Harris never talked about pronouns, never scolded white voters that they had "white privilege," didn't make a big deal about her gender or race, supported the bill in Congress that would toughen border restrictions, y'know, the one that Trump tanked. Why would voters be listening more to the progressive Left, made up of people who have very little actual power, than to Harris, who proposed policies designed to help small businesses and people having families or taking care of their elderly parents?
It's the right wing propaganda system that is so pervasive in this country that has created a gigantic straw man of evil progressives out of a small group of people who say the word "Latinx." A group that has maybe read some history and that understands that systemic racism and misogyny will indeed limit the opportunities of women and non-white people, in spite of the fact that those same people might want to believe otherwise (I admire their optimism).
You're right, the right wing propaganda machine is the real culprit here, but you can't ignore the massive minority shift towards Trump. Harris's reputation as a woke elitist was already set before she started campaigning. She didn't disavow it strongly enough, and it definitely hurt her. I am also not dismissing racism and misogyny at all, but the left has gone completely overboard on these issues and it has turned off the majority of the electorate. We need to find new ways to talk about it, otherwise Democrats stand to lose more elections in the coming years.
I think one of the issues that that while she didn’t run on any of these issues in 2024, her 2019 campaign could be considered “woke” because that was the segment of the dem electorate she was trying to appeal to back then. Her statements from 2019 provided a paper trail for the GOP to use against her.
Agreed. I may be speaking from a demographic bubble but this is a caricature that has been honed to a fine point. It’s a diluted form of the Nazis’ campaign against the “rootless cosmopolitan” Jews. If “regular people” don’t like “elites” it’s because those “elites” have succeeded in a de facto class system that has left the regulars behind. Their economic discontents are legit but they have been steered toward the wrong enemy. Once again.
As a trans feminine person (I avoid the term non-binary for myself but don't judge others), I feel the community as a whole needs to stop dying on the following hills: bathrooms, sports, pronouns, and prisoner surgeries. Schools: there are SO FEW trans kids per capita, if they can't designate at least one gender-neutral bathroom per facility, then give the kids a pass to use the teacher's lounge. Sports: case by case basis and if the trans athlete is far off the grid in terms of athletic ability, just say NO. Pronouns -- enough of this BS, honor them when you can and we need to LET IT GO when people slip up -- and if we don't let "misgendering" be an easy dagger for them to stab us with, they'll eventually give up. My closest friends use my preferred terms with me and I could care less about everyone else. My kid, on the other hand, has different pronoun rules every week. Prisoner surgeries -- NO, NO, NO (to quote OMD's Tesla Girls). If we have that many trans criminals in the system, I'm sure the for profit correctional industry can figure out some way to monetize it and provide appropriate accommodations. Since prison reform is off the table for the next few decades and the prison pipeline will only ramp up, I highly recommend that trans people lay low, don't commit crimes, and do their best to not get brought in on avoidable charges often used to target at-risk communities. That won't save everyone but will hopefully reduce the prisoner count. Most trans people just want to live authentically and fit in, and sadly, society is going to take a much longer arc to even meet us half way.
"I highly recommend that trans people lay low, don't commit crimes, and do their best to not get brought in on avoidable charges often used to target at-risk communities."
But it's going to be hard to not commit a crime when being trans *IS* the crime.
I just spent an hour talking with my therapist about this exact issue. My self-preservation method is to blend in when traversing in unknown and unsafe spaces which is just about anywhere public these days. No dresses. No makeup. I wore hoodies all summer and it was living hell. Some trans women have the security that comes with passibility -- but most of us can be spotted on the street. I've been verbally and physically assaulted by men and women on the rough and tumble streets of suburban Seattle and now need to add the possibility cops might show up at my door because I am a published trans advocate and my healthcare provider may be subpoenaed.
Kels, I'm so very sorry you have to deal with assholes just to live your life. I'm very concerned about what we're going to have to live through. Fortunately, there are also a lot of good people who are willing to help.
I truly appreciate it -- The Banter comments section has become an invaluable online community during the year that was, and I can see it only growing in importance in the years ahead!
I think the real problem is that the whole "mainstream" media ecosystem, including well-meaning moderate-liberal bloggers, have internalized a set of right-wing frames. Your essay, like many of its kind, keeps flipping back and forth between "Democrats" and "White Progressives". THESE ARE NOT SYNONYMS!
