All we ever hear is how Democrats suck at fighting, never attack, etc. Here’s what happened when they try:
I retweeted it, because it is a good point. Romney and the Republicans have done nothing for job creation, and there is no evidence Romney even knows how to create jobs, yet all they do is attachk, attack, attack and block any and all legislation. Here is the only other immediate response I saw to Axelrod:
There is just something in progressive/liberal DNA that causes them enjoy attacking each other more than attacking Republicans. We don’t even have to wait for Republicans to rebut Axelrod, we’ve already got leading liberals creating strawmen for them. We don’t need to help them blur the message- that was a clear message, and now it is completely muddled with “What about Rahm?” nonsense. On top of that, my liberal twitter feed has spent the entire day joining with Romney screaming about Plouffe.
And let’s not spend this entire thread bashing Chris Hayes, because he’s really a great reporter and I think he does great work- his work at the Nation and elsewhere is awesome. I’m just talking about the overall phenomenon that I’ve observed in the past few years- Republicans rally around each other and attack Democrats, while Democrats scatter and attack other Democrats. I just simply do not get it. I understand independent thinking and the value of disagreement, but this is a two party system, fer chrissakes. Stop shooting your own team. Here is David Axelrod, doing his best to start a line of attack, and he is knee-capped in 5 minutes or less by his side of the aisle.
It’s amazing, really. And depressing. And I swear to God, in thirty years, today’s progressives will be screaming about Rahm Emmanuel the way today’s wingnuts still think we could have won Vietnam. Get over it, for the love of everything holy.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Got right to the nuts of it, John. “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” and all that.
Hell, at this point, I’d be happy enough with mediocrity being the enemy of downright fucking evil. And that’s about where we are in this country, sociopolitically speaking.
LittlePig
Chris is thinking with his geek brain, not his political brain (if he has one).
Chris thinks “Aha! I can provide a counterexample to that assertion! I win geek points”. That he is also attacking his own side is lost in the geekgasm.
dr. bloor
Well, it’s worth spending a post or two–I volunteer!–bashing him, because if he thinks this is the way to advance a progressive agenda, he’s a fucking moron.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Also a good point, LittlePig. Is there anyone with enough pull in Lefty Land who can get this particular phylum of geek to pipe down for about a year and a half or so?
JC
That is actually a great observation.
Elie
Its more important for liberals and progressives to be “right” — the “smartest kid in the room”, showboats than it is to mount a strategic attack on the opposition. It is also a phenomenon in my opinion that is the result of distortions in our social fabric exagerrated by too much individualism. We hold that value to its absurd extreme and in effect, do not even seem to value the solidarity that was so much part of historical liberal movements. Its all ME ME ME and we work together only when we accidentally share, if only briefly, overlapping, exact ideas about anything.
The Republicans are black and white and anything about liberals or progressives is always black and hard coded. Between having to stroke the egotistical ME ME ME liberal and find ways to upend the relentless opposition to anything put out by this administration, we have what we have.
I will add this: our internet and social media is built for complaint, not affirmation. Tweets, email are only sent in volume to note negative exception or poke fun at best….
LittlePig
Sadly, it has been my experience that it takes a just right ass whuppin’ to provide that perspective. Washington would be a lot better town if all the politicians and journalists had a session with a 2 x 4.
david mizner
“There is just something in progressive/liberal DNA that causes them enjoy attacking each other”
Each other? Rahm is a progressive/liberal? That’s funny.
Cranky Observer
That’s the problem with being reality-based: you are somewhat constrained to, you know, tell the truth. If that is the truth about Rahm Emanuel (and my information says it is), then your argument is apparently that Democrats (I won’t even waste my time mentioning progressives, much less liberals) should look the other way and not point it out. Not that Barack Obama should have thought deeply about the consequences of loading up his Administration with high-finance types most of whom have done a turn or two in the US-job-destruction wealth-hoovering business, but that Democrats should pretend (1) they haven’t (2) it didn’t hurt the average US citizen.
And of course, Democrats should just know by instinct that the hard Right will never, ever, ever dig up this stuff and use it on their own if we aren’t honest and reality-based about it. Naw – never happen.
Cranky
Tom Q
And mizner chimes right in to prove the point.
LittlePig
JC @ 5:
I’m not only an observer of geeks, I’m a full fledged member.
ABL
I don’t know what you’ve been smoking the past couple days, but you should pump it through the Balloon Juice ventilation systems and get all us balloonbaggers high.
eric
“even the liberal Chris Hayes….”
the tag line they all want more than anything else…it means they are cited, they are cited as being correct, and serve to the Village as a light in an otherwise dark tunnel of liberalism.
that colored fella
As I am loath to smack around Chris Hayes, let’s all remember he works for a journalistic sounding publication called The Nation, not the DCCC, DNC or heck even the DLC. He’s a reporter first.
If JC is looking for a seemless attack dog with progressive talking points, Ed Schultz comes on at 10pm (except on Fridays!).
Cranky Observer
> epublicans rally around each other and
> attack Democrats, while Democrats scatter
> and attack other Democrats.
What goes around comes around, eh? If anyone is a master at attacking fellow Democrats to overall disastrous effect, it was and is Rahm Emanuel
Cranky
Moe
So…the fact that Hayes pointed Rahm out muddles the White House’s message more than what Rahm (who actually worked at the White House) did himself.
The Other Chuck
When Rahm runs for president or an office bigger than mayor, then maybe I’ll give a crap about Rahm.
Hey does that fit on a tweet?
McGeorge Bundy
The primary problem on this front, as far as progressives are concerned, is that most of them tend to think rationally.
gene108
The reason R’s rally together is because R’s want to win. Period.
They don’t care about much of anything else besides winning.
State rights should trump federal rights, but if they can turn out their base by overruling Florida’s Supreme Court in the Terry Schiavo case, what the hell? We’ll get votes.
Liberals seem to not understand that the other side will do anything to win. No matter how reprehensible, such as black list people through voter caging, who should legally be able to vote.
It’s been 11 years since the 2000 Presidential election and the no holds barred attitude of Republicans, with regards to winning at all costs.
Yet our side just doesn’t understand what they are up against.
It makes me want to cry.
different church-lady
Freakin’… everloving… DUH!!!!!
I mean… 16-megaton nuclear DUH.
jcgrim
Axelrod had best get out in front of the Rahm-did-it-too frame because Fox news will blast the names of EVERY DLC, DNC, Third-Way Dem who made money exactly like Romney – Chris Hayes or no Chris Hayes Tweet. Don’t think the beloved Rahm’s name won’t be topping their list as Obama’s former chief of staff.
The Dems had better come up with messaging for middle America or the 2012 POTUS could be head-trauma-crazy-eyed Bachmann.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
The other non-geeky explanation is that fundamentally we have 3 major political movements (the Right, the Left, and Liberals) which are painfully and in a dysfunctional manner shoehorned into a 2 party system. Liberals and the Left are political allies only because the Right is so much worse, but they have divergent and incompatible goals. Liberals want to preserve and improve the existing sociopolitical system, and the Left want to tear it down and rebuild from scratch. It is hard to find ground for compromise between those two goals so Liberals and the Left tend to fight like two scorpions in a bottle all the time, and only call a temporary truce when the Right is threatening to get everybody killed.
Swishalicious
Two points for Chris Hayes (who I like):
To my knowledge, Rahm is not running for any elected office as someone who is going to create jobs/fix the economy (Romney is);
Romney’s job was management consulting, AKA firing people, whereas Rahm was in investment banking, AKA using magical market tricks to get rich while attaching dynamite to the pillars of society. So no, they did not make their fortunes in the (exact) same way. Clearly, I loathe both management consultants and I-bankers, but they aren’t the same thing, and the differences cause inapt comparisons when looking through the prism of job creation.
Joel
One might see the irony in all this: the Rand-lovin’ right acts as collective, while the left acts as individuals.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Just another day with Juicebaggers pointing out that the Dems should be more like the GOP.
I like your strategy, John.
harokin
Hayes is also basically wrong. Romney was the CEO of the company that bought other companies, laid off their work force, took management fees and filed bankruptcy. Rahm was a banker who helped put deals together, and while some of those deals resulted in layoffs, Rahm did not make money off the layoffs the way Romney made money off the victims of Bain’s buyouts.
Zach
Wait; Romney is beefing with Ploufe? Just looked this up… no shit people don’t care about BLS statistics; they care about whether they are personally unemployed and whether or not they think they can become employed in the future.
Like every other candidate so far in the GOP race, Romney has one huge vulnerability. Just wait till the first time he gets asked in a debate, “How many people have you fired in your career?” It’ll be McCain’s clueless response to the question about how many houses he owns times 1000.
On another note, every candidate has endorsed Paul Ryan’s budget. Paul Ryan’s budget says that we’ll raise revenue to 19% GDP (after slashing it with tax cuts for upper income and capital gains) by “widening the revenue base.” This means that every candidate for the GOP nomination has endorsed raising taxes on the poor and middle class. Period. If there’s any justice in political rhetoric, “widening the revenue base” will be the populist equivalent to “spreading the wealth.”
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHH
Rahm was right, they are retards.
BWAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHH
arguingwithsignposts
I’m not certain that’s exactly the same as Romney’s stint at Bain Capital at all. But whatever floats your narrative.
ETA: Or, what others noted above.
dr. bloor
@Cranky:
How about the fact that the tweet is completely fucking irrelevant, as Rahm isn’t running for President? Do progressives have the obligation to go out of their way to be assholes?
Evolved Deep Southerner
God damn right. What’s YOUR fucking argument? “We may as well save the other side from having to connect those dots by doing it ourselves?”
As John pointed out, it’s a TWO-PARTY-SYSTEM. We’ve got a sociopathic party and one that’s less so. Those are your choices at the moment. Make that choice and act accordingly if you want to win. Or start a third party if you think you and your like-minded can make a go of it. Or shut the fuck up, stay home on election day, and eat the gruel you’re served.
gene108
Axelrod starts a line of attack. How will Mittens counter it?
“Liberal” Chris Hayes gives him the answer. Obama’s first CoS did it too!
End line of attack.
Any time you trout out that line of attack, all any right-winger has to say is “Rahm, did it too and he’s buddies with Obama.”
Ed’s as likely to attack President Obama and Democrats over any perceived slight to his views, as he is to attack Republicans or support Democrats.
eemom
I would never bash Chris Hayes. He’s too cute.
Also too, we share an alma mater. Sure, he graduated 800 years after I did, but still.
cleek
the real lesson here is that Twitter is a fucking waste of electricity
Rick Massimo
“Rahm did it too” does not equal “Romney is not full of sh*t on this issue.” And yes, Rahm is not running for president.
Yevgraf
Fuck the progressive activists. They’ve not messaged shit for my entire adult fucking lifetime. What they have done is whine, and let the goofballs become the definition of progressive thought.
I had to come around to progressive economics despite them, not because of them – I started out as a socially liberal fiscal neocon, and wound up so disgusted by my side that I had to create my own goddamn definitions, no thanks to the paid progressive mouthpieces (like the worthless pieces of shit Mizner and Hamsher).
Culture of Truth
Sure you do. You said it the other day, regarding Glenn Greenwald, he’s just “standing on principle.”
I think liberals/progressives are much more likely to do this, as are activists on both sides, rather than political professionals (ie, Hayes vs Axelrod) and both positions can be justified. Hayes would say he’s operating from a principle, (what about Rahm?) and I’m sure quite Greenwald would say its *more* proof of operating from principles to attack your own side, while the Axelrod types would say they’re trying to get Dems elected to get progressive policies enacted and enforced in law.
Cranky Observer
> Freakin’… everloving… DUH!!
>
> I mean… 16-megaton nuclear DUH.
So in your opinion, the best way for Democrats to get elected and to improve the condition of the nation is for them to act exactly as Republicans act? I guess I must be really dense, because “16-megaton DUH [or no DUH Howie]” I don’t see why if that is the case voters won’t just go ahead and pick the real Republicans every time, since they are at least authentic.
Cranky
Spaghetti Lee
I think part of it is that the muscle of the conservative movement, even the cynical, grifter-y ones, believe that they’re on some level at war with liberals and Democrats, so they can justify a lot more. Liberals more often act like they’re in debate club, and someone’s going to award their team points for saying stuff like this. Those “points” don’t really exist.
But I think it’s harder than just training people to shut up at the right moments. Odds are, if you’re a liberal, you care about stuff like internal consistency, verifiable arguments, and intellectual honesty. That’s just part of the DNA. It’s how liberals justify what they believe in in a lot of cases, while conservatives get their justification from God or Ayn Rand. It’s a tough nut to crack.
yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)
I’m about as far Left as one can get without actually hugging all the trees, and I don’t get the Lib-Shoot-Lib thang, either.
But I will say, I think it’s a byproduct of an otherwise healthy tolerance for an exchange of non-matching ideas, Just as the healthiest dogs tend to be mixed-breed mutts, successful progressive dialogs result from a free flow of ideas.
Compare that to the other side – ever read the comments at, say, RedState? So much of it is of the variety of, “Yep,” “Yep,” “Yep,” “Mm-hm,” and “Praise Jeebus.” Wanna offer a counterpoint? Banned. And look how that famous Conservative lockstep is playing out in the House and Senate, these days. Suicidal votes on Medicare and a near-uniform willingness to crash what’s left of the economy to please the vocal base.
I’ll take our side of the aisle’s style of exchange any day, regardless of the friendly fire.
Georgia Pig
Evolved Deep Southerner
LittlePig –
Neither. It’s just plain stupid, a non sequitur, a mindless free association of Axelrod and Rahm. Hayes should think before he tweets, and not just assume that every emission from his brain is genius. I generally like Hayes, but I think sometimes he’s too in love with his own intelligence. It comes out when he’s on Maddow’s show. He’s better when writing thought out pieces.
Nick L
It’s not even a meaningful attack. “Chief of Staff” is not the same thing as “economic adviser,” let alone “president.” Besides, nobody’s bemoaning Geithner’s inability to twist Congressional arms, since that’s not his job. Even bringing up Emmanuel is a rather overt “yeah but fuck you Obama.”
But even if you do consider Rahm responsible for job creation, you also have to give him some credit for the stimulus package and GM bailouts. Emmanuel may be an unprincipled sellout who was a jackass in the private sector, but unlike Romney, he has substantive job-creation legislation on his resume.
I like Chris Hayes too, but he veers dangerously close to “if the Democrats nominate the True Liberal for POTUS, we’d have everything we want.” Us lefties have our own Jonestown tendencies…
azlib
And nobody really pays much attention to this stuff except for political junkies. Dems have a history of bickering with each other because the Democratic Party is a Coalition Party and not a Progressive Party. When you have Dems ranging from Ben Nelson to Bernie Sanders (who is a Socialist, but caucuses with the Dems) getting agreement on anything is difficult.
Lolis
Elie,
You are exactly right. It is why I am reluctantly a Democrat. We have been apologizing for supporting Obama for months when he didn’t put us where we are today. Meanwhile, Republicans have been gloating for nearly two years and our proud of their efforts to keep the economy in the shitter.
Moe
@dr. bloor
Nope, the answer is to follow the ‘leaders’ of the Democratic Party in lockstep, because they OBVIOUSLY know what the fuck they’re doing
cleek
the Professional Left strikes again.
Freddie deBoer
Agreed John! People on the left should stop attacking each other.
rootless_e
Chris Hayes is really mailing it in on both the automatic attack on Rahm Emanuel – a guy who was elected mayor of Chicago thanks to the votes of black Democrats – and his classically leftie ignorance of business. Just because Emanuel was in a finance company does not mean he did the same things as Romney did.
But hey, Rahm=Romney is not quite as stupid as Bush=Obama.
gwangung
Well, there’s an interesting discussion here, although I suspect it’ll get lost in factionalism and our own tribalism.
There’s a certain amount of clear messaging that the right does. And it’s effective.
You either mimic that or you think of other tactics that are equally effective. Otherwise this is where theory fails to meet practice.
LongHairedWeirdo
Well, being fair minded is a liberal trait, but it only works in a fair fight. (I should have said “contest” – now I made it sound like Republicans are *attacking* the American way of life!)
However, rather than blessing Rahm, how about pointing out something like “yeah, and Rahm thought the 787bil stimulus was good enough”. Keep pushing good ideas, and if you’re going to hammer one of our own, hammer for not doing the right thing.
Republicans *are* willing to savage their own for not following Republican-Party-Values (I don’t want to say “Republican values” because that suggests the Republican Party cares about the republic), and the same sort of thing should scare liberals too. But the emphasis has to be on building power and support for people to stick their neck out. It’s not enough to just nod approvingly when someone does good; the Republicans have huge amounts of energy and liberals aren’t doing enough to build up their own, or counter the Republicans.
eemom
also, um….has anybody noticed that all this sturm and drang is over a goddamn TWEET?
Have we honestly reached the point where political dialogue is defined by the latest beep on a stupid TOY?
different church-lady
@ Cranky User (#38)
Oh, of course not. I believe the best way for Democrats to get elected is for them to categorically state that they are every bit as shitty as their opponents so that political operatives with twitter accounts don’t have to do it for them!
Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go repeatedly harm the surface of my desk with my forehead.
NR
As usual, everyone here has learned the wrong lesson from this. The real lesson here, which should be obvious to anyone who has thought about this even a little bit, is that it’s impossible for Democrats to attack the Republicans for being corporate stooges when the Democratic party is also full of corporate stooges.
But no, instead of realizing that hey, maybe we shouldn’t have corporate stooges in the highest positions of power in the party, people here prefer to pretend that everything would be A-OK if progressives just wouldn’t point that little inconvenient fact out. It’s pathetic.
gene108
Yeah, good luck getting people to buy into Romney not being the great job creating CEO now…or at the least not think less of President Obama…
There’s a large swath of independent voters, who believe that both sides are the same and do occasionally get some enthusiasm for one side, when they believe there’s a positive differentiation, such as in 2008 for President Obama and the Democrats.
Pointing out Obama has staff that did the same thing his opponent did will either keep these voters home or maybe even swing Republican, just because they want to throw the bums out and let another set of crooks get a shot.
Chris Martinez
Amen, Cole.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
Ironically, Chris Hayes’ wife worked with Rahm.
dr. bloor
@Cranky:
\
Congratulations on your absolute inability to appreciate the difference between campaigning and governing. You should probably stop digging now.
cleek
@yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time):
i wish that was true. but, spend a day on any liberal blog (including this one) and watch anyone who bucks the consensus on nearly any issue. there are clear lines about what is acceptable for liberals to think and what isn’t, and crossing those lines guarantees the violator a flurry of accusations of harboring Republican tendencies, or hating (minority group in question), etc..
and, the lines are different on different blogs. you don’t get much love saying something nice about Obama on FDL, and there are plenty of people who apparently come here simply to say mean things about Obama and provoke reactions.
no, IMO, libs are no more open minded than any other group of people. they just have better ideas about government.
gwangung
You do realize, don’t you, that any organization the size of a major political party is pretty much a corporation in its own right, and that’s not going to change unless the national population gets below seven figures?
Spaghetti Lee
the best way for Democrats to get elected and to improve the condition of the nation is for them to act exactly as Republicans act?
Republicans have acted in a way that, over the last couple decades, has amassed them incredible institutional power to the extent that they’ve basically got the country by the balls, even when they’re nominally not in power. With the exception of a few social issues, they’ve used this power to win basically every battle they’ve fought.
Hell Yes I want that sort of power for the left. If the tactics of the Republicans are what got them to this point, copy the tactics. The bone of contention is whether those tactics themselves are inherently corrupting and will snuff out the liberal sympathies of liberals who attempt to use them. I say the answer to that is unknown, because the left hasn’t really tried yet.
Moe
@Georgia Pig
I’ll take Hayes over Axelrod any day. What has Axelrod done again? Oh yeah, he somehow managed to get a Democrat elected after the George Bush presidency. Big whoop.
JWL
A single tweet with balls, and you censure and attack all those who have dared criticize the 85th degree chess master? Get a grip, Cole.
harlana
Well, Hayes’ response was silly and I’m not sure what his problem is today. That said, is it really necessary or helpful to keep lumping all “progressives” together when a lot of us know good and damned well to keep our mouths shut, learned that lesson back in ’03 when we invaded Iraq and tried to, um, SAY or DO something about it.
