I’ve always thought the overwhelming majority of what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth is due to whoever was the last person to be in his ear at any particular time. He mainlines Fox News all day so there’s probably only so much that could ever be accomplished by exposing him to other points of view. Still. The only people he’s listening to are heritage foundation fascists: hence all the executive order bullshit.
I would never in a million years hope for a scenario where Donald Trump is given the unchecked power of the United States once much less twice. Still, while there’s very little Democrats can do politically to top this right now, it wouldn’t hurt to try and flattery manipulate him into being perhaps less than the worst possible version of himself.
This is all presuming Fetterman remains a progressive iconclast. If hes considering selling out his values in the name of some half assed attempt and Sinema-Ing eff him.
I don’t think flattery helps steer Trump into less destructive measures. At best, it just helps the flatterer remain in his good graces and maybe steers him toward a different destructive outcome but never anything positive
I’ll fully cop to it’s probably wishful thinking on my part that a mob boss could ever be anything less than a sociopath and that yet another Democratic senator is probably going to be a headache if and when they ever get power again
Fetterman’s general reliability as a Democratic vote in the Senate made his showy capitulation to Trump and the execrable Stefanik all the more galling. That his wife -a formerly undocumented immigrant - accompanied him to Mar-a-Lago compounds the outrage. I’m sure that a lot of us Dems in PA will remember his behavior come the next primary he faces.
Fetterman used to wear dark, short-sleeved work shirts and jeans - which were far less sartorially egregious. As you suggest, the hoodie and shorts schtick is probably more of a conscious provocation.
This. His attire wasn't objectionable on the surface, but it showed a kind of narcissistic desire to be seen as an outlier, a fire brand. And within the democratic framework, going down to Mara Lago is another sign of Maverick behavior at least in his eyes. This in no way represents democratic voters desires in any way. That's the issue
Here's my thinking. Republicans support their candidates and reps because, whether we like it or not, they stick together, even when it doesn't poll well, and even when their own constituents oppose their position. My theory is that people want a rep who stands for something, even if it's bad.
Dems consistently undermine their own message, and many people don't trust them for it. We need to stand for something. Triangulation in the hope you will satisfy a few extra swing voters is bullshit and confusing. We need strong principles that give people something to trust. They don't have to accept every part of your message as long as it is consistent and reliable. They don't care about policy, they want reps who prove that they will fight for them.
Fetterman is muddling that message and the Dem leadership needs to have a come to Jesus moment with him, quit all this equivocating and give something that people can follow. As much as it disgusts me to say it, the GOP does this and it has worked. Their policies are awful and hurt many of their constituents, and yet they have consistent support in spite of it.
The Dems need someone to get out in front and hit the GOP on every issue. Stop simply reacting and gain control of the narrative. LOUDLY let the public know exactly how GOP extremism hurts them and how Dems will protect them.
Who will it be? And will the rest of the Dem party help them or undercut them? Stay tuned.
I agree. I think Democrats need to go back and re-examine LBJ and Truman’s methods to politics. Be blunt, direct, and honest. Stop with the mushy Clinton triangulation.
I forgot to add this. The Dems need to get on Fox News and Newsmax and whatever right wing puke channel is out there and confront them on every issue. Do taking head debates and don't equivocate. Take your beating and hit back hard. Show the news-siloed fools that there is another way to think. Make them face the consequences of their ideas. Show them the faults in their thinking. Fight!
"Do talking head debates and don't equivocate. Take your beating and hit back hard. Show the news-siloed fools that there is another way to think."