Can you give a concrete example of "woke" language from Biden? When exactly did Harris call for defunding the police? Can you name a single Democratic senator who denies that "the US is the greatest country in the world"? Which paragraph of the national Democratic Party platform calls for "open borders"?
There is absolutely nothing the Democratic Party can do that will stop earnest-but-naive young people or leftier-than-thou trolls from posting silly or irresponsible things online. You seem to be demanding that the Democrats stop doing things that "Democrats" are not doing and have no power to stop other people from doing.
We keep playing this silly game: right-wing provocateurs make up some "outrage" and demand that we take a public position on it. Since liberals are basically decent human beings, we try to take nuanced positions even on extremely niche issues. But it doesn't matter _what_ position we take: simply talking about these issues at all feeds the perception that we are obsessed with such things. And the propaganda machine creates an unending stream of these, so playing this game keeps us perpetually on the back foot.
At every interview, every Democrat should push back on bad-faith questions and dishonest framing. If asked about trans women in high-school sports, instead of spending five minutes on a thoughtful discussion of trans issues, or throwing trans people under the bus, just say something like: "Our interview is scheduled to last twenty minutes. There are only two trans kids on high-school teams in the entire state of Michigan. Why the hell are you asking me about _this_ issue, instead of health insurance or industrial policy or public safety? Let me tell you about my jobs program."
Apologies to Mr. Cohen for the tone. Obviously I subscribe to The Banter because I generally like your insights. But like "Jeff", above, I think that it is a mistake to think we need to "disavow" every random position that the right-wing trolls dredge up on the internet.
Why non-immigrants don’t understand why immigrants believe in border enforcement is (to use a phrase beloved of the woke left) an example of them showing their privilege
Actual immigrants like me understand just how tough the immigration process is to navigate. Even as Brits before the changes in 1983 we were rejected in 1980 when attempting to emigrate to Australia as my dad had just been made redundant in the Thatcher recession and my mum (for family reasons) refused to use her estranged mother as a reference. Our cousins did get over as they did use the reference and uncle Dave was employed. 7 years later my dad was employed and uncle Dave was our reference and we got in.
That is all for immigrants from a preferred country, so imagine how tough it is for immigrants from the Middle East or Latin America, no wonder people who jump through all the hoops have no patience for people who cross the border illegally, if anything the ‘queue jumper’ phrase it’s home more clearly for immigrants than native born
In 2001 in a politically shameless campaign, John Howard refused to allow refugees that were picked up by the Tampa IV after their vessel was sinking to enter Australia. He used border security in the campaign with the now iconic phrase in Australian Politics
“We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”
It was evil, shameless opportunism, just after 9/11 using the most vulnerable people on earth as a wedge issue (and lying about the refugees throwing their children overboard) but here’s the inconvenient thing about that slogan. It was picked up in a focus group and said by a middle eastern immigrant. Until the progressive left is prepared to compromise with the electorate on this stuff and stops preaching and starts listening we’re gonna have a lot more days like last Tuesday
One other thing that came up then about refugees, even left wing people would think this, even if they didn’t feel like they could say it, was a simple question, at which point does a refugee stop running away from somewhere and start running ‘to’ somewhere?
So these middle eastern refugees would often be people escaping genuine persecution, but to get to Australia they have to pass through half a dozen country’s to get to Indonesia and then jump on a boat to make the unauthorized crossing to Australia.
Well its quite reasonable to ask why they are not safe in Indonesia or Malaysia, living there with fellow muslims but no longer in the danger they were were running away from in their home country. Australian voters asked the reasonable question of why they couldn’t stop in Indonesia, or even if you agree that Australia should take its share of refugees, why should we take the people who ‘jumped the queue’ by jumping on a rickety boat across the Torres Strait rather than following the correct UN process and applying for refugee status through the proper channels, a process where Australia did take its share (just look at the Sudanese communities that have grown in Australia, populated by people who followed the legitimate refugee processes, not people who entered on unauthorised boats.
Now a certain type of left-winger will see this message and somehow find a way to call me racist for even bringing this up, but your average voter thinks this is a completely legitimate question
Sorry for length of reply, I am at the point where my anger has boiled so much I really need to write a thousand word piece to get all my thoughts down, but in the meantime I do it in replies and hope people like you, sensible people, will take the time to read it and point out where I am wrong
Ben, thank you for this great article. I agree not only with your assessment but also conclusion. Plus to not give in to despair.