Evolved Deep Southerner
When it comes to messaging, hell yes. Would your suggestion to be for them to keep doing what they’ve been doing? ‘Cause it ain’t working. And as smart as they are, they can’t figure out why.
I guess you must be really dense. And as such, go ahead and pick the “real Republicans.” You belong with them.
dr. bloor
@Moe
Hayes, on the other hand, writes great copy for a magazine with a circulation of about twenty-seven, that has never known any success in shaping the country’s future.
gene108
It’s a two part system.
Which party has been willing to fight for universal health care?
Which party is willing to make sure important voting rights laws, like the 1965 Voting Rights Act get renewed and won’t get overturned?
Which part believes increased CO2 levels in the atmosphere is (1) caused by human activity and (2) is bad?
Democrats try to align with liberals as much as possible. Shit ain’t prefect, but liberals would rather let the Democrats lack of perfection stand in the way of rallying behind Democrats because Democrats aren’t liberal enough.
Of course the alternative for a lack of support is seeing Republicans get elected, but at least you got preserve your purity.
Morons.
Spaghetti Lee
But no, instead of realizing that hey, maybe we shouldn’t have corporate stooges in the highest positions of power in the party, people here prefer to pretend that everything would be A-OK if progressives just wouldn’t point that little inconvenient fact out.
I wonder what the working definition of corporate stooge is here. Because, you know, you’re not going to build a functional governing party made up entirely of grassroots people with no connections to powerful interests. Someone’s got to at least be an ambassador to various interests, as long as those interests are important enough to affect the ship of state.
Yeah, sometimes it sucks, but it ain’t gonna be wished away either.
cleek
@Moe:
nope, the answer is to get the fuck over yourself, realize our political system is not designed to produce
pretty magic progressive poniesperfect outcomes, and that you will have one choice in 2012: Obama or whatever hunk of sputum the GOP coughs up.either support the party that gives you more of you want or support the one that takes away more of what you want. that’s what’s at stake: not perfect, not even great, simply better vs worse.
Sophist(from droid)
It’s like we’re falling all over ourselves to prove that Will Rogers was right. It’s pathological.
Culture of Truth
I have read countless times from activist progressives over the past few years ‘why don’t those useless stupid spineless gutless Democrats fight back?!” As John said, look what happens why they try. No wonder Axelrod looks exasperated most of the time.
The Raven
Politics is a team sport, but policy is not.
Me, on July 4th: “Going to be a rocky decade; think 1950s politics combined with 1930s economics. As progressives, we need to turn to the question of how to deal with such a decade with very little support from national elected officials.”
June 4: “I realized that I’d written, in the context of a reply to John Cole, a not-bad list of coulds.”
April 10: “What the Democrats Might Do.”
March 15: “One thing that could be done in the short term in the United States would be to abandon the tax subsidies for resource extraction. ”
January 3: “And that is enough about Obama’s failings. Let us now turn to what we may do.”
Etc., etc., etc.
I have spent a great deal of time advocating positive steps and critiquing current situations without naming names. I might as well be croaking at a dead deer, for all the response it’s gotten. But advocacy of change within the Democratic Party? That, gets a response. The Democrats are perfect, Obama is perfect, Rahm was perfect, everything is perfect. Well, except for unemployment, the housing crisis, banking reform, global climate change, …
If people aren’t acting, in some way, against these and many other problems, they are not on my side. I don’t know that I have a team. At least, neither of our teams seem to be out fighting for me, or you, or anyone I know. But I have a side. And so do you.
Yutsano
Possibly not even then. Iceland has about 350,000 people and at least three major political parties.
EDIT: FYWP.
Trinity
Well-effing-stated Cole!
Sweet jeebus folks it’s Friday.
John – Please put up a pic of Tunch and the Girls and then go make a cocktail.
gene108
Just want to add to Post #65 that liberal hero Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, is a corporate stooge / real estate millionaire.
Being rich and being liberal aren’t mutually exclusive.
Chris Martinez
And I too have found the critiques of Plouffe “from the left” especially galling. I thought it was perfectly obvious, and objectively true, what Plouffe meant – that most voters think about their own situations and those of the people they know, not a statistical number – and yet many liberals jumped to make the most bad faith interpretation possible.
Ironically, some of that criticism of Plouffe was that his statements, while technically true, might play badly politically. Yet from these same quarters we are suddenly supposed to emphasize the opposite, as with Axlerod’s statement, if that’s the angle that allows a critique.
Yevgraf
@ dr bloor
Yeah, but they feel really great about themselves, and if they just get that pretty unicorn colt, break it and ride it around, everybody will realize just how wonderful and right they’ve been all these years.
Nutella
WTF? Rahm?
He is OUT of national politics. If we want to complain about him in Chicago we can because he’s the mayor here right now.
Anybody who complains about Emmanuel in a discussion of presidential politics is an idiot. He’s gone, dammit.
gpleigh
How smart can fucking Chris Hayes be if this is his idea of clever repartee at this particular moment? Seems ridiculously juvenile to me that people are still butt hurt over Rahm. The death wishing is getting ridiculous.
middlewest
Obviously, Democrats should stop the disgusting practice of trying to win elections altogether. Have you noticed how often REPUBLICANS try to win elections? HMMMMM?? If we act just like Repubs, what difference is there???
Wake up, sheeple, until we abandon the CONSERVATIVE strategy of election-winning, we will never achieve anything.
In conclusion, Rahm Emmanuel is just crazy!
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
I love getting lectured by a bunch of ex-Republicans! It reminds me of how many people are just fine with Republican ideas until their ox gets gored.
Freddie deBoer
So look, here’s my question. People are saying that even if what Hayes said was true, it is tactically stupid, so he shouldn’t have done it. OK. But he already did it. So what is the point of this post and these comments? If the idea is that Rahm is on our team and we’re in a street fight, etc., then what is the tactical advantage of attacking Hayes? It’s in the past, just like Rahm’s work as a banker. Is there any electoral advantage to writing this post? Will this post help Obama get elected? Does it win one for our team? I can’t see that, at all. So why write the post? Isn’t this post violating its own argument by attacking another liberal in a way that does nothing to advance the larger cause?
Yevgraf
For paid activists, there’s a living to be made from persistent, inexorable failure. The best part is that with that persistent, inexorable failure, you’re never, ever accountable to anybody for results.
Evolved Deep Southerner
I guess that’s directed at people like me, but God DAMN, do you want to be successful and at least have a modicum of control of this country, or do you want to be the smartest person in the room?
There is such a thing as getting way too far ahead of your audience. I always think about Ralph McGill, the legendary editor of the Atlanta Constitution who wrote pretty courageously against segregation – for that time, that is. If you go back today and read his editorials, you’d think they were pretty milquetoast fare, they didn’t go far enough. But he knew how far he could go with his audience and still be effective.
Today’s left would have run Ralph McGill out of Atlanta on a rail for being “too soft on segregation” before the racist rednecks were done with breakfast.
We’re fucked in this country, and I don’t blame just the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy for it, either.
Evolved Deep Southerner
So we might quit fucking doing it?
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
The Professional Left loathes Rahm, so why didn’t they mount a challenge against him when he ran Mayor?
A big progressive urban city like Chicago would have been a perfect environment for a challenge.
This is how impotent and disorganized the PL are — they can’t even influence the outcome in a progressive stronghold.
Freddie deBoer
If we’re only supposed to think tactically, wouldn’t sending him a private email accomplish much more to get him to quit doing it, without hurting the cause by attacking another liberal? I mean, John is criticizing that tendency quite explicitly. Why does Rahm deserve the protection of being on the team if Hayes doesn’t?
Moe
@cleek
On the contrary; we need faithful Dems such as yourself to stop settling for less and start asking how come ‘better’ isn’t good enough.
Phil
@Evolved Deep Southerner:
Amen, brother.
kdaug
Wait – which one is running for president?
rootless_e
You are really onto something here! We need to go back to the days when the Democrats were featuring salt-of-the-earth proletarian warriors like John Kennedy and Franklin Roosevelt.
dr. bloor
@Freddie:
Loosen up, Francis. This is the equivalent of a bunch of nobodies sitting around the dinner table or bar, arguing pointless points. Which is to say, 99.9999999% of all blogging. You’d rather we get back to the work we’re supposed to be doing?
Andrew
No, if history repeats in 30 years, progressives will be screaming that the current Democratic incumbent is betraying us and is moving to the right and letting the Republicans set the agenda and how they don’t make Democrats like they used to like Obama.
(And no my point isn’t to exonerate Obama from criticism – my point is just that for the left to be unhappy with an incumbent Democratic president – and to compare him/her unfavorably with a prior one – is pretty much par for the course. It’s a global phenomenon – I have yet to find a left-of-center leader in the democratic world who isn’t considered a sellout by much of their country’s left.)
rootless_e
Fredie – those dumb black people in Chicago who voted for Rahm need to be taught true proletarian revolutionary values by the enlightened left. Maybe Jane Hamsher can spring for some bus tickets for you from her PAC if your academic schedule permits.
Yevgraf
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Get used to it, bitch. I think that was originally supposed to be the point of activism – to turn people to your ideology.
The shitshow fail parade that is progressive activism didn’t deliver, so we wound up delivering ourselves. Now, I admit, I’m not a putrid candyass like Mizner, eat meat and despise the weakling lobby, but when it comes to supporting muscular FIRE regulation, leveling the econ playing field, expanded voting rights, gay marriage, workplace equality, open immigration and that sort of thing, I’m your man. Better yet, I arrived at it on my own. So do you turn me away?
different church-lady
DING DING DING DING INSIGHT JACKPOT DING DING DING DING
The left will pick the latter every damn time.
stinkdaddy
“I just simply do not get it. … Stop shooting your own team.”
That you don’t get it is rather obvious. Maybe you should rethink this whole team dynamic lens that you view politics through and ask yourself if Chris Hayes sees it the same way. There’s partisan and then there’s ideological; John seems to have confused the two. At the same time, as much complaining as there is about Fox and other slanted right-wing media, it’s just so darn confounding that Hayes doesn’t just shut his mouth and toe the line, huh? See also, #3, etc: apparently the best way to ‘advance a progressive agenda’ is to pretend you don’t know when ‘our team’ is guilty of the same things they’re accusing others of.
I’m asking myself why the party that’s trying to cut SS, Medicare, Medicaid etc. is ‘my team,’ and I’m wondering why Rahm should get a pass on doing something terrible just because he’s ‘on the team.’ Yeah, you don’t get it John. I’m beginning to doubt you ever will.
Heliopause
I don’t know how long you’ve been following this blog but John has written this same post about 600 times in the last three years and still doesn’t recognize the inherent contradiction.
kd bart
Democrats’ 11th Commandment:
Thou will not honor nor praise one not as pure as oneself
steve
We Democrats sure do love us some circular firing squad! Can’t wait until the 2012 campaign really gets rolling. I feel all nostalgic for 2008 and all the “Obama is blowing it” and “what Obama needs to do” blogging. As I recall, the much-revered Digby was front and center in the “Obama is blowing the election” chorus and I expect her to take the same starring role next year.
cleek
@Moe:
there is no feasible path from here to the progressive fantasy world, in this election cycle. we have the system we have.
want a better president? aim for 2016. 2012 is going to be Obama vs some GOP douchebag. the choice before you is: do you want 2012-2016 to be run by the GOP or by the Dems. that’s it. that’s your choice.
trying to convince everyone that Obama is the second coming of Bush is not going to keep the GOP out of the White House.
TK-421
Speaking for myself, I think John let slip two things that get close to the root cause of the problem. I don’t consider the Democratic Party to be “my team.” They are the closest party to my own values, this is true. BUT: that doesn’t mean much to me, and that is becoming less true as time goes by.
I’m not emotionally attached to the Democratic Party to the point that I consider it to be “my team.” The Democratic Party doesn’t even come close to the bonds I feel with my co-workers or my fellow swimmers, from the past or the present. Those people have been/are on “my team.”
And, I’ve always found it a little odd that people forge such bonds and expect me to behave the same way. Seriously? These are predominantly a bunch of old white men with net worths in the millions that consistently show themselves to be feckless, narcissistic, dumb, and egotistical- precisely what do I have in common with them that makes them part of “my team?”
The other important part of that passage is that while we have a two party system, we have at least three major political factions that have to be repeatedly crammed into those two parties, and it’s often at the expense of one or more factions.
I find it a little disconcerting that on the one hand I’m supposed to sit back and let the Pros From Dover handle the negotiations for (fill in the blank), but on the other hand I’m supposed to help David Axelrod do his f–king job. Do I have a role here, or don’t I? Because if I do have a role, then please stop telling me (or Chris Hayes) when I should sit down and shut up. I’m a package deal, you take the good with the bad. If you don’t like that, then feel free to leave me alone and stop trying to get me to donate time or money to something in which I don’t have any real influence.
Flame away.
rootless_e
John’s error is thinking that people like Hayes are “on our team”. Hayes is attempting to advance his career – and that has nothing to do with electing Democrats.
uptown
So Chris Hayes is supposed to be a journalist, but he can’t even to bother to check his facts before blasting out his nonsense? (see @23, 26 & 29)
Journalism today seems to be more opinion and ego, than facts.
Freddie deBoer
If every political statement has to be justified by helping the electoral cause, and if we should avoid undercutting and criticizing those on our side, both this post and all of the comments supporting it are self-undermining. Private emails or direct messages through Twitter to Hayes could have made the same point to him without doing the damage to liberal solidarity that this post and its comments do. How can this other-liberal-bashing post be defended if it bashes other liberals and doesn’t advanced the electoral cause?
Also, how does constantly complaining about the “smartest kid in the room factor” actually advance the cause? Isn’t complaining that other people are trying to be the smartest kids in the room, in fact, an attempt to be the smartest kid in the room yourself? Isn’t calling everyone else a poseur the surest sign of a poseur? Isn’t being a purist about pragmatism just the same as being a purist about politics?
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
Go ahead and laugh, but she’s already begun an intensive and enlighten outreach program to Blacks http://tinyurl.com/3swg6xs
Chris Martinez
Freddie @86:
First of all, I don’t think the point is that “we’re only supposed to think tactically,” it’s that some arguments are intended to be political/tactical, and should be understood as such for that purpose.
Related to that, the reason critiquing Hayes publicly is not the same as Hayes’ own critique is that Axlerod was mounting a political/tactical argument, as a prominent member of Obama’s political team. Hayes’ remark only serves to undermine that political/tactical message, for no discernible constructive purpose.
On the other hand, Cole’s critique of Hayes – a far less known person who is not a member of Obama’s campaign team – does not serve to undermine a political/tactical message, but to express frustration with the gratuitousness and self-destructiveness of what Hayes said and make a larger point about the political ineptitude of “our side.” The critique of Hayes, even publicly, owing both to who Hayes is and what he does for a living, does nothing to undermine a political message.
It’s not actually all that complicated. I think you’re just looking for a clever way to turn the tables.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
When did Rahm Emmanuel effect a disaster in the Democratic Party? When he called Jane Hamsher a fuckin’ moron? (don’t like the R-word, bein’ a PC leftie and all). You know who has lower name recognition than Rham Emmanuel outside of the Beltway Media/Blogosphere? Jane Hamsher. You know who gave a fuck about R-gate? A dozen bloggers and a gross of posters on those blogs.
gene108
Here! Here!
We need to take up arms and jam the dictatorship of the proletariat down the throats of the American people.
No Elections! Just Winning!
Yevgraf
@Fredzo the Clown
I vote to curbstomp paid progressive activists (Hamsher and Mizner, in particular), since they never, ever actually accomplish anything outside of siphoning off resources better used elsewhere.
srv
Yeah, strawmen. Rahm was a piker compared to Daley. You know, one of the architects of NAFTA. Sure he’s concerned about jobs now…
We’ll get over it the day you pragmatists ever take responsibility for anything. Right now, getting over it means just quietly accepting Obama can’t do anything about jobs. Well gee, there’s a platform of pragmatism we can all rally around.
My DFH doll is out for your punching pleasures.
yeahyeahwhatevs (Studly Pantload, once upon a time)
@cleek I’m not saying our side lacks for lizard-brained assholes, be it drive-by firebaggers or dogmatic clowns whose Cheerios seem perpetually peed upon. But just look at how much more accepting progressives tend to be toward, say, alternate lifestyles, sexual orientation, or skin pigmentation. Over here, people who choose not to let their passions short-circuit their communications skills can have actual dialogs, Over there, it’s basically, “either agree, or shut up, or get the eff out.”
Yevgraf
@gene108
When progressive activists are “winning”, it is because of their awesome adonis tiger blood dna…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
They did. I believe their candidate of choice was Gary Chico. if I’m wrong about that, it’s because the fund-raising emails I got from “Digby, Howard and John” didn’t say “Support Gary Chico!”, it said “STOP RAHM!” Also I don’t live in Chicago anymore and didn’t follow the race closely.
bourbaki
Wow, over a hundred comments and no one has mentioned NAFTA yet — I guess I’m getting old.
Midnight Marauder
You play by the rules you are given until you have the ability to change the rules.
This is not a new concept.
NobodySpecial
I love the sight of supposedly good Democrats supporting a union-buster. I’m sure Scott Walker agrees.
cleek
humor me?
tell me what Obama can do about jobs. and describe the mechanisms and procedures he will use to accomplish that: the votes he needs, the levers he uses to get those votes, the favors he needs to call in, etc..
cause, i just don’t see it.
he’s up against a GOP House that is using the fiscal health of the country as a bargaining chip to enact their pet projects. how does he convince 30 of them and all of the Dems to vote for his jobs package, and how does he overcome the Senate filibuster?
seriously.
FlipYrWhig
Bellyaching about Rahm is one half-step away from bellyaching about Soros. I read somewhere recently that Hayes was in talks for an MSNBC show. If that happens, does that mean we get to dismiss him immediately as a whore for defense contractors and heavy industry? Aren’t those the rules?
Liberals are, by and large, wiseasses. It’s fun! Trouble is, you can’t really build a political movement that accomplishes tangible things on wiseassery and snark. To me that’s why the left has all the creative and funny people and yet at the same time virtually no ability to evangelize. That shouldn’t be possible, and yet it is.
harlana
And it’s not just about war, how many hundreds of billions will we have spent on our adventures is Iraq and Afghanistan after it’s all over? You wanna talk about a deficit, republican mofos?
Talking Points for Dems:
1. This administration is deeply concerned about the deficit and plans to tackle that issue once the economy is back on its feet and we put people back to work,
because
2. Cutting the deficit now will do nothing to create jobs or help the economy
IF
3. Republicans believe this isn’t true, we would like to see their numbers, we would like to see proof of this theory
and
4. Tax breaks and lower taxes for the ultra-rich and huge corporations do not create jobs,
IF NOT
5. Show us some data to support that theory as well, republicans,
and
6. Republicans voted to raise the debt ceiling 7 times throughout the Bush administration,
so
7. Why are we talking about this NOW?
because
8. Unemployment is 9.2% and republicans are coming for your SS.
NR
What this way of thinking ignores is the fact that progressive policies, in addition to being the right thing to do, are effective, and often very popular as well.
If Obama and the Democratic leaders had listened to the liberals from the get-go, the economy would now be in much better shape, and Democratic losses in the 2010 midterms would have been much less. Hell, they might have even gained seats (the Democrats gained seats in the 1934 midterms, at the height of the Great Depression). And Obama would be a shoo-in for re-election next year.
We progressives are promoting policies that will work, will fix this country’s problems, and will make people’s lives better. Not listening to progressives is what got the Democrats into the mess they’re currently in. And telling us to shut up is only going to make that mess worse.
cleek
@Midnight Marauder:
dingding
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
TK-421
So, in the history of the US, the end will talk about how the left (and I mean everyone who believes that the government has a role in take care of its citizens, especially the poor) stood firm on its principles while the right burnt the country to the ground.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
I know who Digby is, and I think Howard refers to Dean, but who is “John”?
different church-lady
@ #117:
Ahhh… good catch. Now we can FTFY this:
The Raven
TK-421, #101:
What TK-421 said. But–here is a thing to remember–a lot more people think like John than think like TK-421. The creation of camaraderie is a basic of politics. Unfortunately, these days (and perhaps usually) it is false camaraderie–we are “on the team” until we are out of a job and our home.
