Walz was validating the thought that each and every one of us have had: "they're just so damn creepy/weird"
But like you said, consultants will always find some "corrective" action to take. Never has a consultant been like, "nope, you're doing great keep doing what you're doing."
My life history is a perfect illustration of your thesis. A smart little Jewish kid who was inculcated in the idea that doing well in school was my highest mission in life. Teachers loved me, I did all their assignments and made good grades. I wasn’t their pet, I did the work and was rewarded for it. High school valedictorian, class of 1970. Sometimes teased unmercifully for it. Somehow I survived and got to college with no idea of what I wanted to do with my life.
I fell in with the slowly dying left, and sympathized with its labor-oriented wing. I took a job in a Chicago factory and was active in Byzantine labor union struggles. Many raids by other unions, 3 NLRB elections, one strike which we kind of won (and could not have pulled off a year later during Reagan’s term). We beat the company but could not beat deindustrialization. Eventually, married with child, I was laid off and managed to land in an IT career, using my smart boy skills again.
The point of this long tale is that in those union days, with all these intra- and inter-union battles you learned how to take verbal punches and throw them. You learned to speak in the popular vernacular. You learned that pleasing the teacher or authority figure was unnecessary and even harmful to your cause.
Most of my fellow progressives don’t understand this. There is too much teacher’s pet in them. I still know how to go for the jugular.
A sign I carried in one of the protests this spring read “FIRE STEVIE MILLER!” Not Stephen. Not a high minded slogan about treating immigrants nicely but a punch thrown at the dweeb proving his manhood by being beastly to them.
It’s weird for politicians to be horny. It’s creepy. Normal people keep it under wraps until they’re just with friends. Horndogs are not normal in our society, come on.
When a politician does something he is signifying it is okay to feel or think a certain way. Fertility, heterosexuality, maleness, freedom are huge issues at the moment. And truly horniness really is normal, even healthy. Ask yourself why you are attacking it? Is horniness rapey? I think people will resent the implication. So yeah I agree acceptable decorum of politicians has frequently been more modest, but everything is
changing. The knock on trump should be he is a rapist not horny. I think you need to be careful attacking horniness. Even if it is a bit over the top. In general I don't think it's a winning idea. It is a normal human phenomena.
Do you think shaming people for being horny is a good idea? I'm not so sure. I don't know the details of this particular episode but your reply sounds exactly like what the republicans would like you to say.
Unless it rises to the level of breaking taboos, such as pedophilia, then people can probably get away with showing a lot of different types of horniness. Attacking horniness is terrible idea. Horniness is a winning issue. Dems
should do more of it themselves. There is room to attack Elon musks horniness because of its results. But telling people not be horny over some public beauty wont fly. Desperation and publicity will be accepted or forgiven.
Exactly. Like Dems should attack red states where you can’t search internet porn without providing a drivers license or credit card. Want to win young men. That and legalizing weed
Isn’t also the insistently normative part of it? It’s not truly about liking sex, but about the simultaneous stigmatization/penalizing of non cis straight sex. And then the next pastor is arrested for pedophilia.
Ok but how would you respond to Sydney Sweeney issue. I was waiting for the punchline. (Agree with rest. Calling them weird was dead right and should never stop)
Not sure who Sydney Sweeney is. (Should I know that?) But here's my example of Democrats seeming congenital incapacity to distinguish themselves from Republicans for fear of being taken as provocative (or angry, or god-forbid disgusted as they should be by Republicans in general). I get an email from my Senator, Tammy Baldwin, once or twice a month. Damned if every single one has a Subject headline telling how she has passed or is working on "Bipartisan" legislation on something or other--usually something I don't really care about so that doesn't register at all. So the big up-top impression is that whatever it was (whoever cares) was "Bipartisan" and she helped! Why oh why oh why should we as Democrats anymore give a shit that she's getting along with Republicans on anything? I don't. And I wish she would stop trying to make this point over and over and over again. Yes we're a tight state. And maybe she does get some Republicans to vote for her here. (Her numbers are always better than other statewide races.) But, lesbian (yay) or not, I really wish she would trumpet how she beat the Republican assholes in Congress instead of how nicely she can get along with them. She's not a dyke-with-knife kind of gal, but I wish she had that aura of dangerous in her.
Thank you for writing this. I doubt AOC and Bernie listen to “consultants” and carefully calibrate every word that comes out of their mouths. For years and years (I’m 67, so basically since I was in my 30’s), I’ve railed against the structure of the Dem party, which I gradually came to understand was ruled by these consultants. But you’ve absolutely clarified this for me. They are the death of the party and always have been. We are out here screaming for the Dems to get in the fucking mud, and they are mincing around with their proscribed little niceties. Fuck them.
