Coming February 6, 2024 . . .
MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE
by Michael Wolraich
Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop
Coming February 6, 2024 . . . MURDER, POLITICS, AND THE END OF THE JAZZ AGE by Michael Wolraich Pre-order at Barnes & Noble / Amazon / Books-A-Million / Bookshop |
Karen Handel, a Republican, won a U.S. House seat in Georgia, according to The Associated Press. It’s a reprieve for President Trump and a demoralizing blow to Democrats.
Comments
Mainstream Democrats' main worry according to the NYT:
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 9:39am
What is strange about Haberman's report, is that, whatever liberal policies anyone holds as priorities, it should be patently clear that Ossoff ran a nothing-burger campaign. He ran on not raising taxes and keeping spending down. That's it. Not defending ACA, not attacking Trump's incompetence and corruption and racism. And mainstream Democrats now have "concerns" that this neutered messaging might face criticism and they might feel pressured to try something else in 2018? What?
Also, I can think of a few more immediate concerns. Most immediate of all, that GOP moderates will feel empowered to go ahead with the ACA repeal, feeling less fearful of competent Democratic opposition in 2018. The Georgia election result is unfortunate. But the Democratic reaction is forehead-slappingly frustrating.
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 9:48am
I thought ACA support was a large part of his campaign.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucejapsen/2017/06/18/trumpcare-could-lose...
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 10:02am
Neither he nor Handel seems to have made ACA/AHCA central to the campaign. From Vox:
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 10:45am
There are no GOP moderates, it's kabuki theater.
Republicans will pass the tax cuts for the rich, they have to under reconciliation, the money funds ACA, so it is either dead or on temporary life support thru 2018's election.
They believe they will "get by" with it because they believe even voters affected by losing health care will still vote for them. They have an abusive relationship with their red state base. A group angry and hard wired by 30+ years and billions of dollars of targeted ideological conditioning to hate liberals and the hate target du jour.
It will take a major economic or health care system catastrophe to topple them. The health care system likely won't crash completely until the mid 2020's under their Bill.
And they feel safe because Democrat minded voters don't vote for a million different reasons.
by NCD on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 10:47am
Sadly, I think you are correct. The option was Ossoff or Handel. Ossoff was the better choice. At some point, you have to realize that some voters willingly vote against their own interests. It doesn't matter whether your solution is Progressive or Centrist, some voters choose the worse option, the GOP.
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 10:54am
The whole premise of Clinton's and Ossoff's and the Democrats' 2018 strategy ("winning-over-Romney-voters") was to win over GOP moderates. If there aren't any, that isn't going to work out too well.
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 12:39pm
This race does not disprove that going after purple districts and districts that can swing back and forth depending upon GOTV is the way for either party to win. Nor does it disprove that going after such districts is the way for a party iconoclast like Trump to win, which he did. This was a solid red district. Furthermore it was one with relatively highly educated voters who are less likely to be fooled to vote against their preferences by someone pretending to be what they are not, and less likely to do things like use a vote as a protest about things unrelated to the office being voted on.
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 1:02pm
good to find just now that statistical minds agree with this non-statistical mind:
Where Can Democrats Win?
Losses in Georgia and South Carolina don’t necessarily mean Democrats are going to lose in 2018.
By Nate Silver
Jun. 21, 2017 at 7:47 AM
Filed under Special Elections
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 1:26pm
From your link:
I agree wholeheartedly. Rather than beating ourselves up for the loses, we should be emboldened by coming so much closer to once considered impossible wins. The lack of money/interest in the not-Georgia races should be an eye-opener for the DNC - if candidates with no discernible backing from the party can still do well in red districts, how much better could they fare with a bit of support? And not just money ... the base needs to be energized and engaged where and when it counts, and seeing the party get their hands dirty while fighting what most consider a lost cause could make a world of difference. It would also help considerably in finding and recruiting the best candidates to get in the game.
