President Joe Biden wrapped up his visit to the #COP26 climate summit in Glasgow upbeat about what it has achieved so far https://t.co/NUCV27pwvU pic.twitter.com/hM5kSHzca6
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 3, 2021
.@POTUS: Climate change is not a hypothetical threat. It's already ravaging the world. It’s destroying people’s lives and livelihoods and doing it every single day, and that's why the time to act is now. pic.twitter.com/VK5WwJIFqQ
— Department of State (@StateDept) November 3, 2021
Boston voters for the first time elected a woman and an Asian American as mayor on Tuesday, tapping City Councilor Michelle Wu to serve in the city’s top political office. https://t.co/sXzc0EzZjd
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) November 3, 2021
(Almost as shocking as her gender, and race: Wu is a ‘Boston immigrant’ — she moved ‘here’ to go to Harvard, and never left — while her (Tunisian/Polish) opponent was born & has spent her entire career here. Even Boston is getting less parochial!)
Several high-profile school board candidates who fought COVID-19 restrictions and critical race thoery lost their election bids. The defeats in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Connecticut came in races where masks, vaccines, race and history took center stage.https://t.co/UPALURQBAS
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 3, 2021
Hed: Virginia Election Shows CRT Controversy is Key to GOP's Ambitions
Dek: Please Look No Further Than That https://t.co/QHDsIoqZwO
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) November 3, 2021
Hounsell, having been promoted from Politico to the NYTimes, knows his jerb:
It was not Pramila Jayapal who held a petulant press conference yesterday threatening to tank the entire agenda after weeks of sitting back and being given 90% of the changes she wants in the bill. It was Joe Manchin who did that.
— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) November 3, 2021
Kidding / not kidding…
Glaring at the 2011 era publicity photo I took riding in a helicopter over Kabul as I type up my 437th article about The Supply Chain Crisis.
— Syndicalist Weedle Collective (@Weedledouble) November 3, 2021
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think there i a lot to this. A lot of Blob lives in North VA too.
japa21
Blech
lowtechcyclist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I don’t watch TV, and I don’t read a newspaper regularly. (Plenty of other ways to get one’s news nowadays.) But even to me, it seemed that the media started going after Biden over everything after that.
And this was after never changing the tone of their Afghanistan coverage after the problems of the first few days had long since been resolved, and the airlift had become a major success story that they refused to acknowledge.
OzarkHillbilly
How’s about dem Braves?
NotMax
Almost buried in the rush of election coverage.
BTW, Adams won in all NYC boroughs in the mayoral election except (surprise, surprise) Staten Island.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone???
Anne Laurie
‘Staten Island got nuthin’ against colored people. We just hate vegans.’
debbie
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yeah, there was probably a negative impact on their T&E accounts. //
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@lowtechcyclist: The press also seems to have gone full doom and gloom stuff, going by my mother who can’t stay away from the news. My dad makes jokes about not being able to make up his mind about what to be afraid about today.
The press is probably less pissed about Afghanistan and that Trump is there to scare everyone to the TV.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I started to type something about election results and decided it would be better to spend some time recovering.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Still high on the win and the championship, nine hours later!
lowtechcyclist
I shudder to think of the coverage the media would have hit her with if she’d had a press conference like that. They’d have all but ended her political career.
It would be really nice to have an actual liberal media. I’d settle for even one newspaper in a city big enough to support major-league sports, someplace to link to when the rest of the nets and big papers cover things in their usual way.
Just one place that didn’t do bothsidesing, wasn’t biased towards moderates and conservatives, didn’t have preconceived notions about wars being good and deficits being bad, that reported on what the two parties were actually trying to do rather than being drama critics, that might interview people coming out of Black churches along with white people in Midwestern diners and interview former restaurant workers as well as restaurant owners, covering Covid from the perspective of those of us who are fed up at the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers more than from the perspective of the antis, covering climate change as an existential threat rather than an ‘environmental issue’ of concern only to granola-heads, the list goes on.
We don’t need a lefty version of Fox News, we don’t even need a lefty version of the FTFNYT. Just honesty and a willingness to report what’s actually out there.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Awesome, maybe they’ll figure out some way that people can actually WATCH their games next year!
narya
I know I’m supposed to be wailing and gnashing my teeth or something, but instead I’m gonna make a pot of tea, get ready for work, and steadfastly ignore the news. I almost ran 5 miles yesterday (4.98, to be exact) and nearly 18 total this week so far, my mom’s PT is helping her neck (more compressed vertebrae were giving her lots of pain), and my boss is starting to recognize just how toxic someone is. Sure, the world’s on fire and one of our political parties is chasing fascism; I can’t fix that today. Maybe tomorrow, though!
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@lowtechcyclist: It’s not just the withdrawl, it’s the focus on the BBB plan, which is not under POTUS control and is, as a result, stuck in a constant “maybe we have a deal, oops nope we don’t” fail loop.
Biden needs to focus on what he can control as POTUS and point out those successes. Like, look at all the good judges I’m appointing, look at the stock market at an all time high, people are going back to work and have money in their pockets. Look at how free and plentiful the vaccines against Covid are and how the rates are coming down. Look at how we have vaccines for 5 and up. Just talk that good stuff up and let Pelosi try to wrangle the cats in Congress behind closed doors with any behind closed doors assists you need to provide, but keep it out of the media spotlight as much as possible until they actually have a deal.
japa21
@lowtechcyclist: The Chicago Sun Times is about as close as they come. They do carry a couple syndicated conservative columnists like S. E. Cupp, but most of the home town columnists are pretty liberal.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@narya: Thank you for saying what I meant only saying it better.
Life goes on. I’ll take a walk with Mr DAW, read my new library book, try to create a better plot for the book that’s gone horribly wrong, eat well, go to bed early. Tomorrow will feel better.
