Editing my fiancée's choir concert together that I recorded last month. Davinci is a surprisingly easy program to learn, when you're like me and refuse to read anything and prefer to stumble/google your way forward. The video is pretty okay considering the awful lighting conditions. It was...a bit too stressful to record (I had like 2 minutes left of disk space at the end and had to hotswap 2 batteries during recording three times) but my new Fujifilm delivered on its video chops.
The audio is splendid - as per KB's recommendation I got a Zoom H1n and put it in the exact spot it needed to be. HOWEVER, I noticed during setup that the piano chair creaks. A lot. Considering I put the Zoom something like a foot from the chair, it would be very noticable. There was an attempt to fix another chair, but it failed, so now I have a perfect recording except for that chair. Even KB with all his might & prowess could not find a good way to get rid of it in post, which is saying something. Thankfully the creaking gets less earpiercing over time, so I'm just gonna run with it and call it a learning exercise for everyone involved.
The concert did inspire me to think about learning to play cello. My fiancée not only sings well but also plays the flute phenomenally, and my MIL picked up the alt violin again. It would be amazing to play some music together but right now I have only the most basic of piano skills (it's not my instrument, I've learned) and a bunch of rusty high school guitar skills (which is also not my instrument anymore). So there is room for something else.
Slowly trying to learn Python. It's fun when I get to implement things in little beginner projects, but the content is pretty dry.
Tomatoes are going red, very exciting. Two plants are still going hard, the other two are consistently producing messy/split tomatoes, so I'm considering just cutting my losses and focusing on the two that are succeeding and chalking this up as a lesson in trying too many different kinds at once. Tuh'may'ters.
Next up on my piano-relearning-adventure, Sea Power's ZA/UM. My most played song from 2023.
Hope you're all doing well.
Very silly things so far. A janky password generator, a guessing game. Stuff to teach some basics really.
The software I use/support at work uses it and currently anything require coding or messing with a script we go to a vendor for, but they've also been teaching me bits and pieces so I don't have to bother them with small things.
I don't need to learn it but my employer is happy for me to fuck around with it on work time if it means I can fix problems myself down the track!
I think Biden has a narrow advantage.
There is a non-zero chance one of the candidates dies or just gets ill to the point that public confidence in that candidate is shattered.
The country will break up eventually, lots of directions that could take, might not be in our life time.
The nation splitting up probably won't be something that is all bad or all good.
Biden doesn't seem to have a decisive campaign ready to persuade voters that he's the man and he's taking a beating from the left and right.
I think Putin has shot his wad - there has been every attempt to foment general war in the Middle East and it has failed. Support for Ukraine is broadly and deeply popular in the United States. Democratic economic policies have lifted millions of people out of poverty.
I think there's no reason for the country to break up - Americans like the freedom of going "fuck you California I'm moving to Texas" with the only result being a change in their state income tax.
There is a manufactured polarization at play that has been culminating for 50 years... but culminate it has. When even Florida starts walking back book bans you know people are getting sick of this shit.
Trevor Noah had an interesting observation a couple-three days ago. He noted that in Europe, citizens' deepest criticisms and political humor are for the politicians they voted for, not against while in America, your guy can do absolutely no wrong. I don't think that's going to change any time soon but the existential hatred gripping both sides politically has just run out of room - on the left you have "I think we should have a government" and on the right you have "Trump should have god-like powers" and the god-likes haven't accomplished anything popular with the general electorate.
- Biden doesn't seem to have a decisive campaign ready to persuade voters that he's the man and he's taking a beating from the left and right.
Biden's best move is to keep the lights on while Trump implodes. Biden and his team have been winning elections since 1972; I'm not about to count them out.
I've consistently found you over optimistic about over big picture U.S. politics.
Guns is the one that stands out most clearly.
In a country that has now tightly restricted abortion in just about half of the states I think bounds of the possible are wider than I've ever seen them.
I hope you aren't right.
While the breakup would be painful, I think many places would realize futures that would be more fruitful than they would otherwise be. The costs would be significant and the benefits would probably not be evenly spread out.
When you say "over optimistic" you mean "don't share in the doom and gloom everyone else feels compelled to share?"
'cuz I'm the only mutherfucker up in this bitch who isn't rending his hair shirt and screaming about civil war?
Do me a solid. Go search for "mosley" in the upper right over there. You will find thread. After thread. After thread. Of people decrying the downfall of the United States and me going "naah." 'member how the midterms were going to be the end of democracy? And how instead the Republicans ended up with an 8 (now 6) vote majority?
Name one thing. Name
One.
Fucking.
Thing.
That has gone in the Republicans' favor since November 2020. No, you don't get to count repealing roe v. wade because abortion bans are deeply unpopular. No, you don't get to count book bans because they are deeply unpopular. No, you don't get to count trans bans because they are deeply unpopular. The Republicans were the dog who caught the car in 2016. For all intents and purposes, they passed a giant tax package for rich people and noped the fuck out. Since then, it has been a party of dipshits and wastrels whose signature accomplishments have been (A) waiting to expel George Santos until they couldn't even feel moral about it (B) giving handjobs on camera in a children's musical (C) slavishly adulating Hunter Biden's junk to the exclusion of all else (D) shutting down the government through their own internecine clown show of a civil war.
Look into my eyes. I'm not optimistic. I'M CORRECT.