by barefooted on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 2:27pm
Take a look at Rmrd's "white boy about to lose" link below
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:33pm
The operative word here is "if." There are republicans that support abortion rights and want to continue to fund Planned Parenthood. There are republicans that don't want to see the Obamacare medicaid expansion repealed. There are republicans that support gay marriage. There are republicans that accept the science on climate change and support some gun control legislation. I don't know how or if democrats can win them over but to claim they don't exist is nonsense.
by ocean-kat on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 1:58pm
Very well said. I am tired of reading comments from people left of center that fan the supposed polarization in this country that does not in actuality exist. To me a good first step would be if people would stop fanning the faux meme of polarization on sites like this, to the detriment of their purported goals. It has never been clearer that Republican voters are not monolithic. Many I trust for political analysis are seeing much worse division and diversity of opinion, the "herding cats" thing, in the GOP than in the Democratic party.
My takeaway is that our two parties do not fit the electorate anymore, but that's just me, I've felt that for a long time. Now so many others are noting it and Independent registrations continue to grow.
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 2:45pm
Perhaps AA, but if that's true the reason seems to me to be that neither party has a good solution to the problem of the loss of high paying jobs for those who have little to no college. There is a global over supply of labor and it's getting worse as more and more jobs are lost to automation.
by ocean-kat on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 3:32pm
absolutely no disagreement, I would even argue that Trump won by understanding this and pandering to it, catching extra votes in important purple places that way
but he was pandering to the old version, i.e., bring back the old days, when the younger generations increasingly understand that the old days are not coming back and are hoping for new ideas and approaches from politicians
I would also argue that part of that big picture, is that a large majority has come around to acceptance that everyone has to be given minimum health care for society/economy to function.. (Not coinicidentally, Trump dishonestly pandered to this, too.)
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 3:49pm
Garrison Keilor, self-appointed representative of flyover small towns, gets it, in an op-ed in today's WaPo, "Dreadful things are afoot",
my underlining:
note he is not even mentioning the robot problem, not looking for a fix to big problems, not looking for a grand inspiring "message" from political parties, as "life is unfair" and "I accept limitations, even sometimes futility, as inevitable," just looking for politicians to sensibly handle basic government services and rule of law
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:11pm
Not sure if I'm reading this the same way you are. He seems to be assuming that if we all just exhale and relax, then single payer and free college tuition will come of their own accord. That is what he seems to count as "basic government services", not that scary BIG GOVERNMENT crap the hairy coastal hippies harp on about. I think he likes to think he is pretty much in the middle, like most people, but that's a pretty radical agenda seen from where we're at.
Or am I not getting it?
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:45pm
I don't think Medicare type universal coverage is that radical anymore. I've read lots of stuff that has convinced me of that. One could even read some of Trump's stump statements as promising it.
The hump that has to be gotten over to get there is current GOP congresspersons' tea party type activist base that was promised repeal of Obamacare. And they've got to please the financial sector about a major part of the economy (jobs jobs jobs) AND deal with the new Freedom Caucus' promises to their own constituents. Then there's the anti-abortion nuts (I just saw some news on that, they are taking the word out of their bill just like to please one Senator or something.)
If it wasn't clear by now, it should be clear that Trump didn't know heath care was so complicated when he said everyone should be covered and better than Obamacare did, and would sign anything that wasn't "mean". And that he had no clue that not only was it complicated, but golly gee it sure costs a lot of money, didn't know that....with a different Congress, you could probably do opt-in Medicare for all right now if you called it Trumpcare and said it was getting rid of Obamacare.
Enough people have been threatened enough by all the changes that they've been forced to learn more about it, a majority gets the general principles and problems better than Trump does.
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 5:03pm
I'm sure you have a better sense of where things stand in terms of political possibilities, but just last year Clinton was saying it was "never, ever coming to pass". And now Pelosi and Feinstein are adamantly against it while lefty darling Warren has to be pretty much peer-pressured into admitting it has to be "part of the discussion". So it has more humps to get over than some fringe tea party nuts, imvho.
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 5:09pm
A problem we face is people, even Garrison Keilor, just doen't take a little time to think. The meme running through this article is big government making stupid regulations for no reason. Why, just to fuck with old men who have to piss?
