I loved this. I heard a fellow progressive recently call some online leftists “high vocabulary, low information.”
I’m always surprised at the amount of conversations I have with people whose politics I ostensibly share who say things that (a) betray a lack of knowledge of basic civics, or (b) are actual if accidental Russian disinformation. I talk to a lot of young left-leaning people who say Biden lied about forgiving student loans. So I tell them, “actually SCOTUS struck it down, because Trump gave them a conservative majority, so Biden is trying other ways and has forgiven [insert however many billions he’s forgiven by now].”
They will then say, “why didn’t he expand the court? He’s the president.” And I explain why, and the answer they give is “he’s the president,” or “that’s why the system is broken and voting has no point.” OR they will say, “Biden never wanted to forgive student loans, so he intentionally used a tactic he KNEW wouldn’t work.” (Utter nonsense given the billions of aid he’s unilaterally forgiven)
But then there’s people who seemingly have no idea that in 2016 Russia targeted black voters more than any other demographic. Russia created Facebook groups like “a vote for Jill Stein is not a wasted vote,” or encouraged black voters to stay home on Election Day.
Russia doesn’t even need to bother this time, because prominent “leftist” influencers are making these exact arguments for them. Voter apathy is STRONG, and I think most liberals just don’t even know lefty spaces promoting this mentality exist.
The people in your comments shilling for Jill Stein probably aren’t Russian bots. They’re probably people who listen to popular YouTubers who, as it happens, are grifting idiots.
You-Tubers and TikTokkers. I teach college level American government. There are students who are convinced that what they learned from some random person on TikTok is more true than what they learned from me. Wish I’d known before I went the PhD route that all I had to do was make short videos.
Don’t worry, OpenAI has been trained on your thesis.
One of my friends is a professor, and they got a detector tool which could answer this question: could ChatGPT have generated this text? The idea was that you could run it on student texts to see who used a ChatGPT model to write a paper.
The professor ran it on one of their own papers. It came back as, “highly likely that ChatGPT could have generated this text.” What? Well, consider what would happen if you trained ChatGPT on the previously published paper? It would have learned individual turns of phrase from the paper, and made them more likely to be output. Hence the apparent acausality of the “ChatGPT could have generated this text” test on the paper.
This. There is a massive self-disenfranchisement movement in the lefty spaces I inhabit that laughs in the face of mathematics.
In the vein of "you sometimes do gotta hand it to them," what I respect about Russian election interference is the way its orchestrators take social media seriously and, crucially, take seriously the largely poor, disabled, and multiply marginalized people who spend the most time on it.
We had NYT writers protesting online political discourse as "slacktivism" for the explicit reason that liking and retweeting posts is too "easy." The fact that it costs less labor and time and is physically accessible to people shut out of more formal organizing spaces has not just been ignored, but cited as a problem.
The idea that the internet isn't real life and that the "terminally online" or "chronically online" are losers that normal people can safely ignore has provided ample cover for the Kremlin to do its recruiting. Russia has always been very good at identifying the marginalized in the US and leveraging this discontent in its favor, going all the way back to the earliest days of the cold war.
One of several publishing projects, if I ever had the time, for the last few years, would have been the following:
"The Woke to English Dictionary", or "The Woke to Normal Dictionary"
With a subtitle something like: "How to vocalize support for social justice in a way most people understand and can support", or better yet, "How to voice support for fairness in way most people agree is common sense"
It would translate social justice neologisms into their next best equivalents from everyday and elementary school level speech, and often the terminology used against prejudice and discrimination that was becoming popularized and widespread by the 1970s and 1980s, which had pretty well pervaded across race, class, and educational lines by the late 80s and 90s.
Of course, this would *not* quite do enough for some you want to use woke and specialized social justice vocabulary to *distinguish* themselves as both more enlightened and moral than others, including the average person, and more intelligent than others, including the average person. The advantage of social justice neologism is it does catch blind spots our society has previously been unaware of, in most recent decades about rigid gender identity, in decades before that, about sexual orientation. However, the disadvantage of fast churn of neologisms is the constant reeducation and fashion policing of it, and its manners, which can be exclusionary, exhausting and elevate style over substance. It *does* attract certain types of people, young people in certain types of cosmopolitan or cosmopolitan-adjacent, affluency-adjacent, wealth-adjacent, female-adjacent, gay-adjacent, academic-adjacent social or online spaces to social justice concepts, which is all good, but those hit hard social and geographic limits, and are simply *not* aspirational for American majorities the way that well-paying jobs, high incomes, spacious homes, time with family, community, personal safety, and privacy are more widely aspirational goals for Americans or human beings in general.
Upper middle class *incomes* are aspirational for many, many more people than upper middle-class ideas and values are. You see this with the smuggest, happiest people on earth, white evangelical Christian southern upper middle class and wealthy people, who are happy in their own lives, but angry that sinners and deviants try to get any benefit from the system or upset the natural order.
Each of us potential voters have to have our priorities straight in the 2024 presidential election. The NUMBER #1 priority should be the prevention of the re-election of Donald Trump. We can fight about the other priorities later during the second Biden administration.
Brian, it hasn’t just been two elections. It has been happening for years, most notably in 2010, when Dems, mad at Obama for removing the public option in the ACA, stayed home, swinging the election to the GOP who then got to hold up a SC nominee and got to redraw state Congressional maps, ensuring the GOP could diffuse Dem voting power and establish entrenched minority rule. This behavior is counterproductive and dangerous, and I’m glad you call it out.