There was a time when I would've disagreed with that strategy. But now I think it's the right thing to do. Just fucking take the beating, but don't back down. This is a long game project. Nothing is going to be solved through one appearance on Fox News. Death by 1000 cuts. That's the ticket
Having lived in big cities AND out in the boondocks I have found that rural democrats want the EXACT same things that Urban democrats want. You can run the same campaign in NYC and WV and get the same results. you won't WIN in WV, but NO democrat was going to win there in ANY case...The point is, rural dems aren't stupid, and BY DEFINITION being a dem in a hard red state takes a kind of moxy that blue state dems don't necessarily have...I don't like treating them like children and insisting we have to be a special kind of democrat to get their votes...Red state dems are JUST as blue as any blue state dems..AND taking that tack it makes messaging SO MUCH easier when you don't have to tailor your message to fit what state you're campaigning in...given the choice between GOP and GOP lite, GOP voters will always go with the real thing.
edit: Manchin won as a democrat because he comes from a LONG standing legacy family from a time when FDR Democrats ruled the state
This! His stance on the issues, well, most of them, isn't the problem - yet. It's his collaborating with maga that's the problem. Will it lead to him changing on the issues? Possibly. Even if it doesn't, he's naive to believe that maga will accept him, or whatever it is that he thinks that he's accomplishing by collaborating with them.
At best it shows naïveté, at worst it shows a willingness to compromise values. And since we don't get the opportunity to live in his brain, there is no way for us to know. Actions are the only thing that matter at this point. The rest is fluff and noise
The Laken Riley Act proves that our government could respond to mass shootings, and the murders of Native women, and the murders of women in general by abusive partners or exes, but they choose not to because they don't care or the solutions don't align with their prejudices.
Lakshya Jain is great with quantitative analysis, but his qualitative and strategic analysis is lacking. Like many, he tries to draw conclusions that cannot be drawn with the data he is using.
His take on Fetterman is a great example. One of the primary reasons the Democratic brand is shit is that “centrist” Democrats like Fetterman have used this strategy for decades.
What actually needs to happen is that Democrats need a better establishment, but an effective Democratic establishment would sound nothing like Fetterman.
It would actually be populist. Fetterman may dress like a populist, but he doesn’t act like one.
yeah, that's where I am too...If we CAN do BETTER (and we can) then we must do better...The line in the sand now is 'no collaboration'...it simply HAS to be the line that isn't crossed
SER you nailed exactly what's wrong with his attire. Aside from just being sloppy and disrespectful, it's a look that no one else but a 'down with the working class' white guy could get away with. The mind reels at the meltdown MAGA would have if, say, Hakeem Jeffries showed up in sweat pants.
Yeah, SER nailed it. As a consummate white male slob I felt uncomfortable with my uncomfortableness with his attire. Like I was a hypocrite. And while I am not one for showing "respect for office "through attire, it felt wrong to see him dressed like that and I couldn't quite figure out why. On the other hand, AOC, one of the most progressive voices in the house caucus dresses conservatively and respectfully for that office. I'm still not sure why the way someone dresses should show respect while another form of dress wouldn't, but it remains that I do feel that way. Also coming to mind with Kristen Cinemas yellow dress And MTG's flamboyant boas and shit. It explains why people dress up for church, but for slightly different reasons. And I am certain that if I represented my constituency as an elected official on any level, that I would make the sacrifice of dressing appropriately. And I still can't explain why that is so.
I honestly think it's easier to fight other Democrats than to fight President Klan Robe. At the very least it will be good for building clout. It is definitely easier than fighting the fascists though because in the end the fascists benefit from a whole bunch of unreconstructed territory given outsize power. And this is the time to do it as an internecine fight between Democrats actually would provide good coverage, especially carrying messages that "Democratic leadership is old and bad and they elected an old president which is also bad."
The Fetterman problem is going to solve itself anyway in the next cycle; I am certain that swing state Dems are going to go the way of the Blue Dogs.
And you are right, rural voters are not nihilistic. They actually know what they want, and we are seeing that they are getting exactly what they wanted...the same things the unreconstructed always want. They want the freedom to destroy minorities they blame for their problems. Even "back the blue" and all those Punisher decals on tacticool gear are for a specific purpose. And that's why they voted based on fanfiction they wanted to believe was true.