And here we are. Trump can barely scrape up a majority of Republicans in Iowa. With Desantis and Ramaswamy dropping out of the race, he improved THREE POINTS in New Hampshire. I'ma pitch you a sci fi story you tell me how it ends - you're God Emperor of Dune. You have been unfairly cast out of your throne by a bunch of malfeasant lickspittles whose sole mission in life is to turn children gay. You assemble your armies and sweep through the marketplace where...vaguely more than half of your most dedicated and loyal subjects say they want you to regain the throne. Whattaya think? That scepter gonna be yours again? I mean, the stakes couldn't be higher. Aliens are swarming across the border. The insurgency is putting microchips in the vaccines. Drag queens are reading to children at libraries! And yet your loyalest subjects are firmly at "meh."
- Guns is the one that stands out most clearly.
Hey you know what I haven't linked because everyone is too busy sad-sacking their way through an election year? the downfall of fucking Wayne LaPierre. Yeah yeah one guy yeah yeah educate yourself before you go toe to toe on this one. Much like global warming can pretty much be tied to six guys at Exxon, American gun culture comes down to Wayne LaPierre and Wayne LaPierre alone.
You know who I stopped talking to in 2016? my liberal friends. You know why? Because they wanted to piss and moan, they didn't want to discuss reality. Was Trump bad? Fucking of course he was. Was he effective? He: (1) passed some temporary tax cuts (2) stirred up a culture war hornet's nest that has gone consistently against the Republicans (3) presided over Mitch McConnell's 30 year strategy to avenge Robert Bork (4) dragged the Republican Party fully and completely to crazytown.
Feel free to disagree. Feel free to continue to piss and moan. But when the facts and track record are on my side, do me the courtesy of acknowledging that my position amounts to more than fucking optimism.
US politics is a source of considerable anxiety to me and many of my friends here. That said, and with the caveat that I'm speaking as an outsider, I get the impression the rift in American society is largely urban versus rural (with the discord being exploited by wealthy interests, of course). How do you see the map looking were it to split?
Richard Morgan's book Black Man envisions a future US split into the Republic (Jesusland), the North Atlantic Union and the Pacific Rim, although I gather he based this distinction on existing literature about the topic.
There have been four or five "civil war" books along the same lines, all of which fundamentally ignore the basic reality of life in America in the 21st century.
Mississippi is a red fukkn' state. I think we can agree on that, right? Yet in 2022:
House district 1 went 27% democrat.
House district 2 went 40% democrat.
House district 3 went 30% democrat.
House district 4 went 25% democrat.
The Jewish population of Germany in 1933 was zero point seven six percent. The Jewish population of Germany in 1939 was zero point three four percent. This is not a pogrom situation, this is not a red vs blue situation, this is half the population being unable to contemplate the other half of the population in the abstract because nobody bowls together anymore.
The thing everybody who is terminally online forgets is the broad bulk of the population doesn't want to worry about this shit. They want to live their fucking lives. YES. They want to forget about January 6. Because the supermarket is still open and they can still make it to urgent care if they have to. NO. They're not going to tune in to Trump free-associating death panels or some shit just because they think gas is too expensive.
Sure, but I assume a decent proportion of voters (perhaps comparable to the percentages you listed) in Mississippi pre-1861 were anti-secessionist, and I assume the broad bulk of Mississippians then also weren't afire with zeal; that didn't stop the state from rebelling.
So the rallying cry of the racists these days is "The civil war was about economic freedom and State's Rights!" while the rallying cry of the leftists is "The civil war was about slavery!" And I mean, the civil war was about slavery. But it was also about the economic institution of slavery.
The North was all about industrialization, mercantilism and the aristocracy. You owned a factory, you got fucking rich. The South was all about agrarianism, feudalism and the aristocracy. You owned a plantation, you got fucking rich. The North argued that slavery was bad because all those poor black people didn't have any freedom. The South argued that mercantilism was just as bad, all those poor white people who didn't know where their next meal came from at least slaves have a roof over their head. THIS IS NOT A DEFENSE OF SLAVERY it is an argument that the social hierarchy of the South was not "do we/don't we do slavery... I dunno... it worked for my folx but Dred Scott makes me feel bad" situation. It was a top-down economy run by rich white plantation owners at the expense of black slaves kept in line by poor white folx who were the lowest of the low except for that soulless livestock that worked the fields.
This is how hard we kicked the can down the road. Because the British really wanted the union to fall apart, for the South to provide Britain all its agricultural goods, and for the North to fall apart so that it could be dragged back into the commonwealth. Keeping the United States together was an existential need lest the powers of Europe recolonize us so the north put up with an awful lot of shit from the south. There's a real tendency to presume that American differences over abortion or drag queen story hour or some shit are somehow akin to the American divide over slavery and it simply isn't so.
Texas and Florida were both spitting distance from Democratic governors. The whole South used to be Democratic. California used to be staunchly Republican. What's different now is that both teams are losing their fucking minds over how much they hate the other team? But we're all Americans.
So I take your argument to be:
- the division between the two sides today is not essentially about competing economic systems (at least not existentially so) so the factors that tore the country apart 160 years ago aren't there;
- each team hates the other side, but not enough to kill the game;
- until and unless people are no longer able to buy their groceries and get care etc when they need it, these points will hold, and the improving economic outlook suggests this to be so.
Which yeah, makes sense. And obviously you're living and seeing all of this up close while I just get to watch from (mostly) a safe distance.
