Dave Weigel at Slate discusses the Great NY-9 Debacle, and finishes by pointing out a new Republican meme that really does worry me:
[Emphasis mine.] I know: reasonable people, sensible compromise, demographic calculation, courting the independent vote… but people are scared. The economy is, at best, trembling on the brink of another recession; for a lot of people the last one never ended, and doesn’t look to be ending any time soon. The Repubs have a lock on the “Social Security ‘entitlements’ can’t be relied upon / are just another way for the government to steal your money”. I’d feel a lot happier about our Democratic chances in 2012 if our leadership (elected and otherwise) stuck to “We built Social Security, we’ve worked to contribute to Social Security, and we’re not going to gut Social Security because a few timid souls and grifters see a temporary respite in parroting the opposition’s lies & half-truths.”… Actually, this disastrous election gave the Democrats a few hints. The party tried, and failed, to wound Turner by telling voters he’d provide one more Republican vote to weaken entitlements. That worked in New York’s 26th district, where Democrat Kathy Hochul tore pages out of the Ryan plan and made her Republican opponent eat them. In the 9th, Turner and his surrogates tried to neutralize the entitlement issue by promising not to cut entitlements. In two robocalls, Koch promised voters that Turner wouldn’t cut Medicare or Social Security. The weekend before the election, Hikind said the same thing, and bolstered his case by saying Democrats were risking the programs.
__
“The president of the United States is now a member of the Tea Party!” said Hikind. “He said, in his own words, that there won’t be Medicare and Social Security for my children and your children and my grandchildren unless we address Medicare!”
__
That’s not really a wedge issue – it’s the slow death of a wedge issue. It’s the start of a problem for Democrats, who have gone from attacking the Ryan plans for entitlement reform to vouching support for some undefined “everything on the table” entitlement reform. There might not be any way for Democrats to dodge this, and there’s no sign that they want to. And that leaves all of them in the position of Democrats in New York’s 9th. Their traditional base, weary of the recession, not sure what Democrats have to offer any more, are ready to be wedged.
__
“This message will resound for a full year,” said Turner in his victory speech. “It will resound into 2012.”
jwb
Lifted from the previous thread, since it’s pertinent here: right on cue the clown caucus of dem centrists steps out and starts shooting at the jobs bill: we are so fucked.
Rhoda
Yeah, I don’t think so.
I think the difference between NY-9 and Hochul is simple; the Ryan plan. People watched as the Republican party voted to end Medicare as we know it and she shoved that fact into EVERY single thing she did. Meanwhile, Welprin let Turner define the game and the campaign from entitlements to Israel. Rather that point out this was a distraction; he played Turners game.
At least, that’s the impression I’ve gotten from the aftermath stories I’ve read.
The Republicans ALREADY ran the Democrats are trying to do the same thing play with Hochul and it didn’t work then, why? (ETA and they did have POTUS making statement saying he supported sensible reform.) But it didn’t work, because the Republicans didn’t have Democrats validating the Republican and they had a bright light shinning on their candidate’s position which was the Republican position; Turner said he wasn’t going to vote with the Republicans on that issue. That is something ROMENY hasn’t done; and he’s the sanest of the crazy.
Corner Stone
We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Built this city, we built this city on rock and roll
Rhoda
@jwb: It was coming after the White House released the way they were paying for it: taxes raised on high income earners and corporations? The gas and oil folks in particular must have sprinted up to the Capitol; the disdain in Landrieu’s statement is clear.
Meanwhile, they are IMO irrelevant. President Obama is going to run on getting this passed or Congress killing it dead and if Congress includes Congressional Democrats that doesn’t really affect his game plan.
2012: every man and woman is in it to win it for themselves.
Jenny
NY-9 was about two things.. the freaking mosque and Israeli politics.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
How do you get unfucked, though, when the liar claims that he won’t cut SS or Medicare when it’s obvious to anyone with two functioning brain cells that he will, and that if we don’t address the issues in Medicare, and do something about the coming shortfall in SS to make it stronger, then one will go away and the other will be weaker than what people will be expecting? Should Democrats lie, too, because what I just stated won’t fit on any bumper sticker.
I would also argue that “We built Social Security, we’ve worked to contribute to Social Security, and we’re not going to gut Social Security” isn’t going to work very well because the very people who voted for Turner believe 1) that government causes problems, not solves them, and 2) that government is not involved in Medicare and SS.
And then there’s the fact that, as was pointed out this morning by mistermix, 4 out of 5 special elections in NY switched parties, even going against the voting standards of the district. You might have to watch how much weight you put into this election, or the one we won by running on SS/Medicare.
Spaghetti Lee
From what I’ve heard, Turner didn’t identify with the national Republican agenda and took care not to call himself a Republican. He didn’t talk much about SS/Medicare so much as teh Mosque/teh Israel. So I don’t think it’s fair to say that this means the Republicans have “won” on the SS/Medicare issue. The election kind of took place outside of that context.
And add into that, Weprin was a pretty weak candidate, the Weiner scandal was still looming over it all, etc. Like Rhoda said, NY-26 proves that the Dems can run by attacking the GOP on Medicare/SS, and that’s what they should look to as an example. Will they? Well, we all now they’re not the most competent organization on the block.
Jenny
@Rhoda:
Exactly.
In NY-26 the crazy blonde shikse slit her own throat by saying she wanted to kill Medicare. Turner didn’t.
Nevgu
Yawn…pretty sad attempt at drama. So desperate you actually try adopt the laughably horseshit right wing meme.
Omnes Omnibus
When you toss that kind of line into your post, it makes one wonder if you are interested in views that diverge from your own or if you want an echo chamber.
texascowgirl
@jwb:
I’m voting for Obama in 2012 and after that I am done with the Democrats. I will no longer want to be affiliate. With it’s politicians who are unable the support it’s presidents, no matter what they are up against and an emo base that is almost as unlikable as the GOP’s base, I’ve just had it. All NY-9 did was prove that Democratic voters can be as stupid, bigoted and capable of voting against their own best interests as Republican voters. The only reason to believe that Obama is anti-Israel or anti-Jewish is he’s black and his middle name is Hussein. They never liked him much. Anthony Wiener won that district by race baiting and Obama did much worse in 2008 than Kerry or Gore. But Democrats can’t be ever be racist so let’s not even go there. Obama/Biden 2012 and after that fuck ’em.
Jenny
So you would advise Elizabeth Warren not to court independent voters?
Omnes Omnibus
@texascowgirl: Then why vote for Obama/Biden? Why not just go ahead and give up right now?
G
@texascowgirl:
isn’t that the definition of the “Reagan Democrat”
I mean “was prove that Democratic voters can be as stupid, bigoted and capable of voting against their own best interests “
Triassic Sands
If you tell a long-term unemployed person that the US economy is “trembling on the brink of another recession,” my guess is you won’t connect — for millions of Americans the recession has never ended. I heard a discussion the other day by some economists who think the definition of recession has to be changed to agree with the obvious — the recession never ended.
We’re at zero risk of a double dip recession, because we never got out of the first one. I think that is consistent with the facts and the experiences of the average American.
Bruce S
The real issue here is that changing the inflation index for Social Security or raising the Medicare eligibility age is bad policy. One nickles and dimes people over benefits that aren’t huge to begin with and the other actually increases the cost of health care for seniors, not simply out-of-pocket but in aggregate. Just rotten policy, no matter what some of the math geniuses here will try to tell you about how limiting the COLA indexing doesn’t “cut basic benefits.” It does. The existing COLA is built into the basic benefits package. It’s like telling you that eliminating a COLA altogether doesn’t “cut basic benefits.” Weasel words. This is crappy policy, politics aside. Unless and until we’re taxing at least the % of the wage pool that Ronald Reagan thought he was fixing into the system – but which has been skewed downward by the increase in income inequality, don’t touch benefits. The only fix SS needs is to being income into the tax base on an equal basis. Anyone who even suggests cutting benefits – by crap like manipulating the COLA – before we make that “fix” should is on the wrong side of this issue.
LarsThorwald
If every election portended the fate of the losing party, then I’d be worried, but it does not.
beltane
The way I see it is that people are afraid, they’re paying a much larger percentage of their incomes on basic stuff like food, gas, heating, etc., and both parties seem indifferent to their suffering. Despair is starting to creep in. The Republicans’ “solution” to this is wildly unpopular, but no one thinks the Democrats mean it when they say they are different (I’m not talking about political junkies). Indeed, the centrist, neo-liberal Democrats with the most power are very much like the GOP without that extra helping of Jeebus sauce, and a lot of Dem leaning voters are feeling like their vote isn’t worth anything since they’re not the rich people whose whims are catered to. Yeah, the Republicans cultivate this type of cynicism but the Democrats play their part in it as well.