"I am certain that swing state Dems are going to go the way of the Blue Dogs."
On that I'm not so sure..after 2 years of Trump inc. I can see all the blue AND swing states taking a major swing to the LEFT...Especially if we bring new and younger faces of leadership to every race...If ANYTHING I think THIS moment marks the 'death' of the centrists and blue dogs...The oNE good thing that will come out of this will be a sharper better defined MORE PROGRESSIVE populist democratic party overall
I would like to see that. My instincts tell me we're going to end up with nothing because when we did expand in those areas there wasn't a full-powered rightwing media human centipede.
I don't even think Bill Clinton or Barack Obama would've won with these effects. And I also have to keep stressing; we were campaigning to reach people who weren't even grounded in reality, and they refused to listen.
Let me start by saying that you are by far one of my favorite commenters on these threads! By a country mile. Especially when we slightly disagree on a particular point. That's the only way this remains interesting. MY thinking, and we BOTH hope I'm right I'm sure, is that the first two years of the Trump administration is going to create a strong opposition just by the dint of its existence. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction kind of thing. I know I'm probably being a bit of a Pollyanna, but there is such a thing as cultural collateral, and unlike Germany during the second world war, America is by far is not nearly as homogenous and culturally uniform as Germany was back then. In other words the cat is already out of the bag and the horses are already out of the barn. We have already established a multicultural democracy, that while still under attack, is too functionally integrated into society to be ignored. It simply hasn't been challenged sufficiently, as the last election results unfortunately imply. America has to hurt in order to learn apparently. And we are going to get some serious fucking lessons right now. But we are going to get those lessons as a very diverse multiculturally EXTANT society that simply became too lazy to stand up to this filth when they made their vie to use their power against us. We are simply going to have to see what happens when they try to enact these policies. I remain guardedly optimistic,
These are super good points (and also thank you so much, likewise I love reading your posts and learning from them).
I think our ultimate test is, how do we do this with a one-two punch of a fully powered right wing media human centipede AND rock-bottom media literacy? I am willing to see if good things will happen; I will hope they shall.
yeah, the lefty instinct is to frame all in-fighting as bad, because fighting makes us FEEL bad and we don't LIKE feeling bad (a natural response of normal people), but counterintuitively, THIS is how we WORK shit out..in FACT, the last time we had this fight in 2016 between the Clinton camp and the Sanders camp, actual progressive policy changes grew out of that fight.
And I think THIS fight will have less resistance from the centrist opposition than it did last time...I think MORE dem voters are considerably more to the left and BETTER DEFINED than they were 8 years ago..Back then, progressivism was kinda seen as the weird unicorn, now progressivism has a respected space at the table and the centrist arguments ring hollower than ever
I feel like I exist somewhere between the median Dem voter and the Left. My partner is a couple steps further left than me and it's an interesting contrast. Fetterman annoys me with some of his positions and his sucking up to the right, but considering the other guy we have is freaking David McCormick I'll still vote for him if he runs again in '26. She's already written him off.
Democrats (including their voters) have to think strategically. One of my pet peeves is that among liberals there's this sense that if you disagree on 10% of the issues, you might as well be a Republican, while if a conservative finds you agree with them on only 10% of the issues they convince themselves you're really a conservative like they are and they try to win you over on the other 90%. (Not always, of course, conservatives did originate the "RINO" smear, and the Tea Party did enforce party discipline--but notice how conservatives reacted each time Trump broke with orthodoxy, whether speaking about abortion, guns, or the economy--they convince themselves he's really on their side, rather than attack him for it. Can you picture liberals doing that if say Kamala Harris had broken with liberal orthodoxy on a major issue?)
I don't have an issue with Fetterman breaking with liberals on some issues--that's what a coalition is!--but the "shitting on his own side publicly" is not going to win over Republicans, it'll just help convince Republicans that "hey, even a Dem Senator agrees that Democrats are woke nonsense" and they'll conclude that even better than voting for a heterodox Democrat, why not just vote for a Republican?