In ten seconds I could figure out the most likely reason why they passed the law and it's because of people like Keilor. I still remember the day when no customer pumped their own gas. An attendant came out and didn't just pump the gas, he washed the car windows and even checked the oil. We've decided to off source that labor onto the customer. And too often the customer does a very poor job. The simply reality is gas pump latches don't always shut off properly and sometimes spill gas onto the pavement. The attendant didn't walk off to take a piss or get a coke. He paid attention to his job. He didn't wash your windows or check your oil just to provide full service. He did it to do something while he was watching the pump. If it overflowed he didn't just stop it quickly, he knew pump x had a faulty latch. He was more careful with that pump until it got repaired.
Keilor clearly does a crappy job as a gas station attendant. Back in the day he'd have to shape up quick or he'd be fired. He walks off the job to piss possibly leaving gallons of gas to overflow onto the pavement. He likely doesn't inform anyone that pump x has a faulty shut off valve. And the next guy pumping gas probably does just as crappy a job. And the next and the next. An environmental hazard and a potentially catastrophic safety hazard.
So what does the government do in the face of gas pump latches that can sometimes be faulty and customers that lack the simple common sense to stand by their car when pumping gas. They force the customers to do the job properly by eliminating the latch.
ps. I just looked at the comment section and I'm not the only one who saw how stupid this anecdote is. " in the first paragraph he told you that he'd rather risk blowing up a gas station instead of spending an extra 90 seconds pumping gas. "
by ocean-kat on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 5:06pm
We were discussing the Senate/AHCA vote, I meant there are no moderate Republican politicians when it comes to their core value..... tax cuts for the rich.
The kabuki is the posturing that some care about screwing the poor and working class, and that the effects of the law were therefore "moderated", or less mean as Trump said.
by NCD on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 2:12pm
She got 3 million more votes than the other guy despite#RussiaGate and her message being drowned out - obviously her strategy resonated more than Mondale's and Dukakis'. Will GOP moderates vote Dem or stay home or still vote for Trump? I'd put more stock into getting Dem voters left and center out to the polls, but between gerrymandering, illegal hacks & dirty. money, foreign collusion, outright voter suppression and media complicity in the whole scam, that didn't quite happen.
by PeraclesPlease on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 2:35pm
I would quote this
and this on trying to win anti-Trump GOP votes:
Strikes me that Trump wasn't on the ballot.Two other people were, and they weren't running for president. Anyone who has read on the current Congress can see that Trump and the GOP Congress are not the same thing. It think the only takeaway should be is that this district is gerrymandered correctly for the GOP to win there.
I suspect most GOP in the district (highly educated suburbs,with tax-and-spend concerns) that are worried about Trump going off the rails figure that the GOP Congress can handle him. And were more worried that a Dem would not represent their concerns well. Educated voters don't vote against their own interests for Congressional representation just to spite someone in the president's office.
I repeat: Trump was not on the ballot. In such an educated district, a vote for Handel does not mean "I approve of everything Trump does." It means: I prefer this GOP party member to represent me in Congress.
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 12:47pm
Points well-taken. But Price v Stooksbury can't be compared to Handel v Ossoff. An incumbent well-known republican against an absentee candidate designated by the DNC who apparently didn't even do any serious campaigning. Ossoff was not up against an incumbent, which makes a big difference. There is no direct comparison that really helps establish whether this is a good result, the democrats have never contested it. Clinton, the bane of the GOP, got a better score than Ossoff (yes, running against Trump, and not a mainstream republican, but still. She is no ordinary Democrat in republican eyes).
One thing that is striking is how much money the Democrats managed to mobilize for this, and only this, election. Five times as much as contributed to Quist's and orders of magnitude more than for Johnson. Without much better results. And more than ten times the amount dedicated to stopping AHCA.
Another thing, Ossoff got exactly the same percentage of the vote in the run-off as in the primary. None of the supporters of any of the GOP candidates who dropped out drifted over to Ossoff. None. That is a stark representation of party loyalty. Hence the idea that "there are no moderate republicans". At least not ones that can be won over.
