Ex-fucking-actly!
I know you were being sarcastic, but this attitude - the idea that holding politicians accountable when they clearly break the law- is persecution - is scary. It’s scary because so many people that shouldn’t be believing it, are.
It goes to show the power of the “Flood the Zone with Bullshit” strategy and how it subtly changes the positions of even your opposition.
And every time they’re allowed to get away with something, they take it as license and do something worse.
This is more than a political battle, it’s a full spectrum cultural battle but sometimes it seems like only one side understands that. Trump certainly understood in a way Biden didn’t.
Biden can make the most compelling speech ever at noon on Wednesday, but If no one sees it and it gets slammed on Fox and treated with lukewarm bothsideism on the the network news, who cares.
Start pushing back on the lukewarm press coverage, the reporters that somehow feel they must give Biden as much negativity as they gave Trump. It’s OK to push back on negative press coverage in a way that doesn’t question the legitimacy of the free press. You shouldn’t lie, but you’re allowed to spin and get your position out.
It’s about more than convincing Joe Manchin. Move out of the political arena. Convince the business community, high powered CEO’s, popular influencers, celebrities and let them convince Joe Manchin.
Ignore the right-wing complaints about “woke” businesses and politically active celebrities - they are only complain because it’s an arena where the Democrats have an advantage. Convince the people that produce crime drama and reality shows and bring in your positions as plot points (Law and Order has always been good for this)
It’s like Biden is so determined to be the anti-Trump that he’s determined not to wield any influence at all, ever. I’m not saying he should start tweeting that he’s going to fire Chris Wray for not arresting Trump for treason, but there’s certainly no reason he can’t express disappointment at the failure of the DOJ to hold hold the instigators of January 6th to account.
If something isn’t working, change it. Ignoring Trump and the right wing noise worked for Biden during his campaign and it seemed like it might be a viable strategy for his presidency. But the whole “let’s ignore the runaway boulder that’s heading downhill and threatening to destroy Democracy and maybe it will stop by itself” strategy isn’t working. And they have to face that and counter it.
That’s mostly because he wasn’t elected on a platform of “Bring Trump and the Jan 6 insurrectionists to swift and bloody justice!”. Nor for that matter, was he elected on a platform of, or a mandate to enact one of the country’s most expensive infrastructure bills ever.
What he was elected to do was be NORMAL and bring calm, dignity and civility back to the Executive Branch and the political process in general. In other words, NOT be Trump. That’s it.
That’s IMO, where Biden is failing. He wasn’t elected to be FDR 2.0. He was elected to NOT be Donald Trump, and as a rebuke to Trumpism.
So it’s going to be interesting in 2022 to see if the country prefers Biden and the Democratic party who’s being pulled hard from the far Left, or if they want a repeat of 2016-2020 with all that comes with Trump and Trumpism.
That can’t work. There is a political tug of war going on right now. If the Republicans are trying their best to win, but the Democrats are dedicated to just staying where they are, then any actual movement can only be to the Republican’s advantage and the Democrats will eventually lose it all.
The voting rights issue is a scary one, but I think Biden hopes (and I hope) that pushing Infrastructure through will give him more political capital to use. I hope he pivots shortly and start hammering on voting rights.
Yes, maybe they can convince him to flip to the Republican side, and immediately restore control of the Senate to Mitch McConnell.
Unfortunately we are finding ourselves in a messed up version of the prisoner’s dilemma. The only way that we can come out ahead and have our democracy survive is to have both sides work together for the greater good. t Having the Democrats take up the hard ball Republican tactics may even the playing field a bit but abandons all hope of getting back to a functional Democracy. That may be best strategy but its still results in an unacceptable loss.
Which is also why trying to replicate Trumpian hardball tactics on the left won’t work. Democrats by and large want every one’s life to be better. Owning the 'Pubs isn’t enough of a motivation to bring Democrats to the polls, and in fact tends to turn them off. Attempts to develop left wing versions of Limbaugh inevitably fail because rabid unthinking tribalism just isn’t part of the liberal make up. This isn’t symmetric warfare because Liberals and Conservative are playing two different games.
(WARNING: Ad Hoc mathematical analysis follows proceed at your own risk)
As I said we are in a messed up prisoner’s dilemma. The standard dilemma has weights
R and D both unify → R and D both win 1 point
R obstruct D unify → R wins 2 points, D loses 2 points
R unify D obstruct → R loses 2 points, D wins 2 points
R and D both obstruct → R and D both lose 1 point
From the Democrats point of view all else being equal having everyone even Republicans prosper is overall a good thing. So the overall value of the game for them might be something like D + R/2
So from the Dems point of view
R and D both unify → +1/2 + 1 = +1.5
R obstruct D unify → + 2/2 -2 = -1
R unify D obstruct → -2/2 +2 =1
R and D both obstruct → -1/2 -1 = -1.5
So attempting to unify is always better than attempting to dominate the other side with anti-democratic obstructive tactics. Its not worth giving up on Democracy.