It’s the same in Europe, where you have so-called soshalist governments implementing vicious and counter-productive austerity measures with the same zeal as a Paul Ryan or a David Cameron. It’s like the global political class has all gone batshit crazy together.
Bad things happen in times like this. If and when a new political movement arises out of this, it will likely not bear any resemblance to the centrist corporate pablum that pundits like Tom Friedman think the American public is crying out for.
Triassic Sands
My sister just told me that she heard Orrin Hatch on the radio say that there could be no discussion of a jobs bill unless Obamacare is repealed. So far, I haven’t heard that, but it sounds plausible — for a Republican.
And if that’s true, I think the Republicans deserve credit for moving the insanity level way past “11.”
James E. Powell
I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked that there are Democrats who are already taking shots at their president’s jobs bill. But, still, I am. Looking back at 2010, looking ahead to 2012, do any of them really think damage to the president will not damage them? Do they prefer being in the minority?
Ron
@Corner Stone: You get a time out for quoting one of the worst rock songs ever.
beltane
@Triassic Sands: In the real world the recession never came close to ending. People have been forced to “tighten their belts” for the last three years without a break. Now they want to take those belts and whip someone with them.
magma
@Jenny:
One thing for sure: She needs to buy an old pickup truck.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@texascowgirl: This Texan will continue to vote Democrat because living in Texas shows me the nightmare of Republicans really running things.
Just remember, since the Republicans cut the firefighting budget – 75% for volunteer firefighters – even though we’re fighting more fires this year than ever before, in two years they will take it out of some other part of the budget, because there’s no way they’ll raise taxes on the rich to pay for it.
magma
@beltane: Sniff sniff-there’s a hint of Weimar in the air.
Jenny
Meanwhile, Obama is leading Perry Goldwater by 11 pts
http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_US_0913925.pdf
texascowgirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
Because I support Barack Obama and Joe Biden. I will no longer be registered as a Democrat after that. I will vote, but I won’t be a member of the Democratic Party. I’m not giving up on anything except identifying as a Democrat. I’m tired of the left and the right and no longer feel particularly comfortable with either side. My views haven’t changed just my attitude has. I think we’ve had as smart, decent and good a man in White House as possible and the way he’s been treated has worn me the fuck out, almost to the point where I wouldn’t blame if he served to the end of his term and went home voluntarily. Let the left find some other fantasy great liberal hope and leave this country to the fate it deserves and seems to be almost literally dying to have. I might check back in and maybe I was too naive to believe that things could have played out any other way to begin with, but emotionally, I’m empty right now. Other than voting for Obama because I think he deserves my vote, I’m out.
aisce
@ omnes omnibus
is that a serious question? because i’m gonna go ahead an assume she isn’t voting for the biden part of that combination, and leave it at that…
Jenny
@magma: I can’t vote for Elizabeth Warren.
I liked the idea of Senator Warren. But then Jane Hamsher said Warren would be a “terrible” senator and she’s more useful as a citizen.
Based on Jane’s recommendation I’m going to vote against Warren and instead contribute and vote for Scott Brown.
ant
@texascowgirl: nobody gives a rats ass who you’re voting for in 2016.
beltane
@magma: Is that what it is? Well, the situation in Europe is very disturbing. It’s been a while since we’ve seen such a flamboyant display of self-destructive incompetence. There is no possibility of this ending well.
handy
@texascowgirl:
If you bow out of the game like that you truly deserve that’s coming.
El Cid
Let your base die — at least you’re upholding your principles.
Hey, remember that time at debate camp when Ron Paul thought it would be American Heroic to let some asshole who hadn’t bought health insurance but then was struck down with a horrible malady die, and the swamp monsters attending cheered?
Funny thing, that.
So long, sucker! Thanks for all the fish! And also the $20 million you raised me! But now — time to die!
Obamacare killed him before it ever even existed.
Anya
Ann Lauri, maybe, just maybe you should not spread these memes and instead challenge them with the President’s own words. Remember when he made Ryan cry (it was such a smack down that he was even called a dick by that idiot on Morning Joe).
This is what the President said on Medicare:
On Social Security
Linda Featheringill
@texascowgirl:
Sounds like you’re suffering from what we used to call “burnout.” I don’t know what it’s called now.
You might want to take a break. Be good to yourself for a couple of weeks and avoid anything worrisome. Then look at things again.
There is a lot of discouragement in the US at this time. I haven’t decided if we could dispel it together or if everyone has to wrestle with this alone. Some things really are do-it-yourself and this may be one of them.
Good luck.
texascowgirl
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
See that’s just it. Emotionally, I can’t make myself care anymore. The Texas Firefighters Association endorsed Perry. And I’ll bet money they will vote for Perry in the general election because he’s not a Democrat and not black. I’ve had with thinking that I have vote to keep these people from the fate they choose. Perry ran on cutting government and cutting government services. WTF did they think that meant? The fact that they can’t get a clue and that even when they do it doesn’t matter has worn me the fuck out. Next week they will probably blame illegal Mexicans for starting the fires. I’m supposed to keep these people from the consequences of their actions, by voting for Republicans or not showing up to vote against them? Please, I’m done with all of that. I held my nose and voted for Bill White, even after he dissed Obama, but I know a lot of black people who didn’t and I won’t do it ever again. You know how black people haven’t forgiven the Republicans for the Southern Strategy? We won’t be forgetting how the Democratic Party and liberal Democratic base treated Obama either. I don’t want to feel this way forever, but I do right now. Obama/Biden in 2012 is all I’ve got for now.
Citizen Alan
@James E. Powell:
Yes, for Blue Dogs, being in the minority is better than being in the majority because you will never be put in the position of having to vote on something your own party really wants that the folks back home really don’t.
texascowgirl
@ant:
You shouldn’t call yourself a nobody.
handy
@El Cid:
The invisible hand of the free market can raise that man from the dead, if only he would put his faith and believe in it.
Anne Laurie
@Jenny:
Are you a Massachusetts voter?
ruemara
It’s always good to see progressives picking up the conservative framing of the issue and running with it. It makes the myth of bipartisanship seem like it really is just over the horizon. I can’t wait to hear more scintillating commentary about how Obama lost NY-9 and screwed Weprin out of a job. It should not matter about the ads that depicted Weprin with Obama in front of the smoking ruin of WTC. Nor Ed fucking Koch making robo-calls on behalf of the Republican. Nor the fact that Weprin actually won Brooklyn part and lost the Queens part of the district. No, it must be be the fault of that inadequate male.
Nutella
And instead of that we’ve had a load of idiots, up to and including the president, talking about ‘grand bargains’. They sold their patrimony for a mess of nothing at all. They should have been saying all along that Social Security is untouchable.
texascowgirl
@aisce:
Yeah, you leave it at that. If you’ve got something to say, just say it. Don’t imply it like a passive aggressive jerk. Let me guess. You don’t think I support Joe Biden because he’s got a bald spot? No wait, it’s because he talks a lot? Maybe because he stuttered as a child. Gee, I wonder what you could be implying?
texascowgirl
@ruemara:
And that’s why I’m burnt out. The progressive movement hasn’t moved America on anything in 30 damn years, but everything is Obama’s fault. Everything.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@texascowgirl: I find independents that always vote Republican annoying, and I find those that vote Democratic annoying as well. In the US, until one of the parties collapses, the only way you make something happen is within one of the two parties. Which is why the Teabaggers are obviously Republicans.
jwb
@texascowgirl: Texan here as well, and I’ll be voting straight Democratic ticket as I have every since I started voting. Washing your hands does nothing except help those you oppose. Calling your representative, working on campaigns, etc., all of those are positive actions you can take.
Divisions within both the right and the left are immense right now. Conservatives have been doing a fairly good job of redirecting that anger outward toward Democrats, even though it’s meant growing crazier. Look at that poll DougJ posted earlier tonight. Dems, by contrast, have been redirecting their anger at each other and the fault lines that run through the party. So we’re taking both opposition and friendly fire. Yay us! That’s no way to win.
gordon schumway
@Corner Stone:
We Built This Starbucks!
JerseyJeffersonian
Maybe this has escaped the notice of many folks, but I find it a questionable policy decision to reduce the payroll tax collections that fund SS/Medicare. If the rap is, “We’re totally behind these programs”, but you are in effect weakening them, there’s a cognitive dissonance that I can’t ignore. All this talk of things being on the table only tends to reinforce the distrust of the electorate that the Ds really mean what they say about the social safety net being inviolate.
handy
@texascowgirl:
Progressives aren’t running the Democratic party. Not by a long shot.
eemom
oh goodie. Woman As Victim poster-girl A L come along to rescue us from the vituperation of the last thread…..eager as ever to snatch relevance from the jaws of boring-as-shit.
Bruce S
#33 – Wow!