Just, from over here, it feels as though there's a lot of ... something. Call it intergenerational wealth, call it rural resentment, call it frustrated white male entitlement, call it a Russian cabal - or whatever you like. But it feels like there is something that is trying very hard to wreck the country rather than give its power up. And when it came to the fore six years ago it started off headless and a bit of a joke, but since then it's woken up to its power and to the huge reserves of resentment that it can leverage to support its power, and to the frailty of the structures that were thought to keep it in check, and it's become organised, insidious and it is actively pursuing an agenda that is malign to the democratic United States.
- The divisions between Democrat/Republican pale in comparison to the fundamental differences in lived experience, tradition and socioeconomic reality that the free/slave divisions did in the Civil War
- The "hatred of the other side" is manufactured and stoked by media and largely practiced by the fringe
- Most of the populace doesn't care enough about the divisions to adhere strongly to one side or the other
I used to vote in person. Go down to the church or whatever, stand around while the nice old ladies hand you a ballot and send you over to the machines. I guess I look smart? Because people would walk up to me regularly and ask me who to vote for.
Most Americans just aren't that engaged. I dunno. On the one hand you've got a guy asking me if he thought he should vote for Clinton because apparently he woke up on a Tuesday and felt that his voice should be counted even if he wasn't sure what he wanted to say. On the other hand I have an employee who flew to San Francisco to spend an hour at the Brazilian embassy just to vote out Bolsonaro. And here's my gut feeling: if the guy asking me about Clinton thought his life would change radically from his choices, he'd fly to San Francisco.
There's a lot of doom and gloom on both sides of the aisle now. But there's a growing locus of us in the middle who think it's going to be okay. We have seen the fullest extent of Trump's insurrectionist planning on full display and it was a bunch of idiots wandering around the capital building looking for things to poop on. That was something that really struck me about 2001: All of a sudden, the entire country was energized, looking for something to do to make things better again. And we got "go shopping." It was the biggest waste of civic engagement I have ever seen - that I hope I ever see. We could have done. So. Much. To make the world a better place and instead we bombed Iraq.
Biden is far and away the most liberal president since FDR and... crickets. I mean yeah - the right wing hates the shit out of him but not for anything substantive. At this point they'd hate Reagan if he wore a blue hat. The country, by and large, just wants to live our lives.
Trump became President of the United States because it was convenient and cheap for Putin to try to make him President. Putin succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. A disengaged, populist President remains Putin's greatest chance to stay in power - American abandonment of Europe and the Middle East would allow for as many Syrias and Ukraines as the Russians can stomach (and they can clearly stomach a lot). Putin was aided in his quest by the American media, who are always up for a spectacle. Here's the thing, though - you can only bomb Pearl Harbor once. All it takes is one Richard Reid and Americans have to strip to socks to get on airplanes for the next 30 years. The 2020 election was the most secure in American history, Facebook is a wasteland, right-wing media operations now communicate solely with the right wing and Tucker Carlson is a blogger.
Yo dude. It's been the Australia Day long weekend down here so apologies for taking a few days to get back to you. I've been thinking over what you said. You bring a refreshing level of normality to interpreting the spectacle.
It's interesting that you cite lack of engagement by voters as a favourable indicator. I would have thought that was more of a risk factor, no? If most people don't care, then only the zealous will vote. Besides which, Trump is still the punters' favourite for next president. Irrespective of whether voters care, if he gets in again I can't imagine it will be steady-as-she-goes. Watching the latest meltdown after the E. Jean Carroll decision over the weekend has underscored that point.
Hope everything's going well up at your neck of the woods. I'm wrangling another work trip to the northern hemisphere but it looks like it will just be to Europe this time round.
So the first thing I'll say is that betting markets reflect the situation the bettors wish to wager on, not reality. You don't need to spend too long watching crypto options to see that those fuckers trade the second, third, fourth derivative of reality. Will Ethereum be worth $1000000000 in two weeks? No. But if you buy a billion options on it being worth that for 5.0000005 cents and sell them for 5.0000006 cents, you made a thousand dollars regardless of the worth of Ethereum.
The next thing I'll say is that prediction markets reflect the common wisdom of the situation and the common wisdom is often wrong. Particularly when it comes to elections - Nate Silver went from prophet to pariah for fucking up the 2016 election and dug a deeper hole when his response wasn't "oops" but "I'm not wrong, you don't understand statistics." Not really his fault - the quality of the data he was using took an absolute dump between 2012 and 2016 as Facebook was completely co-opted but his inability to go "huh maybe my data is shit" and instead going "huh maybe my audience is shit" wasn't great.
The third thing I will say is that the majority of effort expended by Karl Rove and the RNC in 2004 was gay marriage bans - the whole point being that they knew post "Mission Accomplished" there weren't going to be a lot of Republicans going "yay bush." Now - the Republican think tanks have since argued this was ineffective. They have not argued that they didn't do it.
Ultimately it's going to come down to "who wants to come out to vote." Those on the left are clearly energized against Trump. Those on the right are much less clearly energized against Biden. And those in the middle have been experiencing stability, an improving quality of living and more savings than they've had in a generation. Here's the thought experiment: what massive missteps would have to be made in order for the disinterested center to turn out against Biden? A recession is a possibility, albeit an increasingly distant one. A broad war in the Middle East? Not without troops-on-ground getting their asses kicked; a recession is more likely. The Chinese invasion of Taiwan? Americans don't give a fuck if Americans aren't dying.