The selfishness and sense of entitlement involved in “let it all burn down” is rage inducing and just reveals a lack of awareness and depth of ignorance. Go read some history, whether about life in Nazi Germany or behind the Iron Curtain. They think they will be spared? Remember the peaceful protest that turned violent in DC with thuggish law enforcement spurred by Trump for his upside down Bible photo op. And what they have planned for our future if they win dwarfs that.
Many of these progressives are the same “children” who came out in droves in front of Trump Tower in 2016 to protest the election results, yet when asked if they voted, said no. Or who did vote—for Jill Stein in PA and swung the state for Trump.
GOP voters were disappointed for years—it took decades until Roe was overturned. Yet despite their frustration, these conservative voters came out election after election—and finally have the SCOTUS of their dreams. If only the left would learn and do the same.
"The ACA (ObamaCare) didn’t include a Public Option because Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a former Nebraska insurance commissioner, refused to vote for any bill with a public option."
Remember, Obama only had 60 votes, which included two Independent Senators. for 3 1/2 months in 2009 and they were not consecutive months. Which meant every Democrats and the two Independents had to vote yes in order to pass anything. It is amazing what Obama got through while saving us from a Great Depression.
It was Joe Lieberman who tanked the public option.
It was Obama, who in the 2010 SOTU, with 10% unemployment and clearly cowed by GOP said “it’s time to tighten our belts”. This after following the sage advice of one Larry Summers (he’s never been wrong) undershot the stimulus by at least 50%. The so-called recovery from 2010-2017 was much slower and tepid than it needed to be. Who knows the electoral damage it did.
I agree it was a policy error, and it would have been worth trying to spend more. He also may, or may not have had the votes to pass more spending had he not believed Summers or bucked the then more prominent deficit scolds of politics (including centrist Democrats) and prestige press. Remember the experience of Democratic congressional majorities, even when they were larger than Biden's under Clinton and Obama usually included a layer of half a dozen or more conservative red state trash in the outer layers of the Senate Dem Caucus and a dozen to 20 conservative red state or not-so-red state trash unreliable as part of outer layers of the House Dem Caucus.
Yes and the president had to compromise on the ACA because of this. He didn’t just do it arbitrarily but too many left voters, instead of understanding how govt actually works, blamed him. Kinda like hearing 20 percent of voters blame Biden for the overturning of Roe. Obama could have stood his ground and insisted it stay in and the thing never would have passed. Which goes to the heart of so many of these purist arguments. Politics is the art of compromise; you get what you can now and work to get more later.
I have occasionally been called out for my politics in harsh terms. Every time, it has made me pause to think. Often I have quickly decided the other person was a moron; but sometimes I have realized the moron, c’est moi. There is some genius in being direct, and in trusting that people want to improve themselves.
Being a extremely reluctant Biden voter who is constantly cast in the most childish terms imaginable by the most annoying people in the world does not produce self-reflection in me, just irritation, resentment and doubt that it's worth it to even vote at all. So I guess it does produce self-reflection, just not the sort you probably want
Hmm. Well, I find that I am happier on days when I am not feeling compelled to post 10+ comments in an internet discussion. One or two comments and out, that helps me minimize my irritation, resentment, and doubt that society is working. (And I mean this as something like commiseration, not as a personal attack...)
Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't begging you on my knees to deign to go out and help your fellow humans, say, stop the ocean from getting even fucking hotter and four more Supreme Court justices from ruling that gay people will be forcibly opposite-sex married.
Actually I just resent people requiring me to be enthusiastic about it, or assuming that the Democrats being in power will actively reverse these trends, which they don't really have a great track record on. Keep asking though, you might just get what you want
Well said and closely reasoned. Watching innocents burn while warming yourself with the thought of your self-defined holiness don't play that well down the road.
I strongly and thoroughly believe the “Biden is losing progressive voters because of Israel” trope is overplayed and wrong, and the polls bear me out. Talk to actual low-information voters who voted for him in 2020, and to a person, they say, “Oh, he’s so ooooolllld”. He’s become a meme and a joke for the most inane of reasons, and it has zero to do with policies.
My only minor quibble is there are both geopolitical and domestic constraints on the range of allowable short-term options for Biden after October 7band it’s worth pointing that out.
Even Bernie would have found himself forced to voice full-throated support for the Israeli government no matter how personally distasteful that might have been. I play forward the counterfactuals of either Bernie or Trump navigating this and see zero scenarios everyone is better off and quite a few where they are worse.
So point stands even on the issue where Biden looks his worst. He’s probably the best we are going to do strategically right now since the alternatives aren’t even replacement level.
As horrifying as what Biden is supporting in Palestine, and as underwhelming as his presidency has been in general, I can't make the intellectual case that a Trump presidency would be better in any way whatsoever and I can't help but admit that it would be much much worse under him. I hate the Democratic party, and fiercely resent them acting the way they do knowing that I'm a hostage to their whims, but I don't see any other way but voting for the less bad war criminal
Though I have to admit, some of the people on here make me wonder if dems even want our votes. After all, if every leftist voted for the Democrat, liberals wouldn't have anyone to blame for the loss
While he certainly isn't the orator Obama was, and not half as charismatic, Biden has been significantly more consequential with the legislation he has passed and the executive actions he has taken. And compared to the joke of a president Trump was, who got nothing significant passed other than tax cuts & Roe repealed via stolen Supreme Court seats, Biden has been anything but underwhelming.
