***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[TooOlfForThisIsh]

This is one of the reasons I give Democrats a break and say we can't simply message away their problems

The media environment is rigged against the Democratic Party, even operating at their best, their message only breaks through when the GOP has control of the presidency and Congress, and people have to face how really out of step with reality and the public the GOP is.

I never bought the arguments the popularist dudes were making because their takes didn't line up with the realities of the media environment. Mathew Yglesias is one of the shallowest thinkers when it comes to political strategy

I stand back in shock about how people don't realize how much the GOP has finessed them. A while back Ezra Klein was going on and on about how the Dems are stupid to not take Romney's deal on an enhanced childcare subsidy. About how the Dems should reconciliation to push it through and accept Romney's poison pills and piss off part of the coalition. Someone in the comments raised an important point that Klein was advocating for 50 Dems to join with 1 Republican to pass a bill, and Klein never focuses any real anger on the fact no other Republican is willing to work on the deal. The fact a deal wasn't being made was mainly on the Dems

I’ve been guilty of thinking that better messaging could be more successful and that much of the Dems woes we’re own-goals. A lot of what people here, and especially you, have argued has really changed my view on this.

I think that the original instinct is somewhat born from wishful thinking that the environment is fairer than it is. Sure Republicans are corrupt and proclaim a different morality than they hold, but the rest of society wI’ll judge things evenly if given the proper case. There’s a hopefulness that the answer is within grasp.

it’s hard to admit just how deep the structural advantage for the right is. But, as a silver lining, I suppose once you start to see that advantage, the effectiveness of a party so dedicated to the disempowerment and debasement of its own rank and file is a bit less bewildering.

 

[aepps20]

If you want to trigger the media have a dem call Republicans fascists and then you will have pearl clutching spewing Delk's greatest hits.

 

[RustyShackleford]

gry60 is Tuscany a popular vaca spot for African dictators?

Just asking because that is where Montana's governor was when his state was under water...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/06/montana-governor-gianforte-in-tuscany-as-yellowstone-flooded.html

 

[Methodical Management]

gry60 is Tuscany a popular vaca spot for African dictators?

Just asking because that is where Montana's governor was when his state was under water...

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/06/montana-governor-gianforte-in-tuscany-as-yellowstone-flooded.html

Funny how all the usual reactionary suspects that whine about progressive censoring people and using mobs to force their views on people are really quiet about this story

But hey, blah blah blah progressive elites, blah blah blah the illiberal left, blah blah blah whatever one-sided BS what makes people feel that they are the only reasonable people in the room

“Self-described liberals criticizing racists is just boring group-think and virtue signaling. ’Bad people are bad!’ Ugh, it's so dreadfully common and passé.

Dragging progressives over an isolated petition to remove Mein Kampf from a single middle-school library, as if it's fundamentally the same thing as systemic efforts by right wing propagandists to whip up hate mobs with anti-CRT hysteria? Now that's independent thinking you can build a brand around!”


The inherent hypocrisy of these "free speech" takes continues to be lost on this crowd. Take this typical libertarian crypto bro, for example:

Crypto Exchange CEO Calls Employees 'Triggered,' Bans Calling Things 'Racist' at Work

Kraken CEO Jesse Powell said workers were upset by things like "pronouns, [and] whether someone can identify as a different race and be allowed to use the N-word."

www.vice.com

His manifesto essentially amounts to: "Attention snowflakes: your work shouldn’t be affected by WORDS. Here’s a list of words you can’t say because they hurt my feelings and make it harder for me to do my job: racist, toxic, xenophobic…”

The progressive "censorship" that so raises their hackles generally amounts to speech about speech, opinions about opinions, and the organization of individual freedoms of speech and association into boycotts and/or labor actions.

Whiny libertarians don't merely want freedom of speech. They seek freedom from consequence.

 

[RustyShackleford]

Herschel Walker's son (the one he claims)...

 

[Mark Antony]

Way he turned out, Herschel being absentee is for the best with the others. Just cut the check.

 

[IATT]

 

[RustyShackleford]

Bill Maher is an ignorant loud mouth

 

[biggie62]

Bill Maher is an ignorant loud mouth

I use to tolerate him and enjoyed some of his guests. But since trump won in 2016 he just went down a hellhole. I haven’t watched his show since at least 2019.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I am fully able to admit that the amount of money that was given to citizens helped contribute to inflation, but what Maher and that guess is doing here is nonsense

He wants to criticize giving middle income people money, but he quotes the total amount of Covid spending, most of which were given to businesses and corporations. And a big chunk to state governments

The Fed did do a lot of monetary stimulus, which I think was the right thing to do but again it did help prop up banks and corporations

Their mistake was not pulling back soon enough. But every forecaster was wrong about how fast the economy would recover

Ok they made a mistake on the transitory nature of inflation, but that was based on some assumptions that turned out to be wrong

The inflation right now is not just from the fiscal stimulus. Consumers are spending at a rate that doesn't seem rational (probably because of Covid), supply chains are missing up, and we are experiencing a big energy shock.

So what is the compliant, the Dems need to be blamed for a half to the full point they might have added to top-line inflation numbers.

Again Maher just runs his mouth from a place of reactionary ignorance

 

[RustyShackleford]

I use to tolerate him and enjoyed some of his guests. But since trump won in 2016 he just went down a hellhole. I haven’t watched his show since at least 2019.