Another Scott
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Who can blame them after all those shopping malls were attacked in the Virginia suburbs??!
:-\
When I’m richer than Bezos the first thing I’m going to do is set up a modern media empire to fight disinformation and promote actually important real news.
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
This is true, they STILL talk about the guy who fell off the outside of the airplane on that first day. It’s almost always the very first thing they mention when they talk about the evacuation. Instead of asking “What on Earth was that man trying to do? Did he think he was going to get on the plane that way?” or wondering why he didn’t just wait for the next plane, they use it to illustrate how awful the whole situation was. I noticed this too, that after the Afghanistan withdrawal they suddenly had the knives out for Biden. I’m sure that affected the VA election some.
More good local news, the Nixa mayor won the recall election handily, 2,458 to 808. Keep in mind, under the crazy recall rules it only took 73 signatures to get the recall on the ballot (in a city of over 23,000 people! I cannot believe Nixa is that big now.). So evidently the citizens of Nixa who voted weren’t that upset about the mayor putting in a mask mandate for the city last year.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: I almost got to a Cards-Cubs game this year but had to cancel 4 days before when I realized that there was no way to get me to the game and my wife to work due to the tranny in her car going out.
Sometimes life just refuses to cooperate.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I think surviving today’s surgery is all I have on my agenda. Maybe tomorrow I’ll save the world. Or not.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: When Fox Sports became Bally they got in a dispute with youtube tv and Hulu and none of the games were available. I didn’t even know who the 4 guys they picked up in Just were!
In other news we had foam insulation done in the rental so now it’s sheetrock, trim, paint floor installation, cabinets the clawfoot. We hope for Dec1
eta, oo, the surgery is today! Good luck brah!
Starfish
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: They would have gone back to counting every drone strike in Afghanistan. Trump made that data private, so no one could measure how many civilians he was killing. That allowed them the entirely untrue narrative on foreign policy.
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: Sending good thoughts your way . . .
Soprano2
I have thoughts about the election, but I’m not ready to talk about it yet. Suffice it to say, all of this is a long game that never ends, and giving up isn’t really an option. It seems that some people believe that there should be a magical day when everything we want comes to pass and that it will stay that way forever, but that’s not the way the world works. It took women 75 years to win the vote; it took over 100 years for black people to get their civil rights written into law. The battle is never over, people. I live in Missouri, a state the the Democratic Party forgot, and still everything here is not terrible. The people voted to expand Medicare, and Republicans were finally forced to do it. The people keep fighting off right-to-work because they don’t want it. Good things happen even here!
raven
@Soprano2: Fear is a hell of a drug.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: Nixa is up to 23,000? My how times have changed.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: Good luck and recover quickly!
Cheers,
Scott.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: @narya: I am so past ready for this to be done. It’s been 4 months.
Baud
@Soprano2:
?
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: I know, when I was a kid I think the population there was 2,000 – 3,000, and we thought of that as a big town! Springfield, Nixa, Ozark and Republic will all grow together within the next 10 years. It’s almost that way now!
Baud
Seems like urban areas continue to be bastions of American civilization.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Good luck.
Woodrow/asim
From a different website I frequent:
The GOP are in the position they are in for many reasons. One is because of a willingness to appeal to the worst in us — and disguise it as virtue.
But also because they really never, ever give up. They never see a single election as anything other than a stepping stone, good or bad. Some of that is they can afford (financially, emotionally, and otherwise) to take that approach; their actual shit is never on the line, save terrorism or major economic calamity.
Therefore: We Democrats, and allied folx, cannot afford to hunker down. We have to swallow this, keep fighting for what’s right and take care of each other, put that oxygen mask on us, first and foremost.
If they didn’t give up? If the dregs of Lost Causes and Jim Crow-ness still haunt our politics, today?
If you can, you fight. Not for yourself — but because someone, somewhere, needs you. Is in more dire straits than you. Deserves better, today and every day.
JMG
The truth is that the decisive bloc of American voters consists of the perpetually dissatisfied. After all, McAuliffe’s loss was the 11th time in the last 12 Va. gubernatorial elections that the candidate of the incumbent President’s party lost. That goes back to 1973. Ronald Reagan won two landslides himself and saw his party thumped in the two midterms on his watch. The Dems would be a lot better off if they accepted they’ll probably lose the midterms and tried to do as much as they can while they have the chance. Of course, pols don’t think like at all, unfortunately.
Off to France this evening. Reading the Bordeaux newspaper website for French practice. Their only article on our elections was about Eric Adams. Totally different perspective.
OzarkHillbilly
They did everything… Except for the one thing that would have saved her.
Starfish
@narya: That sounds awesome. Have a great day.
Quinerly
@narya: l really like your comment. Have a great day.
Matt McIrvin
Local news: our moderate-Democrat mayor got reelected handily against his moderate-Republican challenger, the asshole-MAGA third guy having been knocked out in a preliminary round weeks ago.
The progressive and minority insurgents I mostly voted for for School Committee and City Council didn’t win, which is no surprise, but the nonbinding ballot questions to change these at-large elections to a partial district model (which would probably help them a great deal) DID pass by large margins, which surprised me. While it’s not ideal, that would benefit minorities in the city and also have the effect of making the ballot far less confusing, since you’d only be voting for your district rep and a small number of at-large members.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: It’s been a while since I’ve been thru Nixa, but in my mind the population is 5,000 or so.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Good priorities!
Quinerly
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: ?
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Thinking of you.,
Another Scott
History is not destiny, but it is important.
Hang in there, everyone. We know that progress is never going to be easy.
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
You’ll not only survive today’s surgery, you’ll be back tomorrow
grumpiermore crotchetycurmudgeonlyblecchier than ever!We’ll be thinking of you, OH!
