So I have read the postmortems on yesterday’s election, and reliably and predictably, they are as bad as you would expect. Biden is in trouble, Democrats didn’t listen, Democrats are out of touch. And I have to say, I don’t know what to do about it. It’s the same shit every election and I simply do not know how to counter a media amplified right wing puke funnel. I just don’t.
We like to tell ourselves that arc of history bends towards justice, at my age all I can say I have witnessed is the arc of history bending towards the same old fuckery but with new branding. It feels like the general public is willingly choosing to get dumber, more evil, and more openly racist, and LOVING EVERY FUCKING MINUTE OF IT. And I have no idea what to do about it. At all. This is how this election unfolded:
Scene: An openly hostile and coordinated crowd of agitators confronts school boards, leveling demands.
Mob: We are sick of you saying white people are bad and teaching Crucial Raisin Theory!!!
Board Members and Teachers: What?
Mob: We meant critical race theory!
Teacher: I don’t know what that is.
Mob: YES YOU DO AND STOP TEACHING IT WE WILL NOT BE IGNORED!
Teacher: I just teach basic history.
Mob: DO YOU TALK ABOUT THE NORTH AND THE SOUTH AND THE CIVIL WAR AND SAY SLAVERY AND THE HOLOCAUST WERE BAD?
Teacher: Well, yes.
Mob: SEE! CRUCIAL RAISIN THEORY.
***Scene: The Local Nightly News
Bobblehead: In several counties across the state, concerned parents have gathered to peacefully address school boards and to discuss issues with the curriculum. Let’s go to Brandy, who dropped out of engineering, pre-med, english, and all her other classes to pursue a degree in journalism and has no training or specialty in anything, who is on the scene.
Brandy: Yes, thank you Bobblehead, I am here with Jimbob Angersmith, who works down at the Save-Alot and has dabbled in Republican politics via multiple engaged facebook groups, a school board member, and a teacher to share their thoughts:
JimBob: BRANDY WE KNOW WHERE THESE PEOPLE LIVE AND WE WILL NOT STOP UNTIL THEY STOP TEACHING CRITICAL RACE THEORY AND BRAINWASHING OUR KIDS THAT BEING WHITE IS BAD.
Board Member: We don’t teach critical race theory. I had to google it before the meeting.
JimBob: YES YOU DO AND WE WILL HUNT YOU DOWN.
Brandy: JimBob, what exactly is critical race theory?
JimBob: OH YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS AND THEY BETTER STOP TEACHING IT HERE LOOK AT THIS (shows clip of Tucker Carlson on his phone)
Brandy: What do you think Mr. School Board Member
Board Member: We don’t teach critical race theory we don’t even have the money to teach a lot of the stuff we should we’re short staffed and underpaid and our buildings are crumbling.
Brandy: And how about you, Mrs. Teacher:
Teacher: They tried to tear my mask off in the parking lot. Why do they all have guns? I’m afraid to go to the store.
Brandy: That’s the scene down here, Bobblehead, back to you.
Bobblehead: Great report Brandy, keep up the excellent work. Now to our panel of three guests from CPAC to explain why this is bad news for Democrats.
Every. Fucking. Election. The Republican ability to not only whip up some specious bullshit, but to get their entire party lockstep behind it and to then get the media to embrace it is simultaneously astounding and maddening, and again, I don’t know how to deal with it.
And now all the postmortems are as predictable as we all knew they would be:
Win or lose, Democrats will lose in Virginia next Tuesday night.
— New York Times Pitchbot (@DougJBalloon) October 26, 2021
Depending on what you read, we lost Virginia because Democrats are arrogant and out of touch, Biden is unpopular, this is Bernie and AOC’s fault for wanting too much in BBB, this is Manchinema’s fault for not letting the bills pass, and so on. Take your pick.
Again, I have no solutions or suggestions, because I simply do not know what to do. Just that I am frustrated and really over this happening every fucking election.
raven
“happening every fucking election”
Well, historically speaking, in Virginia it happens every other election.
Gretchen
My school board here in Kansas had two sensible normal incumbents challenged by two seemingly normal challengers. They just wanted parents to make the call on masks and vaccines, and claimed diversity is fine, just not “that” diversity program that is in place. The 1776 project (dark money backed organization) sent out flyers supporting them, and they were like, wait, I don’t know them! (That was supposed to be on the down-low!). The sensible incumbents beat the sneaky extremists by about 2-1. We are used to looking out for creationists trying to get on the school board, so we may be more skeptical of challengers.