Here are the facts on the ground:
- Democrats want to fund the war in Ukraine
- Republican want to fund the war in Ukraine
- Trump wants to run on the lawlessness of the southern border
- So the MAGA insurgents in the House of Representatives are holding up Ukraine funding for a ridiculous list of demands related to border security
- So the Democrats and Republicans went "here's your ridiculous southern border package"
- So Trump called up the MAGA insurgents and said "don't give Biden a win on this one"
- So the MAGA insurgents went "well now our demands are even more unreasonable"
- So the Senate went "jesus fucking christ"
- And the Biden administration has been making much of the fact that, without Trump in the picture, even our deeply dysfunctional government is functioning after a fashion
The current dust-up is the State of Texas arguing that they have the right to control their border, the Border Patrol does not. This has gone to the Supreme Court and now Texas (and a bunch of other states) are arguing they have the right to "repel invasions" and a bunch of Canadian truckers deciding they need to do performative bullshit.
A number of individuals on the too-online Left have argued that a few drone strikes might remind the southern states who won the Civil War while a number of individuals on the too-online Right have argued that now is the time to reclaim the confederacy because certainly it'll be different this time but fans of stability and actually getting shit done have been pointing out that humoring the howler monkeys will only encourage them and that if you've got a bunch of feckless morons doing the dumbest shit ever in order to find a wedge issue to win on, pandering to their dumbness is not the correct move.
Actually that last bit is a lie. There's nobody in the middle. It's fucking lonely here. "Florida picked a fight with Disney," you say, "so I don't really see this going their way long term" but everyone is too busy imagining the return of Johnny Reb.
- - So the MAGA insurgents went "well now our demands are even more unreasonable"
It would appear that the more performative elements in the GOP, of which the MAGA extremists are the majority, really want to prosecute a war that exists purely on the internet. I think giving in to the border demands was Biden essentially calling their bluff. It's a way of flipping the script so that even a lot of the conservative media echo chamber is now screaming about how MAGA is bad for open borders (which is ironic in a way, since The Wall was the only consistent policy position Trump ever even sort of held). Sort of a brilliant move. And it exposes their fecklessness (as if there were any doubt).
I think the Republicans imagine they're playing chicken, and the people who want it the most will win. Against a bunch of feckless Democrats who never know what they want, this is a viable strategy.
I think the Democrats imagine they're in the bull ring and if they can get the bull to charge around until it's exhausted they can stab it in the side to the roaring applause of an adoring crowd. Against a bunch of charging Republicans who are 100% driven by opposition and rage, this is a viable strategy.
Thing about a game of chicken? you need two players. Thing about the bullfighter? He can have a totally different conception of the situation than the bull and still come out on top. He can still get gored? He still needs to put in a fuckton of work? The strategy for bullfighting is substantially more nuanced than the strategy for chicken? But it presupposes a pretty brutal asymmetry of forces while also virtually guaranteeing victory.
The minute the Republicans realize they're in a knife fight, though, Democrats better adapt to the new reality or they're screwed.
I think Biden is a better bullfighter (and knife fighter) than anyone other than the old-school Democratic establishment understands. His career was ended - ENDED - in '88. Front-page plagiarism scandal, withdrew from the race, all of it. Didn't even come up in 2008. Didn't even come up in 2020. That, I believe, is because Biden was taken down by Lee Atwater, the Dracula to Karl Rove's Renfield, who died remorseful in 1991. I don't think there's a single political animal alive other than Biden who faced has faced true, limitless, intelligent evil. And I mean, once you've been bested by the Shogun some petty fucker with a switchblade isn't gonna get near you in a knife fight - you've learned a thing or two. Comparing Lee Atwater and Steve Bannon is like comparing Thanos and Eric Cartman.
I think the Online Left are so salty because they want a fucking game of chicken.
Idk, the democrat's "game" of waiting things out and not accomplishing anything is pretty frustrating.
There's been huge left wing movements with Obama, Occupy Wall Street, BLM, and all of them have been squandered when the democrats refused to do Anything Whatsoever killing all the energy and pissing off their voters.
- There's been huge left wing movements with
Let's look at that through the cynical eye of the survivors, shall we?
- Obama
Obama is and was a textbook neoliberal. There's nothing left wing about a guy who wishes to control the global economy through liberal application of drone strikes. I voted for him twice and would do so again but Biden is substantially to the left of Obama, who was substantially to the right of Clinton, who was substantially to the right of Carter and now all of a sudden it's fucking 1980 do you realize how fucking far back we have to go.
- Occupy Wall Street
Occupy Wall Street petered out and died because neoliberalism has no room for lefty market outrage. It was a moment that the Bush and Obama administrations agreed would fuck with their donors so they pulled out all the stops to snuff it out. Had Occupy Wall Street become Occupy Main Street things might well have happened but Obama bought everyone a new refrigerator and gave them a rebate on a new Honda so that it wouldn't. It was like when Bush gave everybody an Xbox so they wouldn't realize that he'd given like $100b to the Walton family.
- BLM
BLM was driven in very large part by the African-American community pointing out that they experienced life-threatening racism in appalling quantities with shameful regularity in the modern United States. It was and is a movement of well-justified anger at the institutions of American culture, society and government. It could not and did not provide any solutions to the grievances beyond "stop doing that" which would be enough if there weren't broad sectors of American culture, society and government whose livelihoods are dependent on that racism. "Defund the police" is a hard sell even if you know and mostly agree with ACAB. It's a non-starter if you're more comfortable with the Thin Blue Line. The latter have so much more institutional power that it isn't even worth bringing up.