OzarkHillbilly
@Another Scott:
@Baud:
My wife’s gonna need it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
@JPL:
@SiubhanDuinne:
And now I have to take my pre-op rinse (I had to wipe myself down with some stuff last night), get dressed and go.
Thanx all, if I’m not here tomorrow, you’ll know I’m feeling like shit.
Citizen_X
@OzarkHillbilly: Good luck Ozark!
Fair Economist
@OzarkHillbilly: Hope everything goes as smooth as possible.
germy
Barbara
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yep. I think the press itself, of course, might have some people who are angry at the loss of the opportunity to report from a battleground, but I think a lot of it was fed by contractors who have been living off the “Afghani dividend” for a long time. The loss of that money is not going to be funneled into comparable projects for them. A lot of the so-called experts are part of this class. And, of course, all those people who get hired to go on news shows to occasionally spout off on Afghanistan — I mean, they have just been made redundant lock stock and barrel.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: You would be shocked at what it looks like today. I am, because I don’t go that way that often. It’s a small city now! So is Ozark and Republic. These towns were all 5,000 or less population 40 years ago.
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: Thanks for this perspective.
Betty
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: There are multiple issues, some as simple as supply chain and inflation plus Dem candidate being kind of so-so. Trump set Biden up on Afghanistan. He couldn’t escalate again. The cards he was dealt were bad, but I think things will improve. Virginia is not the country despite D. C. press thinking it is.
Soprano2
I just checked FB, and it showed me the pic I took last year after I voted, wearing my T-shirt that says “11-3-2020, The Day Nasty Women Save America”. Never forget, we did get rid of Trump, and I think he’ll have a really hard time getting elected if he does run in 2024. He’s a known quantity now, not “a businessman and host of ‘The Apprentice'”.
Nicole
@OzarkHillbilly: Sending you all the good thoughts for a smooth surgery today.
Barbara
@germy: I would simply like to do the math for you.
In 2009, Bob McDonnell won the state 58/41 and set about gerrymandering federal and state offices. Which he did successfully, with a few reversals in court. I don’t actually think McAuliffe would have won in 2013 if McDonnell had not imploded.
In 2017, the breakdown in the House went from 66R/34D to 51/49. A few years later, Ds won five more seats. Basically, it lost those seats plus one more last night. The Senate was not as dramatically gerrymandered, and still has a small but significant D majority. So this is not a case of one step forward two steps back. This is a case of five steps forward and 1-1/2 steps back. Virginia really has changed and Youngkin does not have a mandate. Oh, no doubt he will claim one. But I guess I am disappointed more than panicked and I would urge you to feel the same.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: You’re welcome. I understand people feeling despair, but if the women fighting for the vote had let themselves give up, where would we be today? Too many people don’t understand that the fight is eternal; there’s never a point where we come to the end of it.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Good luck, I hope everything works out OK and you’re posting here tomorrow!
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: They also have never lived in a true fascist dictatorship, so they tend to exaggerate.
JPL
Biden is helping us all cope with the pandemic, and lessen the spread of the virus. The additional aid has helped people and especially children escape the harmful effects of poverty. His overseas trip was successful and he’s only nine months into his presidency. Even if the democrats do something good, it’s never enough.
Betty
@OzarkHillbilly: Best of luck, OH!
The Thin Black Duke
@OzarkHillbilly: Good luck, buddy.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So my 2c on VA
The red necks came out because the sacred graven image of St RE Lee of the Southern Cross was profaned (propained? Now there is a thought…)
Virginia is blue because educated voters, but they are government workers and government workers are personally invested in The Forever War.
The relentless press bashing of the Democrats because the Press is invested in the Forever War.
And last but not least. Youngkin is hedge fund manager who never held office and who said whatever the group in front of him wanted to hear (note; Youngkin describes himself as an “American businessman” not “Hedge Fund Manager”,as a sample of the kind of weasel he is). So Schrodinger Candidate; no one knows what his true positions are because he hasn’t taken any, so the voter can assume as they please. They didn’t come to vote from him, they came to vote against the Democrat or whatever BS they were upset about at the time and ignored the “This dude is a megalomaniac on meth”.
Quinerly
Well, l spent yesterday totally out of the news loop… Hiking in the Pecos area with JoJo las Orejas, visiting the pueblo and mission ruins at Pecos NHS, and having a fantastic lunch at Frankie’s at the Casanova (their pinto beans are perfection!!!). I also refreshed my memory about the Civil War Battle of Glorieta (which took place near Pecos, New Mexico) and the Confederate failed campaign into the SW which was never mentioned in my Southern HS history books growing up.
Here’s a really sweet and uplifting article about the “rapping park ranger” that l actually met on a prior visit to Pecos NHS. If you click on the piece, be sure to take a look and listen to the rap video she did about the area (Glorieta). She’s at a site in Arkansas now but l did have a great chat with one of the rangers who is in the video and is still there.
Off to Albuquerque shortly to prowl around. Cheap late lunch at Monte Carlo Liquor Store and Steak House. It’s like stepping back in time with red leather seats in horseshoe shaped booths. Have a great day BJers. I’m trying so hard not to dwell on the shit going on right now. The knives are out for Biden and it’s heartbreaking.
https://www.thesca.org/connect/blog/new-rhymes-rapping-ranger
Ken
@Barbara: Wars as long-term welfare for the contractors and correspondents? Some truth in that. Yet no one stands up and says “Three generations of Afghanistan war correspondents is enough.”
Woodrow/asim
@Barbara: to potentially defend @germy, I suspect he’s posting up the parody accounts from DougJ, and the (sadly) real Cilliza pre-election results tweet, to make the same point you are — that there’s a media narrative that doesn’t match up to reality. If germy’s posted anything else in another thread or elsewhere on this, I don’t recall it, offhand (still sleepy!)