Liberals indeed need to talk to the minorities they claim to protect. They might have figured that many are pro life, very religious and not very woke.
Still vote against everything Trump proposes but state that as a party you have a philosophical opposition to the Filibuster
No more free votes for Republicans in tough districts for the policies of their extremists, knowing the Dem filibuster will protect them from the policy actually happening. Force every Republican to take real votes for real legislation that will actually be enacted while still showing opposition by being the party that voted against it
Also, let the people get what they voted for, some pain might be the only thing that teaches these people that politics is not a game and that Democrats have been protecting them by taking the tough grown up votes since the GFC through Covid relief
Thank you for this piece of rationality. Many (most?) Democrats remind me of a former boss who was so “open-minded” that anyone who disagreed with her was “close-minded.” It’s a self-destructive loop and not the way to win friends or influence people.
Ben I agree we should give Trump free rein and let the Red states learn what they voted for. But I live in a tiny blue bubble in a deep red state. How do we protect ourselves?
My hesitance about “letting Trump go wild“ is because I suspect two years, even four years, won’t be enough to convince the Trumpers that they made a mistake.🤔😉😊
Ben, I don't disagree with the "Let them feel what they have wrought." approach and am looking forward to all the "I told you so"s that I'll be able to dish out. *BUT* I'm also very aware this approach is hardly different than the "Bern it all down!" desired so much by the Susan Sarandons of the world that has been (correctly) criticized in past articles here for being favored by those who are not the poor or minorities who will feel the main brunt. (Easy for folks to call for Anarchy and Revolution when they won't be the ones paying the cost.)
So while I'm looking forward to the schadenfreude and willing to take some personal hardships to see it happen, I'm concerned that the cost of letting Trump run wild will turn out to be more self-damaging than we're actually prepared to endure.
Perhaps the better course would be to try to prevent what can be prevented while making very clear messaging that the pain that is being felt is entirely Trump's/Republican's fault and any relief from it is entirely due to the protective efforts of Democrats. Of course, that depends on effective messaging from Democrats so clearly it's a doomed proposition from the start.
Refuse to use the filibuster and force Republicans in tough districts or with a modicum of responsibility left take tough votes against Trump, stop allowing them to rely on Democrats to be the adults in the room protecting them from themselves
THAT especially in all for. Dems have GOT to stop riding to the rescue and instead let the Republicans face consequences.
Yes, it means people will be harmed by, for example, an unneeded gov’t shutdown. But that’s much better than the ongoing-for-years/decades damage that comes from protecting the Republican Party.
I really wonder about this “college-educated elites looking down on regular folks” thing. I’d love someone to give me an example of that. I just don’t see it. Of course, being a college-educated liberal from the Northeast, I (ahem) undoubtedly am a major offender.
Here’s what I think: I think “college-educated liberal elite” is code for — you guessed it — Jews. Irrespective of whether the offenders are, in fact, Jewish, that kind of bigotry is at the heart of it. 🤔😉😊
Look, I agree actual Democratic politicians are not doing the ‘look down on people’ thing. But come on, be serious, if you haven’t seen academic elites talking about ‘whiteness’ or ‘masculinity’ being Prima facie negative, then you are walking through life wilfully blind
I agree mansplaining exists, but too many academic feminists talk as if the very fact that a man disagreed with their argument and came back with their own is on its face illegitimate
You can’t go on social media this week without seeing left wing activists bashing whites women for prioritising their whiteness over their gender. Or using ‘yt’ as a slur (ignoring the big movements in votes from Latinos and black men)
The academic left is not just out of touch but is aggressively determined to learn nothing
Just today at COP29, you see the message from activists is that rich countries need to pay $5 Trillion (with a T) every year to compensate the global south for climate change (not excluding Venezuela or Nigeria or other oil producing nations, or India and its coal powered economy btw) a number that has the dual benefit of being totally unrealistic and politically toxic.