Paul’s praise of his “friend” has the hollow, hyocritical ring of Osama bin Laden paying tribute to one of al Qaeda’s suicide bombers. Any tinge of respect I might have had for Ron Paul for “sticking to his principles” is erased by that chilling reality. It’s also worth noting that if Snyder’s mother doesn’t pony up for his bill, the “free market” will pass the expense of treating Snyder – to the degree that he was, in fact, treated adequately – on to others who purchase insurance. Because, uh, you know…that’s what freedom is all about.
Of course, in a perfect Paul World, Snyder would have been denied treatment so that folks who buy insurance wouldn’t be forced to pay his bills. This is actually the left-winger Ronald Reagan’s fault, who signed the “Emergency Medical Treatment Act” that forced hospitals into what libertarians would define as “slave of the state status” by threatening them with fines if they refused to treat the uninsured who show up in emergency rooms. That was the beginning of “mandates.” What the ACA is trying to fix is rooted in Reagan’s screwing around with the free market and the individual rights of health care workers and their employers to refuse treatment to the acutely ill who can’t buy their health care either through insurance or out-of-pocket. I’m expecting the roots of this terrible injustice inflicted on our freedom will come up sooner or later in one of these GOP debates.
Anne Laurie
@eemom: Fortunately, we can count on Eemom to stay focused on what’s really important.
aisce
@ texascowgirl
that you’re a single candidate supporter and that the name of that guy is barack obama. let’s not pretend joe biden has anything to do with anything here.
Morzer
@eemom:
You know the Greeks are entirely to blame for this debacle and the most recent cluster-fuck of a thread, don’t you?
Bruce S
Texas Cow Girl – “You know how black people haven’t forgiven the Republicans for the Southern Strategy? We won’t be forgetting how the Democratic Party and liberal Democratic base treated Obama either.”
Don’t blame your own small-mindedness and incoherence on “black people.” That’s bullshit. And your hissy-fit here is crap. Pretty much the mirror-image of what you claim to be disgusted with. Grow the fuck up!
aisce
@ eemom
let’s not get into false victim posturing here, ms. “stop slandering the greeks! omgrageragerage!”
Jenny
@JerseyJeffersonian:
But Krugman supports it. Whatever Krugman says is good enough for me.
handy
@aisce:
Who’s Joe Biden?
El Cid
@handy:
The question is whether or not he asked the free market to forgive him his doubts before he died, and if so, what sort of payment plan was he offering it.
texascowgirl
@aisce:
How about you stop pretending like you know how I feel about Joe Biden. I actually like him very much.
I know exactly what you were implying and apparently still lack to courage to say. Even on the internet to a total stranger. You are nobody to me and I’m nobody to you, so move on.
ChrisNYC
Dave Weigel is a GOP troll.
Jenny
@Bruce S:I don’t know why people are harping on Texascowgirl.
Various “progressives” like Dan Choi say they won’t vote for Obama, yet I never see anyone take them to task.
handy
@texascowgirl:
texascowgirl needs to learn to aim that Colt 45 a little better before pulling it out of its holster.
ruemara
@Jenny:
Yes, but Dan Choi agrees with them and that’s what matters.
aisce
implying? no, i said it outright. joe biden has no relevance to any of your complaints as regarding the president and his treatment.
you’d happily vote obama/corpse-in-the-ground 2012. no sense in pretending there’s an equal partnership on that ticket.
texascowgirl
@Bruce S:
Looks like you are pretty good at hissy fits yourself. And unless you are black, you have no idea what kind of conversations we have about anything. For the most part we are very pissed off at the way he’s being treated and you should be afraid if I’m right. Democrats can’t win national elections without us. I think it’s high time you stopped taking that shit for granted.
magma
@Jenny:
Well, that seals it. Can’t blame you really-I must admit, he’s a damned handsome man.
Linnaeus
I wouldn’t say that at all. Folks like Choi get routinely labeled as emoprogs and firebaggers here. Both in comments and in blog posts.
Mark S.
@El Cid:
That is a beautiful story. This man is an inspiration. By dying young and bankrupting his family, he contributed to the greater good of fighting to make sure the Koch brothers don’t have to pay any taxes. As Jesus said, “No greater love than this, than to lay down you life so a rich man can keep more of his money” (or something like that).
Someday his pauper’s grave will be a shrine to capitalism.
Water balloon
To texascowgirld: The Left always abandons Democratic presidents/candidates. They abandoned Gore and voted for Nader because Clinton was too close to Wall Street. They primaried Carter in 1980. They hated LBJ and let that carry over into hatred of Hubert Humphrey in 1968, spending most of the campaign heckling him. they abandoned Truman in 1948, supporting Wallace.
In all those cases, there were good reasons to be mad at the incumbents and their successors, but the fact that it always happens shows that this kind of thing isn’t specific to Obama. The left just isn’t a reliable political ally.
El Cid
@texascowgirl:
I haven’t actually read the interchange, but that is a completely awesome line.
Jenny
@magma: I think it was very courageous of Jane to come out against Elizabeth Warren. That is why Jane is so admired and has such a large devoted following.
aisce
@ jenny
dan choi is a fame-addled lunatic who should be treated as discredited and irrelevant by anyone with any common sense. the president will be reelected easily, with or without the support of primadonna “activists.”
happy?
El Cid
@Mark S.: Let’s not forget that by having pneumonia continue on until fantastically expensive levels of mortality, he contributed to the growth of the GDP.
handy
@Jenny:
Maybe because Obama can’t do it all by himself. I mean, that’s what I keep reading on this blog from his breathless defenders here.
Corner Stone
@texascowgirl: Do you ever sometimes reconsider your position? Maybe reverse your position, if you will?
texascowgirl
@Jenny:
Nobody seemed to be upset about Michael Moore saying he didn’t know if he would vote for Obama or not, either. Go figure. Don’t hear anybody taking him to task for giving up, throwing a hissy fit and possible helping the Republicans win.
Jenny
@Linnaeus: Honestly. There are two factions here. Obama supporters far out number Obama critics.
The Obama critics never call out people like Choi and Aravosis when they implore people to sit on their hands.
But now that someone turns it around and says no more Dem support in 2016, that faction is suddenly shocked.
El Cid
@Bruce S: They don’t even mention that Ronald Reagan was responsible for their continual mewling about how so many Americans pay no income taxes because they are in lower income categories. It must have been some librul somewhere what did it.
Linnaeus
@Water balloon:
Assuming this for argument’s sake, part of the problem is that the American left – to the extent that there even is one – has borne the brunt of pretty withering attacks for well over a century now. From both major parties, although the Democratic Party tended to do so less and with less intensity than did the Republican Party.
Bruce S
#62 – bullshit. You’ve never heard anyone criticize Dan Choi for his antics? Texascowgirl is here telling us that she’s so emotional over the “emos” and so disgusted with Democrats not uniting that she’s leaving the party. It’s nuts. And to suggest that she’s speaking for “black people” with this BS is as insane as Cornel West telling me that he’s “speaking for black people” rather than as a lefty Princeton professor. This is just one sad sack’s bullshit. I really don’t give a shit what somebody “feels bad” about re: Obama, one way or the other. I have my own “emotional issues” regarding any number of things but I don’t parade them as political analysis. And I would never, ever launch an attack on the Democratic Party as some hopeless mess that’s beyond redemption and not worthy of my noble efforts. It’s crap. I feel that way sometimes, but don’t rag on “the left” and then basically play the same game that a handful – yes, literally a small handful – of pain-in-the-ass leftists have been honing. The reality is that Obama’s problems with “his base” are rooted in long-standing contradictions in the Democratic Party, as well as in his own political choices in the face of a very tough Beltway and economic landscape. It’s a tough job and a tough terrain. Obama is a fucking adult. The least his supporters – and his critics – can do is match his realism and seriousness. Who in their right mind would suggest that the only thing worth clinging to is Obama’s re-election and then, “I’m done!” That’s perverse and apolitical.
magma
@Jenny:
How true-when I grow up, I want to be an emoprog!
Bruce S
So you don’t even read this blog?
texascowgirl
@Water balloon:
Yeah, but I wasn’t alive then and I was too young to ever vote for Clinton. But do remember him basically being out there alone and having his strongest support coming from the AA community. I voted for Gore and Kerry. And I will support Obama. The history of the left is clear and they are useless. I said in my original post that I’m tired of how the Democratic Party and the left treats it’s presidents. I know the history. And to see it playing out again, I’m just sick of them. I wont stop voting or supporting candidates I like and generally agree with. But, I want nothing to do with the left anymore. I’m as pissed off and repulsed by them as the right. I expected the right to behave this way and given the history, I should have expected the same from the Democratic party and the left.
