fucking willies, since they're both murderers. But some variation of that, in a more succinct form, could work wonders.

Mind, I'm not courting Republican voters, but Hispanic voters hesitant about voting blue; reminding them what's at stake if they vote for Republicans...isn't enough, in my experience. Making them feel part of an aspirational moment in which they do belong to the Dem coalition, not dismissed as a given because #immigration. Since 2020 the GOP's been in South Florida unceasingly explaining what the party will do for them; we've however taken them for granted.

It doesn't have a ring to it, and tbh, lauding Clinton and Obama at all gives me the fucking willies, since they're both murderers. But some variation of that, in a more succinct form, could work wonders.

And I'm with you. Saying this shit runs counter to every molecule in my body, hence why I don't do this for a living.

"Political slogans are always implicitly condescending. Who cares? When they work as they did in 2008 and 2012, it doesn't matter."

Shouting change without delivering any change might get old.

Don't mind me.

"Political slogans are always implicitly condescending. Who cares? When they work as they did in 2008 and 2012, it doesn't matter."

Shouting change without delivering any change might get old.

Don't mind me.

― xyzzzz__, Tuesday, November 8, 2022 7:42 AM (two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think this is the part of the Dem platform and marketing that makes it most infuriating— the hollowed out version of the ACA notwithstanding, while Dems were screaming hope and change, a lot of things were getting measurably worse for many people. The Repubs took this resentment and ran with it, and while white grievance and xenophobia certainly have a lot to do with Repub numbers, it is also without dispute that Dems really shit the bed in straight-up refusing to think about their former constituents put out of jobs by a combo of neoconservative and neoliberal economic policies.

The thing is, Biden does have real accomplishments he could promote.

If Dems were to plausibly run on a hope and change platform, there would need to be major movements on M4A, raising the minimum wage at a federal level, and so on. But too many of the party's people are just as in the pocket of the nefarious megadonor class and at the whims of lobbyists that it'll never happen....the reality is that these policies are winners, but people within the Democratic party act as if they're not because they're not policies that suit their own self-interest.

A minimum wage might have mitigated against inflationary pressures.

and also an excuse for raising prices

Lukashenko has outlawed inflation, you'd be ok.

Random note: a volunteer just knocked on my door, left a Wes Moore hanger, and cheerfully reminded me that today was Election Day. I assured her that I voted by mail weeks ago. Even in this safely blue state, it felt heartening.

between this and another damn hurricane (albeit one that looks to be milder than Ian), today is gonna suck.

Assuming GOP control of the House and possibly/probably Senate, yes, there'll be a lot of handwringing about Democratic messaging and leadership and being out of touch and whatever. A hard turn from DC consultants against talking about racial equity, LGBTQ issues, maybe even abortion. Most of that will be dumb, not least because a lot of these election results (the House especially) were functionally baked in regardless of other factors.

But it's also true — and will be true even if things aren't a total wipeout for the Dems — that the party really is lackluster, really does lack leadership and direction and vision, really has not articulated a clear much less inspiring vision for the future of the country. The GOP messaging is borderline insane — "Save our children from being mutilated by radical liberals!" — but it sure is simple and stated with great force. Even worse, I don't really see how the party fixes any of that itself. (Especially if Biden runs for reelection, lord have mercy.)

That's why I think the messaging and energy and coherence has to come from outside the party and force its way in. I don't have a magic formula for that, but it ain't gonna come from the DNC.

I don't have anywhere near the relevant training to know but perhaps part of the problem is Dems care too much about weighing every statement/decision by how it will affect their electability, which makes them too slow to react, too wishy-washy, and too easy to paint into a corner by their opponents. whereas Republicans just lie and shout their nasty messages, unfiltered, from the rooftops, knowing they'll alienate a big chunk of the population, but that they'll amp up their base's enthusiasm, and maybe peel off undecided dummies with their confidence and ability to stay on the attack.

would love to see a Democratic candidate just run an ad where they call their opponent a dumb motherfucker rather than trying to politely debunk what was said about them in previous attack ads and doing things like going "we're not woke, we don't want to defund police either, see!" to try and appease independents.

LIke quit falling for the gish gallop, quit taking the high ground, just hit back, be a damn liberal with teeth for once.

sorry, that was teethist of me

you're otm. Isn't that what Fetterman has done in Pennsylvania?

admittedly haven't been following that one as closely.