- and all of them have been squandered when the democrats refused to do Anything Whatsoever
As I mentioned elsewhere, the Obama administration pitched ACA to Congress by saying "this is something worth losing your jobs over" and an absolutely appalling number of them did.
At this point in time, the Republicans want to repeal Obamacare, outlaw transgender everything, ban abortion in all cases, build a border wall and drill Martha's Vineyard for oil for all I know. They haven't really been successful at any of it. The Democrats want single payer, the universal declaration of human rights and a sparkling city on a hill and they haven't really been successful either. Democrats can point to polls and go "but but but everyone wants what we want" while the Republicans can point to electoral results and go 'but but but everyone wants what we want" and the way both things can be true?
Is that the game is rigged heavily in the Republicans' favor and thank god they don't suck less.
Obama totally ran on left wingism. Healthcare for All and "Change" and all that. That's obviously not how he turned out though.
I guess I agree with you all all the facts but not really the conclusions. If the Democrats wanted to, they could tap into these sorts of movements and win handily. The only supermajority they ever got was on Obama's message. And they just don't!
Biden may be more left wing than any other recent president, but when he was with Obama he was the boring moderate put there to prove Obama wasn't tooo crazy. And I don't know much of him before that but I'm pretty sure he wasn't a socialist.
The Democrats ran Hillary (the apex neoliberal) who was pathetic and then Joe Biden who learned the absolute bare minimum of leftism needed to squeak a victory in the general. Biden also wants a border wall and to mine for oil!
It really feels like the dems are leaning hard into there being only two options: Old-School Republican and Completely Insane Maniac as a way to keep the same failed status quo incrementalism going and its so sad to watch
Haha Obama ran against George W Bush. he was definitely left of Mr. Global War on Terror. The 2004 election was all about crushing the gays; it's not hard to appear leftist next to the man who launched the TSA. Did you vote in the 2008 elections? 'cuz I wanted Clinton; I saw Obama as a right-wing stalking horse most likely to preserve the New World Order the way Wall Street liked it and was absolutely and totally unsurprised by the outcome. "these sorts of movements" clearly and unequivocally picked the more conservative, more business-oriented candidate.
Biden, for his part, was brought in to be old. He was the stabilizing force for everyone convinced Obama was too young and inexperienced. And, as with vice presidents since the beginning of the century, he was the more radical foil for the centrist signing the papers. Nixon was more radical than Eisenhower. LBJ was more radical than Kennedy. Humphrey was more radical than LBJ. Agnew was more radical than Nixon. Ford? Ford sucked but Bush was more radical than Reagan, Gore was more radical than Clinton and on and on and on.
Hilary Clinton wasn't pathetic by any measure. She remains the most qualified individual to ever run for president. Clinton's weakness is she's shady. I have no problem with this because all politicians are shady, and often the shadiest ones are the most effective. However, Clinton was (A) shady (B) a woman (C) the Right's nemesis since Vince Foster (D) the subject of Vladimir Putin's personal beef so we ended up with Trump as president. But let's take a step back:
To you, Hilary Clinton is "pathetic". Your beef? Democrats don't do enough lefty shit. The Clintons, by the way, also ran heavily on lefty shit - allow me to introduce you to Hilarycare. What did we get instead? Whitewater, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and Newt Gingrich shutting down the government.
So. As the guy who's been voting Democratic since 1992? What I see are (1) dems run on social reforms (2) reps immediately flood the zone with bullshit (3) lefties insist dems are happy in a zone flooded with bullshit, why bother voting. And that's entirely because paying attention to all the details is excruciating and dispiriting and most liberals would rather sulk.
Republicans count on this. Republicans have always been perfectly content with a pyrrhic victory. And they know the way they win is through voter suppression because The Olds are always up for a trip to the community center.
Fair enough. My impression of Hillary was that she was a pro-buisiness war hawk, and in retrospect was the wrong pick given how the election turned out.
I don't see how you're not dispirited though. Is it worse to run on Hillarycare and then accomplish nothing? Or to run on a platform of doing nothing and be truthful? I'm not sure, but either way nothing's getting done.
Given that the house only passed like 40 laws last year I wonder if we could switch to the people voting on bills directly. Everything good that's happened in Florida is because they allow this.
I was stuck in traffic behind a Chevy Astro with a Florida plate when NPR announced that the Supreme Court had handed the presidency to George Bush. That was fucking dispiriting.
I volunteered for the Kerry Campaign, which was so thick on the ground in Seattle that "undecided voters" got sick of us hounding them. Exit polls showed Kerry wiping the floor with Bush and the voting machines were garbage. Kerry rolled over within hours. That was fucking dispiriting.
THE OCTOBER SURPRISE WAS FUCKING REAL AND NOBODY CARES. That's fucking dispiriting.
Trump? Trump did exactly what everyone predicted he would do and the country largely went "what the fuck?" he was every bit as incompetent as everyone predicted, he was every bit as vainglorious and ineffective as everyone predicted, he tried to overthrow the fucking government of the United States and what he got was 300-something lost lawsuits and a bunch of poop-throwing idiots in Nancy Pelosi's office.
"You go to war with the army you have, not the army you want"
- Donald Rumsfeld
Fuck yeah, let's switch up the parliamentary procedure. Let's switch up fuckin' whatever we can. Is it worse to run on Hillarycare and then accomplish nothing? In 2007 I lost my job. State law compelled insurers to offer plans at the same rates as they were available to corporations, but as then-insurance-commissioner future-governer Chris Gregoire told me personally over the phone, "all we can do is sue and it didn't work last time." So THERE WAS NO FUCKING INSURANCE AVAILABLE TO ME UNTIL OBAMACARE. Now? now we all gripe about how much it costs but that's a very different thing than it being simply un-fucking-available.