Linnaeus
@Jenny:
Okay, now I get what you mean. It sounded to me like you were arguing that the Choi-types were never “called out” by anyone on this blog, when in fact that’s a major sport here at Balloon Juice. Which I understand; I don’t think people like Choi are necessarily wrong on the issues, but it’s counterproductive to “sit out” elections and call for others to do so.
jwb
@Water balloon: Nor is the center. The Dems problem is that the President always ends up in a tug of war between center and left and the two sides seem to enjoy beating up on each other (and the President as a proxy) that they forget who their real opponent is. In normal circumstances, it’s merely annoying, but we’re sailing in very crazy waters at the moment and if we don’t improve our focus soon, not just the country but the whole damn world is going to be in for some major fuckery.
Anne Laurie
@Jenny:
I didn’t know Dan Choi ever read this blog.
texascowgirl
@Bruce S:
Yeah, I do. Been reading since 2008. Was there a post up today about Moore aside from ABL’s? Is there a post about Moore saying on national television that he might not vote for the president? Because I missed it. If he’s said it before today, I missed it. I don’t read every single thread or comment. Sue me.
Suffern ACE
@Water balloon: What Leftist’s supported Wallace?
ETA: Oh wait. The one who ran in 1948 not the one who ran in 1968…big difference. Gotta get my eyes checked.
Jenny
@Bruce S:
I didn’t say that. What I said is I’ve never seen Obama critics (in the best sense of the phrase) object when people like Choi, Aravosis, or frontpagers at FDL (etc.) say they won’t vote.
Mind you, I’m not criticizing the position, I’m simply point out the inconsistency of some on this blog.
If you can show me whee Obama critics on this blog call out the stay home in 2012 advocates, I’ll happily retract.
Bethanyanne
@beltane: I think that’s spot on. Lately I’ve been thinking about how the past decade fits into, say, the last fifty years. I wonder how long until the political thrashing we keep seeing crystallizes again for a few decades.
Water balloon
That’s why giving up or staying home is never a reasonable option. The right always votes. Even a disappointing Democrat is better than any but the most Bloombergian moderate Republican. Letting yourself get frustrated is exactly what your political opponents want.
Bruce S
texascowgirl – “And unless you are black, you have no idea what kind of conversations we have about anything.”
Don’t speak for black people with this crap you’re spreading. Of course black people are pissed off at a lot of shit related to how the GOP/TeaParty/FOX opposition is dealing with Obama. But the most egregious and IMHO unprincipled attacks on Obama from “the left” that anyone who isn’t an obsessive-compulsive on the internet actually knows about have come from his black “supporters” like Cornel West and Tavis Smiley. Get real…
Maybe you and Cornel and my mother-in-law can fight it out for the True Inside Spokesperson for “what black folk think.” Get in touch with me when you’ve got that worked out. Meanwhile, I know for a fact that your counsel to leave the Democratic Party after voting for Obama isn’t representative of the black electorate. You’re bullshitting and trying to shift the argument.
handy
@Jenny:
I denounce Stalin. And Farrakhan. Not just denounce. I reject them. Yes I do.
Bruce S
“Was there a post up today about Moore aside from ABL’s?”
I’m sorry – I forgot that unless a white person posts it, it didn’t happen…
Mino
Michael Moore is not going to vote for the Democrat. Right.
Well, for one, nobody believes it.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@aisce:
When has the vice president ever been an equal partner?
Chris
@Linnaeus:
This.
The “radical left” that rallied behind Wallace in 1948 had been a pretty powerful force for whipping up popular anger against the Wall Street types for the past half-century, from W. J. Bryan to Huey Long, from urban union members to rural farmers. Those guys were summarily purged from unions, the Democratic Party and other institutions in the late forties and early fifties, with liberals like Walter Reuther and Hubert Humphrey leading the charge.
I suppose it made sense in the name of the postwar consensus, but it bears mentioning that that’s how long it’s been since we’ve been able to stir up the kind of grassroots enthusiasm that powered the Progressive Era and the New Deal.
texascowgirl
@Bruce S:
I didn’t say I spoke for all black people. But if you think we aren’t sick and tired of how this president is being treated by the left and the right, you have confirmed my belief that you aren’t black and have no idea how we feel or what we talk about with each other. Ask all of the black people who got purged from DKos how they are feeling about the left right now. How many black people do you think are hanging out at the other lefty blogs like FDL and Huffington Post? How many black people do you think are feeling the netroots crowd right now? Listen to black radio. Go to black oriented political websites. Drop in on a black barbershop or church. If you think it’s just me and ABL, you have no idea what’s going on. We will be out in force for Obama in 2012, but it will be for him. Not for the Democrats of the left. I don’t care if that offends you or of you don’t believe it. We don’t like Republicans, but we also like the Democratic Party and the left a lot less too. You can keep your blinders on, but the sentiment is real and strong.
Jenny
@Mino: Why makes you say that? He campaigned for Nader in 2000 — did a nation wide college tour and hosted fundraiser for him. If he did it before, he can do it again. After all, there’s no difference btwn Bush and
GoreObama.Suffern ACE
@Mino: I don’t know how often he does. If I recall correctly, he did so in 2004 and 2008, but he was Nader in 2000. It is possible he was Nader in 1996. There will be some Nader in 2012, although probably not Ralph himself, since he’s 78 and whatnot.
Jay
From the Slate article:
“In two robocalls, (Ed) Koch promised voters…”
Ed Koch has TWO Twitter accounts. Two.
Bring on the meteor.
Anne Laurie
@Jenny:
Far as I know, Jane Hamsher doesn’t read this blog, either.
Maybe you should go over to FDL and “speak truth to power” where it might actually make an impression?
Turgidson
@Jenny:
No no no. Vote for Grover Norquist.
Morzer
@handy:
Your failure to denounce Mao is alarming and suggests radical tendencies imperfectly concealed.
magma
@Chris: Well observed
Mino
@Jenny: You think he didn’t learn his lesson? George Bush. Nuff said.
Bruce S
Note re #93:
Out of respect for West and Smiley’s seriousness and public persona, I refuse to equate Bill Maher’s tasteless snark with Cornel West and his pal’s undoubtedly-at-some-level righteously indignant attempt to hold Obama responsible for how bad things are right now for the unemployed and the poor. This is a serious issue, but their attacks have been too personal, too tainted with their own egotism and too couched in Obama’s blackness as somehow the issue that makes his failure to resolve intractable problems a betrayal. Of course there are other morons who say stupid things, but these are the only two guys whose names I could mention to some of the folks on our block other than my wife and not get a totally blank stare…
Bruce S
Texascowgirl – the meeting attended locally by several thousand people at a black church two weeks ago led by three members of the Progressive Caucus and joined by Nancy Pelosi tells me you don’t have a fucking clue what black folk who are involved in grassroots politics are thinking about.
Jenny
@handy: Laugh away, it’ll help with the pain when Obama supporters decline to support [insert future blog flavor of the month] in 2016.
And then people like you will write, why did Obama core constituencies stay home, what did we ever do to them.
Mino
I want to know just what the hell Dems will run on if Republicans can point to them as the ones who weakened SS and Medicare/Medicaid with any degree of truth.
Anya
@texascowgirl:
Are half blacks like me invited to these secret meetings when all the black people have these conversations? Why does your comment not seem genuine to me? I am getting a troll vibe from your comments.
aisce
precisely.
voting for “obama/biden” is such bunk, and was only deployed by someone who’s preemptively afraid of being called a cultist or obot on account of race. so, sensing weakness, i did just that. because i’m an asshole.
i would hope everybody would show greater favoritism to the president over the democratic party. the party is its usual shitty self. the president is rather more exceptional, i would think.
and i’d probably vote for obama/corpse-in-the-ground in 2012 myself. that would be the best vice presidential debate ever.
Marc
Is this horseshit about claims that Obama will be cutting Social Security never going to end?
Maybe it would be useful if so-called liberals weren’t running around screaming “OBAMA IS GOING TO CUT YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY”….with zero, I mean zero evidence.
He has talked about Medicare and Medicaid, for good reason and for the same reason that Krugman and everyone else does: we can’t sustain that rate of cost increase.
The online left has gotten delusional – no spending cuts ever, no changes in Medicare ever, and running around yelling about being betrayed before anything even happens. I’m developing complete intellectual contempt for what is passing for thought here. Demogoging entitlements and the president is making everything you describe worse, and yet there is an enthusiastic cadre trying their best to convince everyone that the sky is falling. No, we can’t cut payments to Big Pharma or raise the SS cap! Those would be CHANGES TO ENTITLEMENTS AND OBAMA IS SELLING US OUT.
Christ.
And, yea, don’t be surprised if leftists find out that their candidates and causes get a hostile reception from AAs…who remember their hysterical behavior about Obama.
OzoneR
@Jenny:
she didn’t, did she?
Morzer
@Mino:
We weakened them less. Death by a thousand cuts, rather than one act of brutal butchery. You know it makes sense.
Take your pick. Any or all of the above.
Anya
@Mino: How many Dems voted for the Ryan plan?
Water balloon
@Chris: and yet LBJ was able to institute the great society in the 60’s.