You know you’ve hit a nerve when a major network decides to cancel a well known and well liked late night show. It’s the thing republicans really can’t stand, to have their ridiculousness aired on TV by famous comedic personalities.
There will always be a Geoff Garin to tell a candidate to stop having fun at your opponent’s expense regardless of how effective it is. Let us not forget that the candidate has agency. I have always been suspicious of Kamala’s political instincts. Her post convention play-it-safe turn only confirmed my suspicions.
I feel compelled to follow up. Despite the disappointing results I harbor no anger towards Harris. She was put in a tough spot by her hubristic, stubborn boss. That’s who I harbor my ill feelings towards.
If Democrats actively and accurately portray Republicans as the weird, sick people they are, it would have a terrible consequence.
Democrats would be unable to reach across the aisle and work in bipartisan unity with Republicans for the good of the country, and they could stop politicizing everything.
It’s a fundamental assumption by consultants and establishment Democrats that that is what Americans want, and it’s the only way to win back the country.
I really hope Democrats can get their sh*t together on this front, as I read this horror show preview: ICE to Target Gen Z With Employment Recruitment Blitz: Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to contract with an advertising firm to help it “dominate” social media with a recruitment blitz aimed at Gen Z, with a goal of hiring more than 14,000 people to work for the agency, according to 404 Media.
This has been a masterclass from the right-wing mediaverse in taking a few nutso comments by internet randos and creating a two-week media cycle out of it, just at the time the Epstein stuff was ready to boil over.
Agree, as usual. The consistent failure of Dems & associated consulting class over the years is astounding, as is their intransigence/inability to take stock and adjust. It’s hard to maintain hope without a wholesale change in Dem leadership & direction. Imv (as a Boomer) it’s less about age and more mindset & strategy. Although, young blood is imperative.
The shutting down of Walz was the worst decision of campaign. Pollsters find what they want to find.
Walz was validating the thought that each and every one of us have had: "they're just so damn creepy/weird"
But like you said, consultants will always find some "corrective" action to take. Never has a consultant been like, "nope, you're doing great keep doing what you're doing."
My life history is a perfect illustration of your thesis. A smart little Jewish kid who was inculcated in the idea that doing well in school was my highest mission in life. Teachers loved me, I did all their assignments and made good grades. I wasn’t their pet, I did the work and was rewarded for it. High school valedictorian, class of 1970. Sometimes teased unmercifully for it. Somehow I survived and got to college with no idea of what I wanted to do with my life.
I fell in with the slowly dying left, and sympathized with its labor-oriented wing. I took a job in a Chicago factory and was active in Byzantine labor union struggles. Many raids by other unions, 3 NLRB elections, one strike which we kind of won (and could not have pulled off a year later during Reagan’s term). We beat the company but could not beat deindustrialization. Eventually, married with child, I was laid off and managed to land in an IT career, using my smart boy skills again.
The point of this long tale is that in those union days, with all these intra- and inter-union battles you learned how to take verbal punches and throw them. You learned to speak in the popular vernacular. You learned that pleasing the teacher or authority figure was unnecessary and even harmful to your cause.
Most of my fellow progressives don’t understand this. There is too much teacher’s pet in them. I still know how to go for the jugular.
A sign I carried in one of the protests this spring read “FIRE STEVIE MILLER!” Not Stephen. Not a high minded slogan about treating immigrants nicely but a punch thrown at the dweeb proving his manhood by being beastly to them.
We need to learn how to do that now.
Always great to hear about some personal aspect of a community members life when woven into a topical comment.
Too damn right. “Stevie Miller” hahahaha, that fucking fascist prick.
TL;DR
If asked about the Sydney Sweeney ad, the right response is:
“I get it, Republicans are horny and for some reason want to talk about it in public”
Public horniness is the rule of the day.
it has been for all of history. Have you seen the ancient greek vases?
It’s weird for politicians to be horny. It’s creepy. Normal people keep it under wraps until they’re just with friends. Horndogs are not normal in our society, come on.
When a politician does something he is signifying it is okay to feel or think a certain way. Fertility, heterosexuality, maleness, freedom are huge issues at the moment. And truly horniness really is normal, even healthy. Ask yourself why you are attacking it? Is horniness rapey? I think people will resent the implication. So yeah I agree acceptable decorum of politicians has frequently been more modest, but everything is
changing. The knock on trump should be he is a rapist not horny. I think you need to be careful attacking horniness. Even if it is a bit over the top. In general I don't think it's a winning idea. It is a normal human phenomena.
Do you think shaming people for being horny is a good idea? I'm not so sure. I don't know the details of this particular episode but your reply sounds exactly like what the republicans would like you to say.