Joe Biden, objectively speaking, is the most liberal president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And yet the Online Left is at "well he hasn't been able to control the Israelis just like every president since the fucking SS Exodus therefore I'm staying home."
Backintheday? Back when we knew the election had been stolen and an illegal war was busy killing hundreds of thousands and fucking up two cultures for generations? When ISIS didn't exist but you knew it was around the corner because how couldn't it be? Duncan Black coined the term "WATB" ("whiney-ass titty baby") to describe the right-wing pundits and public figures who got absolutely everything they wanted and yet still complained about how unfair everything was. It's always been more satisfying on the tongue than "snowflake."
Pick your pejorative. Either way, insisting on exactly the right conditions for your delicate ass to flower is for orchids, not politics.
I feel like I'm missing your point. I totally agree with everthring you've said - and for the record I do plan on voting downballot, and if I lived anywhere where my vote counted would have no trouble voting for Biden.
To his credit, he has made solid picks for the agencies and in general they're running OK. And even if Jesus Christ Himself was elected he'd be blocked by Congress for anything important so while its easy to blame the Democrats for that its not really Biden's fault specifically.
What he can do though, is rule a lot more via Executive Fiat, something Trump and the Republicans have already promised to do. For some reason he doesn't seem interested in this.
He's also like, the most Democratic Party guy imaginable. So for anyone who is frustrated by them, he's just awful to think about. He is Very Explicitly not anti billionaire and is Very Explicitly for small tidy improvements to the status quo, which would be fine if the status quo wasn't so dreadful. Again, not that he could do anything more anyways what with congress but its just aesthetically bad.
And what's happening in Gaza is absolutely not "failing to control" Israel but very actively supporting it. This is the most personally damning thing. He declared unconditional support, bypassed congress to get them bombs, used UN vetos to avoid allowing food water or medicine in to Gaza, and is pushing Hard for an aid (bombs) package even to the point on allowing a border policy stricter than trump's wildest dreams. This is fully 100% on him and another president could have managed it differently.
And with your list of ways the democrats have failed, I agree? But I don't see why you think things are different now. I really do desperately want something to hope for but it doesn't seem like anything is possible.
My point is that you, among other liberals your age, have lofty goals for a system that has never once delivered the way you demand it must. Further, that rather than examine the failings of the system and the impediments to progress in order to better plot a path forward, the dreary majority of young liberals prefer to piss and moan about how "not good enough" is actually "worse."
Kind of like how you insist that Biden should do more by "executive fiat" in one sentence while one sentence previously you observed that congress would block "Jesus Christ himself." Kind of like how you agree that Biden is the most liberal president since FDR but also "just awful to think about" because he's "the most Democratic Party guy imaginable." What are the alternatives? the "Give Ukraine to Putin" DSA? The Greens? If you hate the Democrats, and you hate the Republicans, what's left?
Everything sucks, sure. What's your alternative? What's better? What gets the world closer to your goals? You're at "small tidy improvements to the status quo" about a guy who passed more social programs, funded more infrastructure and appointed more judges than anyone since the New Deal while insisting he's "Very Explicitly not anti billionaire" about a guy who's funding half his budget by giving the IRS teeth.
Israel? Israel is a clusterfuck. Israel has always been a clusterfuck. Here's all you need to know about Israel:
2) Israel and South Africa tested a nuke in 1979.
Okay, here's a little more about Israel:
Israel would be much less of a clusterfuck if Benjamin Netanyahu hadn't used stochastic terrorism to assassinate Yitzak Rabin. The end effect of this, of course, was to make Netanyahu the longest-serving leader in Israeli history. His whole platform? Fuck Gaza. Here's a whole book, by the way, about the ways the US has failed to rein in Israel in no small part because they are, in the words of Bamford, "the most embedded foreign espionage power within the United States."
The goal is to prevent a third world war in the Middle East, despite the best efforts of Russia and Iran. This goal is not enhanced by making Netanyahu more popular by giving him something to rail against. Every time Netanyahu has been in danger of getting ousted? he's railed against America and gotten right back into the catbird seat.
I don't know much about Israel? I mean, from a "setting foreign policy" standpoint I don't know much about Israel. I'm maybe 30 books into Israel which is enough to know how much I don't know.
However much I don't know? I know I know more than you, and I know it's a clusterfuck. Would I do things differently? Probably. But then I'm not in the position of knowing intimate details about Israel's nuclear arsenal, for example, or what heinous shit it's been wargaming in case we cut off its money. Did you know we had battle plans against the UK between the world wars? What sorts of contingency plans do you think we have around Israel?
So if anything, my point is "it's complicated" and "it could be worse" and what I've found is that the most strident leftists I know have absolutely no patience for complexity or optimism.
You don't "desperately want something to hope for" so desperately that you'll actually look.
That's my point.
Ok, if I understand correctly, your point is that Biden is the best president we could have possibly hoped for. Which maybe is true, you know the system & history way better than me. I don't feel comfortable arguing that.
I still don't agree with the conclusion that this is not incredibly sad, but I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. If it's just how things be that the US is a vassal state of Israel and always has been and will be, and that the only thing we can do for climate change is a trillion dollars in handouts to billionares, and that only losing Some rights in Some states is a huge policy win, and that the most that can possibly be done against the ever increasing financialization and gutting of our economy is 2% more lawsuits from the IRS.