The Republicans on the other hand view this as a zero sum game where it doesn’t matter so much if the face gets eaten as long as the Liberals face is eaten more. So the value of the game for them is R-D
R and D both unify → +1 -1 = 0
R obstruct D unify → +2 +2 = 4
R unify D obstruct → -2 -2 =-4
R and D both obstruct → -2 +2 =0
So there is no reason to bother trying to preserve Democracy.
This asymmetry in terms of motivation is why Democrats are always going to be stuck boxing with Queensbury rules in an MMA fight.
Apparently, the president gets a magic wand to use during the first hundred days to get whatever he wants done. Seems to be single use. TIL.
“Huge Upward Jobs Revision Poses New Challenge for Biden Administration.”
While it would be a huge loss, optically, if Joe Manchin changed parties - I think the only reason to keep him in the party is the avoidance of that perceived loss.
But one recalcitrant Senator isn’t the problem. The problem, as I see it, isn’t even Democrat vs. Republican. The problem is the worldwide shift towards illiberal Democracy, right wing authoritarianism and jingoistic nationalism. It’s a fight that’s bigger than the immediate political fight.
Steve Bannon was deep into a big money international push towards right wing authoritarianism long before he was hooked up with Trump. The “Stop The Steal” movement was developed by some Texas lawyers and politicians years before the 2020 election, they were just waiting for the right sore loser.
Evangelical churches and evangelical/political organizations have been mounting an organized campaign to destroy our secular public school system for years - the DeVos family was very prominent in this effort, throwing in tins of money long before Trump gave them the “return on their investment” as they described her appointment. Organizations like the very moderate sounding Claremont Institute and Council for Public Policy have been publishing detailed “game plans” for the destruction of our representative Democracy - the 6 point plan to overthrow the election wasn’t even the most radical plan they published.
After Trump lost, it did seem possible that by being normal, we could get to a return to normalcy. I admit I miscalculated, I thought that the “sore loser” schtick would get old after a while. Remember how everyone thought QANON would die down? It’s bigger and more popular than ever. I should’ve realized how much narcissistic cults thrive on persecution.
I’m not saying I have an answer, but the current strategy of ignoring the problem and hoping it goes away isn’t working. Some accountability for January 6th would be a good start. It isn’t about Trump or “getting Trump”, he will probably evade prosecution the way he has for years - by never giving direct orders. But there certainly seems to be a solid case against Jeffrey Clark and Mark Meadows for seditious conspiracy- that would be a start. Instead, it’s like the DOJ never even changed hands, lately they seem all about getting Hillary Clinton for daring to suggest Trump did something wrong.
I’m sorry if this is a ramble, I need to wrap it up and I’m probably all over the place. But the last 6 months or so have been frustrating, in the way it was frustrating every time I thought an abused friend finally got it” -then I watched them go back to their abusive boyfriends to try to work it out.
I realize this is the democrats we’re talking about, but I’d really like to think that “political capital” doesn’t really apply when we’re talking about voting rights. If every race in Georgia or Arizona turns into a repeat of the 2018 race for the Georgia governor, political capital stops really mattering.
The Democrats can’t reasonably expect win the senate without racially diverse states that are turning purple but still have state level GOP control, like Georgia, Arizona, etc. They’re already making it a lot tougher on themselves in the house (to say the least) by letting redistricting happen before they get their act together on voting rights. I presume it’s going to be basically impossible to regulate redistricting now that it’s this late in the game. If we’re in an endgame where the GOP controls most of the marginal states and the Dems can’t reasonably get another trifecta federaly, what does political capital with the voters matter?
Maybe the Democrats could trade Manchin to the Republicans for Liz Cheney and a lobbyist to be named later.
If Liz Cheney is the New Democrat, gawd help us all. The battle is already long lost.
ETA: Meant to reply to Robot_Arm, not Ann_Hedonia. Sorry!
Not just optically.
It would put Mitch McConnell back in charge of what can even be discussed in the Senate.
I’m no Manchin fan but having him there is worlds better than a Republican materially, even just based on confirming judges.
And judges are probably the most important thing the Senate does any more.
Biden has lost forty percent of his popularity wth Democrats under the age of 30. They want him to do more on climate and health care reform, as well as reduce student debts.
I don’t mind Biden but the Dems are going to have to find a younger and more charismatic candidate that appeals to a larger percentage of voters. He is much better than Trump in many ways but has struggled to unite the party. The midterms will be a challenge.
There isn’t any other Democrat who would be able to “do more” with this Congress.
He doesn’t need congress to do anything about student debt.
Oh, you thought reality was going to prevent folks from forming circular firing squads and giving the Republicans another win?