That said: That was really good background on VA election cycles I did not have, prior. Thank you for posting it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Soprano2: Good points. Heck, the Black won the right to be considered human beings and not some kind of living farm tractor over 170 years ago and the assholes are still trying to take that away.
germy
That was exactly my point. That DougJ’s parody account is indistinguishable at this point from the “serious” media.
Same as the Greenwald parody account. “Glem” is indistinguishable from Glenn.
Lapassionara
@Barbara: Ditto this. And now he has to govern, so we will see how popular he remains once he starts making decisions. Is he going to be like Abbott or DeSantis? Who knows.
Kalakal
@OzarkHillbilly: There was a similar needless tragedy in Ireland about 10 years ago. It caused enough anger that eventually the politicians caved, they held a referendum and the majority told the catholic church to go forth and multiply. Abortion is now legal in Ireland
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-20321741
Skepticat
@lowtechcyclist: THIS.
Geminid
@Barbara: It’s easy to underestimate Youngkin’s appeal to people outside the Democratic bubble. He did a very good job of portraying himself as a down to earth, reasonable guy who wasn’t angry, just concerned. And it helped that he entered the race “a blank canvas,” as Jeff Shapiro and others put it.
McAuliffe ended up boxing at shadows. My memory of McAuliffe at the end was him accusing Youngkin of “racist dog whistles.” By then, Youngkin had switched his radio advertising over to his pitch to eliminate the sales tax on groceries, a calm, shrewd ending to a savvy campaign.
Matt McIrvin
It feels to me like the national political situation is really pretty simple: people are still upset because the COVID-19 pandemic hasn’t gone away, so its social and economic effects haven’t gone away, and Biden is President so they’re taking it out on Democrats. Biden’s approval rating started dropping not because of Afghanistan or Critical Race Theory or legislative gridlock or whatever, but because of the delta COVID wave.
At a 10,000-foot view it’s the old story, from 2009 and 1991 and even 1977: Democrats are the cleanup crew but they only get a few months’ grace period before the mess they inherited reflects badly on them, and this is how the Republicans get back in. The problem, of course, is that Republicans are getting better at leveraging this backlash for antidemocratic dominance further down the line.
On the other hand… I genuinely think the pandemic situation is going to improve over the coming year, and I think current political analyses are mostly ignoring the effect that is going to have. Vaccination of younger children is coming to the whole country within days. Boosters are happening. We will have a winter wave but it will not be as bad as the 2020-21 one, because of mass vaccination.
LiminalOwl
Columnist Christine Emba, in the WaPo:
And I (yr humble servant Owl) replied to a previous commenter who said that McAuliffe’s not supporting parental rights to have a say in curriculum choices):
Why should parents have a say in curriculum choices? They are, for the most part, not trained professionals with knowledge of what materials will be most valuable for teaching and learning. And that’s assuming an innocence which is rarely supported, given that the books parents want banned are overwhelmingly those which challenge racism and other biases that the parents may want their children to accept without questioning.
Both [the previous commenter] and Youngkin’s ad, as well as a long history of parents’ requests and consequent book bans, provide glaring evidence of the real agenda: keep students ignorant both of uncomfortable realities and the skills with which to assess them.
Spanky
@germy: The bad news for Youngkin in the long term is that he’s going to now have a record of governing that people will remember. If expectations of his ideology hold true, Va Gov should be his high water mark.
Dan B
Wide awake at 3AM, ugh. My partner announced he’s going to Thanksgiving at his brother’s. I woke at 3 in a rage. His brother and sister in law screamed at us on Thanksgiving 2016 that we had Marriage Equality. Apparently we aren’t grateful enough. I thought it was clear to my partner that I never want to see such consistently sadistic and compassionless people ever again. 2016 was just the coup de gras. The micro aggressions were non stop. They made sure their friends never saw us. We were always invited to their home when it was the proper thing to do. They have always been amused by other people’s pain. I don’t have to go but I don’t want to explain why I’m so appalled at his brother’s family. Isn’t it obvious? They view us as sub human.
Subsole
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Same. Save the blood pressure.
I am seeing that we did really well outside VA, for the most part. So that takes a little sting out of it.
Spanky
@Betty: Half, at least, of the DC press live in Virginia. That’s why it gets such overblown coverage.
Woodrow/asim
I’ll be candid. A lot of the people I suspect making this, or any other election loss, a “line in the sand?” Have the privilege to walk away from politics w/o concern about their immediate survival, hanging in the balance.
I say immediate, because I suspect a lot of the panic-button pressing I see, is people who traditionally have not had to worry overmuch about ballot access. Which is ironic, because many of their ancestors were the OG targets of voter suppression tactics:
And now some of them see those tactics being used against them once again, generations distant, history forgotten under waves of disinformation and White Supremacy.
I get why they get dishearten, get panicked. Just as I get why the above won’t make it into any textbooks, anytime soon.
The CRT stuff wasn’t an accident, y’all.
Subsole
@OzarkHillbilly:
Good luck to you!
OGLiberal
I just don’t understand how 12 months after rejecting Trump pretty resoundingly and 10-months after what we all saw on live TV on January 6th, a lot of people in Virginia and NJ said, “I can’t believe Biden and the Dems haven’t fixed every single thing yet…I’m voting for the insurrection party instead.” I know, I know – I’m way more “tuned in” then most voters but, still. McAuliffe left office as a popular governor and hasn’t really done anything while out of office to change that. Phil Murphy (who will likely still win but really shouldn’t have that in question the morning after) IS a popular governor. What is wrong with people? Biden and the Dems have had 9 freaking months, at best.
schrodingers_cat
Democrats have to fight against the Republicans, the mainstream media and their own left flank.