Thirdly, to your point about voters being "more worried that a Dem would not represent their concerns well" despite his very conservative platform, that brings out the tribal - communal - familiar aspect of psychological penchants. It doesn't work to just campaign on a GOP-lite platform, because they will always trust one of their own to take care of their interests or promote their values. To the extent you can appeal to some minority of GOP voters, it is by standing with them on the values that sets them apart from the standard GOP platform. It doesn't work, I think, to sell out your own values because that will come across as shifty or inauthentic rather than respectful and thoughtful towards the culture of "the natives".
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:23pm
I've not often been convinced that outside money doesn't cause detrimental blowback in local races. Unless it can GOTV with low info voters. Here there weren't a lot of low info voters because of the demographics of the district. And in local races outside of presidential down ticket, that don't have such national spotlight, low info voters stay home.
I think this works both ways, I've seen it in my original home state of Wisconsin. There people would react just as negatively to Hollywood money funding a local race as they would to say, the Koch brothers type bullshit. They would be cynical about all the advertising and go with the guy or gal talking their general views.
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:32pm
What just keeps coming back to my mind for some reason, in blue as blue can be NYC, we elected red mayors for 16 straight years, one more moderate than the other, but both with independent streaks on certain specific issues.
A common answer from NYC voters when asked "why?" is that the Dems weren't getting "things" done. Things as in snow plowing, crime, get something from the state and Feds for all the taxes we pay, get something, anything from you local guys for all the salaries we pay besides attitude....
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:40pm
I got lost in your double negatives. But I think I agree. ;0)
I was more impressed in the ABILITY of the Democrats in mobilizing that amount of money, rather than impressed with its effectiveness. Why this one rather than Quist or Johnson who got within spitting distance with much less money. Why no money on blocking AHCA? Inquiring minds want to know...
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:49pm
An interesting tidbit is that Ossoff left African-American outreach to outside groups. In SC, Democrats experimented with a novel get out the vote program in African-American communities. African-American turnout increased 115%. The Democratic candidate in SC lost, but only by 4 points. Hopefully Democrats will continue to look for ways to reach out to minority communities. Democrats need every vote they can get.
http://www.theroot.com/that-white-boy-bout-to-lose-the-inescapable-racia...
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 2:05pm
Great link! Would like to know more about these experimental get-out-the-vote strategies. I hope these organizers do some consulting work for other districts in 2018!
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:32pm
Here's a little blurb from The Hill
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/337678-sc-race-vies-for-airtime-as-...
by rmrd0000 on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 5:07pm
Cool, thanks!
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 5:11pm
#1 most popular story @ TheHill.com right now, the opinion of one political operative, Shermichael Singleton, a CNN political commentator and a Republican political strategist who has worked on the presidential campaigns of Mitt Romney and Ben Carson
Left-wing politics will be the demise of the Democratic Party
Add self-described "liberal "Keilor's op-ed I just posted upthread.
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:25pm
P.S. In posting Keilor op-ed and Singleton's popular op-ed on a site where the audience is very politically savvy, I want to be straightforward in what I am thinking about: Michael Wolraich's repeated argument that the Dem party needs an inspiriing message about what it stands for. I think: not.
These two parties are big tent in a very diverse country, they win when they can pull together the bigger wider coalition from the gerrymandered mess.And simply about: how best to run the government. If you want passionate message parties, we need to go parliamentary....
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:49pm
There's the do-or-leave-it on messaging. The argument about which I get, although I lean in Wolraich's direction. But there is the same kind of debate on organizing and GOTV. Clinton downplayed the effectiveness of door-knocking and local organizing. May, following Messina's advice, did the same. Not sure if that played into why they lost, but it's definitely in the basket of possible suspects. I'm sure there is research on this stuff, they can't be just pulling that idea out of thin air, but the notion strikes me as very counter-intuitive. It seems so obviously important to have the campaign somehow have a real-world presence, not just in the form of Facebook ads, to have someone real stand in front of you and say, Candidate so-and-so is a good man/woman, to feel the energy and sense of purpose in the campaign staff.
Sorry, somewhat tangential to your point, but just struck me now reading you.