Idk, can't I at least be upset? Why do I have to like the guy that utterly embodies business as usual?
"If you hate the Democrats, and you hate the Republicans, what's left?" Nothing! That's why living in this country feels so awful and bleak. I don't think things are getting better under Biden. They're getting worse slower, for sure, but I'm not even convinced we're on an upswing. And you're right, I don't have any alternatives, and progress seems complicated, so much as to be impossible.
"You don't "desperately want something to hope for" so desperately that you'll actually look."
This is fair. I'll have to reflect on it more. It'd probably be good for my sanity to take the little wins when they come.
Here's another angle.
It's not that I'm optimistic? It's that I've been so disillusioned for so long that the little things that feel so unsatisfactory for everyone who could have voted for the first time in 2016 but didn't are fucking monumental to me.
Yeah. Biden used the word "anti-trust" in a State of the Union. Big whoop. It's not like he suddenly said "medicare for all." but no president has said "anti trust" in a SotU IN MY LIFETIME and I'm damn near fifty fucking years old!
I'll level with you. I've been screaming about how the Republicans have been coming for Roe V. Wade since nineteen fucking eighty eight. They said they'd have vengeance for Bork and fuckin' A, that's one thing they've been clear-eyed about. So last year when everyone suddenly woke up and said "ZOMFG they took Roe!" my natural reaction is "fucking of course they did, you simps, it's been the one thing they've been un-fucking-wavering on since before you were born, where the fuck were you when we could have goddamn done something about it?"
Look. I'ma show you a picture. No, first, I'ma set the scene. 1983? Reagan calls the USSR "the evil empire." 6 months later? we start some shit.. The next august? "We begin bombing in 5 minutes.". Now, are you ready for that picture?
"Ooops, no, not that picture," he said disingenuously for effect. "I meant this picture."
You want fucking hopeless? try living in a world on the razor's edge of armageddon with FIFTY NINE PERCENT of your countrymen cheering it on. Forty percent of Americans voted against Reagan, reflected as two. point. five. percent of the electoral vote.
Do you taste it yet? Do you taste the bleakness? The utter, overwhelming despair?
You're ten, by the way. And the TV wants you to know that eleven is doubtful.
But hey, you make it to eleven and we're selling Stinger missiles on the down-low to the Iranians to buy weapons for the Contras and somehow the CIA is selling cocaine in Los Angeles and Ronnie is absolutely, positively, undeniably senile and they're already talking about putting his mug on Mt. Rushmore.
Here's the difference between you and me. I'm grading on a curve because I've seen some shit. You demand purity because - to be frank - you haven't.
You still could.
But this isn't what it looks like.
You wanna know why Biden is treating Israel with kid gloves? cuz nobody likes dead marines. And for the record, Palestinians were:
- the direct and proximate cause of the Jordanian Civil War
- the direct and proximate cause of The Lebanese Civil War
- a complication and exacerbation of the invasion of Kuwait
And, for the record, Palestinians support October 7 by a 4:1 margin.
Shit's complicated. Shit's bleak. Shit's been complicated and bleak forever, though and it's hella less complicated and bleak than it has been and fuckin' hell, bubba, I legit didn't think I'd make it to 18 and instead I saw a piece of the Berlin Wall above the bar of a Bennigan's I was too young to drink at but got to anyway so quit fucking whining.
Yeah, that does sound pretty bad. I remember my mom telling stories of it, saying she was glad to live in DC because when the bombs fell she wouldn't even notice.
GenZ has it's own crises though. The big one being climate change ofc. Which unlike the cold war isn't solved by Not doing something extremely reckless. Business as usual WILL WITH CERTAINTY cause catastrophe. It's staring into the barrel of a gun and the 40% of the country who's vote counts is cheering and the 60% who's vote doesn't is trying to find a clever compromise between your head and the exploded brain lobbyists. Its driving towards the edge of a cliff while the country argues whether to go at 20 miles per hour or 60.
If you weren't born with a blind love of corporations, there's not much in the country left to care about anyways. Our culture has been 15 years of Ant-Man: Quantumania going on 20. Any company anyone ever liked has been bought up and gutted. Just yesterday saw they're trying to sell D&D to tencent for god's sake. The circuses suck and the price of bread just went up 20%.
I guess that's my point, that shit still sucks, and with a different sort of vibe. I can't say which one is worse but you're jaded now and weren't then, I assume.
And regardless, in this case it's not needed because i will certainly vote (and did in 2016 too, c'man now). But "vote for my guy because your problems don't matter and aren't going to be solved anyways" isn't a very inspiring argument even if it is true.
I'm dealing with global warming also. It's not like this is happening to GenZ alone. We're all in it.
I'm dealing with the corporate hollowing-out of America also. It's not like this is happening to GenZ alone. We're all in it.
Yes. Shit still sucks. And with a different sort of vibe. But I don't know how I can say this any clearer:
Pessimism should never be an excuse for inaction. "your problems don't matter and aren't going to be solved anyways?" c'mon, man. I deserve better than that. Nowhere did I say that. Nowhere did I say anything CLOSE to that. What I said is "I've seen shit a whole lot more hopeless than it is now." I've said it a half-dozen ways. I've elaborated, I've elucidated, I've enumerated and you keep coming back with "but but but."