Nutella
We all need to commit to doing one useful thing to compensate for every time we bloviate (blogiate?) about politics here. One post/comment here should lead to one fax or call to our legislators, or one GOTV effort, or one check to a candidate/cause, or (at least) one retweet of Axelrod’s excellent point about Romney.
All the effort and emotion spent here needs to spill over into activities that will influence people who are not bloggers and commenters.
NR
No. The left did not stand firm to its principles. The left repeatedly rolled over for the corporatists. That’s the fucking problem.
DonkeyKong
This is the kind of suicidal behavior that that dooms the Democratic Party. I think tweet’s from obscure media figures are the least of our problems. Get a load of this.
Obama’s favorite just kicked Nancy Pelosi in the head!
The General Counsel of the Treasury Department has just sent out an email to the New York Times which seems to say definitively that Secretary Geithner believes that only Congress can raise the debt limit and has full authority to force the country into default. In other words, nothing President Obama or the Treasury can do about it.
Georgia Pig
Well, that would be a black Democrat with the name “Obama” who beat the Clinton machine, but why quibble over details. I’d put your statement in the category as Hayes’ non sequitur. I like a lot of Hayes’ writing, but he’s becoming a media celeb and is starting to do adopt some of the habits of a media celeb, like uncontrolled ejaculations on Twitter just to prove he’s relevant. Give my regards to Larry and Curly.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Yevgraf: Welcome you? I’d rather that you would go home and eat a bullet.
You’re not an ally, you’re just another selfish bastard who only switched “teams” when you realized that you were the next against the wall. I would rather be stabbed in the front by an honest thief than in the back by a nasty fuckstain like you.
rootless_e
———————————————–
FIST IN THE AIR. COPY OF POULANTZAS “HEGEMONY FOR WEENIES” PROUDLY BALANCED ON HEAD.
Heliopause
Another Balloon Juice Rule: If someone is generally on your side but (perhaps) wrong-headed on a given issue it’s okay to scream “fuck you in the face” at that person.
But Chris Hayes is undermining the messaging battle.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Then just keep doing what you’re doing and you’ll get your wish.
Jesus Christ, talk about fucking HOPELESS.
taylormattd
@ david mizner – 8
You are a fucking embarrassment. Just shut the fuck up. You dumbshit, Hayes’ attack was ON PLOUFFE. Or are you reading Plouffe’s tweet with some magic glasses that permit you to see him writing about Rahm somewhere?
gene108
It wasn’t always this way.
I think when the liberal coalition of white blue collar workers started rejecting the civil rights portion of the Democratic / liberal platform, the teeth of the liberal movement really started to falter.
Liberals still had some bite in the 1980’s, by managing to shoot down the Bork nomination and even get laws like the 1990 Clean Air act and ADA passed.
The Bork nomination threw the right into overdrive, in terms of just wanting to win at all costs, as the Clarence Thomas nomination demonstrated.
The Left just never really got organized like the Right did and lost whatever advantages it had 30 years ago and now is doing its damnedest to make sure it will never be effectively organized again, by shooting the politicians on their team for the sake of their intellectual purity.
ruemara
Here’s the argument JC is having. Dems have a messaging problem. Here is a Dem official, sending out a message that is good to give some momentum to. Here is a Very Serious Progressive With A TV Program And A Twitter Box And A Media Presence, who has immediately kaboshed the message, handed the opposition party that is completely opposed to anything he wants for society, a viable talking point. Potential message is now garbled and fails to take root. We may now return to whining that Dems cannot generate a message. It is not out of the question for a criticism of why progressive media fails to push a progressive message or partakes in at least some level of Democratic messaging since they are the closest allies in power.
rootless_e
.
Which explains why orthodox progressives dominate the state governments of both North and South Nowhere and the Congress is packed with hard core fans of Amy Goodman.
different church-lady
@ 133:
.
It’s a festival of FTFY!!!
taylormattd
@ Mike Kay – 123
Probably that warmongering recently republican anti-trans dick John Aravosis.
Yevgraf
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
Ah, yes, dig that progressive purity. A few angry whimpers and tears to show just how hurt and angry you are over our refusal to see how brilliant you are on the internet, and how smart you were when you attended college lectures or argued politics in bars (which is why guys like you never got laid – while you were going on about the dialectic, I was talking sports and smack while buying hotties some drinks).
Just Some Fuckhead
@cleek:
different church-lady
@ 136: Yeah, but don’t you get it? “Rahm sucks!” supersedes all of that.
Trollenschlongen
I thought Chris Hayes was a reporter. You know, NOT a Democratic Party apparatchik. Why is it his job to toe the Dem propaganda line?
Hell, Cole, you don’t even toe the line: On rare occasions you have called out Obama and other Dems in front page posts. Why the fuck don’t you support YOUR side? :P
OzoneR
why, so that the left can point out their message is hypocritical somehow?
Evolved Deep Southerner
Reminds me of a joke that was featured in a cop movie I watched long, long ago. I don’t remember the name, but if memory serves it had Robert Duvall and Sean Penn in it. “Colors” maybe? I’m too lazy to Google it.
The movie wasn’t much to write home about, but the joke went like this:
A daddy bull and a baby bull were standing up on a hill looking down into a field where a bunch of cows were grazing.
The baby bull said “Daddy, daddy, let’s run down there and fuck one of those cows!”
And the daddy bull said “No, son. Let’s WALK down and fuck them all.”
Your “woulda, coulda, shoulda” shit is shit. You obviously don’t talk to many people except fellow liberals.
Get real or, yes, please shut up.
OzoneR
If Chris is a reporter, then he stop writing for The Nation, which prides itself as having a liberal bias.
harlana
”
An excellent point, you just nailed what makes me bristle about all this left-bashing here.
Loviatar
Why do people keep saying Rahm is on “our team”.
He is not. We just happen to have some interests that coincide.
He is no more on “our team” that Andrew Sullivan or John Cole. Like them he probably looked into the maw of the crazy beast that is the current Republican party and decided you know what I can work with the Democratic party – particularly since their turn to being the corporatist-lite party in the 80s.
His big difference, being smarter than John Cole he made his move earlier, and being infinitively more smarter Andrew Sullivan he is smart enough to keep his attacks upon progressive programs under the radar. By doing so he has gotten more credit for his “Democratic” allegiance.
Do you notice how its always the former Republicans who are the first to rush out and defend Rahm and his ilk. Do you think its an understanding of what they are doing and need to provide cover before most Democrats wake up to whats going on.
I used to ask this about the racist (both active and passive) from the 50s and 60s, what happened to them once public opinion changed on blatant racism, did they die away or did the smart ones just go underground and bide their time until the public found something else to distract them. Also do you think their ideas and ideals changed or do you think they just got better at hiding them (poll taxes in the 50’s, 60s vs. voter ID laws today)
Same question for the “moderate” Republicans from the 80s and 90s, have they gone away or are they just biding their time. Also have their ideas and ideals changed or are they just gotten better at hiding them (separate party determined to undermining the Social Safety net vs. joining the party that assists in creating the financial crisis that then results in a severely diminished Social Safety net).
Nah, I guess its all a conspiracy theory.
dr. bloor
OK, have it your way. He’s a reporter. What’s the reportorial function of tweeting an opinionated spitball at Axelrod on this?
OzoneR
If you had the ability to elect people who would vote for what you want, then we wouldn’t be telling you to shut up, but since you’re utterly ineffective and doing anything and yet you want people elected by conservatives and idiot moderates to somehow listen to you, you’re just making jackasses out of yourself.
taylormattd
@Freddie deBoer – 86
How’s about you just go ahead and shut the fuck up? This discussion has zero to do with you given you explicitly acknowledged you are not “on the team” weeks ago. You are not a democrat, not “on the team”, and I have zero interest whatsoever in hearing from Naderite assholes as to their opinion on how democrats should treat each other.
different church-lady
@145: It’s more like a couple of steers up on a hill talking about how they WOULD run down that hill at full tilt and fuck ALL the cows AND solve cancer if only someone would let them be bulls.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
different church-lady: Frankly, that says more about you than me.
I mean, what makes you think that would turn my back on you? Hell, what makes you think that consider myself to be on your “team,” o person who wishes to be the smartest in the room?
Yevgraf
…an opinionated spitball with an extra wicked curve put on it, since it is talking apples to oranges on the difference between Rahm and Romney.
Draylon Hogg
Have a grand jury subpoena voicemail data and start kicking the fuck out of Murdoch. Then maybe Mr. Obama can stop triangulating the fuck out of his four dimensional chess board and relocate his testicles.
Cassidy
Fuck, someone didn’t get their pony again.
OzoneR
OMFG YES! Isn’t that the argument the left always makes, be like the Republicans!
You guys are maddening
harlana
Yes, I think that 70+% of people who don’t want the gov’t to touch Medicare, SS or Medicaid might have something there.
Gravenstone
Why? You frame it as “Romney will make money by destroying your jobs. It’s what he does, it’s all he knows. Are you willing to elect someone like that?” Keep the focus on ROMNEY, fuck anyone else, either side of the aisle who happened to implement similar B-schol tactics. The man has a record, hammer him upside the head with it.
Chris Martinez
ruemara:
True, but for me, it’s more the deterrent effect Hayes’ rather pointless rejoinder has on the politically active folks (the ones most likely to hear his critique) who might carry and amplify Axlerod’s attack against Romney. It’s not so much that Hayes, who is really not that visible, garbles Axlerod’s message, but that he helps prevent it from propagating among the left the way that right-wing messages propagate among their folks.
Critiquing Hayes for doing that does not similarly undermine the potency and reach of any political message, because “Democrats are united” is not really a political message at all.
NobodySpecial
Nick
Liberals DO tend to irritate conservatives, don’t they?
Midnight Marauder
No. Because this is a bullshit statement.
I’m a black liberal born and raised in Houston, Texas, and I could not agree with John more.
And again, isn’t the entire name of the game to get your opposition to become your former opposition/current supporter of your agenda?
This is like black people during the Civil Rights Movement saying “We’ve got too many white people on our team now!”
You people are fucking clowns. Full stop. And I fucking dare you to argue that I am some kind of liberal sellout.
I fucking dare you.
Jordan
Rahm’s not running for President.
/thread
Yevgraf
@taylormattd
Fredzo the Clown and his Naderite trash pals want you to bow to their superior progressivism. They went to a rally a couple of times, supported nasty bitch Cathy MacKinnon and her “Take Back the Night” goons on other occasions, and spent a lot of time at trendy coffeehouses lamenting the patriarchy….
Linnaeus
Maybe the next step is to have some discussion about:
1. What successful messaging looks like, and how a coalition goes about doing that.
2. The appropriate level of dissent within a coalition and the proper ways and spaces to express that.
Let me add that I’m not defending Hayes; I don’t think what Hayes wrote was particularly relevant or useful.
NR
Yeah, people who promote policies that will help both the country and the Democrats’ re-election chances are, like, so annoying.
By all means, keep pushing Republican policy ideas. How’s that working out for the Dems so far?
NobodySpecial
Taylor:
Corollary: Only those who have served should talk about military issues.
Of course, there are SOME who would rather spend their time kicking in the teeth of the unorthodox rather than, say, figuring out how to expand popular programs like Medicare and SS.
different church-lady
@ dexplitive explitiveway:
You’re really not keeping up with the thread, are you?
rootless_e
I love the “real leftists” who don’t want trash in their fucking stupid social club and self-congratulation society. Your ideas are so brilliant and so popular that only the combined force of Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner, drawing on their Plutonic Powers, can keep you from sweeping the nation like the swine flu.
Liberty60
I don’t think the inside-the-tent warfare is limited to liberals- I recall seeing plenty of posts in Wingnuttia spewing venom at Rinos like Charlie Crist and Lindsey Graham.
But all movements have this dilemma- when do you decide that the tent is too large to accomodate someone? How do you accomodate both the Chris Hayes and Rahm Emmanuels before you cloud your own identity?
No easy or simple answer to that one- but my response to Chris Hayes would be, why even bring up Rahm? Why step on a good progressive message just to settle a score with someone who isn’t even in the news cycle?
If Rahm was out there banging the drum loudly for SS cuts, I could see attacking him, but he isn’t.
Acheiving progressive goals isn’t as easy or morally satisfying as picking “ideological purity” or “winning elections”- its a shrewd combination of both, applied at the right times.
Yevgraf
@NR
You remind me of this one douchbag Alan Keyes supporter by the name of Tom Hoefling (EternalVigilance on FR)- every time some slightly rational poster would point out one of Keyes’ glaring personal flaws or inherent contradictions, Hoefling would chime in with a whimper about how bad it was that conservatives were doing oppo research on conservative activists.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
different church-lady: snicker. In addition to being slow, I didn’t get laid (because chix dig sports) in college, and I probably have a small pen1s (into which I regulary inject black tar her0in). Anything else?
Linnaeus
This. And there’s no easy way to hash this out; there’s a constant tension in coalition politics.
different church-lady
@ ducks: Naw, I think you covered it. Friends?
srv
@ cleek
Humor me, what is YOUR strategy to overcome the Senate filibuster?
Me, I think an accurate statement of BJ strategy for 2012 is this: Bachmann wins the nomination, Obama lucks out and keeps the WH. Economy sucks, more teabaggers get elected, Obama is a 24×7 hostage. Debt ceiling revisited every few months. We keep bleeding out until the economy collapses.
Unless you have some other fantasy option, we’re way past the point of going nuclear. You’re dead already.
Yevgraf
@rootless_e
I prefer to think of it this way – when given the opportunity to catch a break and to both advocate and lead on policy issues for a while, the professional, paid activist left drops the ball like a pop fly at the championship baseball game at the Special Olympics…
OzoneR
Mine is; elect 61 liberals.
different church-lady
@ OzoneR (#177): not for nothin’, but I think the word was strategy, not fantasy.
OzoneR
Oh please, you aren’t promoting shit.
Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .
diff c-l: Of course! ;-)
bystander
Could be just me, John Cole, and I’m fine, too, and, also, if it is… but I think a more subtle message was passed between these two. All Others Mileage May Vary.
Loviatar
@162 – Midnight Marauder,
You don’t have to be sellout to be wrong (because you asked a real question I’m trying be delicate here, not my usual thing).
Tell me why should I believe a current Republican (Andrew Sullivan) a former Republican (John Cole) and a bunch of corporatist Democrats (Rahm Emanuel) have they people interest at heart. They proved they didn’t during the 80s, 90s and 00s. And for some of our supposed allies they continue to prove it today.
Look I’m no smarter that any of you so what I do when confronted by an issue I research it. I take no ones word for granted. I researched Rahm, he is not the choir boy Democrat – and I’m not talking about is shower issues, I’m talking policies and ideas.
To answer a question above, no I don’t want former enemies as allies, particularly the kind we had in the 80s and 90s. I want former enemies who’ve seen the error of their ways to return to the party they abandoned and fix it from the inside, not come to my party and change it from the inside. Because unlike a lot of you, I’m not that trusting to believe they have totally change their stripes.
Also as the great John Rodgers said we need Republicans, no I don’t think Democrats have all good ideas, I know Progressives don’t so we need a check, someone to challenge us from the outside.
Another Bob
Too bad Obama and the Dems couldn’t let Paul Ryan and the GOP squirm in their own Medicare-voucher excrement all the way to the 2012 elections. Obama had a winning hand there, with lots of popular support. But he seems instead to be going with the villagers on the deficit-reduction bandwagon, completely muddying the waters, letting Ryan and the Repubs off the hook, further alienating many of his supporters, validating bullshit Republican rhetoric, completely misunderstanding the problems with the economy and to top it all off, not gaining a single new political ally. Who says that deficit reduction should be the top priority now? Who has proof that it will do anything other than make things even worse? Even to say that Obama is too naive or that he’s a bad negotiator seems too charitable. Even such logical conclusions don’t seem to explain what’s going on as Obama turns a golden opportunity into an exploding cow-pie that goes off in his face. And we’re all supposed to clap, or pretend everything’s fine. What a frickin’ fiasco.
Sly
Deep down, yes you do.
It’s called disloyalty.
different church-lady
@ OzoneR (#179): what are you talking about? Doesn’t telling people that Rahm sucks as much as Romney qualify as “promoting” something?
Yevgraf
@OzoneR
Think Lieberman would have been less of a douche had the professional left not pulled Ned Lamont out of a hat?
Would have been awesome to retain Specter as well.
ruemara
178, you do get that was the strategy that gave us New Deal Programs? It is possible, but people whine about how big the tent is, instead of working on making that damn tent stretch as much as possible. I want definitive majorities next year and I’ll do what it takes. If that includes hanging his jobs record around Romney’s neck on twitter, so be it. Which brings us back to the actual reason for the post, why is a progressive media person not really helping where it counts for pushing progressive messages? Fox never forgets to do it’s spin. And Hayes is no investigative reporter, he is a personality.
aisce
i don’t know if this has been brought up yet, but among the many personal failings of snarky, anti-establishment liberals is their inability to understand concepts like “teamwork.”
because the last time these snarky liberals were on a team, it was in their elementary school basketball league. heck, people like chris hayes spent their entire formative years hating people who played on teams.
it’s this inferiority complex that leads them to lash out and try to humiliate authority figures at all times, even those who should be putative allies.
different church-lady
My guess is no, but I suppose we’ll never really know.
rootless_e
I dunno. Why don’t you believe instead former Republican Kos, “former” Republican Cenk or “former” Republican Mr. Ed? Or current libertarian Greenwald? Or follow the ideas of lifetime Democrat Evan Bayh for that matter?
The Moar You Know
The real problem here is that the self-proclaimed “left” think it will be a hell of a lot easier to simply hijack the Democratic party rather than do the hard work of starting their own party. Lot easier to sell themselves as Democrats rather than the far more accurate “Purity Brigade”.
They are just as determined to wreck the Democratic Party as the Republicans are. True, for different reasons…at least for now.
taylormattd
@NobodySpecial – 167
I have zero interest in republicans giving us advice about how we should talk to each other, and for the same reason I have zero interest in Naderite trolls giving us advice about how we should talk to each other.
It is unclear to me what this has to do with whether or not the public at large is entitled to “talk about military issues.”
Apples are not oranges.
Spaghetti Lee
Saying that Chris Hayes shouldn’t have said what he did is not necessarily a show of support for Rahm (who is, for the record, gone from the White House for quite some time now and isn’t really a part of the current debt debate). The point is that Axelrod had a chance to score a really good hit on Romney, and Hayes gummed it up. Whether you like Rahm, his role in the public sphere is a close friend of Obama’s and a longtime bigwig in that administration. And now, all anyone has to say to this criticism of Romney if they want it to go away is “But even the liberal Chris Hayes says that Democrat Rahm Emanuel is blah blah blah.” Come on, this sort of Broderism usually gets mocked around here, why is it OK when Hayes does it?
I mean, am I missing something? Is Emanuel stomping around demanding social security cuts? Does he have Romney’s history of outsourcing and creating unemployment? This isn’t about Emanuel so much as it is about Romney, in my opinion.
Judas Escargot
In other words, Obama’s letting Nancy know that impeachment is off the table.
OzoneR
not on the war, but probably on healthcare. That was entirely a way of sticking it to the left.
rootless_e
it’s actually simple economics. If Chris Hayes wants to get on TV and have a media career, he MUST demonstrate that he is a gadfly liberal who despises elected Democrats. The error is thinking that Hayes is part of a movement and not scrambling for a niche in the corporate media.
AnotherBruce
104.Freddie deBoer
Exactly this, I couldn’t help but chuckle at Cole’s lament, because it was easy to tell that blogging this was going to cause the same result that he was lamenting.
I’ll give him some credit, maybe he knew this and is having a good laugh right now.
Liberty60
cudlips.
Goddamned cudlips, alla ya’s.