J R in WV
@Soprano2:
He’s a known
quantityfascist now, not “a businessman and host of ‘The Apprentice’”.Of course most of us knew that from the git-go… it’s why so many voted for him!
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: That sums it up.
Matt McIrvin
@Woodrow/asim: The “line in the sand/last chance to prevent doom” talk is great campaign rhetoric, but maybe not great as long-term strategy because even in a well-run democratic situation sometimes you’re going to lose–it’s inevitable. It has to be survivable.
Subsole
@OzarkHillbilly: And Aryan Patriot Free Market Jesus smiled.
The Black Madonna of Czestochowa was, one expects, less amused.
bluegirlfromwyo
@OGLiberal: IMO, a lot of people really want to convince themselves that the latest Republican is different than Trump and the insurrectionists. This is especially true for GOP Biden voters. I have some empathy (though not sympathy) there. I wouldn’t want to have to look in the mirror and admit my part in creating this monster either.
Dan B
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Youngkin is opposed to “gay” marriage and seems to be in the Dominionist mold. He’ll likely spend his first year being moderate while assembling a structure to thwart human rights and reward the filthy rich.
Matt McIrvin
@OGLiberal: A large number of voters really have only the most rudimentary knowledge of how the political system works–I mean, on the level of not understanding that the President doesn’t make laws. Voting for the federal “out” party when they feel bad is how they figure it’s supposed to work. And on a very crude level I suppose it is.
Geminid
@Spanky: I think Youngkin has a very promising path ahead. Virginia is a prosperous, well run state, and in a year he will be able to claim credit for this. A Democratic State Senate majority will ensure that he’ll never have to sign the kind of toxic laws Abbott and DeSantis have on their records. And Youngkin does not have to win reelection because the state constitution rules this out. If I were an ambitious Republican politician, I would envy Youngkin’s position.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: The biggest internal problem right now isn’t the left flank, it’s a couple of showboating centrists who want to reject anything the entire rest of the party supports.
Ksmiami
@OGLiberal: Manchin and Sinema certainly helped….
Mike in NC
The fact is that this country has many, many bored rich plutocrats like Glenn Youngkin that are ready, willing, and able to run for office on the White Power agenda. Just look at Floriduh, where the Republicans will thrive forever.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid:
Is that going to hold? I’ve been out long enough that I don’t have a feel for it. That’s the Mitt Romney situation, where a very culturally conservative guy could present as a moderate because legislatively his hands were tied.
Subsole
@Matt McIrvin:
Okay. Your point about the threat is fair. But they aren’t centrists. They’re a money grubbing coal baron with a 60/40 mix of dogshit and pureed cockroach beteen his ears, and a walking cascade of personality issues.
Or, a conservative and a flake. Not in any wise Centrists.
Woodrow/asim
See above, re: “White Supremacy.”
I don’t mean that glibly. I mean that in the sense that a lot of those voters — and to be real damn certain, the media — don’t see the crises we see.
What do they see? Even without Fox News/etc., they see GOP operatives and “hangers-on”, oft-paid, going on TV as “concerned parents” about crap like, yes, CRT. At a bare minimum, we know there is Koch and other millionaire/billionaire funding behind these efforts, and they work, y’all.
It builds up an astroturfed “grassroots” that boosts GOP voting by appealing to the White fears around dealing with race. When you grow up with textbooks that “teach young pupils that enslaved people were contented servants of honorable planters,” you’ve planted seeds that are now bearing rotten fruit. All you have to do is hint at anything around a Black takeover (which is what the CRT non-troversy is about), and many White people are primed to do everything to avoid that outcome, no matter how they feel about us Black folx, day to day.
“They” don’t “hate” us. But they sure as hell don’t wanna share their toys, or be made to feel like they should. And that’s the work of generations of effort, and not just here in the American South.
Defusing it is also the work of generations. We might want to get used to that kind of thinking.
Served
Unfortunately, I think the best case for Virginia is a course similar to Illinois under Rauner. Total gridlock and massive structural damage to the administrative state. The upside is that 3 years after electing a Dem governor and supermajority in both legislative chambers, the state has made huge strides in repairing that damage. We’re still lagging in rebuilding social services and a lot of structural issues remain unresolved (the progressive tax amendment getting clobbered was a disaster), but there can be a brighter future.
Zelma
I have decided I am on a news fast – except for Balloon Juice. I went through my inbox and deleted every post from every news site I subscribe to without even looking at the headlines. I discarded the front section of the two newspapers I get and went straight to the crosswords.
There is little doubt what happened. The Republicans played the “race card” for all it was worth and the “good white folk” embraced it with enthusiasm. Also, Trump was on the ballot for the Rethuglicans but not for the Democrats. Their mistake.
Finally, the obdurance of Manchin and Sinema and to some extent the Progressives made the Democrats seem incompetent.
The American political system is broken, perhaps beyond repair. I’m almost 80 and were it not for the fact that I have a son in politics and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, I would just sit back and watch. For now, I’m not even going to watch.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: The left flank who call themselves progressives want the Ds to govern like the entire country as if it were deep blue, like their districts.
Media bats for the Rs. They have been on the attack since the Afghanistan pullout.
If the Ds only had to fight the Rs the story would be different.
Subsole
@Woodrow/asim: Eh. Most of ’em may not “know better”, or whatnot. But they know damn well the planters weren’t angels and the blacks weren’t content.
If they didn’t know they were wrong, they wouldn’t freak out so damn hard at the thought of losing.
I was thinking about it all this morning. I grew up around these folks. I was raised by and worked with these folks. I almost married one of these folks, back in the dim past.
I concluded that I know these folks far, far, FAR too well to pity them.
I would also vehemently disagree that the Beltway doesn’t realize what they are supporting. It gas been pointed out to them too many times. I think they just agree with conservatives.