If you want to see average people turn against the idea of any action on climate change then the climate skeptics couldn’t have invented a better slogan at a better time to get their point across
The activist left and academics have made the same mistake for 9 years now. Seeing Trump as so unelectable that they can run to the left and get away with it, rather than seeing him for what he really is, a truly dangerous threat and every other issue needs to be put on the back-burner while the sole focus of defeating him and if that requires painful compromises with the electorate then so be it. This week they’ve all proven they’re determined to continue to ignore the lesson
I fully agree with your takes. I sense a looming intraparty civil war between what might be called “Reform Democrats” and “Woke Democrats”. Right now the only acceptable interpretation of the election results from the latter group is that Harris lost because the electorate is irredeemably “racist” and “misogynist” and that all other explanations for her loss are invalid. (See, for example, all the Commenter attacks on Kathleen Parker for her centrist-Democrat-leaning Washington Post article.) Right now The Atlantic is firmly on the side of the former, while MSNBC, The New Yorker and The New Republic are in the opposite camp. Going forward I can’t see Reform Democrats being very happy about membership in a party that demands fealty to a theory of Harris’s election loss that is so at odds at what they have observed. I suspect that the fracturing and coming apart of the Democratic Party will have commenced in a major way by January 20.
I am guessing a lot of the obits that were last updated for Bill Clinton in 2021 (you know how papers pre-write their obits) in centre left publications, have been reviewed in the last week
The 2021 version would have attacked him for Sister Souljah, the 2024 edit would return to the common sense view that it was a viral moment in the campaign that allowed Clinton to send a message to the electorate that there was a line that separated him from the loony left
What the 2028 Dem candidate needs is their own Sister Souljah moment but this time instead of a rapper, it will be a left wing academic that plays the role of patsy
The public sees everyone from Extinction Rebellion to Jon Tester as being part of the Dem Party, rather than embracing the groups and signing up to their pledge cards, the next Dem Presidential candidate needs to signal to the voters that there is a line and people to the left of that line have no influence over him (let’s be honest, in 2028 it will be a him)
Harris never talked about pronouns, never scolded white voters that they had "white privilege," didn't make a big deal about her gender or race, supported the bill in Congress that would toughen border restrictions, y'know, the one that Trump tanked. Why would voters be listening more to the progressive Left, made up of people who have very little actual power, than to Harris, who proposed policies designed to help small businesses and people having families or taking care of their elderly parents?
It's the right wing propaganda system that is so pervasive in this country that has created a gigantic straw man of evil progressives out of a small group of people who say the word "Latinx." A group that has maybe read some history and that understands that systemic racism and misogyny will indeed limit the opportunities of women and non-white people, in spite of the fact that those same people might want to believe otherwise (I admire their optimism).
You're right, the right wing propaganda machine is the real culprit here, but you can't ignore the massive minority shift towards Trump. Harris's reputation as a woke elitist was already set before she started campaigning. She didn't disavow it strongly enough, and it definitely hurt her. I am also not dismissing racism and misogyny at all, but the left has gone completely overboard on these issues and it has turned off the majority of the electorate. We need to find new ways to talk about it, otherwise Democrats stand to lose more elections in the coming years.
Hi Ben, how would someone “disavow“ being a “woke elitist“? This sounds to me a little bit like a “when did you stop beating your wife“ question.🤔😉😊
I think one of the issues that that while she didn’t run on any of these issues in 2024, her 2019 campaign could be considered “woke” because that was the segment of the dem electorate she was trying to appeal to back then. Her statements from 2019 provided a paper trail for the GOP to use against her.
Agreed. I may be speaking from a demographic bubble but this is a caricature that has been honed to a fine point. It’s a diluted form of the Nazis’ campaign against the “rootless cosmopolitan” Jews. If “regular people” don’t like “elites” it’s because those “elites” have succeeded in a de facto class system that has left the regulars behind. Their economic discontents are legit but they have been steered toward the wrong enemy. Once again.