Spaghetti Lee
Loviatar, what threshold are you using for people you don’t want on your side? Anyone who’s ever been a Republican? Maybe anyone who’s been a Republican since 1980? Or anyone who’s ever agreed with the Republican Party on anything?
Look, I’m a liberal. I’m proud to be a liberal. But the number of people in this country who naturally gravitate towards liberalism and call themselves proud liberals are nowhere near enough to control the government and actually get liberal accomplishments passed. There just aren’t enough of us. So to get that majority, you’ll need to win over others, and yes, some of them will be less liberal than you, or not liberal at all, and some will be downright unsavory. Some will be downright conservatives who just think the GOP is too damn crazy. And to build a workable majority, you’ll have to welcome some of them in. This isn’t a new feature in politics of any description. FDR and Johnson did it too.
Or just go out there and proselytize until well over 50% of the country considers themselves to be liberal. Until then, the old rules still apply.
Midnight Marauder
Here is what you overlook entirely: They are not the entirety of the liberal movement! For fucks sake, most liberals in the country DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO THE FUCK THEY ARE! Let alone that they are former Republicans. Do you get how disproportionately you are painting with that brush?
Then I guess it’s a great thing that you weren’t running strategy for the Civil Rights Movement.
You’re a goddamn joke.
Jennifer
Excuse me for not reading the entire thread before responding to some stuff I saw in the first handful of comments that really pissed me off:
Attention: Rahm isn’t RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT on a platform of being some big fucking JOB CREATOR.
Romney IS.
Chris Hayes’ tweet might as well say, “oh, those apples? Well, JUST LOOK at these ORANGES!!!”
Hayes WASN’T attacking Rahm so much as he was attacking Axelrod’s point – by changing the subject. And not JUST changing it, but changing it in a singularly unhelpful manner. Axelrod sez: “When you look at these facts, Romney’s not telling the whole story.” Instead of responding with a statement on point about Romney, tangentally on point about other Republican candidates or the president’s record on job creation, Hayes goes with “well hey, Rahm Emmanuel, which proves that there are shitbags on BOTH sides.” Which has FUCK ALL to do with Axelrod’s point.
As some of you may have seen, I famously melted down (though in a polite and respectful manner) over this exact type of thing over at TBogg’s about a week ago. It’s impossible with some people on the left to discuss any one issue, because they want to bring the entirety of human history into the conversation. So you can’t talk about whether or not the president is a spineless shitbird because he won’t schedule a prime-time speech to talk about how much he lurves gay marriage, because someone’s going to have to talk about how he sold us down the river on health care which, by the magical transitive power of progressive ideology, means that ipso facto he’s fucking us over on this thing, too. WTF? I mean, WTFF? You can’t solve ANYTHING if every conversation has to include a rehash of your every grievance. One thing at a fricken’ time, PLEASE.
So, for those of you who responded with “well, that’s TRUE about Rahm, innit? And if we don’t bring up the unrelated sins of OUR side every time we’re about to score a point against the OTHER side, that makes us JUST LIKE THEM,” as if those of us pointing out that bringing up unrelated issues is unhelpful somehow equates with us trying to “cover them up” or pretend they don’t exist – please blow me.
That is all.
NobodySpecial
Taylor:
You realize the complete and utter irony involved in using a post of Cole’s bitching about Democrats attacking Democrats to attack other Democrats, right?
Of course, no one is saying that Democrats can never attack other Democrats, but they’d better have a damn good reason.
For those of us who don’t defend Emanuel, that’s because he’s spent a couple of decades attacking unions, which are one of the primary D-voting blocks, a big source of campaign contributions, and a major part of Democratic GOTV.
Like it or not, Emanuel is a nationally prominent Democrat who spends his days shitting on one of the core groups of the party. Therefore, he SHOULD be a target of Democratic ire, especially in a weak economy. Most of us would nod our heads if some nationally prominent Democrat would start bashing minorities and got the hell beat out of him for it, so why do the likes of Rahm get a pass?
Loviatar
@190 – rootless_e,
who said I trusted them.
Like I said upstream I trust no one.
Someone says something I agree or disagree with and its important enough I do research and then I make up my mind.
“former” Republican Kos – my research says I could agree with him on most things, but more of a bomb thrower than I am (which says alot).
“former” Republican Cenk – dn’t know much him and don’t care. has he said or done something that hasn’t been said or done before.
“former” Republican Mr. Ed – don’t know much him and don’t care. has he said or done something that hasn’t been said or done before.
current libertarian Greenwald – agree totally with him on Civil Liberties issues. Everything else is on a case by case basis.
I know there are a lot of fake Democrats out their, not just John and Rahm, but my basis for trust is identify if that person is worthy of consideration and then research them. Then I make my decision if they are worthy of my trust.
Too many Democrats see the “D” and here the platitudes and thats all thats need.
stinkdaddy
Looking back over this thread, I notice that a lot of the people who enjoy the “You progressives want Obama to be a dictator just like Bush” line of attack in other threads are, when asked here whether the best course of action is to act like a Republican* answering affirmatively.
*IE, fall in line.
Lojasmo
Sure it was said above, but since when is Rahm a liberal/progressive? He spent his entire tenure at the DCCC battling Howard Dean.
As far as I can tell, Rahm is a professional cock, a la Mr. Mary Matalin.
Fuck Rahm.
Loviatar
@204 – stinkdaddy
THIS THIS THIS
Jay B.
Hilarious. In case you missed it, someone quoted Emmanuael’s take on 2 years of corporate buyouts was $16.2 million, without having ANY experience in banking or corporate mergers, and, in fact, his only actual experience was in electoral politics. So yes, please lecture more about the gravy train. I’m WILDLY interested.
ETA: It’s exactly the same take the right has on climate scientists. THEY are the ones on the take, getting that sweet grant teat because, really, that’s where the money’s at. Unlike our Exxon/Mobil spokespeople, who are skeptics because of the decency in their hearts.
Spaghetti Lee
stinkdaddy @204
How the president should act when dealing with other politicians and how liberal activists should act if they want to be successful in getting liberals into office are, imo, two very different things. Those two situations have entirely different sets of rules.
lojasmo @205
I’m not sure anyone is trying to claim that Rahm is some great progressive, which is not the point of the people criticizing Hayes. The point is that it’s counterproductive and somewhat pointless to drag him into this.
Loviatar
@199 – Spaghetti Lee,
my threshold for joining the party is I don’t have one.
My threshold for trusting you is prove yourself with your actions not your words.
Don’t give me platitudes about wanting a fair and just society, then behind closed door be one of the first to throw the disenfranchised under the bus.
Don’t talk about healthcare for all, then be the first to say you know what lets not mention universal coverage.
Don’t talk about the financial crash and then be the first to defend the actors who caused that crash.
Don’t talk about how bad the Republican party is then be the first to tell me to fall into line just because my party leader ask for it (I was falling into line when you were on the other side, so no I’m not going to take any bullshit from you).
That is my criteria for trust, prove yourself.
gwangung
Pretty much this.
And note that this is not saying folks are incorrect in hating corporatist policies or hating figures like Rahm.
And, actually, no. There’s a distinct difference here, but I’m not sure people are picking up on it–because a coalition that works together on something does not mean falling in line on all things–but it DOES mean falling into line on certain things (i.e., getting into power).
BTD
Messaging on twitter?
My gawd Cole, get out of the bubble.
Who gives a shit about a twitter exchange?
dogwood
I like Chris fine, but that’s probably not what he’s thinking. It’s more like “I shot down David Axelrod on Twitter.” Its a Geek “death panel” moment. He tweeted that to impress his buddies. I bet he doesn’t have to buy a beer for a week.
Cole, I have no idea why the right wing pundits stay on script. Probably because their audience will “water the tree of liberty,” if they don’t. I really doubt they are loyal or believe much of what they say. They simply enjoy the fruits of being celebrity political hacks in a niche market. The guys on the other side want the same thing – sex , drugs and their own slot on MSNBC following Rachel Maddow. Contrarianism is marketable on the non Fox side. David Frum had one of the best lines of the last two years “We thought Fox worked for us, but found out we work for them.” I don’t want the Republican system. That’s why I hated that Robert Gibbs professional left stuff. It disgusts me when Republicans have to demean themselves by having make-up sex with Rush every time they transgress. If that’s the price of loyalty then I’ll take my chances with the disloyal liberals.
rootless_e
Emanuel made a bunch of money and then went back into politics – he doesn’t have to kiss corporate ass to get a job. Hayes, on the other hand, needs permission to go into the green room.
Jay B.
@ 208. Spaghetti Lee – July 8, 2011 | 6:32 pm
Why? Romney is part of the same corporatist whore party. The Democrats suck at messaging because so many of them are total fucking hypocrites whose hypocrisies are obvious. They want to siphon the same dirty money, the very LEAST they could do is vote against the people they take the money from.
I mean, you do realize that in 2008, Bain Capital (Romney’s old firm) ranked just behind Microsoft and just ahead of Google in donations to the Democratic National Committee, right?
different church-lady
It’s because they don’t have thoughts of their own.
This stands in contrast to left-wing pundits, who have far too many ideas of their own, and want you to know every single one of them.
In short: it ain’t about the loyalty, it’s about the prudence.
TK-421
Another thing that fascinates me about John’s periodic (quarterly?) “I hate my ‘teammates'” rants is that as pragmatic as he claims to be (and I think he is), the attitude in the above passage is the exact opposite of pragmatism. It’s emotional and delusional and it’s counterproductive.
As I said upthread, progressives are a package deal- you take all of it, or you get effectively none of it. Repeatedly pining for the progressives you want rather than accepting the progressives you have is nothing more than daydreaming, no different than the most fantastical liberal Eden any of us dirty hippies could dream up. Yes John, liberals can be hysterical and they are constantly disorganized. Get over it for the love of everything holy, because apparently they’re on “your team.”
I remember during the health care debate I had a running argument with John about how crucial the Public Option was to ACA (and, you know, having the ACA take effect sometime before I turn grey). John kept saying it’s not realistic and it’s never going to happen, and I’m pretty sure he was right. But the problem that I kept pointing out and John and others didn’t want to acknowledge was that not even engaging liberals on the PO was going to make the 2010 midterms extremely problematic. How’d that work out?
When you disappoint and demoralize your base, regardless of whether they are right to be disappointed and demoralized, you wreak havoc on your reelection chances. That is reality. Accepting that reality and working within it is pragmatism. Trying to change the collective behavior of a political faction by frequently yelling at them and mocking them is…well, I’m not sure what that is, but it’s not pragmatic.
Refusing to accept that liberals are who they are, warts and all, is delusional. They are on “your team,” John, they are frequently right on policies/ideas, and most importantly their behavior is pretty predictable. Get over it for the love of everything holy.
aisce
@ rootless_e, 48
i realize that this is really late as a reply, but what in the fuck is this supposed to mean?
Jay B.
The delusion inherent in this statement is MORE of a problem than all of the Chris Hayes in the world.
Why? Because you want to blame Chris Hayes for pointing out the obvious because it muddles up a Tweet? Seriously? You say it’s for his career. Just like all the climate change deniers. As is plainly obvious to anyone but serfs like you, Hayes could make WAY MORE money simply sucking up to power and getting a $16 million gift from banking interests for a part-time job.
Are you really this blind?
Johannes
@Freddie (104): CP Snow had a term in his Strangers and Brothers series of novels for your argument (and Hayes’s crack): Cat humor. That is, an elegant formulation that is amusing but utterly divorced from reality. Hayes (as others have noted) made a factually misleading comparison slamming Axelrod’s effort to start a potentially strong (and factually accurate) meme against Romney, based on Romney’s wealth originating from his experience as a job-destroyer. Unhelpful, and untrue. Calling him out might–might!–lead the next smartass who can’t repress the witticism that will harm to think twice and evaluate for accuracy, and utility.
BTW, for those claiming that Hayes is a neutral, since he’s a journalist–when did the Nation claim to be neutral? Oh, never. Right.
Y’know, I’ve been a liberal for over 30 years. This bullshit was old, and useless, then. Grow up, willya?
(Edited for coherence)
FlipYrWhig
I just thought of what Hayes’s quip reminded me of: the way Republicans used to like to bring up how Robert Byrd used to be in the KKK.
different church-lady
HEADLINE: ROMNEY’S OLD FIRM DOESN’T WANT HIM TO BE PRESIDENT
Correlation is not causation.
ABL
Freddie deBoer – July 8, 2011 | 4:44 pm · Link
Pot/kettle, etc.
Jennifer
I should have asked in my rant upthread, but did anyone at least respond to Hayes with a tweet asking “Has Rahm announced he’s running for president on his record of job creation and I just missed it?”
Because if they didn’t they should have.
TK-421
And this is an interesting point- is it pragmatic to push liberals to be Naderites? I’m not defending what happened in 2000, but I’m at least acknowledging it as something that, you know, happened.
Right or wrong (my opinion is it was wrong), some liberals got fed up with the Democratic Party and bolted. And was that a desirable outcome? No? Okay, so…wouldn’t the pragmatic response to 2000 be “let’s not ever let that happen again, let’s make sure the liberals stay”…? Or is it more pragmatic to say “HOW DARE YOU?” and then ignore them and occasionally mock them? Which is the more pragmatic?
I’m starting to think this debate is really more about humility than pragmatism. Liberals have consistently demonstrated their ability and willingness (albeit reluctant/pissy) to be humble and go along with the Democratic Party leadership. When has the opposite occurred? It seems to me that this might be about a bunch of moderates that are just plain pissed that they have to rely on and worse, cater to liberals- LIBERALS!- to keep conservatives from blowing everything up. Well, you know, get over it for the love of everything holy.
Jay B.
What the fucking hell are you talking about? The Nation is a lefty magazine, therefore doesn’t have to suck up to Democratic hacks in stupid message-coordinated Tweets. I think that’s more of the point.
Irony/fail, etc.
different church-lady
@ TK-421 (#224)
That makes some sense, but…
Does one not think that there are also a bunch of liberals out there who are just plain pissed that they have to rely on moderates — MODERATES! — to keep conservatives from blowing everything up?
Loviatar
@200 – Midnight Marauder,
whoever said they are the entirety of the liberal movement, hell I challenge you for even calling any of them liberal. I know Andrew would attack you if you did and I’m pretty sure the Rahm would do bad things to you in the shower. John I just don’t know about.
What I did say is that those three they claim to be either Democrats or current allies of the Democrats. My question is what have they done to earn my trust.
Why should I not attack Rahm, based upon his record in congress and his actions as chief of staff the guy is a corporatist-Democrat, for those a little older a Rockefeller Republican (socially liberal, financially conservative). While I wish he could come out and admit that so we could have constructive dialogue about our differences, he can’t and won’t, so we have our discussions from within the party. Which then according to you and others we shouldn’t attack him.
As for not knowing who they are – agree on John and Andrew, disagree on Rahm.
Disproportionately painting – yes. Using as an example of factions within the party who may not have the best interest of the disenfranchised at heart – no.
Again, some may not want to admit it, but there are factions within the Democratic party who are no better than the Reagan Republicans of the 80s, 90s and 00s. Why, because thats who they used to be.
regarding strategy for the Civil Rights Movement, yeah luckily we had LBJ negotiating instead of Obama. With Obama he might have just negotiated our black asses back into slavery (tried to nice, but you pissed me off).
P.S.
I’m as ass black as you and ABL, but I don’t worship at the feet of the first black president. I judge him on his actions as I do every ass white politician I meet.
FlipYrWhig
@ TK:
Not well, but it had fuck-all to do with bleating about the public option or with grumpypants blogosphere would-be liberals. It had to do with cranky old people turning out en masse and the participation spike for young people and people of color from ’08 going back down to customary off-year levels.
None of this constant bother has to do with “liberals.” It’s a very, very thin wedge of self-described liberals who think all the other liberals are stupid wussies who never listen to all their excellent ideas because they’re mean and they’re never playing with them ever again. The blogosphere is not the same as “liberals,” “liberals” are not the same as “the base.” And a theory of political action that involves strategizing about how to best satisfy a small group of backseat drivers with many demands who keep just enough grudges to remain permanently unsatisfied because it feels kinda hot to be above all that is a gigantic waste of time.
Midnight Marauder
Thank you for this.
different church-lady
@ 225:
Of course. That’s why when someone attacks a righty it makes perfect sense for them to cut the attack off at the knees!
tabbitha
There are only two teams in American politics. One team wants Republicans to win and the other one doesn’t want Republicans in control. That’s it. There are no other real teams to choose from. I don’t want the Republicans to win, and if you aren’t on my team, you are giving aid to the other team. I don’t like everyone on my team. I don’t like everything my team does. I wish I had another team to choose from. But I don’t. If don’t support my team, the Republicans win. And they will do far more damage to the country than the Democrats. And unfortunately, if you don’t do everything you can to get Democrats into office, you may as well be on Michelle Bachmann’s team. Before the Republicans went crazy, it didn’t matter so much, but now you have to choose sides. And there are only two teams.
Midnight Marauder
Andrew Sullivan has NEVER once claimed to be “either Democrats or current allies of the Democrats.”
NEVER.
This is explicitly how I know you have no idea what the fuck you are talking about.
None.
OzoneR
Hmm, and here I thought they were the “base”
funny that.
gwangung
Hm. I thought the point was more that this would be done in private and not in public, as a matter of ironing out differences of various parts of a coalition. Or perhaps I was mistaken…
different church-lady
@ 227:
Lord help me I’ll give it another go here: you wanna attack Rahm, then attack him. But that’s not the damn question. The damn question is: why link to Rahm when there’s an attack on Romney underway?
Yevgraf
Hey, somebody had to support McGovern in 72, just as somebody had to tear down Humphrey in 68. The professional paid left, batting .000 for over 30 years…
Midnight Marauder
I think by “tried to be nice,” you mean “exposed the fact that you are arguing out of your depth.”
Jay B.
Interesting, in that he didn’t say that Romney was OK and Rahm wasn’t. He said the shitty thing Romney did was exactly the same as what Axe’s buddy did for $16.2 million.
FlipYrWhig
@ TK:
Funny. From where I’m sitting, I see a bunch of liberals who resent being asked to compromise and dislike how little impact their views hold in contemporary politics BUT realize that there are too few liberals to win elections and run the country and therefore liberals have to build a coalition with the people to their immediate right in order to get somewhere near a majority.
And on the other hand I see a very small bunch of liberals who ALSO resent being asked to compromise and dislike how little impact their views hold in contemporary politics, but have resolved to bitch incessantly about that rather than sully themselves with how to build a majority.
It’s a stupid fight. It’s like 15% of the electorate being willing to work with 40% to get some of what they want, vs. 5% of the electorate infuriated that the 15% has no balls and sulking, ensuring that they get nothing.
Johannes
@225: I would reply, but 230 and 233 have covered it. Especially 230. Rawk on, diff’t church lady.
ETA: Also, too: Note that Hayes’s comparison is wrong. So even as journalism, it’s a fail.
Jay B.
I’m pretty sure The Nation and most everyone else disagrees, which makes your point more like a routine that ends in flop sweat than anything that actually resembles anything else.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
No. I think it is more that Moderates are sick of hearing liberals whine, bitch, and moan about EVERY LITTLE THING. I mean really. They are never happy about ANYTHING. You point out how much they are getting on your last nerve, and they going into frantic histrionics about how you are trying to force them to ‘march in lockstep’ blahty blah blah.
OzoneR
Good, then they can stop whining over why the Democratic Party doesn’t pay any attention to them.
OzoneR
Yes, thus neutering the attack.
Loviatar
@231 – Midnight Marauder,
Wow, I don’t know how to respond to this one. I’ll put it out to the Balloon Juice populace.
Am I the only one whose noticed that Andrew Sullivan has largely abandoned the current Republican party in everything but name.
Am I the only one to notice he has abandoned them in;
– their fiscal policy
– their civil liberties policy
– their terrorism policy
and I know I’ve missed multiple other things.
.
P.S.
And no, I’m not going to Google it for you, do it you damm self.
Yevgraf
Obviously, this poster is Jane in blackface again.
gwangung
You can say that again, no matter if it’s about a moderate or a liberal.
In my book, Red dogs need a little more coddling, because they were recently weaned away from Republican territory. But it’d be worthy because I think they can be coaxed eventually towards more progressive policies.