Baud
It really is repetitive.
Baud
@Gretchen:
We don’t get to praise Kansas often here.
VFX Lurker
I can’t change the world, but I can push it in the right direction. I wrote my 3000th postcard to a voter yesterday. I was also able to donate to the Four Directions fundraiser on Monday. I wouldn’t have done either without this blog, so your blog is making a difference, too. ❤
Baud
Via Reddit. Not sure everyone will agree with the sentiment.
RaflW
I gather there were multiple attempted recall elections of school boards in Wisconsin this fall. Attempts to dislodge masking advocates who give a shit about kids safety, I should say. None of them were successful. Take the small wins and kinda like the thread below about RFS, work up from there.
I’m still kinda bummed about the Minneapolis election. Not on the police ballot measure, as I thought that would lose. But because some really classic entrenched, cynical, Bill Clinton-era Dems held on, and our useless pretty boy mayor won re-elex and has expanded powers due to a different ballot Q.
OTOH, the new Minneapolis Council will be our first ever majority-minority Council, so maybe there’s some small hope there.
Urza
Need Democrats to keep voters engaged at more than just election time. The crazies are always frothing at the mouth ready to vote in off years. Big chunk of Democrats are soft for off years and don’t bother to show up because they don’t see how mayor or school board matter. We can’t keep people in a rage all the time, but there has to be some way to keep people engaged and looking forward to participate on election day.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Wait…we’re NOT storming the governor’s mansion? I put on tactical gear–you know, pants–for nothing? You damn hippies can’t insurrect your way out of a paper bag.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
I was told the insurrection was clothing optional.
Cacti
The three consistent themes of US politics in my adult life have been:
1. There is no bottom of the barrel for the American right. They will do anything for power.
2. They never pay any meaningful price for it.
3. When in power, some Dems can always be counted on to sabotage Dem priorities.
ruemara
@VFX Lurker: Thank you.
raven
@Cacti: “adult”, yea right.
Skepticat
Same. Discouraged and feeling helpless, but I’m too stubborn to just roll over. But I’m not sure at my age how long I’m willing even to try.
Cacti
@raven: Vietnam, fuck LBJ! blah blah blah
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Well, the last one was constitution optional, so might as well throw clothing into the bargain.
raven
@Cacti: Take your SSI’s and call me in the morning.
Ohio Mom
Did everyone see the New Yorker article on Derrick Bell, the civil rights attorney whose writings formed CRT: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/20/the-man-behind-critical-race-theory?source=search_google_dsa_paid&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIoeiduMX98wIV1waICR1lUwS7EAAYASAAEgKDd_D_BwE
He was a skeptic and deeply pessimistic about the both the possibility of racial equality ever being achieved and of this country’s overall prospects.
To put it bluntly, he was saying, the Yahoos won and will always win — ironically a message that should be music to anyone frothing at the mouth about CRT corrupting our youth.
Cacti
@raven: Good luck with your PTSD. Watch out for Charlie.
Zelma
Simple rule: “Do unto others before they do unto you.” Or maybe, “No more Mr. Nice Guy.”
I am personally remarkably untouched by political advertising. I no longer watch much television so I missed most of the current TV ads, even though I live in New Jersey. And for some unknown reason, I was not inundated with mailings from either gubernatorial campaigns. (Should I thank DeJoy?). But I saw enough to see that the Republican candidate (not even sure of his name) was unrelentingly negative and cheerfully took Murphy’s words out of context and outright lied about his positions. Over and over again. I do not recall similar unrelenting attacks on the Republican’s position.
I may be wrong, but it seems that the Democrats have decided that their best course is to campaign positively, by talking about what they will do/have done to make people’s lives better. How sweet. BUT IT ISN’T WORKING!
There is the old adage, “Don’t bring a knife to a gun fight!” Don’t tell voters what you will do FOR them; tell them what your opponents will do TO them. Negative ads work. Fear works. The current Republican Party is fearsome and we have to make the voters afraid, very afraid.
I am sore afraid for the future of this country and we have to make sure that voters are as afraid as I am. We are not doing that.
Ohio Mom
@raven: I think you meant SS*R*I. As in selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors.