I appreciate your recognition that another Trump presidency would be a terrible thing - we DO want your vote! - I just don't understand people who think Biden's presidency has been underwhelming. Whether you are an independent-leaning Republican who thinks Biden has just kept the government running and done nothing for them, or one of the rose-type DSA people who blame Biden for not getting 100% of their unrealistic agenda accomplished, I just don't get it.
The Child Tax Credit got nixed on his watch, Build Back Better got gutted, weed is still a a schedule 1 narcotic, the JCPOA with Iran and Cuban rapprochement are still dead letters, lots of other stuff, plus his brain is visibly rotting in real time
Ah, so you don’t understand how our government works. Makes sense, and illustrates well some of the author’s points. Extra points for parroting MAGA/Russian disinformation about the President’s health. Nah, we don’t need to roll out the red carpet for you. Do better or stay irrelevant.
Sorry John we haven't been able to vote in a new electorate and distribute in a geographically efficient manner.
Fentanyl and bad COVID policies of the Republicans weren't killing off their own portions of the electorate fast enough, and the older core of gun nuts undergoing "gray divorce" as their wives no longer want to deal with their cantankerousness are not turning their guns on themselves fast enough.
Probably a good analogy to prod many anti-Biden leftists away from the path of letting Trump win would be to recall the time when the Soviet Union teamed up with those “dastardly” US capitalists to defeat the Nazis.
It’s not an exact analogy—back then, many capitalists and “normie” leaders were the smarmy ones (falsely) thinking the fascists could be “useful” to them, while the Marxists were the ones facing immediate and obvious destruction, whereas now it’s the other way around.
But it would definitely be an historical analogy said left wing dead-enders would recognize, at least. It’s a thought.
This is, in fact, the historical reference point that a large number of capital-L Leftists use. I personally feel silly saying "United Front" in capital letters, but it is a decently accurate description.
It's been amusing to see writers like Beutler, DeBoer and others try to contain their anger and irritation as they labor mightily to explain to the Left, as gently as possible, how actually politics work. Sadly for them (and thankfully for me) les enfants terribles are uneducable. The sooner the Dems sideline the Left the sooner they can go back to winning the vast normie middle of the country: you know, the people who actually vote.
That's why progressive candidates up and down the ticket keep losing everywhere except D+30 districts (and even some of those! See Portland). Rule #1 in politics, and everything: you gotta fish where the fish are: normie voters are, definitionally, the majority of the party. Progressives are a small, fractious, unreliable, perpetually aggrieved segment of the Dem coalition. Why anyone would cater to them is beyond me.
There's far more than you seem to think, and if you think making us feel like even bigger suckers for voting for Democrats is the way forward for the party, get ready to be disappointed
If I wasn't a normal, reasonable voter I wouldn't be voting for Biden. And you think the key to continued success for your party is to make it more and more painful for me to knuckle under and do that. Truly a political genius here
The real irony here is that you are engaging in exactly the kind of "purity politics" you have almost certainly criticized the left for doing in the past. The difference is that we do that out of loyalty to moral and policy principles, and you do it out of nothing more than pure vindictiveness and spite. Your politics are every bit as self-defeating as the caricatures of leftists you condescend to, while also having no basis in any sort of moral structure. Truly you embody the worst of both worlds, as does your "movement"
Yeah, you're not being helpful here. The Dems have always needed multiple wings flapping to fly, no reading out of the Party.
Your assignment, since you seem to have more of an ear of what a non-Democrat, non-deeply progressive embubbled person would think or say, should be to use that gift to speak to those people in terms accessible to them about why Dem officeholders and governing are better in terms they might understand, because you can probably do it better terms than a left-leaning progressive steeped in the movement's vocabulary. Your job isn't to pick fights with the progressives in the party or make them look bigger than they are to non-members of the Democratic tribe. You can be the brand Ambassador to people flippable between either major party.
I told my apathetic coworker she should vote. “But they’re both so old and bad” Maybe that’s true, but one will take away YOUR social security check and the other won’t. Vote on that!
The general subject of this topic, and the trends of the comments are compelling me to post this again. These are for you @John Scabies and @Mander and @Hank Hoffmann:
I don't want people for whom this issue is priority number one to feel helpless, or told to stuff it only because electoral realities are against them. Israel-Palestine is one of only several issues committed progressives have brought up that they may see as deep moral, ethical issues that have a clear answer, and that should be beyond politics. And it sucks to be told that your choices are to not vote or vote only for a lesser of two evils for President, or any other office. This has long been an issue for the left flank of American politics, from Eugene Debs in the early 20th century, to Henry Wallace in 1948 to George McGovern in 1972 to Jesse Jackson in the 1980s and Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders in the 21st century, the marginalization and the substantial number of genuine left-liberals, left-progressives or Democratic Socialists who constitute a vital component to winning Democratic candidates and campaigns, but *never* have their full range of preferred views represented in policymaking by actual elected Democratic Presidents and elected legislative majorities.
But I have a suggested response to that genuine and reasonable frustration that I think is more productive, and not counterproductive, as would be the proposed solution of deep-sixing the reelection of President Biden, guaranteeing a President Trump, and rolling the dice, that somehow, there will be a competitive election in 2028, and somehow, Democratic politics will have been scared by Biden's defeat into accepting your views of Israel-Palestine and that there are still Palestinians alive then.
That solution would be to vote in this election against every Republican officeholder, by voting for their Democratic opponent, including Biden against Trump. And keeping track of Israel-Palestine related votes in Congress.