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 4:55pm
I love me tangenital stuff, queen of hijacking threads. (Back in the olden daze there was a quirk on bulletin board software where if you got too deep into sub-threading, it really screwed things up, did that a lot.)
But on point: sure you aren't confusing a passionate party message with the current (and possibly future) trend of preference for individual candidates who are charismatic and passionate?
by artappraiser on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 5:12pm
I'm really non-committal on this stuff, mostly of the school "let's try something, anything, because the same-old won't work anymore". Which maybe you also don't agree on. I'm not struck by the charisma of, say, Corbyn and Sanders. It seems mostly their opponents who seem to attribute their (relative) success to their animal magnetism. They seem to attract people because of the clarity of their messaging, and their ability to exude some true commitment to the priorities of that messaging.
edit to add: but it isn't just the importance of having some radical agenda, necessarily. I noticed in the case of Corbyn, that he seemed to be able to deflect the massive onslaught of very harsh personal attacks during the campaign, from both the well-funded Tory operation as well as the vast majority of the press, in good part thanks to himself sticking to the policy message. Good policy messaging is a very effective shield against the slime-machine that is right-wing party politics. Or so goes a possible theory.
by Obey on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 5:26pm
If I may speak in my defense, big tent politics is primarily a defensive strategy--what the minority does to remain relevant. Big tent was the Republican strategy in the mid-20th century and the Democratic strategy in the late 20th / early 21st century. It's not ineffective. Big tent can win close races that would otherwise be lost. But it's not an offensive strategy to regain the majority in the long term.
The right wing realized this is the 1970s. They drove the GOP away from its big-tent defensive crowd by tossing out the liberals/moderates and demanding adherence to a strict ideological agenda. The critics said that they were dooming the party to irrelevance because Americans would never go for that agenda. The critics were wrong. Conservatism has advanced from a fringe minority to the dominant political force in the country.
The critics failed due to lack of imagination. They assumed that ideological affinities were essentially immutable. That was not the case. Peoples' ideas changed. This change was not some inevitable social evolution. Conservative politicians, donors, and media drove the ideological change (just as humans drive climate change).
Insisting "Americans will never go for liberal ideas" betrays the same lack of imagination. Americans have gone for such ideas in the past, and arguing that they don't go for them now does not prove that they won't go for them in the future. The key is to figure out how to persuade people to change their minds.
by Michael Wolraich on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 5:24pm
Wolraich... Hey there...
Here's some good words of advice from Josh Marshall ... BUT...
And what's the BUT? On one side of the tent, tell that to Bernie and his bros...
And on the opposite side of the tent, tell it to the Third-Way weasels.
Here's Josh's entire piece...
by oldenGoldenDecoy on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 5:59pm
Message this. GOP base comments on coming demise ACA, and also defunding Medicaid addiction treatment, The Hill:
Commenter on ACA repeal at Booman:
Likely right on the tribal victory part, not sure making a connection to individual suffering makes a difference to The Base.
by NCD on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 6:45pm
Alcoholism was rampant is old communist countries because people were always depressant
Which is probably a good thing because then you can simply treat depression with cannibalism. The only reason I read conservative comments is for a laugh. Then I remember these people vote.
by ocean-kat on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 7:44pm
The Wall and Trump and the drug cartels are sunk.....
by NCD on Wed, 06/21/2017 - 7:51pm
Well, to me, that guy's comment shows there are conservatives out there who believe there are plenty of moderate RINO's out there, that the GOP is not monolithic. And he actually thinks that Dems and RINO's are on the same page. (Contrary to some on this site who think the GOP is totally unified in its goals; both can't be right.) I think: why isn't there a party with both those types in it? Why isn't this guy in a "Conservative" party and the people he hates in a "Moderate" party?
by artappraiser on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 12:57am
The bond the various factions of the GOP have is that they hate the concept of "Liberal" more than they hate each other. They have no problem voting in lockstep with xenophobes and white supremacists as long as the vote hurts the Liberal cause.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 8:15am
If I may speak in my defense,
Was hoping that you would do so! Thanks for the elaboration. All I will say in reply is that history doesn't really repeat itself except when it does.