As a trans feminine person (I avoid the term non-binary for myself but don't judge others), I feel the community as a whole needs to stop dying on the following hills: bathrooms, sports, pronouns, and prisoner surgeries. Schools: there are SO FEW trans kids per capita, if they can't designate at least one gender-neutral bathroom per facility, then give the kids a pass to use the teacher's lounge. Sports: case by case basis and if the trans athlete is far off the grid in terms of athletic ability, just say NO. Pronouns -- enough of this BS, honor them when you can and we need to LET IT GO when people slip up -- and if we don't let "misgendering" be an easy dagger for them to stab us with, they'll eventually give up. My closest friends use my preferred terms with me and I could care less about everyone else. My kid, on the other hand, has different pronoun rules every week. Prisoner surgeries -- NO, NO, NO (to quote OMD's Tesla Girls). If we have that many trans criminals in the system, I'm sure the for profit correctional industry can figure out some way to monetize it and provide appropriate accommodations. Since prison reform is off the table for the next few decades and the prison pipeline will only ramp up, I highly recommend that trans people lay low, don't commit crimes, and do their best to not get brought in on avoidable charges often used to target at-risk communities. That won't save everyone but will hopefully reduce the prisoner count. Most trans people just want to live authentically and fit in, and sadly, society is going to take a much longer arc to even meet us half way.
"I highly recommend that trans people lay low, don't commit crimes, and do their best to not get brought in on avoidable charges often used to target at-risk communities."
But it's going to be hard to not commit a crime when being trans *IS* the crime.
I just spent an hour talking with my therapist about this exact issue. My self-preservation method is to blend in when traversing in unknown and unsafe spaces which is just about anywhere public these days. No dresses. No makeup. I wore hoodies all summer and it was living hell. Some trans women have the security that comes with passibility -- but most of us can be spotted on the street. I've been verbally and physically assaulted by men and women on the rough and tumble streets of suburban Seattle and now need to add the possibility cops might show up at my door because I am a published trans advocate and my healthcare provider may be subpoenaed.
Kels, I'm so very sorry you have to deal with assholes just to live your life. I'm very concerned about what we're going to have to live through. Fortunately, there are also a lot of good people who are willing to help.
I truly appreciate it -- The Banter comments section has become an invaluable online community during the year that was, and I can see it only growing in importance in the years ahead!
I've been hanging out and commenting here for ages. Welcome. Nice to meet'cha.
I think this is the most sensible thing I’ve ever read on this entire subject. Bless you.
I think the real problem is that the whole "mainstream" media ecosystem, including well-meaning moderate-liberal bloggers, have internalized a set of right-wing frames. Your essay, like many of its kind, keeps flipping back and forth between "Democrats" and "White Progressives". THESE ARE NOT SYNONYMS!
Can you give a concrete example of "woke" language from Biden? When exactly did Harris call for defunding the police? Can you name a single Democratic senator who denies that "the US is the greatest country in the world"? Which paragraph of the national Democratic Party platform calls for "open borders"?
There is absolutely nothing the Democratic Party can do that will stop earnest-but-naive young people or leftier-than-thou trolls from posting silly or irresponsible things online. You seem to be demanding that the Democrats stop doing things that "Democrats" are not doing and have no power to stop other people from doing.
We keep playing this silly game: right-wing provocateurs make up some "outrage" and demand that we take a public position on it. Since liberals are basically decent human beings, we try to take nuanced positions even on extremely niche issues. But it doesn't matter _what_ position we take: simply talking about these issues at all feeds the perception that we are obsessed with such things. And the propaganda machine creates an unending stream of these, so playing this game keeps us perpetually on the back foot.
At every interview, every Democrat should push back on bad-faith questions and dishonest framing. If asked about trans women in high-school sports, instead of spending five minutes on a thoughtful discussion of trans issues, or throwing trans people under the bus, just say something like: "Our interview is scheduled to last twenty minutes. There are only two trans kids on high-school teams in the entire state of Michigan. Why the hell are you asking me about _this_ issue, instead of health insurance or industrial policy or public safety? Let me tell you about my jobs program."
The only winning move is not to play.
Apologies to Mr. Cohen for the tone. Obviously I subscribe to The Banter because I generally like your insights. But like "Jeff", above, I think that it is a mistake to think we need to "disavow" every random position that the right-wing trolls dredge up on the internet.
Why non-immigrants don’t understand why immigrants believe in border enforcement is (to use a phrase beloved of the woke left) an example of them showing their privilege
Actual immigrants like me understand just how tough the immigration process is to navigate. Even as Brits before the changes in 1983 we were rejected in 1980 when attempting to emigrate to Australia as my dad had just been made redundant in the Thatcher recession and my mum (for family reasons) refused to use her estranged mother as a reference. Our cousins did get over as they did use the reference and uncle Dave was employed. 7 years later my dad was employed and uncle Dave was our reference and we got in.