Senator Oz, if I hear those words tonight, flat screen tvs will cease to exist in a 10 mile radius of me

I guess it boils down to, most Democrats are so afraid to lose, they wind up doing it anyway

yeah Fetterman's race is the one to watch IMO, he was polling way ahead for a while and it seemed like they might actually have a blueprint on how to beat these morons who exclusively argue in bad faith. but it's tightened up a lot since then, so who knows.

A big chunk of Fetterman's message is "I'm just like you, only taller." Of course, he's also got a track record as the state's lieutenant governor, something the political press decided a year ago that they were just going to ignore so they could paint Fetterman v Oz as a contest of equals.

like literally, every goddamn D politician should go to every debate with a bullhorn and when their opponent lies, should blow the fucking thing, every time

*foghorn

Apparently the debate and the ablelist terms under which it was scrutinized changed few minds, as ever.

making them feel part of an aspirational moment in which they do belong to the Dem coalition

Yes! Making something seem fun and exciting and then inviting people to enter and invest in it, is just good organizing! But also, you have to have actual fun and excitement and things that feel transformative to offer.

But it's also true — and will be true even if things aren't a total wipeout for the Dems — that the party really is lackluster, really does lack leadership and direction and vision, really has not articulated a clear much less inspiring vision for the future of the country.

O______O

Re the Fetterman debate, hearing some of the actual audio was extremely upsetting as he struggled to articulate things and get words out. I'm astonished at the amount of campaign work that's been happening while he recovered and wasn't always visible or heading up the work. It's so interesting how his wife (who famously embraced being the SLOP--Second Lady of Pennsylvania lol!) stepped in and took up that space on his behalf.

We need better salespeople for some of these ideas - brash, charismatic, daring, but acting in the spirit of altruistism. That seems to be what so many people instinctively respond to.

(We have a few Democrats like this, but they aren’t really in seats of power.)

Yet.

A hard turn from DC consultants against talking about racial equity, LGBTQ issues, maybe even abortion.

I fucking wish Dems talked about LGBTQ issues as much as Tucker and Cruz and the rest of the GOP rogue's gallery likes to convince people they do. Sanctimonious tweets from Biden and Harris on Coming Out Day don't amount to shit. A lot of us haven't forgotten that "signing the Equality Act" was promised as a Week One priority. And yes I know that's predicated on getting it through the Senate, but I'm not the one who articulated that promise without a Plan B.

Was listening to the Know Your Enemy podcast the other day, I don't remember which episode, and at one point they were riffing on the (I think correct) idea that neither Democrats, liberals or the left seem to have a vision of "America" to sell — an idea or ideal of America. Obama did, kind of, but it was of course totally superficial, just basically "Hey, we're all the same, we all love our country, let's all get along." We can all maybe intuit that it's a vision of pluralistic multicultural democracy with a strong safety net and so forth, but it's not clear or well articulated and tends to sound programmatic rather than aspirational or inspiring.

We can scoff at that kind of appeal maybe, but it's politically important if you want to pull people together. The GOP obviously has a vision of America, and while it's a crabbed and cramped and exclusionary one, it's at least fairly coherent and explicitly rooted in (their version of) the country's past and traditions.

Yeah, let me emphasize that slogans aren't for Smart People like us on ILE. Other people like slogans! I was at this university in 2007-2008 and I'd quietly mock student enthusiasm for YES WE CAN but it fucking worked.

Idk imo we have a vision of the America we ("we" as progressives, abolitionists, and so on) but we also have an ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS public education & culture change project to prove to people who don't think of themselves as progressives, abolitionists, or what have you, that our project also benefits/liberates them.

We should all be training in change management imo.

I'm not saying there aren't animating ideas on the left, obviously they are. But there's not a compelling or inspiring public narrative around them that can resonate with an empowering idea of "America."

I get the yearning for fighters. And of course I hope the Fetterman style works in Pennsylvania.

But that type of candidate type (even foghorn-equipped) is not going to magically win in Wyoming or South Carolina or Tennessee or whatever.

Sometimes this line of thought annoys me a bit, like, "ok (Fetterman-style candidate) lost, but it was because he didn't have ENOUGH foghorns. What if he had had TWO foghorns?!?!?!"

There's not one election with one polity, there are thousands of each.

That's what inspired my first post. Of course access to abortion matters, but for the Cuban and South Americans I interacted with it's third or fourth on the list of priorities.

"Yeah, let me emphasize that slogans aren't for Smart People like us on ILE."

I like slogans, they aren't for stupid people -- good ones tell me the movement is in a good state, so they are vital.