Yutsano
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Methinks some folks left the attitude adjusters in their other jeans tonight. This blog is downright nasty this eve.
texascowgirl
@Bruce S:
Did I say they would leave in mass? You need at least 90% of our votes to win. How many of us staying home do you think it would take? As Bill White down here in Texas about that. But fine, know the black community better then I do.
OzoneR
@ruemara:
other way around, he won Queens, lost Brooklyn
Morzer
@Water balloon:
But that precedes the real break with labor, which came in the 70s.
Mino
And I realize Obama is up against a conservative majority in both houses, between the Republicans and the Blue Dogs. Maybe it is better not to scare people when so little is probably going to be enacted.
OzoneR
@texascowgirl:
You know, I work with a lot of black people, and I hear this ALOT.
texascowgirl
@Bruce S:
And would that be for 2012? You know the the election in which Barack Obama will be at the top of the ticket? Yeah, I’ll be working to reelect him too.
Jenny
@Anne Laurie: Jane makes an excellent case.
Elizabeth Warren will be co-opted if she enters the system. She can only be effective in holding both parties accountable by being outside the system.
We’re not against Warren, to the contrary, we want her to continue her good work, which can only occur from staying out of the system.
texascowgirl
@Anya:
You mean half black people, like Barack Obama and some of my family members? Sure.
Suffern ACE
@OzoneR: I hope not. Seriously, no one these days is better off remaining a citizen…I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone who could avoid it.
Morzer
@Jenny:
Elizabeth Warren isn’t going to hold anyone accountable from a Harvard classroom. Sorry, but the idea of a romantic rebel staying aloof in purity, miraculously conjuring up a movement (with what platform, what backing, what finances?) and winning the day only works in movies, or in whatever passes for the mind of FireDogLake these days. Yves Smith has been peddling this line too about how the saintly Elizabeth must be saved from the evil Obama and the evil Democrats – and it’s based on nothing but fantasies.
aisce
let’s face it, any minority group that has 30% of its members living in poverty, in any country on the planet, has no leverage politically. it’s an empty threat.
think things couldn’t get any worse or uglier? history says otherwise. that 30% could turn into 50% in a hurry if democrats aren’t required to occasionally pretend to care about black welfare.
magma
@Jenny:
You see, it’s a paradox.
texascowgirl
@OzoneR:
If these cats want to keep their heads in the sand that’s fine.
Bruce S
texascowgirl – do whatever the fuck makes you feel good about yourself. If that includes attacking the Democratic Party for the way it’s treated Obama – or something…not much of this makes any sense – go ahead on.
Moving right along – does anyone in their right mind think that Michael Moore would be doing Obama any favors if he went on TeeVee and talked about how totally satisfied he was with what the President has done. My guess is that if the White House could write speeches for Michael Moore, they would come up with left-wing attacks on the President, just to keep this character at arms length in the eyes of the media, which is where Moore lives. This is just a ridiculous snitfit. “Michael Moore said…!!!” He’s Michael Moore, for Christ sake.
Linnaeus
@Yutsano:
One of the downsides of coalition politics.
Yutsano
@Linnaeus: Or something.
texascowgirl
@aisce:
That’s the exact attitude we are getting sick of.
Mino
@Marc: Well, I don’t think the left invented the chained COLA. Where did that come from?
And don’t equate Medicare cuts to providers with raising the age of qualification. Where did that come from?
Ask the social workers how that new and improved Welfare to Work is improving the lives of children depending on food stamps.
We’ve seen this movie.
Bruce S
TexasCowGirl – “and that would be for 2012”
No, that was about a jobs bill (before the President gave his speech), about the outlines of the Progressive Caucus agenda and about Nancy Pelosi and the solid core of liberal Democrats holding the line against spending cuts that hurt people. It was about real stuff that impacts real people – a political agenda that deals with the hurt – not simply clapping louder for 2012 as the cure-all and only thing worth concerning oneself with. Okay. I’m through. This has gone past any sane person wanting to continue to sort through the back-and-forth.
Mino
@Morzer: YES. The Democratic Party let its core be seduced away. It has become more and more hollow. And Labor was co-opted by Republicans without ever having a voice in the party’s policies.
aisce
@ texascowgirl
i’m really sorry that three centuries of racism, slavery, and terrorism has left the black community without a lot of options. the world is unfair.
but you know your threat is meaningless just as much as i do. black nationalism didn’t exactly work out too well the last time it was put out there. barring racial secession, you’re kinda stuck with the dems for life. at least on the state and national level.
Morzer
@Mino:
Right, Labor was turned from blue-collar union workers into something not too far from indentured peons, with wages ground down, benefits cut and jobs outsourced. The Democratic party hasn’t fought hard enough, often enough to convince the folks who saw their lives eroded that it would offer them anything worth having.
texascowgirl
@Bruce S:
LOL! And you said I was diverting the conversation. Now Michael Moore is playing 11-dimensional chess? Obama sent out a memo to him and other emoprogs to say bad things about him on television so that independents will see him as a moderate? That’s good. What’s the matter? You thought too hard about how many black people would not have been at that grassroots meeting if Obama wasn’t on the top of the ballot in 2012? Thought about how many of them were there for him and not for the left or the Democratic Party? Scarred you a little about our turnout in 2016 if Obama isn’t reelected and we are as mad at the left as we are at the right? Thought about how you can’t win if we don’t show up to give you at least 90% of our votes. Good. You may not like me or what I have to say, but the next time you see or hear someone on the left bashing Obama with the same disrespect and disdain as anything that could be seen on FOX News, you think about what the black lady having a hissy fit on Balloon Juice told you. We see it and hear it too and we are sick of it and we don’t care who’s doing it.
Jebediah
@Jenny:
I too am out of the system, but every time I try to propose or vote on Senate bills, I just get ignored. I wonder if maybe I would be a more effective Senator if I were actually in the Senate? Naw, I’ll just go along with Jane “Me and Grover Down By The Foolyard” Hamsher.
Jenny
@aisce: so white liberals have the luxury of staying home or voting for Nader, but blacks have no choice.
keep saying that, keeping taking the black vote for granted, and then you’ll wonder why blacks don’t show up in 2016.
Morzer
@Jenny:
If you want to cut off your nose to spite your face, just do it. Stamp your foot and punish the wicked liberals – and when you’ve got the GOP running the show full-time you’ll be able to look back and remember just how you helped to bring that happy state of affairs to pass. Doubtless it will be a proud and happy moment as you bask in the libertarian paradise.
stormhit
I so wish you’d just start your own idiotic blog instead of posting here.
texascowgirl
@aisce:
Who said anything about black nationalism? The Democrats need high black turnout and 90% of the black vote to win elections. If black turnout is down, the Democrats are screwed. That’s not a threat. You take Obama out of the equation and the Democrats might not have won in 2008. You only get 40%-43% or so of white voters or less in any given election.Democrats don’t have a lot of options outside of us either.
Let’s get something clear. The main turnoff for black people with Republicans is racism, not policies. I’m very liberal on most things, but most black people aren’t. We don’t vote Democratic because it’s the most liberal party, we vote for Democratic because it seems to be less filled with people that hate us. If that perception ever changes within even just a minority of black people, say 15-20%, the Democrats have problems. So let’s not act as if the need is one sided.
fuckwit
We are headed into a very dark time. This is going to be a repeat of the 1930s and 1940s, but with drones and nuclear weapons and electronic surveillance and hacking.
I don’t see any way out. Europe is going down the same toilet.
The elites have totally fucked up, continue to actively fuck up worse, on purpose, and, via propaganda and control of the media, have convinced the average voter that the whole clusterfuck is the fault of the people who are actually trying to help fix it.
I’m not even scared anymore. I’m…. kind of in shock, just waiting for the moment of impact.
It’s like if you’ve ever been in a serious car/bike/airplane/industrial accident. There’s a moment where you’re all “OH SHIT”, there’s a moment where you are frantically acting to try to save yourself, and then there’s a moment where you know you are going to die (or at least get very, very hurt), there’s nothing you can do, and you just kind of accept it. That’s how I feel now. This is out of my hands. We’re going down.
Mino
@texascowgirl: Uh, it doesn’t bother you that they are mostly batshit insane?
Jenny
@Morzer:
Lecture me all you want.
Yet people like you won’t lecture Choi, Aravosis, Michael Moore, and the unusual suspects who say stay home and teach the Democrats a lesson in 2012.
Funny that.
Chris
@Mino:
In fairness and despite my earlier point, a lot of that was a backlash against the sixties – which is to say, purely racial, with some cultural anxieties thrown in. I don’t know that it could’ve been prevented at all, but with all the Huey Long types politically dead and buried for thirty years, there was no economic (e.g. left wing) populist narrative to compete with the cultural/racial (e.g. right wing) populism the Goopers have been using since the late sixties to attract working-class whites.