Lately I am not keeping up with the threads as thoroughly as I usually do but even so, I see that you and Cacti are feuding about…not clear.
Cacti
@Ohio Mom: Maybe he meant Supplemental Security Income.
He is an old man.
raven
@Ohio Mom: It don’t mean shit.
Cacti
@raven: Are you sundowning or something?
Ohio Mom
@Cacti:
SSI is for people who acquired disability BEFORE adulthood (break your back when you are 27, no SSI for you).
SSDI is for people who have become disabled after they have worked for 40 quarters (oops, haven’t worked that much before you break your back, outta luck).
Social Security Retirement Benefits are self-explanatory (as long as you have your 40 quarters in).
As Another Scott often says, HTH.
ETA: this explanation has been grossly simplified for brevity’s sake.
debbie
@Gretchen:
We had “sneaky extremists” polluting elections here too. We need to start assuming funny business is always afoot and proceed accordingly.
Subsole
Yeah. Same same, Mr. Cole. Just damn tired of the nonsense.
Glad we have this place to relax a bit. Thanks for having us.
Cacti
@Ohio Mom: Your understanding of SSI is not quite right. It can be, and often is paid to the disabled or blind who don’t have sufficient quarters of coverage to qualify for SSDI benefits.
It can also be paid to aged applicants who don’t exceed maximum income or resource requirements. For all groups, SSI is also income based.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Kansas has a Democratic Governor. And she’s pretty good, too!
NotMax
I think you’ve unearthed the problem.
Kropacetic
I’m just done giving Republicans energy. If they’re talking their bullshit, I let them know we can talk about something else or I’m walking. It isn’t worth the effort and I’d rather deny them credence than refute them at this point. Refutation never worked.
That’s how I’m coping.
West of the Rockies
When the QOP Newsome recall epically failed here in California, somehow it meant nothing… no front-page stories about Republican overreach or dire predictions for them going forward. A lot more people voted in that election a month+ ago than voted last night, too.
But media reaction was mostly crickets.
Kay
Pat Buchanan, 1995
CaseyL
I long ago reached the point where GQP voters and pols cannot die fast enough, and unfortunately they’re now getting vaxxed. I was really hoping more of them wouldn’t.
Ohio Mom
@Cacti: I said “grossly simplified.”
Good night All!
Kropacetic
@Kay: Too on the nose, maybe if they spend 26 years refining it…
Omnes Omnibus
Well, you can look at VA in isolation from what happened elsewhere and from its own history and see horrors if you want. Or you can look at the elections all over the country and in context and see a mixed result. If we do the second, maybe we can learn something useful.
Rusty
There is always a ginned up cultural issue. Democrats kept losing over the pledge of allegiance. There will always be another BS cultural issue, and our failed press will always latch onto it as the reason for our defeat.
Kay
@Kropacetic:
Longer! There was a public education historian on Twitter. They had a cartoon in the 1940s of a wild eyed teacher chopping down the Tree of Knowlege – the trunk was banded with words like “patriotism”
Kropacetic
It’s up to us, the media won’t do it.
Peale
Yeah. I think we are going to have to take a look at who we’re bringing in to give advice on education, white working class women, and our approach to minority outreach. Its great to win college educated voters, but there aren’t enough of them. And now that Trump himself is gone, it appears that the GOP is making more inroads with HS educated voters of all sorts. It wasn’t that our voters stayed home. Its that a lot of our voters don’t like what the Democrats are offering around education. Maybe its local to VA, but it goes deeper than “CRT” outrage.
One of the problems with the delay in BBB and Transportation is that it isn’t allowing a pivot away to concerns we might not be as comfortable discussing, or just kind of ignore thinking we’re “obviously” better. One of these is what to do about public schools and what we are going to do about getting the kids back on track after two years of disruption. To put it kindly, we see the GOP attacking “CRT” and recognize that its about control over the way history is taught. They managed to expand it into “keeping woke out” and “look at all this stuff the liberals are wasting your time with when your kids have fallen 2 years behind in English and 4 years in Math.” Yeah, there’s dog whistling going on, but the national dems and every dem governor needs to run on the areas of the anxiety that we can address – which is that we acknowledge that there is a problem for the created by COVID and we are going to tackle that.
Kropacetic
@Kay: The more things change…
ETA: So u know, I was just doing the math from the date of your quote.