"One of my pet peeves is that among liberals there's this sense that if you disagree on 10% of the issues, you might as well be a Republican"
Let me just put this out there. It matters which 10% they vote against. Kristen Sinema voted with Democrats the vast majority of the time. But she voted against the BBB bill, against getting rid of the filibuster, and against the John Lewis voter protection act. Possibly the three most important things that defined the future of the Democratic Party. She voted for the no-brainers that no Democrat would vote against, but when it came to tipping point votes. She and mansion tipped the point into the negative and went red. She is a total con artist, and she deserves all of our hatred and social opprobrium we can muster. She failed us when it mattered most, not unlike the Washington Post and New York Times who otherwise do great journalism. But they failed us when it mattered most. In fact they're good journalism cynically provided a cover for the way they failed us when it mattered most., A kind of Trojan horse. If they had gone full on National Enquirer, no one would have taken them seriously. But they provide enough content that they can't be ignored as a serious journalistic enterprise,that's how they sneak this shit in. And that is why I fucking hate their motherfucking guts
It's a good point except that Democrats were almost never that united except when it comes to getting a purpose together for tossing a Democrat under the bus. Indeed, AOC, even Bernie Sanders and much of the CBC were on an island. Joe Biden had to go and therefore we had to be put in the position of running against our own policy, because "change."
And it turns out that the "change" the voters wanted was ethnic cleansing.
"Shitting on [one's] own side publicly" is just Tuesday for a number of Democrats, honestly. A fair number of them have built that into a brand. I think I'm definitely all for AOC running for President in 2028. Let's put it on the table and show people the old way is wrong. Just no more sacrificing Black women to the glass cliff please.
I remember in the film it seemed the family executed Paulie because they suspected he called in sick the day of the attempted hit on the Don because he was in on the plot, even though they weren't sure of this, and you might think "wow, what a cruel gang, they could have just iced the guy for having the bad luck to be sick on the wrong day." The book though makes it clear that they traced his calls and determined he was in cahoots with Sollozzo so there was no question of his guilt--part of the whole whitewashing the mob by making it seem they only take you down if you break the code of honor. Similarly, Michael only has Carlo killed after Carlo actual admits he helped set up the hit on Sonny.
A deleted scene from THE GODFATHER alludes to what you mention from the book. It’s interesting because Michael’s initial insistence that Clemenza wasn’t the traitor is obviously rooted in affection, whereas later when he calmly states why he expected Tessio to betray him instead of Clemenza, it’s all cold business: “It’s the smart move. Tessio was always smarter.”
Tessio's another good example--it's entirely possible that Barzini approached Tessio to say he wanted a sit-down with Michael, Tessio acted in good faith assuming he could ensure Michael's safety because it was in his territory, and Michael (thanks to Vito's warning) jumped to the conclusion that Tessio was setting him up. Of course, in the book and movie we have to know that Tessio was in fact plotting to eliminate Michael, but it'd be interesting to explore an interpretation where the Corleones repeatedly wiped out their own loyalists out of an abundance of paranoia (which is probably more common in the real life mob, not the idealized mob of the "Godfather").
He sure as hell acts like one. Grow some Fetterman and join the democrats in protest!
FetterManchin
I’ve always thought the overwhelming majority of what comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth is due to whoever was the last person to be in his ear at any particular time. He mainlines Fox News all day so there’s probably only so much that could ever be accomplished by exposing him to other points of view. Still. The only people he’s listening to are heritage foundation fascists: hence all the executive order bullshit.
I would never in a million years hope for a scenario where Donald Trump is given the unchecked power of the United States once much less twice. Still, while there’s very little Democrats can do politically to top this right now, it wouldn’t hurt to try and flattery manipulate him into being perhaps less than the worst possible version of himself.