Or maybe they don’t, they’re just gonna put conservatives in charge to punish us all for calling out their bullshit. Most of them seem vapid and petty and stupid enough to pull a stunt like that.
gene108
Enthusiasm and turnout win elections. Nothing else matters
Manchin destroying Biden’s agenda and momentum has hurt Dem voter enthusiasm, plus the media coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
2022 will be a repeat of 2010 unless Democrats can get something really, really big done. Something bigger than whatever skinny BBB bill will get passed.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That “Youngkin seems to” looks like theme with him from what I’ve seen. Personally I suspect Hedge fund manager means Youngkin is more likely to go on a spree of tax cuts, running up the VA deficit and outsourcing state services to private contractors his former Hedge Fund just happens to be invested in.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: The Squad have been team players for the past year! I don’t see them as the problem right now, at all. The online far left is irritating but they’re not Democrats.
Kristine
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I wonder if the next 4 years in VA will be similar to what happened in Illinois under Bruce Rauner. Not as much potential for deadlock, but I don’t believe Rauner was able to push through much if anything of his agenda.
James E Powell
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Youngkin’s goal, his only purpose, will be to turn Virginia back to red in 2022 and 2024. Everything he says and does will be in service of that goal. Winning power is the only thing Republicans care about
And all of us should have the goal of making sure he fails – and that every Republican fails – in the next election. Nothing else matters. Just imagine the horror stories we’d be living with if we hadn’t won two of two in Georgia. Just imagine how much better our situation would be if voters in Maine and North Carolina had done differently.
We can win the midterms. It’s not going to be easy. We are opposed by evil people and they have plenty of supporters and plenty of money.
Soprano2
ITA – I think it was a reaction to the racial justice protests in 2020. Republicans saw that even many white people were horrified at what happened to George Floyd and started to believe we need reforms, and they thought “we have to figure out a way to stop all of that”. This is what they came up with, an acronym of something that almost no one knows anything about that they could make into whatever they wanted to make it into. Conservatives certainly know how to make white people panicked over race. It’s ironic how few people even notice that the people who were saying “fuck your feelings” in 2020 are now trying to protect the tender feelings of white children from having to ever hear anything bad about white people, and how the “free speech warriors” who were all over the internet defending people like Bari Weiss are amazingly silent over the Texas parent’s effort to ban 850 books from Texas schools!
frosty
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Oh hell, Youngkin is a hedge fund manager? Useless, like my senator Toomey. I can’t believe we elect these guys instead of people who’ve actually done some work of any kind in their lives.
Barbara
@Geminid:
McAuliffe has never been a strong candidate, and by that I mean that he just isn’t that savvy or quick on the hustings. He was a genuinely good governor IMO.
@Woodrow/asim:
I wasn’t trying to criticize germy but I get tired of losing sight of the facts. Also, I really don’t think our side benefits from the Apocalypse Now and Always mentality that we seem to be bringing to elections. I understand that there are some really horrifying things afoot, but there are more effective tactics to counter them than crying doom.
frosty
@Quinerly: We saw the Civil War site at Picacho Peak AZ in 2020. You’re right, I never heard about it in school*. When The Good The Bad and The Ugly had a Civil War scene I thought it was stupid fiction to drag that into a western.
* to be fair, we didn’t have time to cover all the history up to the 60s. My 8th grade history prof rushed through earlier stuff to make sure we covered WW1 and WW2, which I’d never had in class before that. I can’t imagine how much they have to skip 50 years later.
ETA: I think it was TGTBATU. It might have been a different spaghetti western.
Subsole
@schrodingers_cat:
I stand behind no one in my utter loathing of The Old Man of the Green Mountain and, more specifically, the trust-fund internet trolls from the Brooklyn SSR he put in charge of his campaign.
They are not the problem here. Or not nearly the problem Baron Blacklung is.
Geminid
@Barbara: I also did not think McAuliffe ran a very good campaign. This may just be an impression, but I thought he was somewhat complacent, at least until the polls tightened. Youngkin, on the other hand, ran a shrewd, shipshape campaign throughout. He knew he had to peel off 5.5% of the Biden vote, and he went about it in an efficient way. In such a close election, the qualitative disparity between the campaigns probably made a difference.
Woodrow/asim
I’m Black, from and living in the South.
My literal and figurative survival depends on knowing them.
I used the term “hate” very, very specifically, and in quotes for a reason. As were the rest of the words I used. There’s no “whatnot,” here.
To clarify: so long as people stay in the lanes proscribed by the ideas set in the “Lost Cause,” and showcased by media like GONE WITH THE WIND? Everything’s “fine.” I’ve seen it, time and again — so long as I don’t overshadow the White folx, they leave me the fuck alone.
This isn’t just about the racist we have in our heads, the “hillbilly/rural” racism that seems to be the standard model for such things. It is the White Flight folx, the people us Black folxs in White Collar jobs work daily with, the people who would never say the N-word in public, if ever.
It’s easy to just blame outright racists for this situation. But frankly, as a Black man, I’m far more worried about the people who’ll flip on a dime and use my ass as a “Black Best Friend” shield. The people who claim to have voted for Obama, but would roll with the family in GET OUT in a heartbeat.
Indeed, White Supremacy rests on that ideal, that White “able-bodied” men-folx should be in change, and everyone else just settles down underneath. Or, in the case of LBGTQIA+ people, are at best invisible to “polite society.” [EDIT That is, I suspect, an ideal many people (not just White males) think is “right,” and not actually racist at all. You’re allowed “exceptions,” so long as — again — they stay in their lanes. Look at how Obama’s approvals first dropped over criticizing a cop.]