You are rather subdued about your views.
It's just that I just don't see ideological fervor synching with this country's spirit for long, I feel strongly about that historically, too. Short Tea Party ish spurts from time to time. In the end, though, it's always about pragmatism. I.E., we can't go on with treating labor this way, 12 hrs. a day, 7 days a week, it's just not going to work, instead of workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains. Yes, a small passionate minority leads (Most founders more thoughtful than Patrick Henry.) But not via one of two big parties, rather, starting out with single issues.
Perhaps because so many have a family immigrant story full of all the sturm, drang and passion it took to get here, they want a little peace and quiet, a little less passion and outrage once they do get here?
Even during the Civil War, lots of people just went about their business with a what will be will be attitude, struggling to support their families rather passionate about one side or the other.
You mention this rising of the ashes by the GOP, but are they now where they planned to be when they started it?
I realize you are not calling for full-throated fervor, just standing for some things, but I just don't think it's in this country's D.N.A. Even love of FDR was more love of a man who cared about the people rather than a love of party. The widespread feeling of devastation when he died was "it's over." I find it common that greatest gen. people will describe their father like this "he was an FDR Democrat" not "he was a Democrat." Similarly today we call someone a "Gingrich Republican" or in the past people identified as a "Goldwater Republican."The factionalization will just get worse the more the internet tribalizes into sub-cults. We don't even watch the same T.V. anymore at the same time, there are few great unifying events. It is cafeteria of smorgasbord and tapas 24/7. Individual narratives and individual curating of reality, enough like minds brought together to crowd source one thing or another for a while, or maybe once in a while a huge popular movement to go out and work for the cool presidential candidate Obama, for his first term, then after 4 years find him tiresome, move on.
by artappraiser on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 12:37am
AA, you're right that most people just want to get on with their lives, but you don't have to man the barricades to be affected by a political idea. Millions of folks who never attended a Tea Party event nodded along with the politicians and media stars who promised to "take back our country." The fervent ones on the barricades just represent the vanguard of the movement.
And it is a movement, not a spurt--as you put it. The ideas promoted by the Tea Parties and our friend Donald were hatched in the 60s, popularized in the 70s, implemented in the 80s. This conservative movement is the mirror image of the progressive movement that germinated in the late 1800s, became popular in the early 1900s, and dominated politics for most of the 20th century.
Movements are not entirely composed of passionate zealots, but they need those zealots to spread the new gospel. So if there is to be a new progressive movement to overturn the dominant conservatives,it will come with Bernie Sanders-like politicians and OWS-like protests (as well as Wilsons and Roosevelts to take it to the next level). But first we need the new gospel.
by Michael Wolraich on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 7:54am
Trump did not give details. He talked about building a wall (lie). He talked about repealing Obamacare and creating something better (lie). He talked about bringing jobs back (Ford Focus production moving to China. Only 50K coals jobs total with more solar jobs in California alone. Our fight is not with an ideology but a gullible voting public.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 10:01am
MW "Bernie Sanders like politicians". Bernie's schtick is there are no polititians like him.
And BTW, the Tea Party was just the Bush/Cheney GOP base who pretended they had nothing to do with his disastrous administration.
RMRD is right, we have a gullible indoctrinated and manipulated voter population disconnected from reality in more ways than one can count.
There are historical parallels of authoritarianism and its hold on gullible populations.
Swedish Count Bernadotte, from The Curtain Falls, Last Days of the Third Reich, written after he spent 3 months in the devastated nation in 1945
by NCD on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 1:08pm
We are pretending that a significant portion of the population is not going along with the total trashing of governmental norms. It is clear that the Russians interfered with our election and their is no commission tasked with preventing a recurrence. Where is the general outcry? There is no plan that Democrats can craft that will appeal to Trump voters. Are all Trump voters racist? No. Will Trump voters cast the same vote as David Duke? Yes. Our push should be to get every Democratic voter and Independent out to the polls. Our fellow citizens will stand idly by as Trump destroys the country. Encourage every Democratic Party supporter wherever they are to get out and vote.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 1:36pm
I like your refinement of your usual argument here, it is quite promising. That is all.
by artappraiser on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 4:52pm
I always said they would vote with racists. I equated them to the stereotypical white Southern who would vote for White Citizens' Council members. There wasn't a big difference in how blacks were treated.