This is all presuming Fetterman remains a progressive iconclast. If hes considering selling out his values in the name of some half assed attempt and Sinema-Ing eff him.
The jury remains out imho
I don’t think flattery helps steer Trump into less destructive measures. At best, it just helps the flatterer remain in his good graces and maybe steers him toward a different destructive outcome but never anything positive
I’ll fully cop to it’s probably wishful thinking on my part that a mob boss could ever be anything less than a sociopath and that yet another Democratic senator is probably going to be a headache if and when they ever get power again
Fetterman’s general reliability as a Democratic vote in the Senate made his showy capitulation to Trump and the execrable Stefanik all the more galling. That his wife -a formerly undocumented immigrant - accompanied him to Mar-a-Lago compounds the outrage. I’m sure that a lot of us Dems in PA will remember his behavior come the next primary he faces.
Fetterman used to wear dark, short-sleeved work shirts and jeans - which were far less sartorially egregious. As you suggest, the hoodie and shorts schtick is probably more of a conscious provocation.
Like Sinema's yellow dress
This. His attire wasn't objectionable on the surface, but it showed a kind of narcissistic desire to be seen as an outlier, a fire brand. And within the democratic framework, going down to Mara Lago is another sign of Maverick behavior at least in his eyes. This in no way represents democratic voters desires in any way. That's the issue
Here's my thinking. Republicans support their candidates and reps because, whether we like it or not, they stick together, even when it doesn't poll well, and even when their own constituents oppose their position. My theory is that people want a rep who stands for something, even if it's bad.
Dems consistently undermine their own message, and many people don't trust them for it. We need to stand for something. Triangulation in the hope you will satisfy a few extra swing voters is bullshit and confusing. We need strong principles that give people something to trust. They don't have to accept every part of your message as long as it is consistent and reliable. They don't care about policy, they want reps who prove that they will fight for them.
Fetterman is muddling that message and the Dem leadership needs to have a come to Jesus moment with him, quit all this equivocating and give something that people can follow. As much as it disgusts me to say it, the GOP does this and it has worked. Their policies are awful and hurt many of their constituents, and yet they have consistent support in spite of it.
The Dems need someone to get out in front and hit the GOP on every issue. Stop simply reacting and gain control of the narrative. LOUDLY let the public know exactly how GOP extremism hurts them and how Dems will protect them.
Who will it be? And will the rest of the Dem party help them or undercut them? Stay tuned.
I agree. I think Democrats need to go back and re-examine LBJ and Truman’s methods to politics. Be blunt, direct, and honest. Stop with the mushy Clinton triangulation.
Goddamn, that was it in a nutshell. Well played friend, well played
I forgot to add this. The Dems need to get on Fox News and Newsmax and whatever right wing puke channel is out there and confront them on every issue. Do taking head debates and don't equivocate. Take your beating and hit back hard. Show the news-siloed fools that there is another way to think. Make them face the consequences of their ideas. Show them the faults in their thinking. Fight!
"Do talking head debates and don't equivocate. Take your beating and hit back hard. Show the news-siloed fools that there is another way to think."
There was a time when I would've disagreed with that strategy. But now I think it's the right thing to do. Just fucking take the beating, but don't back down. This is a long game project. Nothing is going to be solved through one appearance on Fox News. Death by 1000 cuts. That's the ticket
Wouldn’t trust Fetterman any longer I could throw him.
Having lived in big cities AND out in the boondocks I have found that rural democrats want the EXACT same things that Urban democrats want. You can run the same campaign in NYC and WV and get the same results. you won't WIN in WV, but NO democrat was going to win there in ANY case...The point is, rural dems aren't stupid, and BY DEFINITION being a dem in a hard red state takes a kind of moxy that blue state dems don't necessarily have...I don't like treating them like children and insisting we have to be a special kind of democrat to get their votes...Red state dems are JUST as blue as any blue state dems..AND taking that tack it makes messaging SO MUCH easier when you don't have to tailor your message to fit what state you're campaigning in...given the choice between GOP and GOP lite, GOP voters will always go with the real thing.
edit: Manchin won as a democrat because he comes from a LONG standing legacy family from a time when FDR Democrats ruled the state
𝑴𝒚 𝒊𝒔𝒔𝒖𝒆 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑭𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝒊𝒔 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒉𝒆’𝒔 𝒄𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝑴𝑨𝑮𝑨.
