dagblog - Comments for ""Why Biden Will Lose the Left—and How That Could Help Him""

LAST DREAMER DIES, DREAM OF

NCD — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 23:14:35 +0000

In reply to .@FrancoOrdonez reports that

LAST DREAMER DIES, DREAM OF LEGALIZATION UNREALIZED

July 4, 2115 - Geraldine Lopez, the last known so-called Dreamer, died of natural causes at age 108 in Virginia. She was the last of the so-called Dreamers, who signed up in a program set up by Barack Obama, President from 2009-2016....

.@FrancoOrdonez reports that

artappraiser — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 21:48:14 +0000

In reply to "Why Biden Will Lose the Left—and How That Could Help Him"

.@FrancoOrdonez reports that biden intentionally did not include immigration in his top-4 priorities b/c the Biden camp and then the transition team felt that immigration activists had become too adversarial.https://t.co/a3pcINQCZz pic.twitter.com/6W9sxtgpew
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) December 13, 2020

The Greatest Miracle was that

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 12:46:00 +0000

In reply to During the "Greatest

The Greatest Miracle was that FDR bailed out the Greatest Generation in time to fight the Greatest War. Hoover sure wouldn't have done it, and as usual it took 8 years to repair Republican fuckups - FDR being an outlier who got a 3rd term to actually put post-recivery to use. Obama spent 8 years nursing our hangover, only for us to turn around and binge again (with the help of some Russian hackers et al.)

Jonathan Tepperman had a

NCD — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 03:35:00 +0000

In reply to "Why Biden Will Lose the Left—and How That Could Help Him"

Jonathan Tepperman had a article in mid march "Why Are We So Scared of the Coronavirus?". The site demanded a payment to read it. Just another blathering opinion haver.

It's likely all downhill for the Democrats at this point anyway. We're looking at 2 years of obstruction, lose the House in 2022 as Dem base becomes apathetic, uninspired.

During the "Greatest

OrionXP — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 03:01:16 +0000

In reply to especially if people keep

During the "Greatest Generation," Democrats were dominating national elections but there was still a chasm between different voting blocs and geographic areas.

also, it all depends on what

artappraiser — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 03:00:55 +0000

In reply to especially if people keep

also, it all depends on what you mean as "liberal". this guy says it at great length AND really well

“Perhaps what we suffer from, then, is not left melancholy at all but a kind of left hypomania. From uncertain celebration to fluctuating fixation, it is our inner depressive realists, our exhaustive selves, speaking to our collective effervescence.”https://t.co/8vNmtBBBQ6
— The Baffler (@thebafflermag) December 13, 2020

excerpt

[...] the right’s grip on state houses is tighter than before. One of the most significant actual wins on election night was Proposition 22 in solid-blue California. Tech-capital finally put internal differences aside and successfully ensconced not the “future of work” of a million conference marquees, but work’s miserable present for desperate millions. Seth Harris, an Obama alumnus, wrote the foundations for the proposition back in 2015, arguing that tech platforms had created a new category of “independent worker” who fall outside labor laws like minimum wage or overtime and should “rarely, if ever, qualify for unemployment insurance benefits.” Harris is already included in Biden’s transition team; the law serves as a model for national policy. This is just one aspect of the grim reality of what an American “national unity” government promises.

Except for this last point, it’s all small potatoes. The presidential election was not a “repudiation” of “Trumpism” nor a landslide. The favorite talking points of 2016— “most votes ever!” and “look at that popular vote margin!”—remain as flat as they were before. It’s almost always the most votes ever; population does, well, increase. And, many will be shocked to learn, the U.S. constitution is acutely antimajoritarian. The U.S. constitution is functioning precisely as revered “founding fathers” like James Madison and Alexander Hamilton hoped: steadily shutting the door on possibilities outside of a narrow, narrow stream; setting up the building blocks for permanent minority rule. I’m laughing in the face of casualty and sorrow, for the first time I’m thinking past tomorrow.