Count your friends and enemies on this issue. Look at articles like the one I linked to, below. It identifies the 16 defecting House Democrats who voted with Republicans to force President Biden to send Israel the bombs he want to deny them.
I pasted the list of those House Dems who voted the wrong way. You, and your associates most concerned with preserving Palestinian civilian lives, can best act on this information, by communicating with like minded people who live in these Representatives' districts, looking at their level of support in general and vulnerability, and the state of opinion on this issue, and urge people to make noise against arming Israel to them and their offices, and to support primarying them. And, especially if it appears it could make a difference on the margin, considering moving in to one of their districts, none of which are really hicksville, to become a constituent or even a potential candidate who can primary them or support another strongest possible primary challenger to them who is right (or righter) by your lights on the Israel-Palestine issue.
George Conway bought that ad space; he says the sign is clearly visible from a motorcade on the only reasonable road route between Mar-a-Lago and Doral — important, since Trump isn’t staying at Bedminster this summer for some reason.
Sorry, you are citing NPR, which still uses the Gaza health ministry’s debunked numbers for its figures. And you are also citing Al Jazeera, Qatar’s in-house propaganda unit. Even if we assume 35,000 is correct, 14,000 of those at least were Hamas fighters, and the number does not take into account either victims of errant terrorist rockets or those who died of natural causes. Fully 1/3 of the “journalists” killed were members of Hamas. Far from being a “attack on a trapped population“, the IDF has taken extraordinary steps to avoid killing innocents, so much so that other nations’ military are studying its operations. The IDF is not committing “massacres“. No crimes against humanity. No war crimes. The only massacre was on October 7. Stop getting your news from TikTok and stop hating yourself
Would have gone a lot better than bear-hugging a politician in serious political trouble because of his political corruption who dislikes Biden and actively wants his opponent to win in November. I honestly think the spectacle of Biden carrying water for a government led by a man who negs him and disrespects him at every opportunity has been at least as politically damaging as the moral outrage over the war crimes Biden has supported
We didn't bearhug the man, we supported the nation. This wasn't a personal favor to the specific government it was supporting a nation going through unimaginable tragedy.
Biden went to Israel and bearhugged the Israeli people. If I could have done the same after the Hamas massacre I’d have been there too. He’s also worked furiously to bring the Israelis to his side on this, knowing that Netanyahu would repeatedly kick him in the teeth and that this would cost him in November.
In fact, Israeli moderates are finding their voice on this because we gave them the space to do it. Netanyahu will be isolated, but not by us, by his own colleagues.
I know this won’t be a popular view here but I think Biden is doing a remarkable job of inching this thing in the right direction.
He’s got Netanyahu and his band of land-thirsty, right-wing lunatics to contend with, as well as a domestic political opponent who is backed by Netanyahu and Putin and Iran. He is confronting a massive disinformation campaign every single day — perpetuated by those same foreign opponents plus China — that has successfully turned parts of his own party into supporters of his opponent, against their own political interests. And he’s got a Republican Party that does everything it can to keep this wedge issue alive and in everyone’s faces (inviting a war criminal to speak to Congress? Ayfkm?)
And in spite of that there’s still a fragile process in place, attempting to hammer out a deal that would protect all the civilians in the region with a two state solution AND a stable region of allies, yes, even though some of those allies have our blood on their hands.
I think that most people have no idea at all of how hard the actual work of being president is. Trump didn’t do any of it, but if you take it seriously and don’t shirk the hard challenges, it might be the hardest job there is.
And this 80 year old man is doing it with courage, grace and leadership. And indefatigable energy.
Yes, he has my vote. And my respect. He’s not perfect but, man, he’s not shirking the fight.
It hasn't really done him many favors, either. The least amount of pushback on Netanyahu (something you would think his early and unflinching support would give him some space to do) is met by a chorus of withering criticism from Zionists with no recognition of prior support. His approach has been all downside
One problem is that posts like this are meant to make moderates feel better, not convince leftists to vote. In 2016, most Bernie supporters voted for Clinton; far more than in Clinton supporters voted for Obama in 2008. Yet Obama won anyway. Why? Because he mobilized potential voters. That’s what wins elections, and that is what Biden is ignoring thus far. It’s no coincidence that Democratic Senate candidates have double-digit leads in states where Biden is behind in the polls.
It’s not the voters, or the left; it’s the candidate who’s failing.
I loved this. I heard a fellow progressive recently call some online leftists “high vocabulary, low information.”
I’m always surprised at the amount of conversations I have with people whose politics I ostensibly share who say things that (a) betray a lack of knowledge of basic civics, or (b) are actual if accidental Russian disinformation. I talk to a lot of young left-leaning people who say Biden lied about forgiving student loans. So I tell them, “actually SCOTUS struck it down, because Trump gave them a conservative majority, so Biden is trying other ways and has forgiven [insert however many billions he’s forgiven by now].”
They will then say, “why didn’t he expand the court? He’s the president.” And I explain why, and the answer they give is “he’s the president,” or “that’s why the system is broken and voting has no point.” OR they will say, “Biden never wanted to forgive student loans, so he intentionally used a tactic he KNEW wouldn’t work.” (Utter nonsense given the billions of aid he’s unilaterally forgiven)
But then there’s people who seemingly have no idea that in 2016 Russia targeted black voters more than any other demographic. Russia created Facebook groups like “a vote for Jill Stein is not a wasted vote,” or encouraged black voters to stay home on Election Day.
