Some Pessimistic Takes

 

• Dubious Strategy: "We are passing this sub-par legislation. If you vote more Democrats into office in 2022, we promise we'll do it right next time."

• Reminder: Kyrsten Sinema was handpicked by Chuck Schumer. This is what he wanted and this is what he got.

• My opinion is that Congress should enact the best policies it can, without regard to ''the next election". Good policies are always good and--even now--the midterms are a year away. There is no way of predicting how they will turn out. There could be an entirely new and unexpected set of issues that will decide that vote.

• Dems have been running on lowering prescription costs for many years, and yet here we are, seemingly ready to cave once again. If people stop believing you, it'll be entirely on you.

• I think one of the biggest problems with the BBB as currently framed is that there isn't enough of it that's permanent.

Done with the Dems, Continued

Am I actually supposed to take solace in the fact that the Build Back Better plan is being sabotaged by Democrats rather than Republicans? Kinder, gentler sabotage? Sabotage without the mean tweets? Sabotage with smoother edges? Fuck that. Stop sending me stuff in the mail to contribute for a Democratic Congress. We already got that and can't get the Biden agenda passed. I'll send my checks to DSA and BLM.

We can't even get the Dems to support negotiating drug prices. Holy cow, even 71% of Repubs favor that! This is nuts.

The Dems won't even support the winner of the primary for mayor of Buffalo. Typical Corporate Dems.

I am done with the Dems. Yeah, I will have to hold my nose and vote for them like I have my whole life, but I am tried of reading about them and fretting over what they do (or--more precisely--what they won't do).

Some Political Opinions

• Strategy of the Dems: find the sweet spot where we are just racist enough to appeal to non-college-educated-whites but not so racist as to totally turn off Black voters.

• Speaking of which: every Trump voter that I know--quite a few actually--is a college-educated white person. And a majority of them are QAnon types. These are actual people I know...relatives, friends, and acquaintances.

• Today Manchin says he wants coal burning to be counted as clean energy. Every day, every single day, I am reminded why I am done with  the Dems.

• Politico is evil.

• An idea put forth by more than one commentor between the election and inauguration was for Biden to put out a barrage of executive orders and let (dare?) SCOTUS to strike them down. With the performance of Senate Dems (and it's not just Manchin and Sinema), this is looking more and more like Biden should have done exactly that. One example that has been resurrected is to enact some climate change initiatives by EO in the name of national security. SCOTUS allowed Trump to build his wall on this basis. If SCOTUS allows it to stand, great. If they strike it down (as I believe they would) Biden has further exposed the political agenda of the Federalist Society majority. The current composition of the Senate Dems--led by the Corporatist wing--is an unreliable coalition. They deserve to lose in 2022.
  

"Popularism" and Other Stuff

 

• What I hear from popularism: the purpose of running for office is to win, not to do anything.

• Dems: We do austerity better than Repubs ("Compassionate Austerity"??)

• Many people among my extended family have gone full QAnon. The issue for me isn't so much that they have gone utterly cuckoo (the have a Constitutional right to be cuckoo). The problem for me is that many of them are or were teaching our kids in classrooms and preaching from pulpits. Very scary.

• David Klion made some excellent (and obvious) points on Twitter today. "My issue with 'popularism' is not just that it assumes the median Dem voter can never be persuaded and must be catered to; it also assumes left voters/activists, by contrast, can be persuaded to abandon their core goals. Former outnumber latter but Dems can’t win without both." If the Dems simply take the left for granted (and I can personally testify that they do), "they don’t have to alienate all that many voters to blow a close election." And: "All this said, insofar as the idea is just 'emphasize popular stuff and de emphasize less popular stuff' as a candidate (as opposed to as an activist or a journalist), then sure, that seems prudent. I agree winning is better than losing. But you need the left to do it." But the Dems often act like they don't.

Friday Afternoon Trivia

 

• The US was never under anything close to a lockdown at any time during this pandemic.

• Out-of-the-blue sports opinion that no one else cares about (but it's my blog so here it is anyway): there is nothing more useless in sports broadcasts than interviewing coaches/players on the bench or sidelines while the game is going on. Canned questions, canned answers, useless. Whoever thought this was a good idea?

• Anecdotal fact of my life: Most of the military veterans I know are pretty liberal. Most of the conservatives I know aren't veterans.

• Every time I see discussions about David Shor and his ideas I am still left with the uneasy feeling that he is saying that Democrats should stop talking about things they believe in. We aren't going to get cops to stop killing unarmed people without some form of "defund the police". "Reform the police"? We've been doing that most of my life and Tamir Rice is still dead with no accountability; didn't change much. What are their ideas of how to solve the problem. Ignore it? Act more like Republicans? I just don't understand.

• Hint: white voters voted for Trump by larger numbers in 2020 than 2016. What Shor says can be heard as: you need to go softer on this racism stuff or you won't win elections. An alternative reading is that there are two kinds of swing voters (oversimplified for sure): the white surburbanites who swing between Dems and Repubs (i.e., the ones the Dems seem to pursue over anything else); and the younger, more non-white pool of voters who swing between voting for Dems and not voting at all. The former kinda sorta voted for Biden but in some places not for down-ballot Dems. My opinion for a while now is that these voters aren't reliable coalition partners. Maybe we should be finding ways to cultivate those other swing voters.

• A majority of white voters have not voted for a Democratic candidate since 1964. I wonder why? Who are we kidding?

 

• A political party that can't enact an agenda supported by the vast majority of its members/voters isn't much of a party.

• The left flank of the party is holding firm, and the centrist/conservative flank is not happy about it. The left is doing what the centrists think only they should be allowed to do.

• I think I will stop referring to "centrist" or "conservative" Democrats and start calling them "corporate" Democrats  instead. Much more accurate.