OT: I’ve been thinking lately we could use a Balloon Juice historian.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
Scopes trial, anyone?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
There’s some stuff in this column I don’t agree with, but the history is interesting, and a case I don’t think I’d ever heard of before
Peale
@Kay: Yeah. We kind of forget that in the early Obama years, before they got traction with “Death Panels” there was a lot of fainting about “anti-bullying” initiatives. And if I remember in Obama’s second term, Caitlin Flannigan tried to make school gardens into a great hypocrisy that minorities should be mad about. But that went nowhere.
Unfortunately, this one is going to hurt Dems, I think in places like Minnesota and Wisconsin where they have Democratic incumbents, since there hasn’t been a lot of movement in education for the past 2 years and parents are probably growing impatient.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropacetic: Agreed. But it is important that we do it.
Kropacetic
@Omnes Omnibus: Agreed.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Peale: from Monday:
from last week
I think if gas had gone up half as much as it has and the childhood vaccine had been approved in early August, we’d have seen very different results in these elections
jonas
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I didn’t have “relitigate the ‘fundamentalists vs. modernist reason’ debate” on my 2021 bingo card, but here we are, evidently.
Kay
@Peale:
I agree. I said this this morning but it’s funny because you know who really got that? Biden. One of the first things he did was push to open schools.
Kropacetic
I thought that was the free space every year.
@Kay: It didn’t help that the loudest voices demanding we open the schools were busy making it hard to open schools by promulgating disease.
Ksmiami
I used to think about 80 percent Of people were basically good. 20 percent meh. Now u realize it’s more like 50/50 and you wake up everyday looking for an escape hatch. And yes Republicans are pod ppl who latch onto bs
NotMax
Did someone say round Wurlizter?
And speaking of going ’round and ’round….
:)
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropacetic: Yep, ever since Ogg suggested pursuing mammoths over in the next valley and Grar said that scaly reptiles were good enough for his grand parents so they were good enough for his kids and then got a group together to beat Ogg to death with rocks.
Kropacetic
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t know you painted such vivid pictures.
Raoul Paste
@Omnes Omnibus: well said. Not interested in extrapolating one loss to doom. Yes, the corruption and stupidity are infuriating, but those little kids in the supermarket, who would like to have a future, are relying on us, whether they know it or not.
Fight the good fight
Omnes Omnibus
@Kropacetic: I have an inner life.
Peale
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yep. This is where I’m still a child in my youth. I’m always amazed that interest rates are so low because mortages were 15% when I was a kid and inflation was like 15% as well. So yeah, 5.2% inflation is “high” but I’m like “meh, talk to me when it hits 8. Real men don’t cry until it hits 10.”
I’m also old enough to realize that 1) every time gas prices have fallen that low, its a sign the economy is tanking. The GOP pulled that stuff on Obama. “Remember when none of us had jobs and gas prices were $1.50. Then Obama came and we got jobs but…”
Of course, if Biden did anything about this there would be hell to pay. Its not like there isn’t petroleum coming out the ground.
Steeplejack
@O. Felix Culpa:
Well, the right to bare arms is in the Constitution, so that should cover bare asses, too. I’m sure the Supreme Court’s originalist interpretation would confirm this.
Kropacetic
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, I would have assumed. Sorry for not discerning its nature sooner. I’ve only been posting here 14 years.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
One might even say they went whole Ogg.
If so inclined.
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Groan.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m amazed at how little the word “Covid” has been mentioned in these threads
NotMax
@NotMax
Totally unrelated in any way, shape or form, but the three-letter designation for Maui’s airport happens to be OGG.
gwangung
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I am not so sure Republican strategists weren’t thinking of this…the cold blooded bastards.
Kropacetic
@Omnes Omnibus: @NotMax: One of the funnier examples of “a thinker.”
danielx
So tired.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@gwangung: not a doubt in my mind the anti-vax activism by fully vexed politicians and journalists has been intended to prolong the pandemic
DC
“The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery” has to be added as a tagline! How do we make this happen?
Kropacetic
@DC: There’s a nomination form. Requires a petition signed by at least 100 Soros leftist operatives.
Major Major Major Major
I feel like I’m the only person who wasn’t surprised by this and won’t be surprised when we lose Congress because this has happened, with one exception, every fourth year of my life.