Russia doesn’t even need to bother this time, because prominent “leftist” influencers are making these exact arguments for them. Voter apathy is STRONG, and I think most liberals just don’t even know lefty spaces promoting this mentality exist.
The people in your comments shilling for Jill Stein probably aren’t Russian bots. They’re probably people who listen to popular YouTubers who, as it happens, are grifting idiots.
You-Tubers and TikTokkers. I teach college level American government. There are students who are convinced that what they learned from some random person on TikTok is more true than what they learned from me. Wish I’d known before I went the PhD route that all I had to do was make short videos.
Don’t worry, OpenAI has been trained on your thesis.
One of my friends is a professor, and they got a detector tool which could answer this question: could ChatGPT have generated this text? The idea was that you could run it on student texts to see who used a ChatGPT model to write a paper.
The professor ran it on one of their own papers. It came back as, “highly likely that ChatGPT could have generated this text.” What? Well, consider what would happen if you trained ChatGPT on the previously published paper? It would have learned individual turns of phrase from the paper, and made them more likely to be output. Hence the apparent acausality of the “ChatGPT could have generated this text” test on the paper.
This. There is a massive self-disenfranchisement movement in the lefty spaces I inhabit that laughs in the face of mathematics.
In the vein of "you sometimes do gotta hand it to them," what I respect about Russian election interference is the way its orchestrators take social media seriously and, crucially, take seriously the largely poor, disabled, and multiply marginalized people who spend the most time on it.
We had NYT writers protesting online political discourse as "slacktivism" for the explicit reason that liking and retweeting posts is too "easy." The fact that it costs less labor and time and is physically accessible to people shut out of more formal organizing spaces has not just been ignored, but cited as a problem.
The idea that the internet isn't real life and that the "terminally online" or "chronically online" are losers that normal people can safely ignore has provided ample cover for the Kremlin to do its recruiting. Russia has always been very good at identifying the marginalized in the US and leveraging this discontent in its favor, going all the way back to the earliest days of the cold war.
“high vocabulary, low information.”
- That phrase is fantastic Jacob, thanks for sharing.
On “high vocabulary, low information.” -
One of several publishing projects, if I ever had the time, for the last few years, would have been the following:
"The Woke to English Dictionary", or "The Woke to Normal Dictionary"
With a subtitle something like: "How to vocalize support for social justice in a way most people understand and can support", or better yet, "How to voice support for fairness in way most people agree is common sense"
It would translate social justice neologisms into their next best equivalents from everyday and elementary school level speech, and often the terminology used against prejudice and discrimination that was becoming popularized and widespread by the 1970s and 1980s, which had pretty well pervaded across race, class, and educational lines by the late 80s and 90s.
Of course, this would *not* quite do enough for some you want to use woke and specialized social justice vocabulary to *distinguish* themselves as both more enlightened and moral than others, including the average person, and more intelligent than others, including the average person. The advantage of social justice neologism is it does catch blind spots our society has previously been unaware of, in most recent decades about rigid gender identity, in decades before that, about sexual orientation. However, the disadvantage of fast churn of neologisms is the constant reeducation and fashion policing of it, and its manners, which can be exclusionary, exhausting and elevate style over substance. It *does* attract certain types of people, young people in certain types of cosmopolitan or cosmopolitan-adjacent, affluency-adjacent, wealth-adjacent, female-adjacent, gay-adjacent, academic-adjacent social or online spaces to social justice concepts, which is all good, but those hit hard social and geographic limits, and are simply *not* aspirational for American majorities the way that well-paying jobs, high incomes, spacious homes, time with family, community, personal safety, and privacy are more widely aspirational goals for Americans or human beings in general.
Upper middle class *incomes* are aspirational for many, many more people than upper middle-class ideas and values are. You see this with the smuggest, happiest people on earth, white evangelical Christian southern upper middle class and wealthy people, who are happy in their own lives, but angry that sinners and deviants try to get any benefit from the system or upset the natural order.
Yes to everything you say. I’ve found this so much.
You sound identical to a Republican
🤣🤡🤣
This is what Sputnik Radio and its line-up of hosts has been all about.
Each of us potential voters have to have our priorities straight in the 2024 presidential election. The NUMBER #1 priority should be the prevention of the re-election of Donald Trump. We can fight about the other priorities later during the second Biden administration.
Brian, it hasn’t just been two elections. It has been happening for years, most notably in 2010, when Dems, mad at Obama for removing the public option in the ACA, stayed home, swinging the election to the GOP who then got to hold up a SC nominee and got to redraw state Congressional maps, ensuring the GOP could diffuse Dem voting power and establish entrenched minority rule. This behavior is counterproductive and dangerous, and I’m glad you call it out.
The selfishness and sense of entitlement involved in “let it all burn down” is rage inducing and just reveals a lack of awareness and depth of ignorance. Go read some history, whether about life in Nazi Germany or behind the Iron Curtain. They think they will be spared? Remember the peaceful protest that turned violent in DC with thuggish law enforcement spurred by Trump for his upside down Bible photo op. And what they have planned for our future if they win dwarfs that.
Many of these progressives are the same “children” who came out in droves in front of Trump Tower in 2016 to protest the election results, yet when asked if they voted, said no. Or who did vote—for Jill Stein in PA and swung the state for Trump.
GOP voters were disappointed for years—it took decades until Roe was overturned. Yet despite their frustration, these conservative voters came out election after election—and finally have the SCOTUS of their dreams. If only the left would learn and do the same.
Obama didn't remove the Public Option.
