How does that explain the massive backlash to what Newsom said? Seems like quite a few people are making the argument that we shouldn’t tolerate Newsom’s beliefs on the left
If reserved acceptance is not enough, how is that different to saying the left will not tolerate reserved acceptance? At least in the long term, even if they are willing to allow it in the short term for strategic reasons?
If saying “ok, I don’t have to like what this is, but people should not be persecuted for it” isn’t good enough, doesn’t that mean you do require everyone to “like” (presumably affirmatively support) it?
To borrow a religious analogy, it’s the confession of “we all have fallen short” – we should strive to do and be better. Reaching our point of comfort and just standing pat there satisfied of your justification like you need not put any more effort is the sin of acedia (spiritual “sloth” in the common translation of the Seven Capital Vices). But we should not, to use McBride’s words, “excommunicate” those who are not quite there yet and have doubts but have shown they were willing to listen.
McBride in part of her statements borrows from Hunter Thompson’s figure of having believed we (in his case the 60s counterculture, in hers the LGBTQ movement) were riding to moral triumph on the crest of a beautiful unstoppable wave that would sweep all away. And it hurts to find out it was not so.
Again, in my original post I was speaking about the phenomenon of public tolerance vis-a-vis LGBTQ issues. Newsom’s case is along the lines of what McBride did bring up with regards to her colleague from Massachussetts – how internally to the Left, if you are 90% of the way with us, maybe we should be glad we can work with you at all.
{SNEERS}
The only way the Democrats will win is by becoming a Labor Party again.
They have done nothing meaningful in that line for decades.
Biden was the most pro-labor president in decades, if not ever; he literally picketed with union workers.
Please explain, why are the Democrats no longer the party of labor?
Because Union DO NOT EQUAL Labor!
Most Americans do not belong to a Union, and in many States, Unions are effectively banned.
Tennessee, for example.
We need a Party that represents people who earn an hourly wage.
We ain’t got one.
The Democrats changed in the 70s, to a Party that sips white wine on the patio with Investment Bankers, Degreed Professionals, and Poli-Sci professors from Berkley.
And the only working people there were the guys serving the drinks.
And, since they had NO representation, some were suckered into voting for a con-artist who kinda-sorta said something familiar—Trump.
I see the distinction, but I think that these are deeply related issues. Newsom’s message is much closer to meeting the public where it is at; but he is castigated by his own side for delivering it.
How are we going to do a better job of stayed by “ahead of but within arms reach of” the public, if any politician who delivers a message like that - which by its nature is going to be in less then full lockstep with what the further Left wants - then gets castigated?
Can we? Maybe here on the Dope, but in general this has been weaponized well enough, for long enough, that millions would consider these positions controversial.
Borderline, but just about on the wrong side of it IMO. The number of trans athletes is miniscule, and there are actual sporting bodies that can decide their own rules on trans and intersex. There’s really no reason for the government to wade in, other than joining a manufactured culture war. But I don’t consider this particular position disqualifying of course, so let’s say “jerk-ish”.
That’s the rub isn’t it? How blurred is the line between meeting the public where it’s at, and pandering to those who don’t want to consider moving from where they’re at.
Maybe not “only” but definitely it’s a necessary part of it. This started already partly with the Southern Strategy but really powered up with the “Reagan Democrats” and let’s be frank part of the problem was that many of these working people were not at all happy with the turn the general culture and society took in the 60s and 70s, but were still enjoying the fruits of the decades of labor progress in the mid-20th century and did not feel those were threatened.
That in turn led to 3 decades of the Dems running away from the label “Liberal” and the highly pro-business Clinton years where it was all about “the economy, stupid” meaning booming stocks, low inflation and cheap credit.
Now decades later all the progress is being UNdone and people seem to be wondering how could this happen. Well, because we took for granted that all the progress of the mid-late 20th century both in labor and in human rights was a done deal and did not keep standing up for it, lest we be accused of being socialist liberals (now in the 2020s “woke”)
You’re not helping my conviction that politics has replaced religion for many Americans, and is practiced in much the same way. If I wanted to be harangued about my sins and urged to put more effort in to be a good person, I’d go find a church.
Most voters quite reasonably want to elect someone who will pass policies that are good for the country generally, and for them in particular, and who see their job as representing their constituents, rather than trying to change them. In as much as Dems are not doing that, they are going to find it harder to get elected.
It’s ironic, or maybe telling, that just as we reached the point where we could stop judging people on their religious beliefs, or lack thereof, we started judging them on whether they had the correct political beliefs instead.