That is all for immigrants from a preferred country, so imagine how tough it is for immigrants from the Middle East or Latin America, no wonder people who jump through all the hoops have no patience for people who cross the border illegally, if anything the ‘queue jumper’ phrase it’s home more clearly for immigrants than native born
In 2001 in a politically shameless campaign, John Howard refused to allow refugees that were picked up by the Tampa IV after their vessel was sinking to enter Australia. He used border security in the campaign with the now iconic phrase in Australian Politics
“We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come”
It was evil, shameless opportunism, just after 9/11 using the most vulnerable people on earth as a wedge issue (and lying about the refugees throwing their children overboard) but here’s the inconvenient thing about that slogan. It was picked up in a focus group and said by a middle eastern immigrant. Until the progressive left is prepared to compromise with the electorate on this stuff and stops preaching and starts listening we’re gonna have a lot more days like last Tuesday
Could not agree more Lee. Well said.
One other thing that came up then about refugees, even left wing people would think this, even if they didn’t feel like they could say it, was a simple question, at which point does a refugee stop running away from somewhere and start running ‘to’ somewhere?
So these middle eastern refugees would often be people escaping genuine persecution, but to get to Australia they have to pass through half a dozen country’s to get to Indonesia and then jump on a boat to make the unauthorized crossing to Australia.
Well its quite reasonable to ask why they are not safe in Indonesia or Malaysia, living there with fellow muslims but no longer in the danger they were were running away from in their home country. Australian voters asked the reasonable question of why they couldn’t stop in Indonesia, or even if you agree that Australia should take its share of refugees, why should we take the people who ‘jumped the queue’ by jumping on a rickety boat across the Torres Strait rather than following the correct UN process and applying for refugee status through the proper channels, a process where Australia did take its share (just look at the Sudanese communities that have grown in Australia, populated by people who followed the legitimate refugee processes, not people who entered on unauthorised boats.
Now a certain type of left-winger will see this message and somehow find a way to call me racist for even bringing this up, but your average voter thinks this is a completely legitimate question
Sorry for length of reply, I am at the point where my anger has boiled so much I really need to write a thousand word piece to get all my thoughts down, but in the meantime I do it in replies and hope people like you, sensible people, will take the time to read it and point out where I am wrong
Ben, thank you for this great article. I agree not only with your assessment but also conclusion. Plus to not give in to despair.
Liberals indeed need to talk to the minorities they claim to protect. They might have figured that many are pro life, very religious and not very woke.
This is my theory
Still vote against everything Trump proposes but state that as a party you have a philosophical opposition to the Filibuster
No more free votes for Republicans in tough districts for the policies of their extremists, knowing the Dem filibuster will protect them from the policy actually happening. Force every Republican to take real votes for real legislation that will actually be enacted while still showing opposition by being the party that voted against it
Also, let the people get what they voted for, some pain might be the only thing that teaches these people that politics is not a game and that Democrats have been protecting them by taking the tough grown up votes since the GFC through Covid relief
Thank you for this piece of rationality. Many (most?) Democrats remind me of a former boss who was so “open-minded” that anyone who disagreed with her was “close-minded.” It’s a self-destructive loop and not the way to win friends or influence people.
Ben I agree we should give Trump free rein and let the Red states learn what they voted for. But I live in a tiny blue bubble in a deep red state. How do we protect ourselves?
My hesitance about “letting Trump go wild“ is because I suspect two years, even four years, won’t be enough to convince the Trumpers that they made a mistake.🤔😉😊
Ben, I don't disagree with the "Let them feel what they have wrought." approach and am looking forward to all the "I told you so"s that I'll be able to dish out. *BUT* I'm also very aware this approach is hardly different than the "Bern it all down!" desired so much by the Susan Sarandons of the world that has been (correctly) criticized in past articles here for being favored by those who are not the poor or minorities who will feel the main brunt. (Easy for folks to call for Anarchy and Revolution when they won't be the ones paying the cost.)
So while I'm looking forward to the schadenfreude and willing to take some personal hardships to see it happen, I'm concerned that the cost of letting Trump run wild will turn out to be more self-damaging than we're actually prepared to endure.