"The ACA (ObamaCare) didn’t include a Public Option because Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a former Nebraska insurance commissioner, refused to vote for any bill with a public option."
Remember, Obama only had 60 votes, which included two Independent Senators. for 3 1/2 months in 2009 and they were not consecutive months. Which meant every Democrats and the two Independents had to vote yes in order to pass anything. It is amazing what Obama got through while saving us from a Great Depression.
It was Joe Lieberman who tanked the public option.
It was Obama, who in the 2010 SOTU, with 10% unemployment and clearly cowed by GOP said “it’s time to tighten our belts”. This after following the sage advice of one Larry Summers (he’s never been wrong) undershot the stimulus by at least 50%. The so-called recovery from 2010-2017 was much slower and tepid than it needed to be. Who knows the electoral damage it did.
I agree it was a policy error, and it would have been worth trying to spend more. He also may, or may not have had the votes to pass more spending had he not believed Summers or bucked the then more prominent deficit scolds of politics (including centrist Democrats) and prestige press. Remember the experience of Democratic congressional majorities, even when they were larger than Biden's under Clinton and Obama usually included a layer of half a dozen or more conservative red state trash in the outer layers of the Senate Dem Caucus and a dozen to 20 conservative red state or not-so-red state trash unreliable as part of outer layers of the House Dem Caucus.
Yes and the president had to compromise on the ACA because of this. He didn’t just do it arbitrarily but too many left voters, instead of understanding how govt actually works, blamed him. Kinda like hearing 20 percent of voters blame Biden for the overturning of Roe. Obama could have stood his ground and insisted it stay in and the thing never would have passed. Which goes to the heart of so many of these purist arguments. Politics is the art of compromise; you get what you can now and work to get more later.
Well calling them entitled children will certainly get them on board, a real political genius right here
I have occasionally been called out for my politics in harsh terms. Every time, it has made me pause to think. Often I have quickly decided the other person was a moron; but sometimes I have realized the moron, c’est moi. There is some genius in being direct, and in trusting that people want to improve themselves.
Being a extremely reluctant Biden voter who is constantly cast in the most childish terms imaginable by the most annoying people in the world does not produce self-reflection in me, just irritation, resentment and doubt that it's worth it to even vote at all. So I guess it does produce self-reflection, just not the sort you probably want
Hmm. Well, I find that I am happier on days when I am not feeling compelled to post 10+ comments in an internet discussion. One or two comments and out, that helps me minimize my irritation, resentment, and doubt that society is working. (And I mean this as something like commiseration, not as a personal attack...)
Uh huh.
Jesus, stay the fuck home then.
Oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't begging you on my knees to deign to go out and help your fellow humans, say, stop the ocean from getting even fucking hotter and four more Supreme Court justices from ruling that gay people will be forcibly opposite-sex married.
We know: You resent having to help.
Actually I just resent people requiring me to be enthusiastic about it, or assuming that the Democrats being in power will actively reverse these trends, which they don't really have a great track record on. Keep asking though, you might just get what you want
Well said and closely reasoned. Watching innocents burn while warming yourself with the thought of your self-defined holiness don't play that well down the road.
I strongly and thoroughly believe the “Biden is losing progressive voters because of Israel” trope is overplayed and wrong, and the polls bear me out. Talk to actual low-information voters who voted for him in 2020, and to a person, they say, “Oh, he’s so ooooolllld”. He’s become a meme and a joke for the most inane of reasons, and it has zero to do with policies.
Brilliant analysis.
My only minor quibble is there are both geopolitical and domestic constraints on the range of allowable short-term options for Biden after October 7band it’s worth pointing that out.
Even Bernie would have found himself forced to voice full-throated support for the Israeli government no matter how personally distasteful that might have been. I play forward the counterfactuals of either Bernie or Trump navigating this and see zero scenarios everyone is better off and quite a few where they are worse.
So point stands even on the issue where Biden looks his worst. He’s probably the best we are going to do strategically right now since the alternatives aren’t even replacement level.
Brian, bravo. You’re my favorite voice in the entire political punditry landscape.
As horrifying as what Biden is supporting in Palestine, and as underwhelming as his presidency has been in general, I can't make the intellectual case that a Trump presidency would be better in any way whatsoever and I can't help but admit that it would be much much worse under him. I hate the Democratic party, and fiercely resent them acting the way they do knowing that I'm a hostage to their whims, but I don't see any other way but voting for the less bad war criminal
Though I have to admit, some of the people on here make me wonder if dems even want our votes. After all, if every leftist voted for the Democrat, liberals wouldn't have anyone to blame for the loss
Care to expand on the "underwhelming" comment?
While he certainly isn't the orator Obama was, and not half as charismatic, Biden has been significantly more consequential with the legislation he has passed and the executive actions he has taken. And compared to the joke of a president Trump was, who got nothing significant passed other than tax cuts & Roe repealed via stolen Supreme Court seats, Biden has been anything but underwhelming.
I appreciate your recognition that another Trump presidency would be a terrible thing - we DO want your vote! - I just don't understand people who think Biden's presidency has been underwhelming. Whether you are an independent-leaning Republican who thinks Biden has just kept the government running and done nothing for them, or one of the rose-type DSA people who blame Biden for not getting 100% of their unrealistic agenda accomplished, I just don't get it.