The word “hate” is poor for defining what that is. It’s in many ways worse that raw “hate”, because it’s a pseudo-paternal societal model that’s hard as fuck to disengage from, much less understand and decode. A lot of folx, mostly but not all White, do this, and don’t know it — much less realize how, when that do shit like use the N-word, or align with racist (or other) issues, that they are playing out scripts written centuries ago.
That’s the thing with a lot of these issues — even Strom Thurmond, at his worse, could pull a Jefferson and have a mixed-race child, without thinking twice about it. It’s about a model of racism where hierarchy is all that matters, and only when you push against the presumed “way things out to be” that you generate so-called “hate”.
CRT says that we Black folx are pushing, again. It’s designed to “push” the mushy White so-called Moderate that MLK called out over his entire career, back into the “vote White” column. To pull support from the White-centered media we have, as well.
They aren’t “racist,” but they barely understand racism, much less why they vote and speak the way they do. That’s why I wrote what I wrote — for those folx, who I think as (via, in part, my lived experiences) as the majority of White folx in America today, not for the minority of hardcore racists.
Soprano2
I really think that we “inside politics” people give way too much weight to things like this. I’ve been saying here for weeks now that on FB I see a lot of complaining about high gas prices and high food prices in the stores. I think the “outside politics” people vote on things like that – “Everything is high right now, so I should vote for the people out of power maybe they can fix it” is the kind of thing that an “outside politics” person would think. Biden and Congress probably isn’t even on their minds.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@frosty: Like I said, Youngkin just BS he was a businessman, left out the bit his business was being a social parasite.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Geminid: He didn’t run a very good campaign based on what I saw from across the river in MD. Messaging was far inferior to Youngkin. Same goes for the Attorney General race. I don’t know if they got to wrapped up in VA is permanently blue, but coming from super deep blue MD which currently has an R governor I can tell you the dynamic is not something you can absolutely count on for off year governor’s races.
JML
It’s interesting that Youngkin wants to eliminate the sale tax on groceries, which is actually a good and progressive idea (if the revenue is replaced, of course). I’m sure he’s just doing it out of the general GOP manual of “must. cut. taxes!”, but it would in fact be of real help to families.
I’m increasingly thinking the cascade of media negativity over ending the war in Afghanistan really did hurt McAuliffe; the military-industrial complex in strong in VA and if you can pair it up by turning out the racists and confusing enough of the suburbanites into not really knowing what anyone stands for…that’s a winning coalition?
The VA system is pretty dumb, though. 1 term governors are stupid (most term limits are just dumb), having elections out of synch with any federal elections is kinda dumb (especially 1 year after the presidential). Hated it while I was living there (though I had some hilarious experiences volunteering for the dems)
schrodingers_cat
@Woodrow/asim: Some guy whose nym I had never seen before claimed to be not a racist because he has a “brown” Indian wife.
As if that is a confirmatory test of not being a racist.
Nicole
@Woodrow/asim: I liked this comment a lot, and your summation of the current GOP is as accurate as I’ve ever seen.
Nelle
I woke up this morning to find out that, out of the five people I voted for (two for city council and three for a school board), four have won. How novel. We have a youngish retired couple in our city have cheerfully made it their more than fulltime job to organize the city, not only at the precinct level but at neighborhood turf level. I got updates on who hadn’t turned in absentee ballots and then I would text, call, or doyir knock them (I’m the turf leader for my neighborhood of approx. 100 households). Last year, 100% of registered Dems in my turf voted, some, I suspect, just so that they wouldn’t be bothered any more by me.
Jeffro
Truth.
They’ll keep running self-funded, grinning ciphers who wink-and-nod at white supremacy until we do a better job of pulling back the curtain and offer a better deal.
Another Scott
@OGLiberal: Turnout was down roughly 20 points from last year – 74+% to 54%. Too many good people didn’t bother to vote.
That’s all.
It was close – 51:49. When turnout falls, bad things happen. We can’t ever stop doing everything we can to increase turnout.
The best thing that VA could do is move Gov, Lt Gov, AG to presidential election years. I don’t see that happening though. :-( Short of that, we need to do everything we can to increase turnout.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I had a similar thought in a different direction: that the big Washington Post article on 1/6 would motivate a lot that northern VA gov’t and gov’t connected types against Youngkin, but most of what I’m seeing around twitter– by which I mean, the most superficial takes– is that Youngkin really drove up turn out in the south and west parts of the state.
Nelle
@Woodrow/asim: May i quote you, far and wide?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is the first election since the Lee statue was taken down in Richmond. The hickies probably want Youngkin to punish the urbanites for that.
Another Scott
@Geminid: He won a 51:49 race running on divisive policies. He wants to outlaw abortion. He wants to crank up “audits” of elections. He wants to meddle with school boards. He is against masking and vaccine mandates. His RWNJ supporters won’t be happy if he doesn’t crank up the culture wars on that and more, but, as you say, the state Senate (and Democrats in the House of Delegates) won’t go along. He’ll try gimmicks like McDonnell’s gas tax slight of hand, but he won’t get the big culture war wins he wants though he may become another DeSantis media darling…
The usual path in VA is from Gov to Sen. Kaine is up in 2024. Warner is up in 2026. He may try to go after Kaine, but it would be a hard race to win. Who knows if he has enough hubris to go after the GQP nomination…
We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
that was my long-distance impression, he was complacent till he got scared, then he started blaming national Dems, which the Broderists were only too happy to seize on. As @Soprano2: indicates, I think the common thread between VA and NJ is higher gas and food prices, along with pandemic-fatigue. On that last point, a whole bunch of people voted for the anti-masker, soft-anti-vaxxer, de facto pro-Covid candidate (at least in VA, I have no idea where the NJ R is on those things, but I doubt he’s pro-mask). Against stupidity, the gods themselves struggle in vain.