Perhaps the better course would be to try to prevent what can be prevented while making very clear messaging that the pain that is being felt is entirely Trump's/Republican's fault and any relief from it is entirely due to the protective efforts of Democrats. Of course, that depends on effective messaging from Democrats so clearly it's a doomed proposition from the start.
Refuse to use the filibuster and force Republicans in tough districts or with a modicum of responsibility left take tough votes against Trump, stop allowing them to rely on Democrats to be the adults in the room protecting them from themselves
THAT especially in all for. Dems have GOT to stop riding to the rescue and instead let the Republicans face consequences.
Yes, it means people will be harmed by, for example, an unneeded gov’t shutdown. But that’s much better than the ongoing-for-years/decades damage that comes from protecting the Republican Party.
I really wonder about this “college-educated elites looking down on regular folks” thing. I’d love someone to give me an example of that. I just don’t see it. Of course, being a college-educated liberal from the Northeast, I (ahem) undoubtedly am a major offender.
Here’s what I think: I think “college-educated liberal elite” is code for — you guessed it — Jews. Irrespective of whether the offenders are, in fact, Jewish, that kind of bigotry is at the heart of it. 🤔😉😊
Look, I agree actual Democratic politicians are not doing the ‘look down on people’ thing. But come on, be serious, if you haven’t seen academic elites talking about ‘whiteness’ or ‘masculinity’ being Prima facie negative, then you are walking through life wilfully blind
I agree mansplaining exists, but too many academic feminists talk as if the very fact that a man disagreed with their argument and came back with their own is on its face illegitimate
You can’t go on social media this week without seeing left wing activists bashing whites women for prioritising their whiteness over their gender. Or using ‘yt’ as a slur (ignoring the big movements in votes from Latinos and black men)
The academic left is not just out of touch but is aggressively determined to learn nothing
Just today at COP29, you see the message from activists is that rich countries need to pay $5 Trillion (with a T) every year to compensate the global south for climate change (not excluding Venezuela or Nigeria or other oil producing nations, or India and its coal powered economy btw) a number that has the dual benefit of being totally unrealistic and politically toxic.
If you want to see average people turn against the idea of any action on climate change then the climate skeptics couldn’t have invented a better slogan at a better time to get their point across
The activist left and academics have made the same mistake for 9 years now. Seeing Trump as so unelectable that they can run to the left and get away with it, rather than seeing him for what he really is, a truly dangerous threat and every other issue needs to be put on the back-burner while the sole focus of defeating him and if that requires painful compromises with the electorate then so be it. This week they’ve all proven they’re determined to continue to ignore the lesson
I fully agree with your takes. I sense a looming intraparty civil war between what might be called “Reform Democrats” and “Woke Democrats”. Right now the only acceptable interpretation of the election results from the latter group is that Harris lost because the electorate is irredeemably “racist” and “misogynist” and that all other explanations for her loss are invalid. (See, for example, all the Commenter attacks on Kathleen Parker for her centrist-Democrat-leaning Washington Post article.) Right now The Atlantic is firmly on the side of the former, while MSNBC, The New Yorker and The New Republic are in the opposite camp. Going forward I can’t see Reform Democrats being very happy about membership in a party that demands fealty to a theory of Harris’s election loss that is so at odds at what they have observed. I suspect that the fracturing and coming apart of the Democratic Party will have commenced in a major way by January 20.
I am guessing a lot of the obits that were last updated for Bill Clinton in 2021 (you know how papers pre-write their obits) in centre left publications, have been reviewed in the last week
The 2021 version would have attacked him for Sister Souljah, the 2024 edit would return to the common sense view that it was a viral moment in the campaign that allowed Clinton to send a message to the electorate that there was a line that separated him from the loony left
What the 2028 Dem candidate needs is their own Sister Souljah moment but this time instead of a rapper, it will be a left wing academic that plays the role of patsy
The public sees everyone from Extinction Rebellion to Jon Tester as being part of the Dem Party, rather than embracing the groups and signing up to their pledge cards, the next Dem Presidential candidate needs to signal to the voters that there is a line and people to the left of that line have no influence over him (let’s be honest, in 2028 it will be a him)
Harsh. But, let them try and burn it all down. Won’t take long for MAGA to realize fire is hot, hurts like hell, and leaves scars.
Pretty sure the capacity for MAGA to learn anything is severely limited.