Correct. I’ve come to the same conclusion as to how much thought and reasoning goes into the average (and even well above average) person’s views. It’s depressing, but it’s accurate.
Nm, probably a hijack
Senate Democrats up all night protesting. This is something, anyway.
I applaud pretty much anything Dems do in opposition but I wish ol’ Chuck didn’t make it sound like a slumber party for eight-year olds where they “stay up all night and talk about how mean the other kids are”.
There was a recent Facebook post praising a group of students for standing up in a cafeteria and singing the song, “Do you hear the people sing” from Les Miserables…as if that would do a single thing to budge the stance of Trump/Vance, or that Trump/Vance would even hear of such a protest.
I think the problem is, largely, that the people in any position to do anything about it are people with enough privilege to be less affected by Trump’s brand of fascism (or at least, they are not yet feeling threatened, personally). They are also, by definition, people who believe in the system, and therefore have faith that no, really, it will work. So they are putting all of their eggs in the “win in 2026 and 2028” baskets, with the certainty that, once they control both houses, they can stop this agenda and start theirs.
I, and I think ThelmaLou, believe the crisis is more urgent than that. Winning in 2026 and 2028 is all well and good, but King of the Mountain is less fun when the mountain is a pile of smouldering ruins. I don’t think they understand that a Democratic President in 2028, with Democrats in control of both houses, STILL won’t win back Canada’s friendship, or Europe’s. And certainly not Ukraine’s. I don’t think they realize that the trade deals being built on the assumption that the US is an unreliable partner will continue, and that it will take the US a generation or more to build back the trade it has lost. And that’s if everything reverses course today.
So, yes, they should be raising more hell. The DNC should be using the best talent Hollywood has on offer to make some amazing educational short films on TikTok and YouTube about core American values such as, oh, respecting the Constitution and following the rule of law; why racism is bad; why diversity is good; that women are people. You know, the controversial topics in MAGA-land.
Similarly, the Republicans co-opted mainstream Country some time ago (to the genre’s detriment). But the more popular genres are still available for politicization, and there are better songsters than Lee Greenwood out there.
The stunts, such as flying to El Salvador, are awesome. Literally everyone should have a laser focus on Ábrego García until he is back in Maryland; then they should all switch to the next most egregious case.
A prominent Democrat should launch a reality show as he / she starts to learn Spanish, with lots of characters incidentally mentioning the deep history of Spanish-speakers in America’s history in Florida, Texas, and the Southwest.
So yes: keep doing what they’re doing, but more! louder! more creative! and above all, something to hook those millions of people who pay no attention to politics.
The U.S. Army sang it to trump’s face at the White House.
Yes. This.
Oh, whoops, my bad, I must have misread something on FB.
Thanks!
It may keep some student in that school alive, who was considering dying.
It may encourage some student in that school to do additional work.
I very much doubt they expect Trump/Vance to directly pay them any attention. That’s not the point.
– wrote that before I saw the part about its being the US Army. Posting it anyway because it would still be true if a high school sings it; and because that might also happen.
I will say that I’m not happy with Democrats, but also, strategy isn’t easy.
Winning elections depends on converting the uncommitted middle. They are notoriously fickle and often uninformed. They are subsceptible to narratives like: “Democrats obstructed Trump on day 1, we never had a chance to see if his policies worked.” The only thing they can be relied upon to do with any regularity is punish incumbents for the economy.
With an economic implosion all but certain, it makes sense for Democrats to bide their time for a bit and portray a narrative of “we gave Trump every possible chance, and he still screwed up.”
If anyone hates that strategy, I certainly wouldn’t blame them. In a sane world it should be adequate to simply say “he’s transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offenses” and disappeared in foreign prisons. That was enough for an entire revolution in 1775. But now we are a softer, more timorous people, and anyone who tells you that people will follow Democrats (or anyone else) into an active, physical revolution is simply kidding themselves.
So it looks like we’ll need to wait for either economic meltdown or atherosclerosis to do the job for us. But while waiting for that, I do think there’s room for Dems to more loudly condemn human rights abuses, deportations, etc.