Another Scott
@JML: Virginia already has low sales taxes on most groceries including personal hygiene products (2.5%) (as of 1/1/2020 – in other words, done by Democrats).
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Youngkin can always skip the Senate and run for an even higher office. A GOP volunteer at my polling place gave me a folder with a plastic membership card for ” The Glenn Youngkin Election Integrity Task Force.” It will be a good souvenir, she told me, for when he becomes Governor, “and maybe President.”
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Agree with all of that. I too believe that pandemic fatigue is a big part of the equation. I mean, if you feel like you are losing a lot of control over your life, especially when it comes to the issue of having kids in school, how does it make you feel when someone says you shouldn’t be in control?
I think the pressure point is going to come when all those angry moms realize that what Youngkin means by “school choice” is diverting money from public to private schools. Of course, it will be hard for Youngkin to push that through with the Senate still controlled by Dems. I also think that there might be obstacles under the Virginia constitution. I am not unduly worried about it, but I do have fantasies of Youngkin being forced to explain why the schools that benefit the most from the diversion of funds are the large k-12 Islamic academies that have been built in the exurbs. I kid you not, there are only three remaining Catholic high schools in all of Northern Virginia. So I guess we will see.
sab
@Nelle: Wow. That is an impressive amount of work by you, and very old-fashioned. That’s how Dems used to win back when I was young.
Lobo
@Woodrow/asim:
Word!
Soprano2
You see this same thing with misogyny. It’s not that they “hate” women, it’s that they are extremely uncomfortable with anyone going “outside their lane”. In the minds of way too many white people they think it’s the natural order that white people be on top of everything. I often hear it all the time as things like “It’s just the truth that most crime is committed by black people; how can it be racist to just say the truth? Why don’t you want to admit the truth?” “It’s just true that there are only two sexes, why can’t you see the truth?” “It’s just the truth that most women want to stay home and raise their children, why can’t you admit this is true?”. They don’t think of themselves as racist, they just believe they know what the truth of things is and you don’t. It’s not a mistake that they want to roll everything back to the time before the 1960’s. That’s when white people were completely comfortable with things. They think if only they can get back there they’ll be comfortable all the time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I don’t know from Steve Sweeney, but this looks like a big thing
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: I think there are a lot of white people who think of themselves as not-racist because they have no general animus toward people of other races and will happily give them a seat at the table–but when a whole lot of them show up, and they show signs of wanting to change things or are actually in control… it’s “holy shit they’re taking over”. They’re fine being around as long as they remain exceptional cases and a white person is the boss.
Formerly EmperorofIceCream
@Woodrow/asim: what an insightful comment.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nelle: Bless you!
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t think Democrats can ignore that. There are a lot more non college people than there are college people. They have to come up with something to reach them. Obviously, not dogwhistles but they can’t just throw their hands up and stop competing for the whole non college white vote. The numbers don’t work. They don’t need a majority but they can’t go from 30 to 15%. You’ll run out of states to win.
gene108
@Woodrow/asim:
Upper middle class suburban parents do not want their children’s education hurt by any damn thing. They paid money to live in an area with good schools and they aren’t going to see that investment hurt by “radical” ideas taught in schools.
Even liberal suburbanites draw a line with their children’s education, if something might threaten it.
I think this is why CRT hysteria is so much more effective than other things conservatives have tried in recent years.
Matt McIrvin
Woodrow/asim has all the correctest takes in this thread.
Kay
@gene108:
It is going to effect Virginia schools and the people dismissing that are delusional. Every single school in the state will be nervous presenting anything at all on race. They’ll detour around huge chunks of US history rather than go anywhere near it. Public schools aren’t private universities. They’re risk averse.
Are any of these people familiar with public schools at all? They don’t underreact to risk, they overreact.
A lot of the school policies they objected to were not based on CRT- they were based on 50 years of data that AA students are treated inequitably in public schools. Schools collect the data- they have to – it’s a federal civil right law. How are they supposed to talk about disparities in public schools without mentioning race? Can they talk about how black boys are disciplined more often and more harshly than white boys for the same offenses in schools? Because that’s a fact.
“Colorblind” policy in public schools impacts a lot more than whether there are actual CRT presentations to ban. It’s contrary to our whole federal policy on public schools, which rests on IDENTIFYING disparities, and addressing them. It’s a giant step back.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding!! That’s it exactly. It’s the “I can’t be racist, I know/work with black people just fine”.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Woodrow/asim: Good points.
Consider all statue pull downs and the Floyd protest one, the absurd paranoia about CRT which is some obscure academic thing, one could see last night as a howl of pain from the comphy racists and the solution is just more pushy blacks.
I didn’t even know what CRT was before the those wingnut wankers started on it, then I agreed with CRT but thought it was to much for a child to understand, now I am leaning towards some form of it should be taught in K-12.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Soprano2: CRT argue it’s not the induvidual, it’s the whole structure. Take the Cornfed Traitor Wage Thief statues; Lee and company are presented as the immaculate warrior saints of the South, not the blood crazed warlords of a pack slave owners futilely trying to stand in the path of history they were. So not only does it marginalize the horror of slavery, “Massa Lee was a good and noble man, he would never abuse someone”, it also reinforces the whole whites are the natural leaders theme, “That boorish drunk Grant only won because of superior numbers, but Lee was a military genius!”
James E Powell
@Jeffro:
Our frustration comes from the fact that we’ve consistently done both, but it doesn’t seem to work.
Our fear is that historic forces have been unleashed; our hope is that we can be the countervailing force that pushes back.
Ben Cisco
@Woodrow/asim:
I know I’m late and the thread is probably dead, and I’m only quoting part of an OUTSTANDING whole, but
EVERY. BIT. OF. THIS.
Welcome to our world.