The analysis of the events in GA-6 in the era of Trump is that Ossoff was late in coming to the black community for votes. Cornell Belcher noted the following
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-georgia-democrats-blacks-20170...
Ossoff was slow in responding to what black voters needed to hear.
Black political strategists, familiar with the impact of gerrymandering, expected Ossoff to lose in the head to head race. What was telling was how they viewed the white electorate.
They were very critical of the white voters in GA-6.
http://www.theroot.com/that-white-boy-bout-to-lose-the-inescapable-racia...
Serving to aid in proving the pessimism about the impact of ethnicity in GA-6, a white woman called police to report several black canvassers in the area. The police told the black folks, that they were investigating a series of robberies. This was a blatant lie.
http://www.theroot.com/add-this-to-the-list-the-dangers-of-canvassing-wh...
I don't give people who vote in the same pattern as racists a magical upgrade. They are still deplorables.
Do I see race in a lot of stuff? Yes. Keeps me sane. My goal is not to seek your approval. It is to relate my truth. I doubt that we agree on much.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 5:59pm
Thanks for the links, excellent points.
by NCD on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 6:02pm
You are welcome.
Blacks, Latinos, and Asians need the same outreach TLC as white voters.
by rmrd0000 on Thu, 06/22/2017 - 7:18pm
The problem with the current DNC strategy in one picture.
The DNC are invested heavily in winning over the socially progressive economic conservatives, i.e. the bottom right-hand quadrant. Spot the problem.
Like Rmrd suggests above, Democrats are better off trying to mobilize the more highly liberal voters on both social and economic vectors.
Graph from this Democracy Fund report.
by Obey on Fri, 06/23/2017 - 8:09am
Thanks Obey, it is a hard message to sell. Michael Crichton was a well-educated Republican who didn't "believe" in climate change. The Democrats want to go on a snipe hunt for Liberal Republicans. The fact is that those Republican voters hate Liberal ideas more than they hate being associated with denial of science or having connections to white supremacists. Minority voters feel neglected by the Democratic Party. Democratic leadership has to make sure minority voters know that their votes are important. Ossoff could have done a better job.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 06/23/2017 - 8:36am
Interesting LA Times article you included above btw! I'm encouraged by these stories showing that there is a renewed interest in longer-term organizing.
by Obey on Fri, 06/23/2017 - 8:46am
Thanks the dynamic in the black community is they are hearing Democrats talk about the danger of "identity politics" as the party openly goes after white voters. Blacks take in this message in the setting of the acquittal of a police officer who murdered a man legally carrying a firearm. Blacks know that the DOJ of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions is unlikely to investigate. Blacks feel abandoned by the Democratic Party and the country as a whole. Blacks are not going to waste their votes on a third party, but some people may stay home if they feel that Democrats don't care. The country is not post-racial. Democrats need to be pro-active.
by rmrd0000 on Fri, 06/23/2017 - 9:00am
It should be remembered that Hillary's approach was more than hope and a prayer. She'd built up her tough-on-security cred since 2000, and had foreign policy conservatives publicly endorsing her. But that momentum largely swung back, and most any that could be sniped off went to embracing the deplorables tag. The shameless embrace shame - and 7 1/2 months later they're still dug in, no matter how many crooked Trump revelations come out. Rather than throw too many stones, we need to reconcile how big this task is. My mom's got Fox on 14 hours a day - how's a stump speech going to counter decades of societal imprinting? We think logic and catering will do it (tho I agree blacks & Hispanics & Asians need more respect, attention, TLC), but these are folks who readily vote against their own interests. Even with Hillary, it's "there's so much stuff, there must be some truth to it". After 25 years, it just sticks, while Trump's is just 2 years in and combined with the allowances we give media figures and the rich and bad boys.
by PeraclesPlease on Fri, 06/23/2017 - 10:58am