This! His stance on the issues, well, most of them, isn't the problem - yet. It's his collaborating with maga that's the problem. Will it lead to him changing on the issues? Possibly. Even if it doesn't, he's naive to believe that maga will accept him, or whatever it is that he thinks that he's accomplishing by collaborating with them.
At best it shows naïveté, at worst it shows a willingness to compromise values. And since we don't get the opportunity to live in his brain, there is no way for us to know. Actions are the only thing that matter at this point. The rest is fluff and noise
The Laken Riley Act proves that our government could respond to mass shootings, and the murders of Native women, and the murders of women in general by abusive partners or exes, but they choose not to because they don't care or the solutions don't align with their prejudices.
He lost me with the pickup truck/shotgun episode. That’s all I needed to know. He’s a racist, phony shitbag.
Lakshya Jain is great with quantitative analysis, but his qualitative and strategic analysis is lacking. Like many, he tries to draw conclusions that cannot be drawn with the data he is using.
His take on Fetterman is a great example. One of the primary reasons the Democratic brand is shit is that “centrist” Democrats like Fetterman have used this strategy for decades.
What actually needs to happen is that Democrats need a better establishment, but an effective Democratic establishment would sound nothing like Fetterman.
It would actually be populist. Fetterman may dress like a populist, but he doesn’t act like one.
yeah, that's where I am too...If we CAN do BETTER (and we can) then we must do better...The line in the sand now is 'no collaboration'...it simply HAS to be the line that isn't crossed
SER you nailed exactly what's wrong with his attire. Aside from just being sloppy and disrespectful, it's a look that no one else but a 'down with the working class' white guy could get away with. The mind reels at the meltdown MAGA would have if, say, Hakeem Jeffries showed up in sweat pants.
Yeah, SER nailed it. As a consummate white male slob I felt uncomfortable with my uncomfortableness with his attire. Like I was a hypocrite. And while I am not one for showing "respect for office "through attire, it felt wrong to see him dressed like that and I couldn't quite figure out why. On the other hand, AOC, one of the most progressive voices in the house caucus dresses conservatively and respectfully for that office. I'm still not sure why the way someone dresses should show respect while another form of dress wouldn't, but it remains that I do feel that way. Also coming to mind with Kristen Cinemas yellow dress And MTG's flamboyant boas and shit. It explains why people dress up for church, but for slightly different reasons. And I am certain that if I represented my constituency as an elected official on any level, that I would make the sacrifice of dressing appropriately. And I still can't explain why that is so.
Right? I never even thought of it in those terms, but SER is correct. Only a white man could get away with it.
It's cosplay. The guy's a Harvard MBA and comes from wealth.
Richard Nixon came from the working class, and always wore a suit. Working class people don't go out of their way to "look" working class.
This encapsulated a visceral thing for me too; I have to be concerned about how I dress in public or else profiling results in certain spaces.
"This guy looks like he is up to no good or he is on drugs or something."
Some chud actually replied to a viral post I made on Substack where I had my picture with such a sentiment (saying I stole a bike).
I honestly think it's easier to fight other Democrats than to fight President Klan Robe. At the very least it will be good for building clout. It is definitely easier than fighting the fascists though because in the end the fascists benefit from a whole bunch of unreconstructed territory given outsize power. And this is the time to do it as an internecine fight between Democrats actually would provide good coverage, especially carrying messages that "Democratic leadership is old and bad and they elected an old president which is also bad."