I get that some people think that’s time and money wasted; but that’s a discussion of tactics and ways and means, not anything existential.
Jay B.
Except when they step all over brilliant Tweets!
Care to try another stupid thing?
Jay B.
Yeah, and when there’s so much to be cheerful about. Let’s face it, we believe in different things. You guys want Wall St. criminals to walk, don’t care about effective health care reform, have zero interest in the rule of law and are happy with every little crumb given to you by your betters. Opinions differ.
Jennifer
Well, I guess I’m unique in that the reason this kind of stuff makes me crazy is because it’s just so damn stupid. It sounds like a response you’d expect from a Republican. You know, “Well, BILL CLINTON got a BLOW JOB!” And it’s about nothing more than trying to take over the stage and push your personal issue or grievance to the forefront. It’s why I can’t stand going to anti-war rallies organized by leftie coalitions. Because you just know that the information people really need to hear about depleted uranium is going to be shoved to the end of the program so we can work in some shitty poetry about saving the whales and a reggae or rap band singing a protest song about marijuana legalization. For chrissakes, it’s enough to drive a left-brained leftie to drink.
It’s not that those things aren’t IMPORTANT; it’s that they aren’t the most important thing right now this instant. They have to move to the back of the queue while we work together on this other issue. It’s great that we have people focused in on these narrow(er) interests so that someone is continually working on them and keeping an eye on them – the problem is when they insist on making their specific interest or issue the primary thing, all the time, and try to hijack any and all conversation and drag it over onto their ground and make everyone else look at it through this lens.
Dude. Not helpful. And really, kind of pathetically needy, if you’re willing to indulge in something that just makes you look so damn dumb just so you can attract a little attention to yourself.
FlipYrWhig
@ Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to let the carpers and complainers claim that they are the “liberals.” (ETA: Like Jay B. does a couple comments up.) There are other liberals. This whole long-running discussion is much more so an internecine dispute AMONG liberals about strategy and tactics than it is a dispute between “liberals” and “moderates.”
taylormattd
@BTD
Care to address his actual point?
Jim Pharo
Oh good. I’m 248th.
This is a strawman argument (ironic, no?).
They obey the 11th Commandment because they don’t value the principles. It’s just a a game for them.
Lib/Dems won’t put party loyalty over principle. It hurts us as tacticians and fighters, but it is after all what makes us the Good Guys. ‘Twas always thus.
Loviatar
@234 / 235,
Oh yes I saw Nancy Pelosi and Barnie Franks sitting in those COS meetings when the Healthcare plan was being discussed. I also saw them in the meeting when punishing the actors who caused the financial crisis was being discussed. That worked out great didn’t it.
My question for you two and others, name a Liberal, Progressive or an aggressive Democrat for the disenfranchised in Obama’s Cabinet or inner circle.
So my point was and is when are we supposed to challenge Rahm and his ilk, because you know what doing it in private isn’t working.
Evolved Deep Southerner
They are not. That’s the damn problem. I don’t know where else they fit, but they are not the Democratic “base.” These fuckers would spit on you if you offered any concept that was so “commercialized.”
I swear to God we need about five political parties in the United States, and I wish to hell we did. Wish I could find one that fit me better.
But we don’t. So it’s go Democratic if you’ve got a fucking lick of sense or stay home. Or run a third party. See how that does. You know as well as I do that that would go a long way toward unseating Obama. Perhaps you feel if a batshit insane right winger won and took this philosophy [sic] out to its logical end, and everything went to shit, then everyone would see the light and walk toward it. And then you can rebuild it the right way.
I’ve heard the term “cargo cult” used here before, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a clearer example.
gwangung
YrWhig Pretty much my view. Definitely policy differences among folks, but nowhere as with what’s now the Republican party.
OzoneR
they can step all over tweets they want if they stop acting like they should be treated like “the base”
Keith G
I am too late to this thread to do much good, but:
Cole and many commenters here are just bring very silly/foolish. Chris is not a party activist. He is a media commentator (among other things). He saw what he felt was a bit of hypocrisy and tweeted.
If Obama inc wants to avoid being called out for hypocrisy than can try to not act hypocritically. How hard is that?
Comrade Kevin
@Duckest Fuckingway: Ask not for whom the Duck Fucks. . .:
As someone who has never, ever been either a Republican, or a “conservative”, fuck off and die already. Go jump off a cliff or something.
srv
Progressives’ seats are under the bus.
different church-lady
Am I the only one who thinks #248 is just a picture-perfect example of what #201 was positing?
Jay B.
The Nation doesn’t claim that status. People who might agree with The Nation from time to time also might be part of the Democratic base — and I’m pretty sure the Democrats agree!
It’s not all that hard to figure out when you aren’t trying to come up with some big conspiracy-based solution for why the President is floundering.
OzoneR
Then he should stop pretending he speaks for the Democratic base. That is all
FlipYrWhig
@gwangung: I mean, I don’t think it’s even a hard call. There aren’t enough liberals for unalloyed, uncompromising liberalism to win enough elections and hence make liberalism into law and policy. On one track, then, we need to figure out ways to make more, through conversion and recruitment. But on another track, we need to figure out what to do with our current status being the way it is. If we can’t get exactly what we want, what should we do? What kinds of speech and action are appropriate? How much compromise is too much compromise? What do we foreground and what do we put on the back burner? Obviously these are things that people believe very strongly about, and want to fight about. I just resent it when there’s this push to say that No True Liberal would support X, ergo if you support X you are no liberal at all. Instead you are a squishy moderate wussbag. That seems to dead-end in a situation where the number of True Liberals is vanishingly small, and if that’s the case, why should we even bother acknowledging all the grievances in the first place?
OzoneR
I certainly don’t I don’t think Nation readers even represent a third of the Democratic Party.
Jay B.
FlipYrWhig – July 8, 2011 | 7:20 pm · Link
I don’t claim to be the One True Liberal. I’m definitely not a Moderate. I’m probably more of a socialist at this point, as if this is the liberal enterprise, it’s an awful one.
Jay B.
Probably not. But you can feel free to alienate 25% of the people in the Democratic party who actually give a shit about politics. What can it hurt? I’m sure the anti-tax gun zealots will just join if you simply just keep pandering to them.
Sly
@Jim Pharo:
No, it hurts the liberal identity as the technocratic defender of the poor and disenfranchised. How dare you do something different than what I want! What I want is objectively best for everyone!
There are two problems endemic to liberalism because of this identity. The first is that it has difficulty discerning the various interested parties within a policy conflagration and thus it cannot, without a great deal of consternation, address those parties in an intelligent fashion. So what it usually adopts is the impeccably clear-thinking strategy of “Just say it louder!” If someone disagrees with you, its the fault of their own stupidity or myopic self-interest, and all you need do is shout over them to reach some imaginary dispassionate public that has the power to objectively discern truth in political arguments.
Everything, then, becomes a function of willpower and not political logistics, the latter of which is the proper arena of the working politician. If the people you support aren’t getting what you want in the fashion in which you want it, well, then the obvious conclusion is that the people you support do not want what you want, and you are no longer obligated to support them.
Hence, disloyalty.
And it needs to be noted and constantly reaffirmed that this vituperative level of disloyalty is being displayed by a group of people who demand nothing but absolute loyalty for their own token support.
It is stupid and pathological. ‘Twas always thus.
OzoneR
Nobody, go, we lose with you, we lose without you, go, I’ll survive.
I really don’t want to be associated with WATB anyway. It’s not like any of you have done anything worth noting since about 1965.
Go.
TK-421
Well, it wasn’t a liberal who started this foodfight, and considering this is a regular feature here at Balloon Juice, I don’t think liberals are the ones that are having trouble accepting the reality of their “teammates.”*
*and please don’t retort with f–king Jane Hamsher. Enough. IMO she’s not a representative example of the “liberal voice.” In fact, I don’t think there is such a person.
Jay B.
Yawn. Hey has the media hurt your feelings in the last couple of hours?
Yes, I’m the WATB. You sound like a spurned lover.
PanurgeATL
That wasn’t true before 1977. Then punk came along. Yes, I think this matters.
different church-lady
@ TK (268):
My point was not “But Mom, he started it!” My point was that both ends of this ragged coalition eye each other with a great deal of increasingly noisy suspicion.
Reminds me of that scene at the end of Lawrence of Arabia, where the coalition can win a bloody battle for a city, but then can’t govern it because they’re bickering over how the water department is run.
gwangung
Well, today’s food fight, at least.
However (and you knew there was going to be one), I think we did hear a lot of antipathy towards budget hawks and worries about the deficit. I happen to agree that it, but I also happen to think there are a lot of people, a lot of normal Americans who vote “D” and are really concerned about deficits. Like it or not, they have to be considered.
Keith G
@OzoneR
The times I have encountered his work (often on the TV thing), I have yet to understand him to be portraying himself as the voice of the base.
Spaghetti Lee
@Jay B.
You guys want Wall St. criminals to walk, don’t care about effective health care reform, have zero interest in the rule of law and are happy with every little crumb given to you by your betters. Opinions differ.
Jesus Christ, shut the fuck up. Yes, everyone who claims to be working with you but doesn’t agree with you perfectly on everything is some secret double-agent. You caught us. All of us.
You can provide proof that the people you’re accusing actually think this any fucking time now.
stinkdaddy
@190 — Maybe it has something to do with the poster’s issues with Cole, Sullivan, etc. being openly and explicitly stated while the poster’s feelings on Kos, Cenk and Schultz are ones you’re assigning to him/her based on assumptions. When someone says they have a problem with persons a, b and c making up that they also love persons x, y and z might be emotionally satisfying, but it doesn’t even begin to address the actual question.
Do you have an answer to the question, “Why should I trust these ex-Republicans?” I’m guessing you don’t given that if you did, you’d probably just give it rather than trying to distract from the actual question that was being asked. Personally I don’t trust Kos, Schultz or Cenk one whit. I don’t read GOS and I don’t watch either of those shows. Maybe knowing that helps keep you focused on the actual question at hand.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
Why can’t the so called liberal blogosphere find anyone to primary Obama?
Not Dean, not Grayson, not Feingold, not Kucinich, not weiner, not anyone.
Grayson is interesting because he doesn’t have a job, so he has nothing to lose, yet he still won’t run. Kucinich has been redistricted out of a job, and he won’t run either.
the blogosphere so LOLZ impotent that even out of work pols who love to grandstand won’t give them the time of day.
stinkdaddy
@ 273 “Portraying [themselves] as the Democratic base” is a catchall category into which they’ll shoehorn most any act of criticizing Obama or the Dem party from the left. You aren’t allowed to call yourself “part of the base” if you’re saying bad things about Obama, because Obama still has good approval amongst liberals therefore you aren’t speaking for the base, how dare you, etc.
On the other hand, if you say well, I consider myself a liberal and not a Democrat and I’m only willing to support the Dems to the degree that they support policies I believe in, then you’re a “naderite” and you should shut up because you don’t matter anyway. See post 151 above and etc.
And if you manage to thread the needle between these first two, they always have the fallback option of “I agree with the goal, but not the tactics.” So while we’re on the subject of bases, the BJ kids have theirs pretty well covered.
TK-421
You may not be wrong, but I disagree. Speaking for my own personal feelings on this, what frustrates me to no end is that liberals are frequently right on the policy, yet somehow that counts for little to nothing among the moderates. At least, that’s how I feel.
We can sit around and talk about the mechanics of getting something done (and how liberals are wrong here), and we can talk about the numbers and preferences of the American people (and how liberals are inconsequential here), but I never get the impression from moderates that being right on the policy matters a great deal. It’s as if policy is secondary to…well, everything else in politics.
Being right, no matter how dickish we are about reminding people of this reality, is a virtue, not a vice. And, well, when does that matter to moderates?
Because honestly, if moderates are willing to assign or delegate influence/power to liberals on policy while retaining influence/power over the politics, I personally would be very cool with that. That’d be awesome, IMO. I freely admit that politics/process/optics/vote whipping/etc. is a bit of a hazy process to me, and I’m never quite sure I understand what’s going on. But I feel pretty confident in my understanding of governance on lots of issues.
What always bugs me is this dismissive attitude towards liberal policies, seemingly before the politics are even analyzed. In 2006, the moderates didn’t want to make any waves about being anti-Iraq. In 2007-8, moderates didn’t want to investigate the Bush Admin for a lot of stuff, and for the little they did investigate they didn’t want to actually do anything about it. In 2007-8, they didn’t want to make hay about the permanent filibuster and instead wanted to just silently go along with it. And on and on.
I realize I’m biased and am probably being unfair with those examples, but I am simply trying to offer my perspective. I look at getting it right on the policy as the top priority, and then trying to massage the politics to get the policy I want. From my perspective, it looks like moderates look at the politics as rigid boundaries, and then try and massage policy within them no matter how nonsensical the result. It’s entirely possible my way is wrong, but I tell you I like the way I think about things and I’m not going to change…especially if people who have a history of being wrong on policy are constantly yelling at me to sit down and shut up.
This is who I am, warts and all, and it’s unreasonable for you to insist I change without promising anything I want in return. You can either accept me and work with me or you can keep yelling at me and hope that hostage-taking (e.g. OMG VOTE/DONATE/VOLUNTEER FOR DEMS OR REPUBS WILL KILL US ALL!) works to give you the power you want.
MikeMc
I’ve always thought Chris Hayes was an obnoxious little prick. I’m a progressive that finds other, certain, progressives off-putting. These would be Hayes, Greenwald, Hamsher, Krugman, Bernie Saunders, etc. It’s not that I don’t agree with some of things they say. It’s their fucking arrogance!
FlipYrWhig
@ TK:
spit-take
Are you being serious here? The entire liberal blogosphere is dominated by sectarians who believe only they are The Base, the true liberals, self-evidently correct in all respects; that compromise is capitulation; that their criticism is “holding Obama’s feet to the fire” but criticism aimed at them is a call to clap harder and pledge loyalty to Dear Leader, probably coordinated by Big Corporate Interests. The people who call themselves the “liberals” in these brouhahas barely even believe they _have_ teammates. The whole point is to refuse to work with people who hold even slightly different views or who prefer even slightly different tactics. Come on.
different church-lady
@276: Not that I jive to the tone of your jibe, but by coincidence I noticed that the knight in shining armor du jor is Trumka.
It’s like I joked upthread: some people people think “strategy” is a synonym for “fantasy.”
OzoneR
you would be right, now why do you think that is and what do you plan to do about it?
ruemara
hmm, the fill in guy for Lawrence O just asked Bernie Sanders if the President is backed into a corner by Republicans or if he’s choosing this path. Sanders, of course, talked around this, but he’s been making me sick of him anyway. “Even the liberal MSNBC believes President Obama is choosing to lead us down a path of bankruptcy…” Only Van Jones talked about the fact that the current Congress is the problem.
Trollenschlongen
I love how Cole has this down to a science: Post FB vs. BB troll post, relax and prepare dinner for guests, enjoy dinner with guests and drinks, come back several hours later to find several hundred comments and blog hits in the black. Rinse and repeat.
:D
OzoneR
a labor leader for President actually makes more sense that a defeated former member of Congress.
Loviatar
@283
whats the point of the presidency?
I’ve seen it repeatedly stated that its congresses fault/responsibility for our problems and their solutions.
So my question again, what is the point of the presidency?
rootless_e
Hilda Solis, Melody Barnes, Ron Bloom.
When you can win an election .
FlipYrWhig
@ TK:
I also believe that liberal policy is right. I am not a moderate. Not even close. But I acknowledge that there aren’t enough liberal politicians or liberal voters like us to make that liberal policy actually come to pass. So, given that, what is to be done?
I live in Virginia. I used to live in Philadelphia. Virginia Democrats are WAY to the right of Philadelphia Democrats, and both are way to the right of how the breakaway republic of FlipYrWhigistan would be governed. What do I do to wring a drop of liberalism out of Virginia? Vote for some sucky Democrats, because otherwise I’m not getting anything remotely like what I want. And I grumble about it, and grouse about it, and fantasize about changing it, but that’s a massive project.
I am pretty much an atheist. I dislike how religion gets used in politics. It gives me the heebie-jeebies when a politician talks about Jesus and the Bible. Should I refuse to support Christian politicians? Or should I accept that some measure of Christer-ish-ness is the way politics is going to be transacted in America for the foreseeable future and get over it?
stinkdaddy
@219 — The point isn’t that he’s neutral, but that he’s a liberal journalist/commentator/analyst/whatever, not a Dem party strategist. I think what people were getting at — what I was getting at at least — was that, agree with his take or not, Hayes was coming from the “speak my mind” angle rather than the “make sure to help The Party’s* re-election chances” one, and expecting him to do otherwise is pretty rich given all the complaining about slanted right-wingers and Hiatt fishwraps and so forth that goes on in this space.
*Tried, but did not succeed, at refraining from the use of Greenwald Caps
@285 — Right, this again. Congress is the only problem, sure thing. Like when Congress forced Obama to put Social Security on the table just now for instance.
Don’t you guys ever get tired of repeating this ad nauseam? Yeah, Congress is a big problem, and so is the Obama administration’s approach. Nobody forced him to create the catfood commission. Nobody forced him to put SS on the table, completely unprompted, a couple days ago. Time to wake up.
different church-lady
@286:
Apparently your childhood was misspent:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLQg7G3hkGY
(Presented with full awareness of how ironically comical a three ring circus analogy seems in hindsight.)
Keith G
@FlipYrWhig
TK said, ” I don’t think liberals are the ones that are having trouble accepting the reality of their “teammates.””
I interpreted that as referring to work-a-day liberals and not the the blogospheric legends in their own minds liberals – who are an entirely different breed of cat.
TK-421
What I mean is that I’m not really aware of liberal bloggers frequently and consistently posting emotional rants about how moderates’ prickish/counterproductive behavior is the reason why the Democratic Party “can’t win (fill in the blank).”
I see that post a lot here. And I see that in the commments all the f–king time. I’m not saying we aren’t absolutist and hysterical jerks sometimes- we are. What I’m saying is that often we are absolutist and hysterical because we’re right about the issue.
Yes yes, there are plenty of “sellout” posts, but I don’t consider that to be the equivalent because A) those are often dealing with politicians, who do generally suck and deserve the sellout label, and B) are often dealing with policy. I don’t often see liberal bloggers going after moderate bloggers accusing them of hurting “the team.” That vitriol appears to only flow in one direction. I’m happy to be wrong about this and would welcome contrary evidence.
rootless_e
@aisce
It means that the real base of the Democratic Party in a progressive city didn’t agree with the fuckwit self-appointed progressive leadership about Rahm Emanuel.
different church-lady
NOT at the very same moment someone is trying to take down Romney.
Is basic compartmentalization really that flippin’ hard?
Johannes
@DCL (283): Love how the diarist at the GOS, regretting that he has to, calls the President an Uncle Tom.
Yeah, let’s hand our messaging over to these guys. The frickin’ Bad Idea Bears would do better, but we’d be so pure….
Sly
@TK-421:
You’re feeling is correct, because being right on policy doesn’t matter at all. What matters is limiting the power of competing interests to derail your efforts at implementing the right policy. Saying “Here is my policy, and it is the right one” over and over and over again will, generally, not accomplish this. Constantly pointing out the legion of benefits of a Single Payer system, for instance, will not cause the American Medical Association or AHIP to disappear.
Right does not make might, unfortunately, just as might does not make right.
NobodySpecial
gwangung:
Well, there are two ways to consider them.
One is to educate them that this happened before, in the late 30’s, and the stoppage from job creation to deficit reduction actually DID DAMAGE to the recovery. To show them that, yes, we know this happens, and that we understand enough now that this is a TERRIBLE idea.
The other is that we can follow the GOP’s framing and cut future benefits in programs like Medicare and Social Security while also saddling the lower classes with an effective tax increase, and essentially do the Republican’s work for him.
Guess which one we’re doing right now? Guess how well it’s going to work at putting Democrats in a good position to win in 2012?
Spaghetti Lee
What I’m saying is that often we are absolutist and hysterical because we’re right about the issue.