Yutsano
@Jebediah:
Holy cwap that’s awesome.
Bruce S
140 – aisce: Black politicians and the black electorate play a significant role in shaping the current party. We are all – those of us who identify with the working class or historically marginalized groups – used to getting shafted by the Democrats to some degree – it’s a broad and contradictory coalition and working class people, poor people and increasingly middle class people struggle to keep their “place at the table.” There is no “left” option in America, and increasingly no viable left option anywhere as Europe retrenches politically and economically. But black people are not simply victims who go hat-in-hand to the Democrats. Black Democrats are political actors who have helped to shape the party and provide a strong foundation for the party’s liberal and “left-liberal” wing. The civil rights movement transformed the Democratic Party in the 1960s rather dramatically. This issue of “where can black folk go politically” is no more or less problematic than the fact that the labor movement has never had an independent political voice in the US.
The characterization of the Democratic Party as some place where black folk go simply because they feel they have no options also a GOP/FOX meme.
The fact that out-spoken black Democrats are the strongest base for the party’s “left” and it’s core of “critical supporters” from the explicitly “progressive” wing – such as it is – makes a lot of what we’ve read as the self-anointed “black perspective” in this thread come off as politically naive, individualistic histrionics and ahistorical.
Morzer
@Jenny:
If you think you’ll enjoy Republican rule more, go for it. Knock yourself on trickle-down economics. It’s worked so well for this country after all. I am sure you’ll have great fun in President Palin’s country.
texascowgirl
@Jenny:
Right. Gays can send a message to Obama. Jews can send a message to Obama. Ultra-liberals can send a message to Obama, but us black folks, we don’t have any options. We must show up and vote for Democrats no matter what. Especially, to make up for everybody else who gets to stay home or vote Green Party in any given election because they are pissed off at Democrats. Got it.
Hey, The black mayor of Toledo is an Independent! He seems like a jerk, but didn’t anybody tell him he’s not allowed to do that! Didn’t anybody tell him he was stuck with the Democratic Party?
aisce
i would say that wealthy white people have the luxury of doing whatever they want mostly, but i’m not sure what nader has to do with anything.
considering that i’m the guy who admitted to being cool with voting for a dead person as vp, you might want to consider the possibility that i’m not operating in good faith here.
i’m just waiting to see when you idiots catch on to the fact that after all this bitching about nasty emoprogs sabotaging the president and the party and not voting, the new counter-threat is to…not vote and turn against the party. sublime.
i look forward to the magical day when white people and black people can join hands in their mutual contempt for president suarez.
fuckwit
Texascowgirl == Samara?
aisce
dear god. that might be the most chilling statement i’ve ever heard.
MattR
@fuckwit: Nope. Way too coherent. And 90% sure Samara is white.
Jenny
@Morzer: Payback is a bitch. You guys are going to rue the treatment of the black vote.
Yutsano
@MattR: Rich spoiled white girl. And she never hides the fake Muslim persona very well.
Chris
Maybe one day… After all, plenty of Irish, Italian, Polish and other “ethnic whites” whose communities were historically treated like shit have been happy to hold hands with the WASP community in hating black people. If (when, I hope) the black community ever reaches that level of comfort in society, I have no doubt at all that you’d see the same thing. And someone else would get to be the new bogeyman.
I wish there was a way to change society so that we didn’t need a bogeyman at all, or so that civil rights didn’t lose their appeal for a ton of people the minute they no longer needed them… but I suspect that would require a change in human nature of completely utopian proportions. Unfortunately.
Morzer
@Jenny:
Not as much as you rue your tantrum.
Elie
@Water balloon:
The real consequence of that to lefties though, is that since they cannot trust the lefty/progressives, the Democratic Presidents look for votes in the center. The so called “intellectual and sophisticated” lefties can’t figure out how to stop driving Presidents away from them. In some circles, that would be called “stupid”.
Just sayin
Bruce S
#147 – “The main turnoff for black people with Republicans is racism, not policies. I’m very liberal on most things, but most black people aren’t.”
This is not an evidence-based assertion. Of course quite a few black folks happen to be socially conservative on certain issues – which is based in the prevalence of conservative theology among many black churches – but most black people also support liberal economic policies, a strong role for the federal government, government social and safety-net programs, and they tend to put a priority on those issues in the political arena, despite major efforts by the Christian Right to split them off using “wedge” social conservatism. It hasn’t worked and it won’t. “Black conservatism” that might translate into significant support for the GOP’s economic and anti-government agenda is a fantasy.
Irony Abounds
I completely understand why someone would not want to be associated with the Democrats. They are corporate whores and ignore sensible ideas to play special interest politics. On the other hand, I can not comprehend how any thinking person can contemplate associating with the Republicans. They are soulless craven hacks, even greater corporate whores than the Democrats and totally batshit crazy. It really is a choice between being beaten slowly and being totally pummeled quickly and decisively.
I truly believe that radical moderation is the answer, and by that I mean pursuing reforms that are not based on conservative or liberal ideology but practical common sense untainted by special interests. For example, on tax reform, lower rates with less special interest credits/deductions would help everyone in the long run. Quit social engineering with the tax code and let it serve the purposes it is supposed to serve: providing the government with sufficient revenues to perform the functions it needs to provide.
Social Security: overall means testing defeats the underlying purpose and sets the table for eventual repeal. However, providing differing levels of COLA adjustments based upon income and/or wealth preserves the basic integrity of the system, saves money and avoid the problem of wealthy retirees making the same as middle class folks.
Medicare: increasing the eligibility age is just plain stupid, but cost savings have to be found. Push the system into a Mayo Clinic type format and get rid of fee for service. That alone could save enough money to avoid future problems. In any event, unless the cost of health care is reduced, it doesn’t really matter whether Medicare is saved, either the country or its citizenry will be broke (or dead).
No real solutions will be found as long as each party panders to the their extreme base (again, the Republicans are by far the biggest offender).
Elie
@aisce:
well you be the cold bitch tonight!
go get ’em little girl….yeah — us blacks are just doomed to be democrats.
Frankly, I think that whole new coalitions will be forming with the changing demographics and Latinos are going to have an incredibly high influence. In a coalition, they could make very powerful allies.
Lots of things coming up…there will be a lot of jokeying.
I personally will never stay home. Never. Black folks died for the vote. Suffered for the vote.
No way.
MattR
@Elie:
As did white folks, many years previously. Not really trying to be snarky or trying to diminish your point. Just want to add that people across the spectrum have made great sacrifices for the right to have a say in the way they (and their descendants) are governed and it is not something that any of us should take for granted.
(Edited slightly)
Mino
@Elie: I wasn’t following politics too closely during Carter. Just what did he do to enrage the progressives? I know he deregulated a few things. Did that set them off?
I know exactly why progressives turned on Clinton. But they couldn’t punish him so they punished Gore. Ouch. Didn’t work out too well there.
Mino
@aisce: considering that i’m the guy who admitted to being cool with voting for a dead person as vp, you might want to consider the possibility that i’m not operating in good faith here.
Ok, I give. Who?
Bruce S
#155 – tcg has carefully evaded the FACT that the strongest core of liberal critics of the generic “Democrats”‘ penchant for compromise-at-any cost, being half-assed and/or mealy-mouthed, cravenly pro-corporate when the chips are down, etc. etc. happen to be tough, pragmatic, outspoken African-American elected Democrats who in many respects are the heart and soul of the party’s “left” such as it is. All of this unhinged “left-bashing” as though the actually-existing Democratic “left” is a bunch of white boys on TeeVee or the Internet who disrespect Obama and demean his race and are driving black folk away from the Party is nonsense.
aisce
obama/corpse-in-the-ground 2012. it was a joke.
MattR
@aisce: But what about Obama/Ashes-in-an-urn 2012?
William Hurley
The chance to primary Obama is rapidly fading.
Will you remember where you were on the evening of Nov 8, 2012 when Obama is treated to an H.W. Bush style electoral beatdown?
Will you remember that giving the Oval Office to Rovian Koch-heads was easily preventable?
Yutsano
@aisce:
If you’re explaining, you’re losing.
@MattR: I don’t believe in split tickets.
@William Hurley:
It never existed. Except in your fevered imagination.
Mino
@Bruce S: Word. Give me any one of them over Steney.
Bruce S
“I personally will never stay home. Never. Black folks died for the vote.”
This should be drilled into everyone’s consciousness – black, latino, white, whatever – from an early age. The greatest hope to change our politics isn’t via some legislative scheme like campaign finance reform, welcome as that would be, but to expand the electorate and simply have more people show up who don’t currently vote. The liberal ideas have more broad generic popularity, but the GOP is better at leveraging their base in actual elections. That’s the single biggest problem with our politics.