The Fetterman problem is going to solve itself anyway in the next cycle; I am certain that swing state Dems are going to go the way of the Blue Dogs.
And you are right, rural voters are not nihilistic. They actually know what they want, and we are seeing that they are getting exactly what they wanted...the same things the unreconstructed always want. They want the freedom to destroy minorities they blame for their problems. Even "back the blue" and all those Punisher decals on tacticool gear are for a specific purpose. And that's why they voted based on fanfiction they wanted to believe was true.
"I am certain that swing state Dems are going to go the way of the Blue Dogs."
On that I'm not so sure..after 2 years of Trump inc. I can see all the blue AND swing states taking a major swing to the LEFT...Especially if we bring new and younger faces of leadership to every race...If ANYTHING I think THIS moment marks the 'death' of the centrists and blue dogs...The oNE good thing that will come out of this will be a sharper better defined MORE PROGRESSIVE populist democratic party overall
I would like to see that. My instincts tell me we're going to end up with nothing because when we did expand in those areas there wasn't a full-powered rightwing media human centipede.
I don't even think Bill Clinton or Barack Obama would've won with these effects. And I also have to keep stressing; we were campaigning to reach people who weren't even grounded in reality, and they refused to listen.
Let me start by saying that you are by far one of my favorite commenters on these threads! By a country mile. Especially when we slightly disagree on a particular point. That's the only way this remains interesting. MY thinking, and we BOTH hope I'm right I'm sure, is that the first two years of the Trump administration is going to create a strong opposition just by the dint of its existence. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction kind of thing. I know I'm probably being a bit of a Pollyanna, but there is such a thing as cultural collateral, and unlike Germany during the second world war, America is by far is not nearly as homogenous and culturally uniform as Germany was back then. In other words the cat is already out of the bag and the horses are already out of the barn. We have already established a multicultural democracy, that while still under attack, is too functionally integrated into society to be ignored. It simply hasn't been challenged sufficiently, as the last election results unfortunately imply. America has to hurt in order to learn apparently. And we are going to get some serious fucking lessons right now. But we are going to get those lessons as a very diverse multiculturally EXTANT society that simply became too lazy to stand up to this filth when they made their vie to use their power against us. We are simply going to have to see what happens when they try to enact these policies. I remain guardedly optimistic,
These are super good points (and also thank you so much, likewise I love reading your posts and learning from them).
I think our ultimate test is, how do we do this with a one-two punch of a fully powered right wing media human centipede AND rock-bottom media literacy? I am willing to see if good things will happen; I will hope they shall.
(:
More AOC... THAT'S how...simple messaging in short bursts...direct unguarded language...
smart take! baby like!
yeah, the lefty instinct is to frame all in-fighting as bad, because fighting makes us FEEL bad and we don't LIKE feeling bad (a natural response of normal people), but counterintuitively, THIS is how we WORK shit out..in FACT, the last time we had this fight in 2016 between the Clinton camp and the Sanders camp, actual progressive policy changes grew out of that fight.
And I think THIS fight will have less resistance from the centrist opposition than it did last time...I think MORE dem voters are considerably more to the left and BETTER DEFINED than they were 8 years ago..Back then, progressivism was kinda seen as the weird unicorn, now progressivism has a respected space at the table and the centrist arguments ring hollower than ever
now is the time!
I feel like I exist somewhere between the median Dem voter and the Left. My partner is a couple steps further left than me and it's an interesting contrast. Fetterman annoys me with some of his positions and his sucking up to the right, but considering the other guy we have is freaking David McCormick I'll still vote for him if he runs again in '26. She's already written him off.
Its ALL about the primaries my friend...In the Primaries vote with your heart, in the General, vote against the republican...