We can walk and chew gum at the same time. We can seek to manage national socioeconomic and foreign policy in a way that provides a better life for the worker and a safer world for the nation to exist, AND seek to make society and the culture more just for the humans in it. It’s not either-or, it doesn’t mean giving up on one for the other or throwing anyone under the bus, but it does mean understanding that we won’t get totally there immediately.
Who’s hungry for that approach? Not MAGA, surely?! 
More to the point, who’s treating our fellow citizens as enemies? MAGA, every day and twice on Sunday. Literally more on Sunday when you include the preachers from the pulpit and television screen of cargo-cult no-empathy more-Old-than-New-Testament “Christianity.” Grace, indeed!. 
By their rhetoric, everyone who’s not a straight, white, rural, Christian non-college-educated male is ruining their nation.
And that rhetoric is backed by armies of lies you wouldn’t spread except about your worst enemy. Lies about LGBTQ people (groomers!). Lies about racial minorities (lazy criminals!). Lies about immigrants (ditto!). Lies about other religions (all Muslims want Sharia law!) Lies about people without a religion (utterly without a moral compass!) Lies about cities (lawless and burned to the ground!). Lies about civil servants (lazy, partly because they allowed too many non-whites and women into upper ranks!). Lies about history (slavery was good, and saying otherwise means you hate America!).
And, of course, their own shit never stinks (what grooming by pastors? what theocracy in abortion law?).
Campaigns are expensive. Democrats went to where the money was. I think it wasn’t in the seventies but the eighties after Reagan stuck it to the unions. The intent behind that wasn’t merely because it was in accord with what passes for principal among those folk, but with the explicit intent of undermining what was then the Democrats major source of campaign funds, organized labor.
Exactly, she seems to think that we can find some common ground with these assholes. We can’t.
Ugh, I rooted for McBride during her campaign and hoped she would make some difference. It turned out she was yet another sellout willing to throw the rest of us under the bus so she can pal around with our oppressors.
To be clear, are you saying that Ezra Klein is an oppressor of trans people?
No, not MAGA. But per polling here, only about 50% of Republicans and less than 20% of adult US citizens identity as MAGA. A Democratic candidate isn’t going to be purposely canvassing registered Republicans, so probably McBride was mostly speaking to Democrats and Independents.
Way too many people on every side. The left too often treats people who agree with them 90% as enemies, let alone those who don’t agree with them on how to best run society but also aren’t crazy or fascists. (And if the right was remotely sane and reasonable, I’d say “fuck the left, they chose to be like this and don’t deserve to be elected”. I nearly didn’t listen to the interview because I expected it to be more condescending lecturing, and I was very pleasantly surprised. But the right is MAGA and a genuine threat to democracy.)
The other thing is that to an extent, the social justice left treats men, white people, straight people etc etc as the enemy: they get blamed for oppressing minorities and for various problems in society. And most of these groups are majorities or near majorities of voters. I think it’s bad and wrong to cast any group as the enemy, whether it’s minorities like Muslims and trans people, or majorities or near majorities like men and white people. But the former is dangerous, because it can lead to exclusion and violence, while the latter is politically foolish, because as McBride said: if the choice is between someone that’s an asshole to other people, and someone that’s an asshole to you, most people are going to pick the ‘asshole to other people’ option.
The OPs idea to blame the wealthy for all the problems in society is not a particularly ethical one IMO, but it’s at least a viable way to win elections.
“Both sides” just enables the worst offenders to continue to get worse, because there’s no political cost. It’s much of how we get to insanity like a Trump presidency right after talking about people “eating the dawgs” and retweeting lewd and/or violent posts about his political opponents. Both sides!
Cite please? Because I see a lot of left-leaning organizations calling out bigotry, I don’t see them expressly saying white people are the problem, especially while the majority on the left is also white.
I mean, ok, you sometimes get the criticism of the white, christian, male, hetero as too frequently holding bigoted or ignorant views, but it’s more from a perspective of “do better” than seeing them as lesser humans, in the way much of the right calling e.g. any black person a “DEI hire” regardless of whether they were top of their class and what they have achieived in their careers.
Nothing.
These people are like the Terminator. You can’t reason with them, and you can’t bargain with them. The best you can hope for is to crush them with the hydraulic press.
No I’m not. I’m saying that ever since she was elected, she has done nothing to advance the cause of trans rights and instead wants to lecture us that we need to find common ground with Republicans and shouldn’t ask for too many civil rights.
That’s what I meant and you know it, but you want to twist what I said to further your own agenda.