AA+ Bonds
hahaha are you people seriously cracking jokes about Joe Biden dying, I take back everything
Mino
@William Hurley: There is absolutely no chance, so don’t sweat it.
Water balloon
@Elie: Well we’re only talking about 4% of the population here. Enough to matter in a close election and create a lot of noise on websites that get about 50,000 visitors per day, but not even a majority of self described liberals. But even so, I’d say at this point Obama is having less trouble with these people than most other incumbent Democrats, was my original point. No primary, no third party candidate as far as I can foresee. Just a lot of grumbling and complaining, which is fine.
AA+ Bonds
Can I put this any clearer?
Joel Pollak, the asshole Dave Weigel quotes for this story, is a Breitbart smear writer.
He is the people that got put on Shirley Sherrod.
He works for BigGovernment.com, aka Andrew Breitbart, aka James O’Keefe.
This is a propaganda piece by Weigel, former and future Koch employee, about the effectiveness of Koch’s machine.
It serves up lies about what the Republicans will do to entitlements and you post it on your Democratic website.
You are doing their work for them, ma’am.
Why the FUCK would you people read something by Dave Weigel? Why the fuck would you reproduce it?
FlipYrWhig
I like how now we have to wring our hands and worry about how it was the always-looming inevitable Social Security backstab that doomed the Democrat in this district, and pretend that the Democrat being quoted in the piece — Hikind — isn’t a rabid anti-gay, anti-Muslim bigot trying to disown responsibility for what he made happen. Maybe the ticket to victory for Democrats is to lavishly praise the wonders of Social Security but then to explain how if you vote for the right kind of Democrat you get to stick it vicariously to subhuman Muslims and queers. I wonder what the other anti-gay New York Democrats have to say about how to win the next election and who should count as The Base.
FlipYrWhig
@Bruce S:
Help me out. Name one person who fits this profile.
MattR
@FlipYrWhig: I finally glanced at the article and found this quote from Joel Pollack particularly amusing (emphasis mine)
@AA+ Bonds: If your comment at 181 hasn’t swayed them, why would this one? Were you actually expect someone to respond in a 6 minute timespan at 2:30 am?
AA+ Bonds
THIS IS A PROPAGANDA PIECE BY A DOG OF KOCH. YOU ARE BEING LIED TO.
Seriously, you post about how this shit ruins the country every day, why would you turn around and further it? Don’t post Dave Weigel’s bought crap. He literally works for the propaganda arm of the other party.
Yutsano
@FlipYrWhig: Cornell West. You knew that was coming, amirite?
FlipYrWhig
@MattR:
Hmm. That sounds like a flaw in Anne Laurie’s whole premise that the loss indicates Democrats drifting too far _right_ on social welfare programs.
Bruce S
#142 – tcg – if you think the White House wants Michael Moore out there on The View or whatever talking about how Obama is the realization of his commie dreams, you really are totally delusional. You’ve schooled me on nothing, other than that you’re self-centered in your notions and are extremely unreliable as an arbiter of “what black people think”, which is a problematic notion to begin with. One thing that I can assure you, if we’re reaching for the broad demographic trends in discussing certain issues, is that “what black people think” has absolutely nothing to do with anything that’s ever transpired on Daily Kos.
MattR
@FlipYrWhig: I think it is a better indicator that Pollack is delusional or full of shit.
FlipYrWhig
@Yutsano: I know of some high-profile black critics of Obama, sure, including West, but the suggestion was that “elected” black Democrats were the core of Obama criticism, and I don’t know who that would be. I’m not saying it’s not true, I just want to know who we’re talking about here.
AA+ Bonds
@Bruce S:
The Kochs clearly want you motherfuckers arguing about bullshit or they would not be running “stories” like this one fed through Dave Weigel from his shitty Koch-embedded life context, where we get to hear about what happened from Joel Pollak, who is a hack smear writer for Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com
Chris
@Bruce S:
And to some extent, we’re a victim of our own success there. The New Deal state created a safety net that even in its present condition shields millions of people from having to live through what was basically standard fare for most of human history (people dying in the streets, shitty working conditions, etc).
A lot of us have grown up in that society, don’t know anything else, can’t conceive of anything else, and so can afford, or think they can afford, to ignore politics as just so much noise (in a way that their grandfathers who organized into unions and popular movements couldn’t).
Bruce S
#183 – FlipYrWhig: I’m astonished. Boy, you truly do need help. Start with the chairman of the Black Caucus, Emmanuel Cleaver. Then you can skip over to the co-chair of the Progressive Caucus, Keith Ellison. That’s for starters…
Do you know anything about the Democratic Party? Do you follow political debate or discussion of the core issues like defense of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and who is talking about the liberal agenda with the most fervor and passion among elected Dems?
Cornel West has nothing to do with my comments. He’s on the fringes.
AA+ Bonds
@MattR:
I expect to post this in a few different variations a few more times so that more and more people can pick up on the conversation-ender for this story and thank you for the help, by the way. Breitbart shits the bed, got to clean it up.
As in, this isn’t a real story, this is the Republican propaganda machine, working on Balloon Juice like a charm.
Mino
@MattR: Heh. Well, that is a pretty good clue.
AA+ Bonds
“Let’s ask the special election loser Joel Pollak what he thinks of this election? He’s working with Andy down at the Breitbart Tug-n-Rub you say? Well sure, Mr. Koch, just email it to my Rolodex!” –Dave Weigel, coating his spongy dingus with petroleum jelly
Bruce S
#190 – “the suggestion was that “elected” black Democrats were the core of Obama criticism”
Read what I wrote. You’re twisting it. Unlike some of the “emos” here, I’m not obsessed with “Obama criticism.” I’m concerned with a core of strong Democrats who defend a solid liberal agenda. That will entail some differences with the White House. If you haven’t heard folks from the Black and Progressive Caucuses making noises more complex than “What he said!” in reference to Obama, you haven’t been paying attention. It’s consistent and clear, coming from the black congressional Democrats, from Dems like Raul Gravilja, and others that they see their job as pushing best policies, not simply rubber-stamping the President. This is the tension inside the Democratic Party from the actual congressional “left” and it’s real.
Sorry if my tone is “off” – but these black Dems have been out in front, along with Bernie Sanders and a few others in putting their core issues at the center, rather than some vague notions about Obama this-or-that.
Mino
@FlipYrWhig: …the suggestion was that “elected” black Democrats were the core of Obama criticism, and I don’t know who that would be.
No, that wasn’t my reading of the comment. I understood it to say that a large core of the progressive caucus was black and they were more reliably progressive than many others.
AA+ Bonds
Literally everything everyone posts here for or against Obama is working in favor of the Kochs, and their money, which will be brought to bear in May in primary season to ban not only gay marriage but civil unions in North Carolina, which happens to be the state where the President is leading the national convention for your party next year.
Realize you’ve been had and walk away from this thread. Figure out what you’ve learned from the experience and prepare to apply it in the months ahead.
Anne Laurie
Breitbart managed to destroy ACORN, and would’ve done the same to Shirley Sherrod if she hadn’t had the guts to stand up & fight back. If we ignore this Repub smear — “the Dems won’t protect the safety net, so you might as well vote Republican, since we’re against all the wedge-issue stuff that makes you nervous” — then the Kochsuckers win. Democrats need to stand up and make a counter-argument; Obama wants to strengthen Social Security/Medicare/Medicaid, not gut them in favor of some bankster ponzi scheme. Pretending we’re too noble to wrestle the lying pigs of the Republican filth machine is not an effective tactic, as my senior Senator, John Kerry, can attest.
AA+ Bonds
@Anne Laurie:
Yet, I look around here, and I see the actual effect of a Koch piece: a bunch of Democrats getting pissed off at each other.
You need your own filth machine. You don’t need to be standing under the shit chute of theirs. Don’t let their stories start your conversations. Any story that starts with a Joel Pollak quote – that is not the story where you want to use the multi-paragraph blockquote.
handy
@AA+ Bonds:
It’s Balloon Juice Jake.
Anne Laurie
@FlipYrWhig:
The quote’s from a Rethug strategist trying to shift that notorious Overton Window. Our job, as Democrats, is to stand up and remind the low-information voter that President Obama does not intend to enable the banksters’ right-wing framework. When our enemy says ‘Obama would be wise not to drift further left’, we need to say ‘He’s not drifting, and if he were, it wouldn’t be in your direction, Kochsucker.’
AA+ Bonds
@handy:
You people have a limited time in which you can turn this into the anti-Republican hate machine you need your media outlets to be for 2012. It is time to start moving.
AA+ Bonds
Here’s your next Koch story . . . Sim sim sala bim: the NLRB vote.
What you need to start doing is personally attacking these people as the whores that they are. You want to parry their attacks on Social Security? Do you really?
Don’t start thinking about how you can parry. Parrying is for inbred French fuckers with waxed mustaches. Point out that Dave Weigel is a crooked hack and Joel Pollak is a bug-eyed stalker. Point out that all of these people are ugly, stupid, hateful crooks.