As opposed to pointing at someone who’s doing resistance and harrumphing that they’re doing it wrong? I don’t know what the right answer is, but that ain’t it. What are you doing, what example are you setting that others should follow?
On Monday, J.B. Pritzker gave what Heather Cox Richardson termed a “barn-burning” speech in New Hampshire.
As Richardson posted:
After walking out to the American Authors song “Go Big or Go Home,” Pritzker urged Democrats to stop listening to “do-nothing political types” who are calling for caution at a time when Americans are demanding urgent action, and to “fight—EVERYWHERE AND ALL AT ONCE.”
As you might expect, Republicans are clutching their pearls in outrage.
I am somewhat worried that they’ll screw things up so badly in the short term that there’ll be what appears to be relative improvement by the midterms, even though the economy will still be screwed relative to 2023; and that they’ll then succeed in presenting that as ‘see, it’s working, things are getting better!’ instead of as the reality that ‘we drove the country into disaster and now it’s trying to creep back up a little.’
Look at the stock market bouncing back up whenever they reduce a threatened tarriff. At least some people aren’t thinking ‘who knows what the hell they’re going to do next, I want my cash in gold coins buried in the back yard’ but instead are thinking ‘Whew, things look better now, I’m gonna buy some stocks!’
You certainly won’t go broke betting on Dems screwing up an advantage.
I just don’t know what to do with them anymore. Their strategies are somewhat plausible, but they botch the execution, and also they have a problem with infiltrators as well as people who are indistinguishable from infiltrators.
On the other hand I’m pretty sure that blowing up the Dems would lead to unchallenged Republican dominance for a generation, so the options are pretty bleak all around.
The “they” who I meant in “they’ll screw things up so badly” was the Republicans. The Democrats currently have very little ability to stop them.
FWIW Illinois governor J.B. Prtizker seems to think democrats should be doing more. He gave a speech a few days ago in New Hampshire calling out democrats.
At a Democratic dinner in New Hampshire on Sunday, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker delivered one of the most defiant speeches yet from a Democratic governor in the Trump era, calling on Americans to “take to the streets,” jam the phone lines in Congress, and “afford not a moment of peace” to lawmakers complicit in what he described as a MAGA-led dismantling of democracy and civil rights.
Here is the full speech (about 30 minutes):
Went to a town hall from my congressional representative, Brittany Pettersen, today. No point in rehashing the boring, predictable stuff, so I’ll mention the few interesting things.
Directly to the topic of this thread, she implied, referenced, hinted, but didn’t quite outright say, that some Democrat who is a good communicator will start doing frequent rebuttals, attacks, chats, or something about Trump in the coming weeks or months. Really far from anything substantive, but a definite acknowledgement that Democrats need to be way more public about fighting back.
The only person ejected, and the only people yelling out of turn, were ones saying that the Democrats aren’t doing enough to fight Trump. They all politely listened for an hour before they started yelling.
When asked about Gaza, she said Hamas is a terrorist organization funded by Iran. That may be completely true, and best I could figure out was a response to the not quite coherently asked question of why is she sending money and weapons to Israel—“this is a proxy war with Iran.”
The person concerned about Gaza really needed to be better prepared. When a (probably) sympathetic crowd starts yelling “what’s the question” after you’ve gone on for a few minutes about the humanitarian blockade, you’re not being effective.
Related to that Rep. Pettersen absolutely needs a more coherent response related to Gaza. If she thinks the war (she kept calling it that) is justified, then own and defend that. If she thinks fighting Hamas is justified, but the civilian atrocities need to stop, then blame Netanyahu, or something.
I don’t mean for this thread to become a Gaza debate, what I’m trying to say is the Democrats need to work on how they talk about it. I don’t even care if the Democrats present a unified front, let each politician say what they believe, but nearly non-sequitur, non-answers are not the way to handle it.
Finally, praise and support Republicans who do stand up to Trump. Show them they are being seen and appreciated. Also, the time to take to the streets is sooner than later.
Thanks for that report. Democrats, as a group, have never been that great at communicating. Except for Obama, of course.
Why not just pull a page from Trump’s book and start referring to him by stupid names and reminding people how terrible he is at everything?
He’s better at that.