I’m not there’s many people here who disagree with you on the issues themselves. We’re all pretty much in agreement that the poor and working class need help, taxes on the rich should go up, we need to fight global warming, what have you. What we disagree on is how to present them, how to popularize them, how to implement them, etc., as well as different views of what the political system as is will allow for. Of course, if you’re one of the people who thinks that “I agree with your goals but not your tactics” is itself some coded way to say we don’t agree with your goals (not saying you are that guy, I’ve just lost track of who said what in this thread), then I guess we don’t have much to agree on.
I personally think that a political movement can benefit from both firebrands and pragmatists, so to speak, so long as they’re kind of working and concert and know what the bigger goal is.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
better than that, he’s appointed two progressives to the supreme court.
And last time I looked, poutrage idol Elizabeth Warren works for the president.
Sly
@NobodySpecial:
So the only options you see are “talk louder” or “capitulate”.
Please, please, please never run for public office. At least not as a Democrat.
Loviatar
@289,
Hilda Solis – ahh thats right, I saw Obama running into the Secretary of Labor’s office when he was debating the stimulus plan and she was standing there when he was talking about his job creation plan.
Melody Barnes – Melody who, please show me where she has influenced any of Obama’s domestic policy (yes I did google her)
Ron Bloom – possible hit here, even though he serves on Geithner’s staff (not a positive) his directorship of the Automotive task force puts him in a positive light.
Your selections reflect the difficulty the “moderate/corporatist” wing have in answering my question regarding Obama’s Cabinet and inner circle.
– You name the Secretary of a second tier Cabinet position, whose power of the past 4 decades have been seriously eroded.
– You name the Director of an advisory board who as far as anyone know Obama has never heeded their advise.
– And you name an assistant to one of the most corporatist Secretary of Treasury we’ve had since the gilded age (20s).
I guess you did answer the Cabinet part of the question with Solis, but I have to disagree with you if you consider anyone of these three to be part of Obama’s inner circle.
I though we did win an election – Obama ’08
Ohhhh, I guess those of us who consider ourselves part of the Democratic party didn’t win, the moderates/centrist and corporatist who control the party won, thanks for clarifying that for me.
TK-421
Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t have answers here. I wish I understood how to get moderates to “buy in” to liberal policies, but quite frankly I despair about the chances of success in doing that. I tend to look down my nose at moderates because I don’t understand exactly what their principles are, and most importantly from a product marketing (i.e. raw political) perspective, I don’t understand the moderates’ implied logic that blurring the distinctions between you and your competition is going to lead to more customers. That…doesn’t make sense to me.
I guess my point is that if moderates and liberals are going to get along, get organized, yada yada yada, then the first step is to acknowledge that a gap between the two factions exist and to communicate (with candor, honesty, and humility) what we believe and what we want*. Without a clear understanding of each other, we’re never going to get what we want.
*Yes, there are a lot of liberals who can’t really do that, which IMO is a sign they shouldn’t be listened to.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
you could have challenged Rahm a couple months ago in the primary for Mayor, but the blogosphere was tooo lazy to try, even even though the contest was being held in an advantageous location (big liberal, urban, northern city).
Jay B.
@276. Spaghetti Lee – July 8, 2011 | 7:59 pm · Link
Nah, I just think most of the people on this thread would have rightfully crucified Bush for a lot of the same things many of the people on this thread are twisting themselves into pretzels to excuse Obama.
Here’s a good example: “Social Security is on the table”. Or “assassinating an American citizen by fiat”. Or “Since taking office at the height of the financial crisis, President Obama has promised to hold Wall Street accountable for the meltdown. Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. reinforced that message in November when he vowed to prosecute Wall Street executives and others responsible for the crisis…” Or “the War Powers Act doesn’t apply.” If Bush said any of these things, you’d piss and moan just like others of us.
Now we hear that the unemployment problem is “structural”. If GW said that, how the fuck would you respond? More than a little emo, I’d bet. But, sigh, Bachmann would be worse, which is probably right, but utterly besides the point — this is the best we can do. 3 wars, a shitty health care system, “bluffing” with a tattered safety net that does good for people, War on Terror bullshit, “structural unemployment” and a President who thinks the federal budget is just like your family’s. It’s fucked. And obscene. THIS is the best we can do.
You, or at least people like you on this thread, unreservedly support Obama. You look at his meager successes — and I do include ACA here — and completely overlook the things I mentioned in my post: the rule of law, a functional health care system and the rest. Which is up to you. But it’s fucking denial.
gwangung
Heh. If more people admitted that, I think we’d have a lot less problems.
gwangung
Honestly, I really don’t think that’s true. I, for one, will not dispute you on two of the things you mentioned as failure (though does disagreement on the third mean that we’re to be mortal enemies?).
FlipYrWhig
@ TK:
Well, there was the years-long jihad by Kos against the DLC, most recently in the Halter/Lincoln primary, and Hamsher vs. Lieberman. Those arise from a premise with which I largely agree: “corporate” Democrats ought to be countered by “populist” Democrats.
But I think we’re veering back into “liberals” vs. “moderates,” and I just disagree with that. If there’s a moderate blogosphere, I don’t read it, or much care about it.
IMHO the liberal blogosphere doesn’t have a very good sense of how to translate being right and having good ideas into the passage of actual laws, particularly in the short term. That’s where the “teammates” stuff comes in. You could have the best quarterback ever and still get whomped with a porous offensive line, and the way to solve that isn’t to say that the QB obviously isn’t trying hard enough, and if he just threw to the tight end we’d be 16-0.
All this is why every debate devolves into “but where are the votes?” vs. “he doesn’t even try!” Or “clap louder” vs. “bully pulpit.” Two sides who want very similar things out of politics; one wants to emphasize good ideas and waves off implementation; one accepts worse ideas and is very hung up on implementation.
different church-lady
@ TK @ 304: now that is truly a high-quality comment.
Sadly, there are a whole lot of people poisoning the water. Some are doing it accidentally out of frustration, and some are doing it deliberately out of ego, and it’s not limited to one side of the gap or the other. Too many dishonest actors trying to score rhetorical points, as if they could actually cash them in somewhere.
ericblair
The big difference, I think, is that the “liberal” (as we’re using the term) figures that if an issue isn’t solved all at once the government will give up after solving half the problem and never touch it again. The “moderate” figures that if you get half of what you want now, it will be easier to get the other half later than starting from scratch. Therefore, for the liberal it’s all or nothing, and moderate will live with compromise.
I gotta side with the moderates, because look at health insurance reform. It was shot down with Nixon, shot down with Clinton, and after each time it took more than a decade to come back as an issue and got progressively weaker every time. Going big and missing doesn’t embolden Congress for another shot, it turns them off for a political eternity. Social Security was initially a half measure that was roundly criticized, but success built on success and it got strengthened over time. Incrementalism has worked, and Hail Mary’s haven’t.
TK-421
This will never cease to frustrate and anger and demoralize and disappoint me. Never. You can rail all you want about how unrealistic and stupid and whatever I am, but I’m not going to change on this. I’m sorry, but this is who I am.
If moderates had a credible (and coherent) track record on accomplishing liberal policies (which it seems like you and others agree are “right”), then I’d be far more willing to cede control of the mechanics/politics to moderates. If you said to me “chill the f–k out I got this and you’ll get Single Payer, but you gotta shut up and trust me,” well I’d be willing to go along with that.
But…as far as I can tell, moderates don’t have that track record. My feeling is that if you left moderates alone, they’d simply embrace conservative policies, because they think that gives them the best chance at reelection. I’m pretty sure that is the track record moderates have- be like a Republican, only less so, all to get elected/reelected. Well, that’s not a group that should be trusted on any policy matters.
And to bring it back to modern day, I’m not willing to “just trust” a moderate on economic matters when he and his staff are consistently spewing some very destructive and wrongheaded Herbert Hoover talking points. Forgive me for being skeptical of this group, but I don’t think they really want liberal policies, which means (IMO) they don’t really want good government. And that is why I cannot implicitly trust or follow them, no matter whose “team” they’re on.
Jay B.
Oh MAN. Really? Holy shit. It’s nearly impossible to believe, but sure. Run with it.
ETA: I notice that you extended your thought. I cede whatever you mean.
Anyway, to change the subject a little:
Since there’s a neat 2/3 to 1/3 cleave between people who “vaguely” support the Administration (cough) and those who are critical of it from the left — what WOULD a good messaging effort be? What’s Obama going to sell? How is he going to sell it? “Better than the worst people in the world?” “9.3 unemployment? Could be worse!”
Axelrod’s Tweet would barely move the needle regardless of Chris fucking Hayes. You moderates come up with a message. Rally the troops. Come on.
Loviatar
@305
agree with you there Chicago would have been a great place to challenge the corporatist wing of the party, don’t know why it wasn’t done in a more organized way (I have some ideas).
However that being said, I’m still don’t agree with the shut and fall in line argument, particularly when its from people who I believe are actively working against the betterment of the disenfranchised.
jimbob
Jesus. John goes to dinner and you crazy bastards burn down his blog. You keep this up, and he won’t be posting on Friday nights.
FlipYrWhig
@ TK:
From a partisan standpoint, if you’re a moderate Democrat, it makes more sense if you’re very concerned that what the public, i.e. your voters, think about other Democrats. You want to be able to run as “Yes, I’m a Democrat, but not that crazy hippie kind like you might expect. For example, I like small businesses and shooting guns!”
I don’t know any genuine ideological moderates. Mostly it seems like a label for people who want to say that they are neither hippies nor Bible-bangers. And it drives me up the wall when people self-identify as “socially liberal but fiscally conservative.”
stinkdaddy
@302 Given that you defined pushing back against the opposing party’s frames with those supporting your own policies as “Talk louder,” I’m interested in hearing what you think the third option is. We can’t capitulate, yet we can’t push back against the Republican messaging because that’s just “talking louder.” So apparently we’re supposed to fight the GOP by neither agreeing nor disagreeing with them. Don’t cave in, but whatever else you do, by no means should you do anything to give people any indication that your opponent might be wrong. We don’t want them to feel lectured!
It’s obvious from your condescending plea that you know a lot more about electoral politics than most, so maybe you can help me understand what options there were for fighting the pro-austerity rhetoric other than “beat ’em” or “join ’em.”
…oh, and the President has chosen capitulation, so maybe pass your whole thing about being shamefully naive to the point of being unfit for public office up the chain.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Well I just participated in my first ever flame war at this place. At least I think that’s what you kids call them. It wasn’t too bad. I might do that again.
rootless_e
So when someone tries to disrupt Axelrod’s attack on Romney’s history as a corporate raider that’s “pushing back agains the Republican messaging”? Who knew?
If the stupid fucking self-proclaimed progressives actually tried to convince people that progressive ideas are good instead of devoting all their time to pointing out that the Obama administration is less progressive than they want, they would not be so fucking stupid.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Has someone mentioned the stupidity of “glitter bombs?” Just wanted to throw that in there somewhere. This thread, long as it is, would be incomplete without a reference to glitter bombs.
FlipYrWhig
@ Jay B.:
I dunno, but I’m pretty sure “We just came up with a way to placate that 0.6% of America who’s very concerned about Anwar al-Awlaki’s civil liberties!” isn’t going to move the needle very far either.
different church-lady
@ 312:
But then they wouldn’t be moderates, would they?
The thing that distinguishes moderates from liberals isn’t that they gravitate towards practical instead of the idealistic. The distinction is that moderates actually have different ideas on policy than liberals do. The only thing that binds them together on occasion is polar gravitational pull.
An example: both a moderate and a liberal might agree that social security is a good thing. But a moderate might be okay with tinkering with it, whereas a liberal would not.
Thus, waiting for moderates to enact a liberal agenda might be more of a failure of conception rather than a betrayal.
So that leads us back to the fundamental problem: how to get candidates with true liberal views elected, rather than only moderates who gain support from liberals through polar magnetism.
****
Postscript:
It’s not that they don’t want good government — it’s that they have a different conception of what good government it. You (and I, for that matter) might have very strong feelings that they are wrong, but they’re not doing it because of a desire to fuck things up or deliberately betray you (or I).
gwangung
Interesting point. Now, let me ask—why do they think that? Could it be that it actually does give them the best chance at re-election? (And in many places it most certainly does). I think this goes back to the thought that the more progressive elements of the Democrats actually only represent a 15-20% segment and much more moderate elements represent the bulk of the voters in the party.
And if that’s the case, there’s one problem in a nutshell–focussing pressure solely on leadership means a bias towards top down policies. Meaning that liberals and progressives will not be implicitly trusted by other more moderate parts of the party.
I think this goes back to reaching out to all parts of the party and be clear on what policy ends and political means they agree on and what they don’t (and this applies to voters, not just leaders). I think liberal folks are justifiably disgruntled with moderate and conservative Democratic politicians, but that also means they’re disgruntled with large numbers of moderate and conservative Democratic fellow voters.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
you don’t why? because the blogosphere is impotent. They’ve been in operation for 10 years now and it’s been one electoral failure after another. they have no ballot box victories to name. Even in california, they supported the legalization of pot and that failed. Talk about the kiss of death, only a complete bunch of losers and fuck-ps could blow a pot initiative in california.
except when it suits you (generic you). if someone here says something negative about a blog idol like weiner, for example, people run in here and cry “shut up, democrats should be supporting each other”. I remember when Huffington post first reported that Edwards had an affair, and blogs went bat shit crazy attacking Huff Po for manufacturing a fake scandal against brother John.
Yutsano
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Axelrod’s tweet wasn’t for liberals.
different church-lady
@ 315:
I don’t know what you’re doing, but I’m having some extended conversations with people. You wanna call that arson, that’s your thing.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Look, the Republicans are the party of the stupid, the 50th-percentile-and-below crowd. There are smart people exploiting the rest among them but they’re fucking stupid in the aggregate. The ones who cannot be won over by any argument are, by definition, irredeemably stupid.
Let’s say the liberals are, uniformly, in the upper half and the conservatives are, uniformly, in the lower half.
Now look along that continuum and tell me who you need to win over to actually CARRY OUT any of the neat plans you have for the country.
We must be able to speak to each other, but we must be able to dumb that shit down for the 45th through the 55th percentile of the electorate at the same time.
“How many jobs did you destroy at Bain Capital, Mr. Romney?”
Even the 45th percentile folks can get that one.
Do you see? Do you see at all?
gwangung
This is actually an interesting topic, though maybe not for the reasons you might think. You’re going to have excite all parts of the party, not just one segment. If the liberal end of the party is as small as I think it is, satisfying the bulk of the party may not do them much good.
different church-lady
@ 318 Evolved Deep Southerner
Don’t be deceived: this is one of the very rare editions that wound up having redeeming qualities.
FlipYrWhig
@ stinkdaddy
How about, “The President has said that we must protect vital investments in the future of the country, and we agree. That’s why the Progressive Plan addresses genuine long-term issues with the funding of the safety-net programs on which so many Americans rely — thanks to decades of progressive accomplishments — while protecting benefits. We believe that our agenda of smart, targeted investments will help the economy continue to revive in the short term, and that our agenda of smart, targeted adjustments to the funding of necessary public programs will help place the government’s finances on a surer footing.” Then kick and scratch as hard as possible to get some of that. Then count yourself lucky. And don’t then have your staff go whine to their friends from Yale and Georgetown who work for the local media about how it could have been much better if you had been listened to even more.
Jay B.
Oh, no shit? #whofuckingcares
He’s a fucking political consultant. If this is integral to the Obama ’12 campaign message, he should, you know, make a better presentation. If it was just a little dig, then it hardly fucking matters what the fuck Chris Hayes said about it except to you fainting dears for whom “messaging” is sacrosanct.
I agree Flip. No one gives a shit about civil liberties or the rule of law. My only point was that I don’t know why it was such a big deal under the Bush regime.
stinkdaddy
@319 Read 299, then 302. Then re-read my post you quoted. None of it was about Hayes. Get an idea of what you’re talking about *before* you post and you’ll look like less of an idiot.
As for progressives convincing people — right, for instance nobody anywhere on the left has said anything about the stimulus being too small at any point in the last two and a half years. None of those people ever made that argument on this blog, and they certainly weren’t called magically-thinking Naderite pony-fanciers if they did.
Maybe you aren’t as stupid as you’re making yourself out to be here, but you certainly fooled me.
Yutsano
So in your little scenario, either way why do you care so much? If it’s nothing but a Twitter war, well, those are entertaining for five minutes and we move on. If it’s part of a larger strategy, then Axelrod will disseminate this as he sees fit beyond the tweet. Again, what makes YOU so important that you raise an unholy stink, other than getting in your anti-Obama kool kid bona fides?
Jay B.
Probably not. So what’s the pitch? Slightly more competent than nihilists? More hope, less change?
Pro tip: They cut Medicare in the run up to 2010 and got creamed by the fuckers who demanded the cuts. In 2012, they are going to get creamed because unemployment is at 9.2% and rising and they say it’s structural and there’s nothing to be done because the government doesn’t create jobs, how do you think the people who helped cause it will react?
Pointing Romney’s ridiculous job record isn’t good enough, when you’ve made the case that the numbers don’t actually matter.
stinkdaddy
@ 330 I dunno, that sounds a whole lot like trying to convince people why your ideas are superior and how they will make the country a better place, aka the dreaded “Talking Louder” that I was asking Professor Sly to provide us with an alternative to other than capitulation.
Loviatar
@324,
wasn’t talking about the blogosphere, most of which are self-involved weiners (pun intended) with too much time and money on their hands (myself included).
Can you think of anyone else who would so much time conversing with and arguing with someone they’ve never met other than sports geeks and scam artists – speaking of – I am an African prince whose has this great new method of drafting players for fantasy football, but I’m stuck in my native country. lets talk about my idea offline. Contact me at #[email protected]
Was mostly talking about the ground soldiers the overall Liberal and Progressive community. The blogosphere are the town criers, loud with some influence, but so far with limited impact.
my comment on shut up and fall in line is valid no matter who says it.
Clinton, Edwards and Weiner are all assholes. Its called self control.
FlipYrWhig
@ gwangung:
THIS. There really are Democrats who aren’t liberal, especially now that the Republicans have gone plum loco. Loyal, faithful ones who contribute and volunteer. You might even call them part of The Base. Self-avowed “liberals” who say they’d rather go down swinging than compromise (although they tend to stack the deck so that there’s never really a way to go down swinging exactly right) don’t get to drive the Democratic bus just because they say so, or because they have the best ideas or even because they are correct. They are outnumbered. For that reason, they have to be persuasive. Instead, they swagger and strut and act hardcore, except for when they throw things and stamp their little feet. That ain’t gonna do it.
Jay B.
? Who’s keeping count online of bona fides? Who gives a shit? I DON’T care what Axelrod or Hayes said. I fucking hate Mitt Romney. But I think they’ll have to do a lot better on substance, which they lack.
And i don’t particularly give a shit if a liberal writer shoots a middle finger back to a political hack.
Unholy stink? Jesus fucking Christ, it was Cole who pointed it out as “why Democrats fail”. Your concerns are with him. Not me.
FlipYrWhig
@ Jay B.:
Electorally, it wasn’t.
I thought that was what we were trying to discuss.
Evolved Deep Southerner
Well, I’m glad I gave up my flame war cherry to this one. I’ve been coming to this place since about ’07 and that’s the first one I’ve jumped into. The people at this place scare me. I’ll see you for the next one in 2015, when the nation will begin grappling with the question of who could possibly follow Obama after his blockbuster 2nd term, when he’s balanced the budget, there’s single-payer for everyone, and the military is merely twice the size of China’s instead of six-fold. That’s how we paid all of the above.
Just give the guy a second term. If GWB had “political capital” with 51% percent, well, if a few House and Senate seats fall well, in the fullness of time you might feel differently.