Also, Dems need an answer to the school stuff besides “lol that isn’t happening”. Partly because you don’t always get to pick the narrative, but also because there is bad stuff happening here and there, it would be weird if there weren’t in a country this size, so just figure out a way to deal with it. The GOP have already said out loud that “critical race theory” was just their phrase for “all this stuff we don’t like” that happened to catch on—so you can’t deflect from it by saying the stuff they dislike doesn’t exist just because they use an inaccurate name.
I’m not even talking about triangulation or whatever nonsense. This is in the memosphere now and we have to deal with it.
ETA Biden was good at this re: police last year. It doesn’t take much.
Peale
@Major Major Major Major: I’m taking it quite well, actually. If it weren’t for gerrymandering guaranteeing the losses, we actually did much better in this round than we did in 2009. There’s (barely) no fat loudmouth from NJ for the press to fawn over for 8 years this time. Our turnout didn’t fall off a cliff. Other ominous things happened, but maybe, just maybe, we won’t lose 6,000 seats this time.
Peale
Anyone feeling sorry for Aaron Rogers? Anyone?
Kropacetic
@Major Major Major Major: Republicans, for once, may have shown us the way on this. “They’re trying to erase history.”
This time the argument has the benefit of being true.
NotMax
@danielx
A song cue if ever I’ve heard one.
;)
Major Major Major Major
@Peale: I’ll admit I’d feel differently if the city across the river was in a Republican led state, true.
Peale
@Major Major Major Major: You at least have to cross the river. Its literally 300 feet from my front door. I like the bakery in Mahwah too much to boycott the state, even if Bergen county swung GOP last night.
Irony Abounds
Democrats campaign on the incompetence of the GOP in governing, and then spend the first year of the Biden Presidency with the complete shitshow bungling of BIF and BBB. They knew Manchin was always going to be an issue (Sinema being a complete asshole was a bit unexpected) and rather than getting people to be realistic and hash things out before setting votes and deadlines they look like a bunch of bunglers. And, the Dems lost the education argument by not aggressively destroying the silly CRT argument and failing to make it clear how they will improve kids’ education. Covid is a legitimate concern in schools, but I don’t think Dems focused on schools other than trying to uphold mask mandates. That simply wasn’t enough.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So it hit me, Youngkin is a older, well spoken white guy running with a black woman. Who does that sound like? The fucker was posing as Biden for the low information voters.
Major Major Major Major
@Peale: much closer! Good thing we won!
frosty
@Gretchen: We weren’t so lucky. In my County (South PA) the new extremists beat all the sensible incumbents except in one school district where the kids beat back a book ban (which made the national news) and the R incumbent lost. Maybe in a couple of years they’ll all overreach the same way and the sane people will be back. Best I can hope for.
Chris Johnson
@frosty:
They WILL overreach. They can’t not overreach: it’s the whole point of what they’re doing. Spotlight them doing it, every time, call ’em out.
dww44
@O. Felix Culpa: Clap! Clap!
frosty
@DC: I nominated it just in case no one else did.
dww44
@Ohio Mom:
Is the Social Security program that provides or did provid aid to widows with dependent children? If so, what is it’s acronym. When my Dad died in 1951, it was that program that enabled my Mom to keep and feed (with outside job that paid, oh like $50.00 or less a week) her 4 young children. Thank you FDR!
DD
I understand how John feels.
I kind of feel the same, but it does not matter.
Republicans are evil, power-hungry miscreants.
At the end of the day though, the fault lies with the voters.
Gerrymander? Structural problems with the senate? Weak democratic politicians?
None of that matters. The problem is that the voters:
1) Can’t figure out on which side the bread is buttered
2) Cant be bothered to vote or care
Everything else is immaterial and often an excuse.
dww44
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m old enough to remember this and to this day I remember that Virginia, in its reaction to Brown vs Board of Education was way more radically conservative than was the Southern state in which I live.
I think an understanding of that history should make us less surprised about what happened in Virginia yesterday.. They have not been a blue state for very long. They simply reverted to their particular norm, given the GOP cultural wars and, honestly, McAuliffe was not that good a candidate to be able to overcome Virginia’s normal arc of political history in recent decades.
toine
Build a bunker, hunker down and let them get everything they are voting for. When they come banging on your bunker door for help, pretend you aren’t home…
Or move to Canada. It’s not that far and they have poutine… the ultimate comfort food…
Major Major Major Major
Also worth noting that NJ had a really similar swing to VA and a lot of the people making a big deal of it as an “anti-CRT election” have a book about CRT to sell you.