Despite, as I’ve argued elsewhere, the now unavoidable need for radical, institutional transformation, a gander at the alternative models doesn’t give much cause for celebration: much more representative systems in say, the United Kingdom or even its baby settler-colony in Israel seem perfectly capable of producing similar politics. In many ways, the election itself tells us little at all. Once again, the polls were wrong: the “blue wave” failed to materialize; “Never Trump Republicans” were revealed to be the myth they always were; Trump increased his support among Republicans and overall. On the national, electoral plane, the United States slides into a recognizable pattern found in many places the world over. There’s the virulent, neofascist far-right. Or, there is a “national unity” government of the center-right incapable of much but policing their left and emulating their right.

This is one of the reasons the debate around Trump’s “fascism” is so tiresome. People seem to want a cookie-cutter, Hollywood version or an exact historical carbon copy to finally answer the question [....]

love this line

In post-Soviet Russia, you are forced to drink optimism, but in Capitalist America, optimism drinks you.

UK's newbie cabinet

PeraclesPlease — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 02:38:58 +0000

In reply to "Why Biden Will Lose the Left—and How That Could Help Him"

UK's newbie cabinet

https://www.politico.eu/article/boris-johnson-novice-cabinet/

especially if people keep

artappraiser — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 02:16:29 +0000

In reply to We are headed toward an era

especially if people keep voting in anything near the numbers they did this time, I think they will definitely be only slightly liberal and only as regards certain things

And here is

artappraiser — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 02:13:54 +0000

In reply to from the left, by By Robert L

And here is

Claire Kelloway @ The Intercept, Dec. 11

Tom Vilsack for Agriculture Secretary Is Everything That’s Wrong With the Democratic Party

Our planet and rural communities cannot afford four more years of Vilsack’s aggressive corporatism.

ON TUESDAY, AFTER some public tokenizing and horse trading, President-elect Joe Biden’s transition team crowned dairy industry lobbyist and former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack to lead the Department of Agriculture. Vilsack won out over House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn’s pick, Rep. Marcia Fudge, who was also backed by progressives. Whereas Fudge represented an opportunity to unite the USDA’s rural and urban constituents and address the agency’s long history of racial discrimination, Vilsack is a rerun of pro-corporate policies that continue to drive rural communities away from the Democratic Party.

The secretary of agriculture is an underrated and important Cabinet member whose work intersects with climate change, workers’ safety, racial justice, antitrust, rural development, and of course, feeding the country.

The Covid-19 pandemic put America’s fragile and destructive food system on display. Massive plant closures threatened the food supply, front-line food workers fell sick and died in large (and growing) numbers, and nearly 1 in 4 households experienced food insecurity. The next agriculture secretary has an unprecedented moment to enact much needed systemic changes in how we grow and distribute food.

If Vilsack repeats his Obama-era strategy, we won’t see that progress. This is because Vilsack doesn’t actually speak to the totality and needs of rural people. In his work at the Department of Agriculture and as a dairy lobbyist, Vilsack represents the powerful few of Big Ag [....]

similar delicate complaining

artappraiser — Sun, 13 Dec 2020 02:05:32 +0000

In reply to from the left, by By Robert L

similar delicate complaining so far from a progressive lefty

Vanessa A. Bee @ The Intercept, Dec. 9 (her twitter account here)

Why Is Marcia Fudge Being Nominated to HUD, if Not Tokenism?

The guarantee of safe and affordable housing is too important for HUD to continue being treated as the short straw.

anyway check out my mixtape https://t.co/ZhTKAzuqx2
— vanessa a. bee (@Vanessa_ABee) December 13, 2020

she also retweeted this thread by David Dayen, who is addressing Biden's reasoning about executive orders in his meeting with black leaders, attacking it as nonsense:

Fortunately, everything in the #DayOneAgenda is authorized through statutory authority, which we explain in detail. Not executive orders, but executive action. Implementing the laws. https://t.co/DIiGXx5NTw pic.twitter.com/e49RQfFSeo
— David Dayen (@ddayen) December 10, 2020

and this cartoon about a supposedly clueless Pelosi as regards the coronavirus relief bill

New portrait of @SpeakerPelosi. pic.twitter.com/L2bU2qft5v
— Eli Valley (@elivalley) December 12, 2020