Bill Maher always goes this **** where he gets mad and young progressive for a certain subject then uses that anger to rationalize peddling all kinds of right-wing ignorance

 

[biggie62]

I am fully able to admit that the amount of money that was given to citizens helped contribute to inflation, but what Maher and the guess are doing here is nonsense

You want to criticize giving middle people money but he quotes the total amount of Covid spending, but of which were given to businesses and corporations. And a big chunk to state governments

The Fed did do a lot of monetary stimuli, which I think was the right thing to do but again it did help prop up banks and corporations

Their mistake was not pulling back soon enough. But every forecaster was wrong about how fast the economy would recover

Ok they made a mistake on the transitory nature of inflation, but that was based on some assumptions that turned out to be wrong

The inflation right now is not just from the fiscal stimulus. Consumers are spending at a rate that doesn't seem rational (probably because of Covid), supply chains are missing up, and we are experiencing a big energy shock.

So what is the compliant, the Dems need to be blamed for a half to the full point they might have added to top-line inflation numbers.

Again Maher just runs his mouth from a place of reactionary ignorance

The other side of things is these start ups with the buy now pay later are causing additional supply issues. A lot of these companies will go under as their balance sheets are garbage (I know because I work with 2 of these clients).

The other side of things is with all this free credit, supply side issues were never tackled. Asian countries where a lot of our products are still sourced from does full shut downs like China. And those just shut down production for a month or so while our demand remains the same. I see this issue with something that has affected me a my friends directly, golf equipment. You have to wait for 6-16 weeks for certain things. It’s insane.

 

[RustyShackleford]

The other side of things is these start ups with the buy now pay later are causing additional supply issues. A lot of these companies will go under as their balance sheets are garbage (I know because I work with 2 of these clients).

The other side of things is with all this free credit, supply side issues were never tackled. Asian countries where a lot of our products are still sourced from does full shut downs like China. And those just shut down production for a month or so while our demand remains the same. I see this issue with something that has affected me a my friends directly, golf equipment. You have to wait for 6-16 weeks for certain things. It’s insane.

Yeah my homie tried buying a new custom set of Ping irons, he asked his golf pro if he could get them in 3 weeks for his trip to England. He would pay extra

He said mans looked at him like...

 

[biggie62]

Yeah my homie tried buying a new custom set of Ping irons, he asked his golf pro if he could get them in 3 weeks for his trip to England. He would pay extra

He said mans looked at him like...

I mean he might get them by November. Right in time for the new ping irons to drop

I got new mizuno irons in the fall and somehow I was lucky to be fitted into stock Nippon shafts just a little longer and got my stuff in 2 weeks. Now my wedges took 4 months…

 

[rexanglorum]

Jacobin does criticize the GOP and the broader rightwing media machine, as does most of left media. It also criticizes the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party is a capitalist party and the left is anti capitalist. Also, I'm not sure how much the Democrats would welcome praise from left media or left orgs. Democrats go out of their way to emphasize their distance from the socialist left. In the DSA, we advise people to strategically vote for Democrats over Republicans and most of left media point out the structural advantages enjoyed by the GOP and white and rural voters, the former is the best strategy available and the latter are undeniable facts but expecting left media to go beyond that and start lying and saying that Democrats are actually secret enemies of capital doesn't help Democrats and it'd ruin the credibility of the left orgs and media outlets among its readership and membership

If you are pro capitalist but you are progressive and are on the left wing of the Democratic Party or even if you're in the ideological mainstream/center of the Democratic Party, you should be mad at MSNBC for taking it so easy on the GOP. MSNBC is supposed to be the Democratic Party's main press outlet and was just that before 2016. But as soon as Trump got elected, MSNBC took on the philosophy that the GOP is not that bad and that Trump and his allies are the real problem. MSNBC's audience is not enormous relative to the whole US population but it's way bigger than left media's audience and prior to 2016, MSNBC was pretty closely linked to the Obama white House and the DNC.

Now, you're likely to find a string of unrepentant Bush 43 era ghouls on the network talking about how honorable non Trump Republicans are and how great it is that GOP officials in Georgia graciously didn't pull off a coup and what a hero Liz Chaney is for not being a party to treason. When, what should be the strongly partisan, pro Democratic Party channel becomes the "every Republican but Trump and his allies is good" channel, then yeah Democrats do not have a large media outlet that can hammer the GOP and talk up the positive aspects of the Democratic Party.

 

[mplsdunk]

Bill Maher had his time back in the day. Same time as John Stewart.

Trash now.

I don’t like everything Krystal ball says but I f with her when she gets going about jobs and people’s well being. Like anything you gotta take her with a grain of salt.

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[sneeker]

being a good dad, he went to Cancun.

 

[cragmatic]

I saw an article the other day about Andrew Yang saying the stimulus isn’t the reason for inflation…

I think Yang is a fraud but I liked what he said.

That money was spent a LONG time ago, so why are we still seeing rising costs if the stimulus is the reason for inflation? It’s just a scapegoat for republicans who didn’t want people getting money.

 

[IATT]

 

[RustyShackleford]

The American right are becoming even more loony...


This ad is wild

 

[plansb]

The American right are becoming even more loony...


This ad is wild

Wasn’t that dude sexually assaulting staffers or something?

 

[dreamer23]

Wasn’t that dude sexually assaulting staffers or something?

 

[IATT]