Death Panel Truck
@Kay:
“Judeo.” Like that asshole gives a flying fuck about Jews.
Ken
I feel like I should be more upset, but this whole day is November 2009 all over again, same analysis, same arguments…
sab
@Gretchen: Ohio also we have long been on the lookout for creationists for school boards, so that helped us a lot this election.
Baud
@Major Major Major Major:
I agree. Dems are hesitant to address stupid stuff and outliers because someone will accuse them of caving or, as you say, triangulating.
Gregory
In its coverage of the infrastructure and reconciliation bills, the media and NPR in particular have gone full Murc’s Law. NPR’s coverage barely, and in some cases never, mentions that the Democrats’ struggle to pass the bills is in part because not a single Republican will vote for the reconciliation bill, despites its many popular provisions. That’s journalistic malpractice of the first water, and I’m sure McConnnell is loving it.
Mustang Bobby
John, I will happily sponsor you and pay your dues as a full-fledged member of the Dramatists Guild.
zhena gogolia
@Mustang Bobby: Hahaha
Ohio Mom
@dww44: I believe those are called Survivor’s Benefits. Don’t know much about that, hasn’t applied to Ohio Family (knock on wood).
Social Security has a lot of nooks and crannies. It’s very complicated. You are right, props to FDR. This country would be a hellhole without it.
Another Scott
@dww44: Dave Wasserman (Redistrict on Twitter) is good with election numbers. He said that the GQP picked up an average of 10-15% over 2020 in all the races in VA and NJ. If that continues in 2022, and it won’t – it will be different, but if it did, they would pick up 40-50 seats in the House. We need to be smart and clear eyed in fighting for elections. We cannot take anything for granted any more.
We have to fight to create the future we want.
Cheers,
Scott.
DCrefugee
@Gregory: I’ve been working from home for a decade or so, and for the last few years generally had NPR on in the background 24/7. No more. Their parroting of the MSM narratives on the Afghanistan withdrawal and their complete inability to go beyond the horserace narrative on BBB and BIF have turned me off, possibly forever.
Pittsburgh Mike
@dww44:
The program was AFDC, Aid for Families with Dependent Children. This program actually required that the parent be unmarried, or the spouse had to be seriously disabled. It was replaced by TANF by the welfare reform bill passed under Clinton, in 1996, IIRC.
Pittsburgh Mike
@Major Major Major Major: Indeed. The claim that CRT isn’t real isn’t working because everyone knows that it *is* real. Or at least anti-racist training is real, and that’s what people mean by CRT.
I work for a large F100 company. Over the last 3 years I’ve had at least 4 mandatory courses that talk about the privilege white people have, and how this oppresses people of color. We’ve had guest lectures from Ibrahim Kendi, telling us that any racial disparity is proof of racist behavior.
My guess is that the vast majority of people working for large companies get this message, and don’t particularly believe it. In my company, probably 30-40% of the employees, including managers, are immigrants from China, India or Korea. Hell, the CEO is an immigrant from India.
There’s nothing wrong with teaching the history of the US. But there is a message that’s getting delivered today, in many work places and some schools, that there has been no progress in racial equality since the end of Reconstruction, and that the US was created and is structured to maintain white supremacy.
This is so obviously wrong that it makes us look delusional. And that’s going to cost us in the 2022 and 2024 elections.
dww44
@Pittsburgh Mike: I so agree. People, no matter their background, do NOT like being constantly told that they, as individuals, are racist and privileged. People, even the progressive ones who understand and have mostly lived this history as I have, kinda resent being figuratively beat up. They will rebel and that’s what is happening. It’s what happened in the Congress last November, It’s why our majorities are so thin, even in spite of the existential threat that Trump and his acolytes present to our democracy.
tam1MI
Hey, if you guys can figure out a way to tell Black folks to sit down and shut up – which is what you are advocating here- without having them sit out the next election – in which case the Dems will get wiped out, I’m all ears.
Ben Cisco
@tam1MI: Yeah, good luck with that.
And by “good luck with that” I mean “if you’re thinking of trying that, you can go get…stuffed.