The Child Tax Credit got nixed on his watch, Build Back Better got gutted, weed is still a a schedule 1 narcotic, the JCPOA with Iran and Cuban rapprochement are still dead letters, lots of other stuff, plus his brain is visibly rotting in real time
Ah, so you don’t understand how our government works. Makes sense, and illustrates well some of the author’s points. Extra points for parroting MAGA/Russian disinformation about the President’s health. Nah, we don’t need to roll out the red carpet for you. Do better or stay irrelevant.
Sorry John we haven't been able to vote in a new electorate and distribute in a geographically efficient manner.
Fentanyl and bad COVID policies of the Republicans weren't killing off their own portions of the electorate fast enough, and the older core of gun nuts undergoing "gray divorce" as their wives no longer want to deal with their cantankerousness are not turning their guns on themselves fast enough.
Probably a good analogy to prod many anti-Biden leftists away from the path of letting Trump win would be to recall the time when the Soviet Union teamed up with those “dastardly” US capitalists to defeat the Nazis.
It’s not an exact analogy—back then, many capitalists and “normie” leaders were the smarmy ones (falsely) thinking the fascists could be “useful” to them, while the Marxists were the ones facing immediate and obvious destruction, whereas now it’s the other way around.
But it would definitely be an historical analogy said left wing dead-enders would recognize, at least. It’s a thought.
This is, in fact, the historical reference point that a large number of capital-L Leftists use. I personally feel silly saying "United Front" in capital letters, but it is a decently accurate description.
It's been amusing to see writers like Beutler, DeBoer and others try to contain their anger and irritation as they labor mightily to explain to the Left, as gently as possible, how actually politics work. Sadly for them (and thankfully for me) les enfants terribles are uneducable. The sooner the Dems sideline the Left the sooner they can go back to winning the vast normie middle of the country: you know, the people who actually vote.
The left does vote, and if the Democratic party does what you want they will lose every presidential election going forward
That's why progressive candidates up and down the ticket keep losing everywhere except D+30 districts (and even some of those! See Portland). Rule #1 in politics, and everything: you gotta fish where the fish are: normie voters are, definitionally, the majority of the party. Progressives are a small, fractious, unreliable, perpetually aggrieved segment of the Dem coalition. Why anyone would cater to them is beyond me.
There's far more than you seem to think, and if you think making us feel like even bigger suckers for voting for Democrats is the way forward for the party, get ready to be disappointed
I won't be disappointed: I want you to go away. For every progressive the Dems kick to the curb they'll pick up 1+ normal, reasonable voter.
If I wasn't a normal, reasonable voter I wouldn't be voting for Biden. And you think the key to continued success for your party is to make it more and more painful for me to knuckle under and do that. Truly a political genius here
The real irony here is that you are engaging in exactly the kind of "purity politics" you have almost certainly criticized the left for doing in the past. The difference is that we do that out of loyalty to moral and policy principles, and you do it out of nothing more than pure vindictiveness and spite. Your politics are every bit as self-defeating as the caricatures of leftists you condescend to, while also having no basis in any sort of moral structure. Truly you embody the worst of both worlds, as does your "movement"
Yeah, you're not being helpful here. The Dems have always needed multiple wings flapping to fly, no reading out of the Party.
Your assignment, since you seem to have more of an ear of what a non-Democrat, non-deeply progressive embubbled person would think or say, should be to use that gift to speak to those people in terms accessible to them about why Dem officeholders and governing are better in terms they might understand, because you can probably do it better terms than a left-leaning progressive steeped in the movement's vocabulary. Your job isn't to pick fights with the progressives in the party or make them look bigger than they are to non-members of the Democratic tribe. You can be the brand Ambassador to people flippable between either major party.
This is pretty self defeating. And probably not even true.
he's doing factional bitching and moaning.
Precisely.
He's doing his own purity politics.
You don't speak for all progressives. Like not even close.
I told my apathetic coworker she should vote. “But they’re both so old and bad” Maybe that’s true, but one will take away YOUR social security check and the other won’t. Vote on that!
The general subject of this topic, and the trends of the comments are compelling me to post this again. These are for you @John Scabies and @Mander and @Hank Hoffmann:
I don't want people for whom this issue is priority number one to feel helpless, or told to stuff it only because electoral realities are against them. Israel-Palestine is one of only several issues committed progressives have brought up that they may see as deep moral, ethical issues that have a clear answer, and that should be beyond politics. And it sucks to be told that your choices are to not vote or vote only for a lesser of two evils for President, or any other office. This has long been an issue for the left flank of American politics, from Eugene Debs in the early 20th century, to Henry Wallace in 1948 to George McGovern in 1972 to Jesse Jackson in the 1980s and Dennis Kucinich and Bernie Sanders in the 21st century, the marginalization and the substantial number of genuine left-liberals, left-progressives or Democratic Socialists who constitute a vital component to winning Democratic candidates and campaigns, but *never* have their full range of preferred views represented in policymaking by actual elected Democratic Presidents and elected legislative majorities.
But I have a suggested response to that genuine and reasonable frustration that I think is more productive, and not counterproductive, as would be the proposed solution of deep-sixing the reelection of President Biden, guaranteeing a President Trump, and rolling the dice, that somehow, there will be a competitive election in 2028, and somehow, Democratic politics will have been scared by Biden's defeat into accepting your views of Israel-Palestine and that there are still Palestinians alive then.
That solution would be to vote in this election against every Republican officeholder, by voting for their Democratic opponent, including Biden against Trump. And keeping track of Israel-Palestine related votes in Congress.