Attack, attack, attack, attack.
PurpleGirl
@MattR: And isn’t using M_C/…SM’s usual misspellings or private abbreviations and her code words.
handy
@AA+ Bonds:
The media outlets aren’t up for bids on that one I’m afraid. But I do what I can to educate people I know buy into the latest rightwing nonsense. It’s not as satisfying as calling them Teabaggers and racists and morans, but then I guess I’m naive enough to think people can change their minds when given enough of the right information.
And I don’t handwring or write GBCW posts because certain people on a blog said mean things about Obama.
AA+ Bonds
Here’s your line: “Republicans want to end Social Security. If you vote for the Republicans, Social Security will end. Medicare will end. Medicaid will end.”
“Rick Perry wanted to secede from the country. Rick Perry will kill all of us.”
Do you have enough guts to repeat that, out loud, everywhere, for the next thirteen and a half months? Do you have the courage to do so in mixed company, to the point that many people will actively dislike you who otherwise would enjoy your company?
Then you have a chance against Breitbart and the Kochs, who, you may have noticed, are more comfortable crawling around in the sewers on their bellies.
AA+ Bonds
@handy:
You can’t educate shit. People are not on the fence because they are uneducated. Independents who seesaw back and forth from one party to another respond not to creed but to tone.
You need to get people angry, afraid, resentful. Because there is some real shit to be afraid of on the horizon. Rick Perry is either plagued by religious hallucinations or he is a serial prevaricator, a conscienceless psychopath.
But the only ones working those emotions are Republicans, and Democrats turn around and “educate” and “parry” and “counter” the talking points. People completely missed the message about the “reality-based” community: the boast was that the Republicans make their delusion reality by never acknowledging criticism.
If you think they’re deluded, and I do, why acknowledge theirs? Go for the throat, because the voters came for the blood.
How can I put this? This is a media outlet.
handy
@AA+ Bonds:
Right. Telling your seesaw independents that Rick Perry is going to kill them is a winning strategy. Don’t get me wrong. It feels good to say it. Might even be true (as opposed to Romney–would he be any less of a disaster?) But people believe things like medicare is broken because they hear it ad nauseum and no one actually tells people in any tone, angry other otherwise, that what they are hearing is misinformation at best.
JenJen
@El Cid: Wow, I’d forgotten all about the death of Kent Snyder, which was pretty well reported at the time. In the Gawker comments, someone was speculating on the cause of his death and I recall having the same thought in 2008 — Kent Snyder was openly gay, and he died from pneumonia, not a terribly common cause of death for a man his age, but it is pretty common for those suffering from advanced HIV disease. Complete speculation, but it would be even more tragic to learn that the pre-existing condition he had that made his insurance premiums skyrocket was advanced HIV disease, or AIDS. Without insurance, HIV treatment is outrageously expensive, but there are many free clinics in the big cities that provide the medicine he would have needed, and if he didn’t live near or was willing to relocate to a large city, every state offered PCIP insurance. I shudder to think that there’s a possibility his death was even more needless than it appears on first glance. That’s a sad story, and all too sickeningly common in our country.
AA+ Bonds
@handy:
You still don’t get it. You need to make the story into “Is Rick Perry going to kill us? Or is that a partisan talking point?” And: “how will the Republicans respond to the accusation that they will, quote, ‘end Social Security’? Up next on blah blah blah.”
That is what they do and that is how they win. Say outrageous shit that happens to be true, or doesn’t.
When you talk like that, you’ll win who you’ll win and you’ll lose who you’ll lose but those people are not seeking the truth. They are pseudo-Democrats and you need them to be Democrats in 2012. They are one of two states: aroused or catatonic. As I said: tone, not creed. Certainly not content.
Yutsano
@JenJen: Not for nothing, but puppeh discussion two threads up. Needs moar Lord Stanley’s tableware pics.
Most gay men would think PCP almost immediately in that situation. And possibly be right, since that is a pneumonia. But it’s speculation. There must have been some severe interventions for that huge a hospital charge.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@texascowgirl: Don’t give up.
Politics isn’t life. TV and the Internet aren’t reality.
Stay involved, and write your representatives and make sure they know what you think is important.
Most of us can only take so much drama before we have to step away. But recognize that Obama’s opponents are working very hard to make his supporters walk away (voter suppression, etc., etc.). You have as much rich to choose your leaders as they do. Don’t let them win by default.
Parties only change through the actions of those who show up. If you want elected democrats to change, you have to participate (by doing more than voting).
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Lojasmo
@aisce:
There isn’t an equal partnership. People, by and large, vote for president, not VP.
Unless it’s a Lieberman, I will be voting for Obama/whomever. (and yes, I voted for Gore)
El Cid
It was Lawrence O’Donnell who bragged to Rachel Maddow how Clinton ram-rodded NAFTA over and against the great majority of Democrats in both houses of Congress.
He also emphasized that this was just a failure to support The President and His Agenda, [though he left unsaid that this was required loyalty] whether or not it be a Republican-generated trade agreement negotiated between Bush Sr and a Mexican dictator and then backed by the largest corporate coalition ever assembled.
Such fealty to the Democratic party and its labor, liberal, and African-American-backed majority.
That was not the liberals deserting the President — that was the President specifically going against the interests of the whole Democratic Party in support of a business agenda and a DLC agenda to break the hold of labor liberals in Congress.
Lawnguylander
Obama is coming for our SS, Medicare and our guns on the same day. Just leave them all on The Table and nobody gets hurt.
LABiker
Aw, shit, this special election defeat pretty much ruins our chances of having anything progressive pass through the House of Representatives.
mike s
quite frankly, both the Repubs AND Dems need to grow spines and start preaching and voting their conscience, instead of wasting their (and our) time waffling around with their positions solely to save their own necks. The Republicans need reps who will say, screw you Koch Brothers, I don’t think what we need is less regulation of markets when systematic de-regulation is what put us here to begin with. I think if reps could operate in an unfettered manner, they would agree more than they realize on many issues.
handy
@AA+ Bonds:
You just described everything wrong with political discourse in this country. And you are endorsing it. Sorry, you lose. Why? Because the ones appealing to fear and anger are the ones with the money, and in this country with our paid-for media, money talks.
ksmiami
@AA+ Bonds: Agreed – go for the jugular and if you’re feeling really ambitious remind mormon voters that the evangelicals hate them – really hate them so why should they have their votes taken for granted, etc.
(BTW – I just did this with a lovely mormon woman…worked pretty well)
grandpajohn
@Jenny: Seems like a lot of the left have forgotten 2010
grandpajohn
@Bruce S:
Hummm how did I miss all the links to the assertations you have been making in this thread?
gee
Monala
@texascowgirl: I’m African-American and I’m very angry about the backstabbing of Obama by many on the left. Nevertheless, we have to come out in force to support Democrats across the country. Wisconsin and Ohio are good examples of what happens when you let Republicans take control at the state level. They can do horrible damage at all levels of government, and I’m not willing to risk it.
Bruce S
So your point is that this bullshit is true? I guess you also missed all of the links from texascowgirl…
Yeah. “Gee” indeed!
Beulahmo
@texascowgirl (Howdy! I’m a Texan too.)
The seemingly inordinate blame directed at Obama from the vocal left, especially when contrasted with their relatively less demanding expectations of other elected officials, has been maddening and heartbreaking for some of us to watch. Each carping voice on the left isn’t what’s soul-crushing for me–it’s the totality of it, and the fact that there are so few prominent lefty voices out there who “have Obama’s back.” I don’t mean that people “having his back” should never criticize him–what I mean is, I see a shortage of lefty commentariat who don’t routinely jump to the conclusion that President Obama has “sold us out.” Online, in print, and on TV, I see lefty opinionators, by default and before there’s evidence to support it, preemptively portraying him as weak, or a failure, or a “pawn,” or a double-crossing, oligarch-loving betrayer of the poor and “his own people” (Hello, Tavis Smiley and Cornel West!).
And while the weight of that disappointing environment on the left presses on our psyches, let’s not ignore the reality of the heretofore-never-seen unity and power of a well-funded, well-coordinated right-wing noise machine that works overtime to demonize President Obama and Democrats. Yeah, I TOTALLY get your desire to write off all that bullshit.
But I don’t think “the left” online or in print or on TV is what makes up the Democratic Party. I think rank-and-file Democrats have a better sense of proportion and more reasonable expectations than the “spokespeople” on the left. Polling seems to support my view, too. So what I’m saying is that the Democratic Party reflects us more than it does the eternally aggrieved lefty poutragers. My view is that the Democratic Party is our party too, and our pragmatic, reasonable participation will attract others and help it grow. Stay with the party. Let the poutragers be the ones who give up and join a “third party”–they have a history of loving that shit anyway.