Or you could give any of the Republicans a run at it just to prove a point. If this scenario appeals to you, you just may be as unpatriotic and America-hating as Rush and BillO say you are.
different church-lady
ZOT! — something about this exchange helped me conceptualize what’s bothering me about the kind of stuff in this thread. John starts off by saying, “How does deflecting an attack away from conservative help defeat the conservative” and we end up with people
sayingseemingly thinking, “So, you think we’re idiots for believing in civil liberties, huh?” Wait… how did we get from one point to the other? It’s like an entire chain of connections unfold in people’s minds unmotivated by the actual topic.(Edited to try to not put words into people’s mouths)
NineJean
Haven’t even started to read through the comments yet — all 338 of them, as of the time I saw this post. But you nailed it, John — we need to have this conversation sometime. Now just isn’t that time, having it now means that a whole lot of us just won’t be alive to see the fireworks on NYD 2013…
slightly_peeved
Of course, the one comment on employment being structural is conflated into the entire Democratic campaign.
What Obama will do is probably what he’s been doing the last few weeks:
“We saved the US Auto industry. Romney said it should go bankrupt.”
gwangung
I’m not going to denigrate the more progressive elements (well, I might tweak noses, but…); as we all agree, they have the right ideas—and that’s useful, to keep eyes on the prize. And, there’s something to be said for moderates to get out of their comfort zone; liberals have the right idea and that’s where the country’s eventually going to. But, as you said, they can’t rely on that moral authority alone…they have to persuade as well.
slightly_peeved
So, you’re all aware that most left-leaning parliamentary parties – in the UK, Canada, France, wherever –
obey Reagan’s 1st commandment far more than the Democratic party does? And these are parties that propose, and implement, legislation far to the left of the Democratic party.
The angry left may think that they’re the only true believers in universal health care, or open government, but look at the rest of the world and you’ll see a lot of these things implemented by political parties that can play hardball just like Republicans.
Jay B.
No kidding? The most obvious argument in the world — and I mean ever — about “socialized health care” is that most of the civilized world has it. It provides better care for less money. It saves money, provides as good or better services and the people who receive it overwhelmingly don’t want to lose it.
And then we get Bernie Sanders. This country is fucked because people who should be smart enough to state the obvious can’t bear to. They fudge and hedge and talk about “messaging” or “process”. They say the “angry left” is marginalized and wants ponies, like things people in every other decent country enjoy or fewer wars in order to kill and create additional terrorists.
The Serious People get to talk endlessly about whom to kill and why the insurance industry deserves more business. They win because our side wants to be Serious People too instead of sensible people who understand checkbook issues and believe in spouting common sense.
What’s not to be angry about politically?
slightly_peeved
You misunderstand me. The people who did these things in other countries – they aren’t the angry left. They’re the people you’re complaining about. The people that got these policies enacted played politics, every step of the way.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
If I were going to point to “Why Democrats fail” it would be Axelrod’s tweet. Romney points out that the job data is dreadful (it is), Plouffe’s answer was tone-deaf (it was) and everything is Obama’s fault (it’s not).
Rather than rebutting the claim, Axelrod presents a trite inside baseball, ad hominem attack. Let’s assume that Massachusetts was 47th in job creation during the time Romney was in office (which probably isn’t accurate, because hist first-year stats are spillover from Jane Swift’s tenure, just as the last year of Romney’s term detonated on Deval Patrick’s watch).
So what? Does that information have anything to do the substance of Romney’s claim (that Obama has “failed to get the economy moving”)? If Romney were, say, 19th in job creation, would that make his charge valid?
It’s exactly the kind of hack-speak that everyone (except staff writers at Politico) ignores.
Hayes points that it’s hypocritical to attack Romney for working at an investment bank, when many members of Obama’s Administration did the same thing. (He cites Rahm because it was a tweet and the name is more recognizable than, say, Gary Gensler.)
And Hayes is the reason that wet noodle had no impact? Yeah, right.
And, not to go ad-hominem, but Chris Hayes (who was raised by a couple of lefties) has probably forgotten more about the history of the Democratic coalition, its structure and dynamics and the longstanding feuds and hot-button issues than John Cole, a former Republican, is ever likely to understand.
John’s political radar isn’t too bad, but someone who isn’t aware of what’s been going on inside the Democratic coalition for the last 40 years can’t possibly understand what the problems are.
It’s laughable that he uses a Vietnam analogy to describe Rahm Emanuel, because I can’t think of anyone who reminds me more of William Westmoreland. Rahm has, for almost 30 years. been saying that if Democrats would just weed out more of the hippie elements of the coalition, they could woo back the Reagan Democrats and win elections.
Labor, women, civil liberties, environmental, peace and social justice keep going under the bus, apathy increases and turnout drops, the policies swing farther to the right, the elections keep going south and the post-mortem is always “Its the hippies’ fault.”
The notion that John might be every bit as wrong about liberals now as he was 10 years ago never seems to enter his thoughts.
What I’m wondering is, if hippies are to blame and we’re such a miniscule factor in the wins and what we do is always negative and counterproductive and the reason the Democrats lose, then why not encourage us to walk away? Seems like it would be addition by subtraction, because the people you could pick up without all our baggage dragging you down would more than outweigh the puny votes we do provide.
OzoneR
would like to see you guys win one, but you’re free to go whenever you want.
El Cid
There are too many comments here. Whittle them down to the most important ones, and then I will read them. Get to it.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
when have you guys ever won anything?
As Howard Cosell would say, “you’re guys are legends in your own minds”.
MS-NBC
Hi, I’m a former associate producer at MSNBC. I just left the position to work in a video production company. I got something to add here.
Producers at MSNBC’s prime time lineup thrive on liberal outrage, it’s ratings gold. Rachel and her producers are always constantly battling over this. Rachel wanted to do a story a month or so ago about the Obama administration’s executive order concerning the DREAM Act, but her producers told her “No one wants to hear how awesome Obama is, they watch us to find out how he’s screwing them” It’s true, the ratings soar when MSNBC’s prime time guys bash Obama. It’s not really surprising, why would people who approve of Obama watch the news if they’re satisfied? Everything has to do with ratings.
Don’t take Chris Hayes seriously. It’s all likelihood a ratings stunt
The Raven
TK-421, thank you. For the rest…
I keep hearing about compromise. The Dems have been compromising since Reagan. And…a new depression…another war…one in six unemployed…a housing disaster… Seems to me that, if the Dem leadership cared about the American people (radical, I know) they would have done less compromising.
Compromise only makes sense when you get a good deal.
I keep hearing about “moderates.” I like Stuart Zechman’s formulation: “centrism is an ideology.” And, if examined, it turns out to be a conservative ideology.
The “base.” There are two bases, really: the huge group of otherwise uninvolved voters who identify themselves as Democrats and consistently vote Democratic, and the small group of activists who work for the party. This small group, for a very long time, has been strongly leftist and has been thoroughly and deliberately alienated by the current and recent Democratic leadership which, by the way, includes Rahm Emmanuel. So…can the Dems replace that lot with moderate conservative activists? Maybe.
MS-NBC
and that’s supposed to help the American people how exactly?
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
@ OzoneR
You saw some of that in 2010 and you’re likely to see more in 2012. Defections would escalate if there were billionaires funding astroturf movements (as there are on the right), so there were somewhere to flock to. But I’m guessing the cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid that come in the debt limit increase will break off a pretty sizable bloc of voters.
I’m not looking forward to seeing President Bachmann appoint Nancy Grace to the Supreme Court, but one can’t help noticing how quickly the Tea Party brought the Republican Party to heel.
different church-lady
See, here’s the beautiful, willful thing that people who want to miss the point are missing: Axelrod didn’t attack Romney just for working in an investment bank*. Axelrod attacked Romney’s leveraged buy-outs resulting in layoffs while Romney ran that company.
If someone can point to Rahm’s involvement in Wasserstein Perella leading to similar results I’d be glad to listen.
*(Which is incorrect anyway, because Bain Capitol was not a bank, btw.)
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
these people show up on snowy, freezing January nights to cast votes, and you call them “uninvolved”,… well isn’t that liberal. And then you wonder why you get tagged as elitists and snobs.
different church-lady
Some people here like gum. Others think gum is murder.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
@MS-NBC: So what was the inside scoop on Olbermann’s departure?
Jon H
The difference between Rahm and Romney is that Rahm was in investment banking, working on mergers and acquisitions, like Chicago’s Unicom buying Philadelphia’s PECO Energy. There are often job losses in mergers due to redundancies, but the idea generally isn’t to hollow out the acquired company, load it up with debt, and sell off the assets.
Arguably, while jobs may have been lost at PECO, jobs may have been saved in Chicago.
And Rahm’s employer wouldn’t profit from the layoffs. They get a fee from working the deal.
Hayes is pretty much talking out his ass here.
Mnemosyne
Yes, why make Republicans do the work of pointing all of that out and make them defend Romney’s record when you can do the work for them and free up the Republicans’ time for more important things, like writing new anti-abortion laws?
You can put the rope around your own neck if you want, but don’t expect people to admire your courage for doing it.
Mnemosyne
Yes, but the two companies are in somewhat related fields since they both have something to do with, like, money or something, so clearly they’re EXACTLY THE SAME!
This from people who pride themselves on their supposed grasp of details and nuance.
Phil Perspective
@ taylormattd – 139 & @ Mike Kay – 123:
You both are idiots. Howie is Howie Klein, former head of Reprise Records. John is John Amato, of Crooks and Liars.
MS-NBC
He wasn’t supposed to donate to candidates he had on his show, network policy, and he did to that guy from Arizona only a day or so after he had him on the show, even after he was warned not to because he had donated to someone else earlier.
The rumor around the office is the Congressman demanded a donation for airtime but I don’t believe it, they need all the TV time they can get.
Kane
When President Bush was running for reelection, republicans were painting him as a heroic figure, finding nothing wrong with his first term in office. They had the audacity to claim that he kept the country safe after ignoring repeated warnings of what would become the worst attack on American soil in our history. He misled the country into Iraq. Managed to turn a surplus into deficit. His administration leaked the identity of CIA agent. There was Abu Ghraib. And a corrupt DOJ. And on and on, with some of his best blunders yet to come. But republicans supported him unconditionally, and defended the indefensible.
President Obama has accomplished far more in three years than Dubya did in eight. Obama actually has kept the country safe from a 9/11 type attack. He has done away with Bin Laden. He has signed historic legislation into law. He rescued the American auto industry. FEMA has responded brilliantly to the many natural disasters with no one standing on their roof waiting days for help. And despite a lagging economy and enormous challenges that remain, the country in a better place today than in 2008.
And yet, the biggest obstacle towards Obama’s reelection and Democrats regaining the House are those who claim to be democrats.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
@ Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
Hippies realize that we don’t win often. It’s not possible to do it when the Democratic Party is willing to throw in with the Republicans (as they did to get Joe Lieberman re-elected) rather than support our candidate.
In 2010, with polls showing that Blanche Lincoln couldn’t possibly win, the DNC fought a scorched-earth campaign to deny Bill Halter the nomination.
The list of Blue Dogs and Bush Dogs who beat hippie candidates in primaries thanks to oodles of DNC and DCCC money– and, once in office, helped sink Democratic initiatives– is very long. We’re used to hearing lectures from the Boomans and Ygelsiases of the world about why it’s good for Democrats to have people like Dan Lipinski and Heath Shuler voting against the ACA and ripping Nancy Pelosi.
Of course, when the voters decide to replace a faux Republican like Melissa Bean with a real one, somehow that’s our fault.
You guys are the legends in your own minds. You’re the ones who are sure you can win elections without our bloc of votes, and that you couldn’t possibly attract some of the 45% of Americans who don’t vote by adopting any of our positions.
different church-lady
@ Mnemosyne #362:
I suppose when one’s entire political worldview comes down to a huge and endless variety of ways to say, “EAT THE RICH”, then yes, all people who deal with money are the same in their eyes.
And I’m not even necessarily against that worldview…
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
Phil Perspective
Thanks. I did not know that. So Digby, Klien, and Amato would send out emails trying to stop rahm. Another win for the vaunted blogorati.
tomvox1
Perhaps the real moral of the story is that effective messaging by political professionals is not executed via Twitter. Too easy to be snarked at by the self appointed poli sci whiz kids in 140 characters or less. New Media is a waste of time. Get your thumb out of your Blackberry and get back to work, Axelrod. Hayes: Keep doing the masturbatory purity trolling that is the hallmark of all true “left wing” journalism. That is all.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
I say it again, when have you ever won anything?
Kane
—
This was a post that I originally wrote back in August 2008. All of these so-called problems for Barack Obama were not coming solely from Fox News, but rather they were all offered from MSNBC and much of the MSM.
And already we are seeing a revamping of this media narrative of Obama has a problem. Recently we have seen the media narrative that the LGBT community is angry with President Obama. Prior to that it was progressives who are disgruntled with President Obama and his administration. Before that the narrative was that African Americans are upset with Obama. And before that the narrative was that Jewish Americans might not be as supportive of Obama as they once were. Rarely is there any context provided or how these groups continue to overwhelmingly support Obama. Instead, if someone manages to offers any criticism of Obama whatsoever, it is sure to be noted and reported and given a narrative of looming doom for Obama. And as is often the case, some weak-kneed democrats buy into the narrative.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
@MS-NBC: so who are the worst guests you guys have dealt with? Any divas? Any nightmares? Are Tweety and Cenk really as buffoonish in person? Is Alex Wagner really as cute in person?
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
@Mnemosyne
If you knew one tenth of one percent as much about politics as you believe you do, you would know that voters ignore statistics like that.
I mean, you have heard the expression “You can prove anything with statistics”, or “There are three tyoes of lies– lies, damned lies and statistics”, right? That’s particularly true when they come out of the mouths of people aligned with a side.
The only value that stuff has is as a dog-whistle for the converted, but Axelrod’s was so bland that it didn’t even pass muster as red meat. By ripping it– thus earning the ire of the O-bots– Hayes probably gave it ten times as much air as it would otherwise have gotten.
It’s still possible for a so-called “non-partisan” source to have some impact (the National Journal rating John Kerry as the most liberal member of the Senate in 2004), but even that is getting devalued by outlets like Politifact, whose parsing is often so blatant that people notice it.
Phil Perspective
OzoneR @ 195:
You are wrong. HolyJoe had his knickers in a twist ever since he wasn’t crowned the nominee in ’04 by fiat.
FlipYrWhig
@ Woodrow : So, apart from the lack of funding and the fact that, given the opportunity, people don’t actually, like, vote for them, progressive candidates would totally defeat corporate sell-out candidates, if it weren’t for those meddling DLC kids. Halter didn’t even win _the primary_. I wanted him to. He didn’t. Arkansas Democrats wanted Lincoln. Maybe they _should have_ wanted the other guy. Unfortunately, they didn’t. Maybe because they were stupid. Maybe because they heard both sets of ideas and chose the other candidate anyway. Maybe both. And, for that matter, Halter would have been a lot closer to Bill Nelson than to Russ Feingold. That’s pretty good for Arkansas. Less so for the prospects of liberal policymaking.
Woodrow L. Goode, IV
@ Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
And then I give you a list of electoral wins and policy victories and you say “You didn’t make any of those things happen.” Sorry, not biting. Only one substantive answer per O-bot per thread.
Phil Perspective
Kane @ 365:
No, his biggest problem is 16 million, or more, unemployed people.
Loviatar
@370,
I thought I answered that question above at @303.
I guess I can now lump you in with moderates/centrist and corporatist who claim hippies never win anything.
This thread and the feeling I’m getting from my “fellow” Democrats are making me more and more likely to take my ball (money and effort) and go home. After putting alot of effort into 2008 I sat home in 2010, I’m now leaning towards sitting home in 2012. That final decision has not been made – but you now have to convince to give a damm instead of convincing me not to give a damm.
My view right now is how do I want the country to die – slowly and in pain (Democratic party) or quickly with a bullet to the brain (Republican party). Either way we’re dead.
FlipYrWhig
Aw, Loviatar, it’ll be OK, you really are the prettiest girl in school and the other kids are just jealous.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
@FlipYrWhig: Win.
Loviatar
@379
don’t want or need your faux sympathy, but a piece of advice for you.
Try real hard to get me and others like me to give a damm in 2012. Try really damm hard, because if we don’t, say hello to Madam President Bachmann.
different church-lady
And that, dear friends, is really all you need to know.
different church-lady
Hostage taking: it’s not just for Republicans anymore!
Felanius Kootea
@different church-lady: I too was repulsed by that comment. Whoseyface reinterpreted: “I will huff and puff and watch Michele Bachmann burn my country down because some Obots were mean to me on the internets and it’s so much more important to get back at them than to save the country I love from lunatic Republicans.”
Edited
Jennifer
Oh, calm down, Mary.
I personally could give two shits exactly how you choose to express your disappointment and disapproval, whether it be stamping your widdle feets on the internets or sitting on your hands come election day. It’s a free country, in theory anyway, and as an adult it’s your call to decide what behavoir you should adopt in order to achieve whatever outcome it is that you desire. But don’t be such a fucknut as to suggest that, whatever you determine to do, that anyone MADE you do it. I mean, for fuck’s sake, you’re the pure one here, the one who is so unyielding in principle that you’re unable to even momentarily consider Z without dragging in A,B,C and K and R for good measure, so it’s some major weak-ass tea for you to now be suggesting that should you decide to throw a full-out tantrum come election day, that it’s actually everyone else’s FAULT.
OzoneR
She’ll hurt you far more than she’ll hurt me, so no, I don’t think I’ll try.
MS-NBC
Michele Bachmann who kept answering questions after we yelled cut.
Any divas?
Jane Hamsher, sorry I had to say it, I’ve seen the reaction she gets around here, but OMG what a ego.
Too many to name, but Ed Schultz once called an intern an asshole and made him cry.
Yes, don’t really know Cenk well, and yes.
whetstone
here’s why this post is a bag of fail:
“my liberal twitter feed has spent the entire day joining with Romney screaming about Plouffe”
messaging? people are screaming at plouffe BECAUSE OF MESSAGING. he tells bloomberg that the “average american” is too stupid to vote on the unemployment rate. all them morons vote on is what they see around them.
if they ACTUALLY think that they’re screwed, unless they luck out with a bachmann/cain ticket.
no one gives a shit if liberals think david plouffe said something stupid 16 months before the election. they’re going to give a really big shit if unemployment stays high–projections right now are 8+ around election day–and the obama campaign doesn’t think that won’t register.
ok, sure, they’re probably not as stupid as plouffe’s statement indicates. but still: he needs to stfu or find a better spin. whether you’re a patchouli-stinking obama-hating hippie or a party stalwart who wants obama to win, you can and should find something to hate about what plouffe said.
i’m both, so i hated it twice.
as to emanuel, progressives, and chicago, let me correct some stuff:
chicago is actually a terrible place to run a “progressive.” chicago had two mainstream dems with corporate ties, emanuel and chico, and one honest-to-goodness progressive, miguel del valle, who unsurprisingly got his ass kicked. chico had a decent rep as a guy who knew the system, but didn’t have the DC/worldwide connections of emanuel.
chicago WANTS a mainstream dem mayor with strong corporate connections. our motto is practically “chicago: we’re not detroit.” the city wants a mayor with ties to the financial sector, because the perception is that daley saved the city by anchoring the downtown to the new economy. emanuel is a daley protege; they’re ideologically simpatico; daley was wildly popular (with some exceptions that are too local to bother with). his dad: same thing. he also won a bunch of elections.
we did have an actual reform progressive: harold washington. did some great things; his tenure was also beirut on the lake. mostly fast eddie’s fault, but not everyone has fond memories of those years.
hayes came up in chicago left-wing circles; he wrote for the chicago reader and in these times (which makes the nation look like the new republic) before he shot to DC fame. i can’t help but think him flipping axelrod and emanuel the bird is at least sort of local politics spilling over.
feel free to yell at each other. the gop is going to do the same damn thing until they line up behind romney (the big money boys aren’t going to take a flyer on bachmann, because come on). just do it with some nuance, since that (and opposable thumbs, but mostly nuance) is what makes “us” evolved.
Loviatar
OK, let me see if I get this right, so I disagree with Obama’s policies and may decide to stay home in 2012 because I see no reason to vote for someone with whom I disagree. I then inform his loyal minions to try and convince me and others like me to support their leader and I’m accused of hostage taking.
I point out that by turning off people like me you’ve lost one election and have a strong possibility of losing another and I’m mocked.
OK, you’ve convinced me to see the error of my ways.