Count your friends and enemies on this issue. Look at articles like the one I linked to, below. It identifies the 16 defecting House Democrats who voted with Republicans to force President Biden to send Israel the bombs he want to deny them.
I pasted the list of those House Dems who voted the wrong way. You, and your associates most concerned with preserving Palestinian civilian lives, can best act on this information, by communicating with like minded people who live in these Representatives' districts, looking at their level of support in general and vulnerability, and the state of opinion on this issue, and urge people to make noise against arming Israel to them and their offices, and to support primarying them. And, especially if it appears it could make a difference on the margin, considering moving in to one of their districts, none of which are really hicksville, to become a constituent or even a potential candidate who can primary them or support another strongest possible primary challenger to them who is right (or righter) by your lights on the Israel-Palestine issue.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/these-16-house-democrats-voted-to-force-biden-to-deliver-withheld-aid-to-israel/ar-BB1mwEiO?ocid=entnewsntp&pc=U531&cvid=ca208e69f43a4d14b281aa462654ef66&ei=131
Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania
Angie Craig of Minnesota
Henry Cuellar of Texas
Don Davis of North Carolina
Lois Frankel of Florida
Marie Gluesenkamp Perez
Jared Golden of Maine
Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey
Greg Landsman of Ohio
Jared Moskowitz of Florida
Frank Pallone of New Jersey
Mary Peltola of Alaska
David Scott of Georgia
Darren Soto of Florida
Tom Suozzi of New York
Ritchie Torres of New York
A billboard I saw on the Internet this morning says:
RE-ELECT JOE
NOT THE PSYCHO
'nuff said.
George Conway bought that ad space; he says the sign is clearly visible from a motorcade on the only reasonable road route between Mar-a-Lago and Doral — important, since Trump isn’t staying at Bedminster this summer for some reason.
Sorry, you are citing NPR, which still uses the Gaza health ministry’s debunked numbers for its figures. And you are also citing Al Jazeera, Qatar’s in-house propaganda unit. Even if we assume 35,000 is correct, 14,000 of those at least were Hamas fighters, and the number does not take into account either victims of errant terrorist rockets or those who died of natural causes. Fully 1/3 of the “journalists” killed were members of Hamas. Far from being a “attack on a trapped population“, the IDF has taken extraordinary steps to avoid killing innocents, so much so that other nations’ military are studying its operations. The IDF is not committing “massacres“. No crimes against humanity. No war crimes. The only massacre was on October 7. Stop getting your news from TikTok and stop hating yourself
The IDF has drones mimic the sounds of women and children in order to lure them out to shoot them
https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/6271/Israeli-army-broadcasts-intimidating-sounds-to-lure,-kill,-and-forcibly-displace-civilians-in-the-Nuseirat-camp
> and then embraced him instead of isolating him after the October 7 Hamas massacre
I don't think this would have gone over well
Would have gone a lot better than bear-hugging a politician in serious political trouble because of his political corruption who dislikes Biden and actively wants his opponent to win in November. I honestly think the spectacle of Biden carrying water for a government led by a man who negs him and disrespects him at every opportunity has been at least as politically damaging as the moral outrage over the war crimes Biden has supported
We didn't bearhug the man, we supported the nation. This wasn't a personal favor to the specific government it was supporting a nation going through unimaginable tragedy.
Biden went to Israel and bearhugged the Israeli people. If I could have done the same after the Hamas massacre I’d have been there too. He’s also worked furiously to bring the Israelis to his side on this, knowing that Netanyahu would repeatedly kick him in the teeth and that this would cost him in November.
In fact, Israeli moderates are finding their voice on this because we gave them the space to do it. Netanyahu will be isolated, but not by us, by his own colleagues.
I know this won’t be a popular view here but I think Biden is doing a remarkable job of inching this thing in the right direction.
He’s got Netanyahu and his band of land-thirsty, right-wing lunatics to contend with, as well as a domestic political opponent who is backed by Netanyahu and Putin and Iran. He is confronting a massive disinformation campaign every single day — perpetuated by those same foreign opponents plus China — that has successfully turned parts of his own party into supporters of his opponent, against their own political interests. And he’s got a Republican Party that does everything it can to keep this wedge issue alive and in everyone’s faces (inviting a war criminal to speak to Congress? Ayfkm?)
And in spite of that there’s still a fragile process in place, attempting to hammer out a deal that would protect all the civilians in the region with a two state solution AND a stable region of allies, yes, even though some of those allies have our blood on their hands.
I think that most people have no idea at all of how hard the actual work of being president is. Trump didn’t do any of it, but if you take it seriously and don’t shirk the hard challenges, it might be the hardest job there is.
And this 80 year old man is doing it with courage, grace and leadership. And indefatigable energy.
Yes, he has my vote. And my respect. He’s not perfect but, man, he’s not shirking the fight.
You say tomatoe, I say tomahto
It hasn't really done him many favors, either. The least amount of pushback on Netanyahu (something you would think his early and unflinching support would give him some space to do) is met by a chorus of withering criticism from Zionists with no recognition of prior support. His approach has been all downside
One problem is that posts like this are meant to make moderates feel better, not convince leftists to vote. In 2016, most Bernie supporters voted for Clinton; far more than in Clinton supporters voted for Obama in 2008. Yet Obama won anyway. Why? Because he mobilized potential voters. That’s what wins elections, and that is what Biden is ignoring thus far. It’s no coincidence that Democratic Senate candidates have double-digit leads in states where Biden is behind in the polls.
It’s not the voters, or the left; it’s the candidate who’s failing.