It’s the desperate, public thirstiness that’s weird.
Unless it rises to the level of breaking taboos, such as pedophilia, then people can probably get away with showing a lot of different types of horniness. Attacking horniness is terrible idea. Horniness is a winning issue. Dems
should do more of it themselves. There is room to attack Elon musks horniness because of its results. But telling people not be horny over some public beauty wont fly. Desperation and publicity will be accepted or forgiven.
Exactly. Like Dems should attack red states where you can’t search internet porn without providing a drivers license or credit card. Want to win young men. That and legalizing weed
Perhaps we need a special Commission on Public Horniness headed by Jesse Waters?
Isn’t also the insistently normative part of it? It’s not truly about liking sex, but about the simultaneous stigmatization/penalizing of non cis straight sex. And then the next pastor is arrested for pedophilia.
yes a little but mostly people like sex.
Ok but how would you respond to Sydney Sweeney issue. I was waiting for the punchline. (Agree with rest. Calling them weird was dead right and should never stop)
Not sure who Sydney Sweeney is. (Should I know that?) But here's my example of Democrats seeming congenital incapacity to distinguish themselves from Republicans for fear of being taken as provocative (or angry, or god-forbid disgusted as they should be by Republicans in general). I get an email from my Senator, Tammy Baldwin, once or twice a month. Damned if every single one has a Subject headline telling how she has passed or is working on "Bipartisan" legislation on something or other--usually something I don't really care about so that doesn't register at all. So the big up-top impression is that whatever it was (whoever cares) was "Bipartisan" and she helped! Why oh why oh why should we as Democrats anymore give a shit that she's getting along with Republicans on anything? I don't. And I wish she would stop trying to make this point over and over and over again. Yes we're a tight state. And maybe she does get some Republicans to vote for her here. (Her numbers are always better than other statewide races.) But, lesbian (yay) or not, I really wish she would trumpet how she beat the Republican assholes in Congress instead of how nicely she can get along with them. She's not a dyke-with-knife kind of gal, but I wish she had that aura of dangerous in her.
Thank you for writing this. I doubt AOC and Bernie listen to “consultants” and carefully calibrate every word that comes out of their mouths. For years and years (I’m 67, so basically since I was in my 30’s), I’ve railed against the structure of the Dem party, which I gradually came to understand was ruled by these consultants. But you’ve absolutely clarified this for me. They are the death of the party and always have been. We are out here screaming for the Dems to get in the fucking mud, and they are mincing around with their proscribed little niceties. Fuck them.
You know you’ve hit a nerve when a major network decides to cancel a well known and well liked late night show. It’s the thing republicans really can’t stand, to have their ridiculousness aired on TV by famous comedic personalities.
There will always be a Geoff Garin to tell a candidate to stop having fun at your opponent’s expense regardless of how effective it is. Let us not forget that the candidate has agency. I have always been suspicious of Kamala’s political instincts. Her post convention play-it-safe turn only confirmed my suspicions.
I feel compelled to follow up. Despite the disappointing results I harbor no anger towards Harris. She was put in a tough spot by her hubristic, stubborn boss. That’s who I harbor my ill feelings towards.
Amen! I am so, so tired of Clinton-era advisors and their tactics winning the day in my party.
I dream of building a left-leaning infosphere that rivals the right-wing media heap and advances winning messages (and actual facts).
It’s a reflex.
If Democrats actively and accurately portray Republicans as the weird, sick people they are, it would have a terrible consequence.
Democrats would be unable to reach across the aisle and work in bipartisan unity with Republicans for the good of the country, and they could stop politicizing everything.
It’s a fundamental assumption by consultants and establishment Democrats that that is what Americans want, and it’s the only way to win back the country.
🤮
I really hope Democrats can get their sh*t together on this front, as I read this horror show preview: ICE to Target Gen Z With Employment Recruitment Blitz: Immigration and Customs Enforcement is seeking to contract with an advertising firm to help it “dominate” social media with a recruitment blitz aimed at Gen Z, with a goal of hiring more than 14,000 people to work for the agency, according to 404 Media.
This has been a masterclass from the right-wing mediaverse in taking a few nutso comments by internet randos and creating a two-week media cycle out of it, just at the time the Epstein stuff was ready to boil over.
Please add David Axelrod to that list with Geoff
I’m persuaded that Walz was muzzled by Garin and his ilk. But what was their motive? Wouldn’t they’ve been better off if their side had won?
Agree, as usual. The consistent failure of Dems & associated consulting class over the years is astounding, as is their intransigence/inability to take stock and adjust. It’s hard to maintain hope without a wholesale change in Dem leadership & direction. Imv (as a Boomer) it’s less about age and more mindset & strategy. Although, young blood is imperative.