Democrats (including their voters) have to think strategically. One of my pet peeves is that among liberals there's this sense that if you disagree on 10% of the issues, you might as well be a Republican, while if a conservative finds you agree with them on only 10% of the issues they convince themselves you're really a conservative like they are and they try to win you over on the other 90%. (Not always, of course, conservatives did originate the "RINO" smear, and the Tea Party did enforce party discipline--but notice how conservatives reacted each time Trump broke with orthodoxy, whether speaking about abortion, guns, or the economy--they convince themselves he's really on their side, rather than attack him for it. Can you picture liberals doing that if say Kamala Harris had broken with liberal orthodoxy on a major issue?)
I don't have an issue with Fetterman breaking with liberals on some issues--that's what a coalition is!--but the "shitting on his own side publicly" is not going to win over Republicans, it'll just help convince Republicans that "hey, even a Dem Senator agrees that Democrats are woke nonsense" and they'll conclude that even better than voting for a heterodox Democrat, why not just vote for a Republican?
"One of my pet peeves is that among liberals there's this sense that if you disagree on 10% of the issues, you might as well be a Republican"
Let me just put this out there. It matters which 10% they vote against. Kristen Sinema voted with Democrats the vast majority of the time. But she voted against the BBB bill, against getting rid of the filibuster, and against the John Lewis voter protection act. Possibly the three most important things that defined the future of the Democratic Party. She voted for the no-brainers that no Democrat would vote against, but when it came to tipping point votes. She and mansion tipped the point into the negative and went red. She is a total con artist, and she deserves all of our hatred and social opprobrium we can muster. She failed us when it mattered most, not unlike the Washington Post and New York Times who otherwise do great journalism. But they failed us when it mattered most. In fact they're good journalism cynically provided a cover for the way they failed us when it mattered most., A kind of Trojan horse. If they had gone full on National Enquirer, no one would have taken them seriously. But they provide enough content that they can't be ignored as a serious journalistic enterprise,that's how they sneak this shit in. And that is why I fucking hate their motherfucking guts
It's a good point except that Democrats were almost never that united except when it comes to getting a purpose together for tossing a Democrat under the bus. Indeed, AOC, even Bernie Sanders and much of the CBC were on an island. Joe Biden had to go and therefore we had to be put in the position of running against our own policy, because "change."
And it turns out that the "change" the voters wanted was ethnic cleansing.
"Shitting on [one's] own side publicly" is just Tuesday for a number of Democrats, honestly. A fair number of them have built that into a brand. I think I'm definitely all for AOC running for President in 2028. Let's put it on the table and show people the old way is wrong. Just no more sacrificing Black women to the glass cliff please.
I remember in the film it seemed the family executed Paulie because they suspected he called in sick the day of the attempted hit on the Don because he was in on the plot, even though they weren't sure of this, and you might think "wow, what a cruel gang, they could have just iced the guy for having the bad luck to be sick on the wrong day." The book though makes it clear that they traced his calls and determined he was in cahoots with Sollozzo so there was no question of his guilt--part of the whole whitewashing the mob by making it seem they only take you down if you break the code of honor. Similarly, Michael only has Carlo killed after Carlo actual admits he helped set up the hit on Sonny.
A deleted scene from THE GODFATHER alludes to what you mention from the book. It’s interesting because Michael’s initial insistence that Clemenza wasn’t the traitor is obviously rooted in affection, whereas later when he calmly states why he expected Tessio to betray him instead of Clemenza, it’s all cold business: “It’s the smart move. Tessio was always smarter.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhieGcGQwMI
Tessio's another good example--it's entirely possible that Barzini approached Tessio to say he wanted a sit-down with Michael, Tessio acted in good faith assuming he could ensure Michael's safety because it was in his territory, and Michael (thanks to Vito's warning) jumped to the conclusion that Tessio was setting him up. Of course, in the book and movie we have to know that Tessio was in fact plotting to eliminate Michael, but it'd be interesting to explore an interpretation where the Corleones repeatedly wiped out their own loyalists out of an abundance of paranoia (which is probably more common in the real life mob, not the idealized mob of the "Godfather").