LOL
Loviatar
@386,
maybe she will and maybe she won’t. But at least I’ll know from the beginning whats shes about and I won’t have to worry about her selling me down the Pragmatic river on the good ship Hippie Punch.
Mnemosyne
Really? Voters ignore the fact that a guy running around claiming he’s going to be better on jobs than Obama had one of the worst job-creation records during his sole term as a governor?
You’re probably right, though — more voters will care about Romney’s hairstyle than will care about his policies. I tend to think that’s a problem with our electorate, but YMMV, I guess.
Mnemosyne
IOW, you helped get us into this predicament by sitting around with your thumb up your ass so the Republicans could gain their largest majority in 50 years and your only possible solution is to do the exact same thing again?
You may want to look up the definition of insanity since you seem to think that the same strategy will totally work out better this time.
different church-lady
Now with FTFY™.
Loviatar
@392
tell me since you’re so brilliant, what would you do if you helped elect a President who then implemented policies that were directly contradictory to what you believed. This same president then shows no inclination of changing the direction of his policies.
1) Would you work to give him more power
2) would you work to give his opponent more power
3) would you sit home, shrug your shoulders, say a pox on both houses and hope for the best.
different church-lady
So, you’re against stuff like universal health care and an end to DADT?
Loviatar
@393,
yep in my delusions of grandeur (nice big words) I thought by helping to elect a Democratic President it would result in more progressive policies. But like you said I must have been deluded.
Thanks for the mocking, it knocked those delusions right out of my head. I am now clear on what I need to do for 2012.
Mnemosyne
Health insurance reform is directly contradictory to what you believe?
Government stimulus — even a package that’s too small — is directly contradictory to what you believe?
Saving one of the largest industries in the world (and I don’t mean defense or banks) is directly contradictory to what you believe?
Removing the middleman from federal college loans is directly contradictory to what you believe?
Expanding Pell Grants to low-income students is directly contradictory to what you believe?
Expanding federal hate crime laws to include sexual orientation is directly contradictory to what you believe?
Bypassing Congress to put Elizabeth Warren in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is directly contradictory to what you believe?
Extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees is directly contradictory to what you believe?
Increasing CAFE standards is directly contradictory to what you believe?
If all of those things are directly contradictory to what you believe, I’m not sure why you even consider yourself a liberal at all, frankly.
ETA: But, yes, if giving gay citizens more rights and helping more kids pay for college were directly contradictory to my beliefs, I would probably join the other party rather than stay with one that was doing so many horrible things.
Loviatar
@395
what UHC
I must have misread the fine print. I thought PPACA was an expanded Health Insurance scheme.
please, please please show me where PPACA provides UHC. I would apologize and be the first to support Obama’s reelection.
So let me get this straight, DADT was repealed because of Obama or despite Obama, I’ve heard it both ways. By the way has he come out yet in support of Gay marriage or for the repeal of DOMA.
Mike Kay ( Geronimo!!)
@MS-NBC :
Can you be more expansive. I love a good laugh. Not to long ago she was on MSNBC saying she really disliked Anthony Weiner because of “grandstanding”. LOL. coming from her, it was hilarious.
Loviatar
@397
Health insurance reform is directly contradictory to what you believe? – limited and doesn’t provide the UHC requested by the majority of Americans
Government stimulus—even a package that’s too small—is directly contradictory to what you believe? – larded with tax cuts and limited stimulatory components
Saving one of the largest industries in the world (and I don’t mean defense or banks) is directly contradictory to what you believe?threw the unions under the bus, belatedly demand concessions from the executives running the industry
Removing the middleman from federal college loans is directly contradictory to what you believe?great
Expanding Pell Grants to low-income students is directly contradictory to what you believe?at the cost of cutting educational grants in other areas
Expanding federal hate crime laws to include sexual orientation is directly contradictory to what you believe?great
Bypassing Congress to put Elizabeth Warren in charge of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is directly contradictory to what you believe?she is not in charge of the new agency, she is in charge of setting up the new agency. should have been recessed appointed a long time ago
Extending benefits to same-sex partners of federal employees is directly contradictory to what you believe? presidential change, can be reversed by any new president. should be working on making it permanent
Increasing CAFE standards is directly contradictory to what you believe?limited increase, totally against what was recommended. used automotive crisis to push for lower standards instead of using it as an incentive to push for higher standards
I guess I’m not as easily satisfied as you are. I guess after 8 years of Bush I expected a Democratic president with an majority in congress would be able to push through more than just slightly moderate policies. I guess I was wrong
different church-lady
@398: hey, you’re the one who’s opposed to this stuff. You tell me.
different church-lady
So you’re “directly opposed” to limited progress?
Loviatar
@401
I never said I was against those things.
you said
as a way of saying Obama had provided them in his first term.
I’m telling you he did not provide UHC and his support for the repeal of DADT will consist of his signature on the repeal (when he signs it, which he hasn’t done yet).
.
So nice try with the words games
Mnemosyne
I suspect you didn’t read any of the print at all, frankly. You can look at the timeline here of what’s been implemented already and what’s scheduled to be implemented. You may be shocked to discover that the legislation doesn’t actually consist of one line stating that all Americans have to indenture themselves to private insurance companies. There’s just a little more to it than that.
And if you’re asking why you didn’t get your universal healthcare pony, I’ll ask you why you believe so deeply in American exceptionalism that you think we could revamp our entire healthcare system with a single piece of legislation when no other country in the world has ever managed to do it in one go? Are we really so much more special than Canada that we should be able to do in 1 year what it took them 40 years to do?
Well, Obama didn’t sign the repeal until four whole days after it passed, so clearly he’s a bigot who hates gay people who never wanted repeal to pass at all and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table to sign. Or so certain websites would have you believe. After all, most presidents announce in their State of the Union address that they want Congress to pass legislation that they secretly oppose.
Loviatar
@402,
yes, when it comes at the cost of comprehensive UHC.
I love you guys who go around touting the PPACA as this great achievement. GUYS he had a “F@#$%ing” majority in congress, he had the republicans on their heels from the election, he had an energized base, he had industry shitting their pants from the financial crisis, he is charismatic, he can woo the stars from the sky with his words. He had the best circumstance in the last 60 years to get UHC passed and he settled for some half assed expanded Insurance scheme.
I’m sorry I can’t be grateful for that.
different church-lady
You said (and this is a cut and paste, obviously…)
Okay. So we listed some policies. And apparently one of us doesn’t understand the meaning of the word “directly”.
And I’m getting the funny feeling that the reason you stated it that way was because saying “He’s yanked a few things in the right direction and botched some others and so therefore I’m going to sit the next one out because, boy, that’ll teach him a lesson and let’s hope that the people who will yank every single bit of it hard in the wrong direction don’t win” just wouldn’t have quite the same ring to it, now would it?
Mnemosyne
@ Loviatar
Ah, I get you now. If Obama didn’t live up to your fantasy in every way — if he merely saved the auto industry rather than making all of the executives appear on “Wipeout”– then it doesn’t count at all. It’s exactly like he didn’t do anything. In fact, it’s worse than if he didn’t do anything — if he wasn’t willing to save the auto industry the way you preferred, he should have let the entire thing collapse instead. He should have let students continue to pay too much for their federal loans. And he definitely should have made gay federal employees continue to have to scramble to find health insurance for their partners if he couldn’t wave his magic wand and repeal DOMA immediately.
Also, too, you may want to look up what a recess appointment is exactly before you get all whiny about Elizabeth Warren “only” getting to form the new bureau from scratch. You do know that recess appointments are time-limited, right? And that she would have been forced out by now because her recess appointment would have expired at the end of the last Congress?
Loviatar
@404
So despite all of your words and your huffing and puffing, you agree with me, PPACA does not provide UHC. Its an expanded insurance scheme.
Please don’t put words in my mouth, show me where I advocated the US doing in 1 year what it took Canada 40 years to do. Unlike you with PPACA, I wanted legislation that gave us a path that ended in UHC not an expanded insurance scheme. Whether that took 1, 5, 10, 20, yes even 40 years I’ll leave that up to the experts to decide, however the ultimate end result should be UHC not expanded insurance.
DADT
But I’ll give credit where credit is due it did happen on his watch and he signed it.
Where is he on DOMA?
Mnemosyne
So we’re back to the American exceptionalism where we’re so awesome that we can totally do what no other country in the world has done and completely rebuild our for-profit healthcare system from scratch with a single piece of legislation? Because it’s not like the only for-profit section of healthcare is insurance — every single piece of our current system, from hospitals to providers, is mostly for-profit. What was your plan to dissolve Tenet and Vanguard so you could fold them into a single payer system?
Hopefully you’re smart enough not to try and claim that’s what FDR did with Social Security, because I might hurt myself laughing.
Loviatar
@406
I’ll quote myself (besides other things my ego is large)
Replace PPACA and UHA with any policy the Democrats have been wet dreaming about since Reagan died and thats how I feel about what Obama has accomplished.
Mnemosyne
You mean like Switzerland’s expanded insurance scheme? Or the Netherlands’ expanded insurance scheme? There are several countries with UHC in addition to those two that are based on private insurance. The big difference between us and them is that their insurance companies are tightly regulated and have restrictions like being required to offer basic coverage to everyone. Oddly, some of those countries’ restrictions are part of PPACA. Almost as though there’s a way for us to transition to a system like Switzerland’s or the Netherlands’ …
Nah, that’s unpossible, because everyone knows that Obama Sold Us Out and there’s absolutely no way to build a UHC system with private insurance companies, except for the countries that have.
(Edited to fix broken linkys.)
Loviatar
@407,
Believe me any fantasy of mine does not include Obama, maybe a little bit Michell Backmann.
yes in some cases Limited and ineffectual regulations are worse than nothing.
Do you think the Financial Industry learned there lesson from the recent crisis? No
Do you think their a similar crisis within the next 20 years? yes
Why, because the Limited and so far ineffectual regulations and the slap on the wrist penalties are not a deterrent. So now the FI know the have a government backstop with no meaningful regulations. Is that worse than what went before when they didn’t have either, in my opinion yes.
Loviatar
@411,
Ahhh, so once again an admittance that PPACA is not UHC, but an Insurance scheme.
After reading both articles – Switzerland and Netherlands – the thing that popped out to me is that the first sentence in the Switzerland article was “Healthcare in Switzerland is universal” why because while privately administered it is government controlled.
I can’t find those words in the Netherlands article, what I did find was this quote
why because it is both privately controlled and administered.
which one seems more like what the US is implementing with PPACA?
Mnemosyne
Dude, they’ve had that knowledge for a dozen years, at least. How do you think we ended up here in the first place? They had all of the regulations changed under Clinton and Bush II so that all of the shit they pulled that tanked the world economy is perfectly legal. It would take a major overhaul of our financial laws that, frankly, doesn’t have enough Congressional support from most Democrats, much less Republicans.
It took 30 years (at least) for the Republicans and compliant DLCers like Bill Clinton to destroy the regulatory framework and you’re all pissy because Obama didn’t manage to reverse that 30 years of regulation in his first 2 years in office?
Mnemosyne
Yes, if you simultaneously lack reading comprehension and have convinced yourself that it’s literally impossible to have a UHC system based on private insurance, I can see how you would leap to the conclusion that having a health system based on insurance is somehow not “real” UHC even when it is a UHC.
In the real world, however, where UHC is not in fact an antonym for insurance, it’s not quite the zinger you imagine it to be.
What, you were afraid you might accidentally learn something if you dared read past the first sentence? If you had, you would have seen actual details like these:
Emphasis mine, since you seem to have missed it the first time. But, please, continue explaining to all of us that Switzerland may think they have UHC, but they don’t really have UHC, because monkey insurance flange.
Loviatar
@414,
No they did not have the government backstop (too big to fail). That became implicit with this last crisis. So, yes they previously were lightly regulated, but their was always the possibility that they would go bankrupt. Now that fear is no longer there.
My previous question, which one is worse:
– The previous situation where while lightly regulated there was a chance of bankruptcy
or
– The new situation with new limited regulations but with no chance of bankruptcy.
.
If you thought this crisis was bad, the next is going to be doozy.
Mnemosyne
Again, that fear hasn’t been there for over a decade, and probably longer. Do you really not remember the Chrysler bailout and how Iacocca was a genius for getting it?
Loviatar
@415,
I didn’t miss any of your highlights, if you had read to the end of my sentence where I said
you would have realized that it took into consideration the fact that while the Swiss plan is private, it is government controlled and mandated to provide UHC.
There is is a big difference between what is being provided by the Swiss and what is being provided as a result of PPACA.
Also, which system Swiss or Dutch (while both private) do you think PPACA comes closest to? You PPACA supporters better hope its the Swiss (its not) because if its the Dutch thats going to be a prescription for problems as laid out in the article.If its the Dutch
Mnemosyne
Also, too, before I wander off to bed since the cleaning people will be here in the morning:
Let’s see — since the Dutch had a pre-existing public healthcare system that they decided to privatize in 2006, and the US has a private healthcare system that they’re trying to add public elements to (like requiring that insurers cover everyone), clearly the fact that the two systems are traveling in opposite directions away from one another means they’re exactly the same!
Mnemosyne
No, really, last one before bed:
You mean kinda like in the PPACA where insurers are required to take customers regardless of pre-existing conditions? And are limited in the amount of profit they can skim off the top? And have to do a “community rating” for policy prices that can only take three variables into consideration? And the government will pay for all or part of your insurance if you can’t afford it?
It’s true — the PPACA is not as tightly controlled as the Swiss system, but given that the Swiss system has been in place for a couple of decades and PPACA is barely a year old and won’t have all of its pieces in place until 2014, I’m not really surprised that the PPACA is not as mature of a system as the Swiss one.
The point is that it is not, as you are claiming, impossible to have a UHC system that is insurance-based, so moaning and wailing about how the PPACA means we can never have UHC is insisting that only one tree in the forest is a real tree and all of the others don’t count.
Loviatar
@417
Do you remember
– Countrywide Financial
– Bear Stearns
– Lehman Brothers
– Merrill Lynch
– Washington Mutual
– Wachovia
all of which were allowed to fail or be acquired under duress. So again that promise of a government backstop was never implicit until 2009/2010.
Previous to that the closest I could see to maybe a government backstop was the LTCM crisis but even that was more of a government administered liquidation.
As far as Chrysler and Lee Iaccoca is concerned, I put that down to him being a great salesman.
Loviatar
@320
once again
PPACA does not mandate UHC it is an expanded Insurance plan.
The Swiss plan mandates UHC.
Big difference
Huge difference
Enormous difference
you PPACA guys are constantly trying to shade that difference, but thats the deal breaker.
Have a good night
Loviatar
@419
please show me where I said “they’re exactly the same!”
you seemed to have misread my quote, I’ll repeat with the important part highlighted.
The US system is obviously closest to being like the Dutch which is predicted to have some serious problems based upon its privately administered and controlled method,
sy2d
Wasn’t Rahm involved in most of Obama’s capitulations to the right?
Dems can’t win messaging battles because they lack discipline — from the top down.
ABL
Loviator wins the Emo Prog award. That was quite a display.
ABL
Stay home again. It’ll definitely work this time.
Jennifer
@ 398 Loviatar:
@ 408 Loviatar:
This is from last Friday, July 1: ”Today, the Department of Justice filed a brief in federal court employee Karen Golinski’s federal court challenge, supporting her lawsuit seeking access to equal health benefits for her wife and arguing strongly that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional in terms unparalleled in previous administration statements.“
So…THAT’S “where he is” on DOMA – he’s moved beyond what he SAID he would do, i.e. “stand down” on DOMA and not defend it – to having his DOJ actively oppose it in the courts. We understand your disappointment – it’s not as if this action, which might actually move DOMA closer to being overturned via the courts, gives you the warm-fuzzies that hearing the president talk about support of gay marriage (while accomplishing zero in terms of actually MOVING the issue) would – and we all know what’s REALLY important here is your FEELINGS.
We understand, really, we do, that if he doesn’t schedule a prime-time speech to talk about how much he lurves gay marriage then it’s only a matter of time before he’s rounding all the gay people up and putting them on cattle cars to send them to re-education camps to be de-gayed with reverse butt-sex. Because looking at his record on gay rights, unless he says something to the contrary, this is exactly what we should expect, amirite?
boss bitch
@sy2d:
Rahm was responsible for all that was wrong with the world. You guys had an obsession with him.
mb
The typical person has no idea who Chris Hayes or David Axlerod are, and won’t until they have recurring roles on NCIS; none of this Twitter nonsense will have a significant bearing on the 2012 election. Most people aren’t political junkies and don’t sit around arguing with each other over this flavor of insipid nonsense.
I’d rank things like the Obama administration having to chase after the Republicans’ demand for stupid fiscal policy, and the Republicans desire to rub the stink of cutting social programs to get an agreement on the debt ceiling increase to be more pressing problems. I don’t think people are more aware of those issues either, but they will be much more attuned to their effects, because while 43k people follow Chris Hayes on Twitter, hundreds of millions of Americans like money. The Republicans really stuck their collective dick in the pencil sharpener with the Ryan plan to gut Social Security, thinking that today’s seniors are total sociopaths willing to sacrifice their own children’s nearing retirement for absolutely nothing in return. To make up for that they will play hard ball to rub as much filth on the Democrats as they can before the next election cycle. It’s not going to just be a game over tax and regulatory regimes, they won’t rest until the Democrats do something to piss off their voters on par with voting to blow up Social Security.
However, if you want to pretend this is Jane Hamsher’s fault or something good luck with that. I’d suggest that the Democrats real problem is that George Soros, wealthy as he might be, cannot personally fund enough avenues for delivering innocuous messages to stave off the recurring drum beat of stupid from right-wing talk radio, and not a lot of other members of the coalition really do anything besides cater to their niche. There’s also the uphill challenge that left-wing issues are simply tougher sells, because they often involve doing the right thing when doing something else would be easier. It sure would feel nice to have a lot of high-paying jobs from resource extraction without pesky concerns for whether your tap water catches fire and gives your children birth defects. It sure would be nice to pay less in taxes instead of having to feed the children of broke-ass parents as well as old people you are only distantly related to. Instituting a price on carbon when you can just fuck over the Maldives for free and die before breaking any food webs certainly sounds easier. It’s an uphill battle with nothing like the market potential for personal profit like the self-absorbed message of the right-wing. You have to rely on people having long time horizon or a conscience, and a lot of people don’t satisfy either condition.
However, the desire to impose message discipline on the left seems pretty misguided to me. Research suggests that liberals are less concerned with group identity and conformity for moral reasoning. The Democratic coalition is an even more ornery group of cats to herd than just that, because it’s composed of ¬Republicans with conflicting goals. The party has members that are both in favor of and against abortion rights, in favor of and against strong unions, in favor of and against homosexual equality, and so on and so forth. Many parties to the coalition have been asked to suck it up while the remainder ignores their concerns; none of them like it, and while they continue to vote Democrat, they never cease to demand that pols actually address their problems. I’d say that’s for the better. The Republican Party’s message discipline results in people like Bartlett and Chaffee and tossers like Sullivan and Frum being excised for merely being reasonable once. Various members of the Democratic Party have gotten behind some odious things like the CDA and DMCA, patted itself on the back for not regulating the financial sector, repeatedly backed the PATRIOT act (Joe Biden tried to take credit for the whole thing, and is in general a real toe cheese of a man), voted to give Bush the Dumber authorization to invade Iraq, and a long, long list of other stupid things that they should definitely have their feet held to the fire for. The assholes we elect don’t give us nice things unless they think they have to.
Look at Andrew Cuomo for what the next administration in the pipeline will look like: campaigning on property tax caps and engaging in a standoff with unions while echoing the belt-tightening mantra. Since Obama will probably sail through 2012 despite the Republican’s landmines, I’d say you should be thinking about how you can change the message before 2016, because Richard Nixon is going to look like a commie by 2024 at this rate.
Marc McKenzie
@ gene108 135:
“The Left just never really got organized like the Right did and lost whatever advantages it had 30 years ago and now is doing its damnedest to make sure it will never be effectively organized again, by shooting the politicians on their team for the sake of their intellectual purity.”
Sad, but spot on, Gene. It’s a cold, blunt truth that too many are ignoring.