You know what fucking sucked? TSR being bought by Wizards of the Coast. Fuck you. Magic: The Gathering is Bridge for dipshits and always has been. Pokemon is a fucking blight on the minds of children worldwide and the fact that the thriving community that so threatened the 'boomers that they held fucking congressional hearings about it is now owned by Hasbro means I don't now and never do need to give the first fuck about anyone buying dungeons and dragons ever again. We've gotten to the point where D&D nerds wonder why The Olds care about turning everything into Stephen Universe to which I say "let it all rot."
You can't say which one is worse. I can. I can say it with no hesitation. And I say it with this level of stridency because every.single.mutherfucker.up.in.this.bitch is offended by my optimism and truly - y'all are a bunch of WATBs.
An incumbent candidate whom the majority of his party views as the victim of a stolen election mustered 51% of primary votes in mutherfucking Iowa. And how, exactly, would the US split? There's this real need to simplistically stare at a map and go "that's a red state, that's a blue state" when the reality is that Biden won where people live and Trump won where people don't:
Trump was going to be the 2024 candidate the minute Four Seasons Total Landscaping became a meme. That's one reason this has been such a deeply unserious spectacle. Here are the real questions:
- Are more people going to vote Trump in 2024 than 2020? Every poll, every analysis, every indication we have is "no."
- Are fewer people going to vote Biden in 2020 than 2024? Tough to say. It's going to depend almost entirely on the economy, and economic sentiment rocketed right out of the doldrums last month. Yeah, yeah, Israel/Palestine, the tankie outrage machine will have moved on to some other dumb shit Americans can't focus on foreign wars without US troops on the ground for more than a couple months.
There is every indication that Trump won't debate. This means that Biden's messages will be whatever he can put out as press releases and Trump's messages will be whatever he puts out in his rallies. I don't know if you've seen his rallies lately but they aren't exactly targeted as a general audience.
Here, click around.
Is there anything there for anyone not already in the tent? Is there anything in there for someone disappointed with Biden?
- An incumbent candidate whom the majority of his party views as the victim of a stolen election mustered 51% of primary votes in mutherfucking Iowa.
I think it's worse than that. There were like 110,000 voters out of 700,000 registered republicans in the state. So that 110,000 represents the most die hard republicans. Caucuses do not represent a valid statistical sample. So if anything, I think that his numbers are worse than the early indications. This is a very far cry from 2020 when they literally made their entire platform "MAGA, bitches!" The NH result was probably even worse, given that Haley won over 60% of independents. Biden may be unpopular generally, but there's no way those independents split more than 50% for Trump in the general. I think the pollsters say he needs 90+% of GOP voters and more than half of independents to have a realistic shot of winning. IA and NH seem to be really dim for the Trump campaign, despite all the catastrophizing from NYT today.
https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/11/politics/cnn-polls-trump-biden-michigan-georgia/index.html
Here in Michigan, this reflects what I am hearing and seeing. I don't think the left wants to believe what is happening.
If Pence did what Trump wanted to, different states would have declared to have different presidents. We were close.
Yeah, I can't muster the energy to care anymore.
If the Republicans don't win this one they'll win the next, or the one after, and wow, for "nothing fundamentally changing" he's sure let the abortion bans go through and all the anti trans legislation in Florida so he's not even effective as an obstructionist.
Idk, something? Maybe it's impossible
It's just hard to care if Biden is unable to do anything. It feels like at best, things will just get worse somewhat slower. I don't know what positive change is even possible to hope for.
Man I'm sorry , this is not a consistent political ideology , just feeling bleak :(
Though I don't actually know, my guess is that you're on the young side of adulthood, no? The older you get, the easier it is to keep things in perspective. Like for example, when my parents were young, the n-word wasn't controversial and a lot of white people used it as the default to discuss blacks. By the time I was a kid in the 80s that was unthinkable. But, 'fag' was the de facto insult for everyone, everywhere, all the time. Transgender may have been invented as a term in academic circles back then, but it sure wasn't known to anyone in the public. The fact that conservatives are making anti-trans legislation is only possible because trans people exist in public these days in a way that they did not until very recently. It may not be perfect, but it's very difficult to not see "positive change" as being possible to hope for. Do not let short periods of noise obscure the very loud signal.
Yeah, the social change is great. Huge progress there, feels almost unthinkable to be homophobic anymore. All of this seemed to happen without voting or it really mattering who the president is. And I haven't forgotten that Biden was one of the senators passing anti gay legislation back in the 90s.
I can't really point to anything in Government that's gone the way I'd like it though. I guess Obamacare was better than nothing?
- All of this seemed to happen without voting or it really mattering who the president is.
I remember Tootsie.
I remember the Defense of Marriage Act.
I remember Murphy Brown pregnant out of wedlock.
I remember Saturday Night Live saying the word "masturbate" on the air.
I remember Barney Frank jokes.
I remember Don't Ask Don't Tell.
ALL of it was hard-fought.
ALL of it was culture picking a fight with government and government not being able to muster the power to kick culture back down.
And that is why Republicans hate culture - they've been steadily losing to culture since they switched from Eisenhower to Goldwater. They're on the ropes and they're swinging wildly and it's ugly as fuck and we're all bleeding but goddamnit in my lifetime we've gone from Dungeons & Dragons = Satanism to "lol Ron DeSantis is picking a fight with Disney."
I lucked out. I kept Bob Dole out of office. I voted for Clinton, and he didn't suck, and then I turned 19 and it was the End of History. If your electoral awakening aligned with Trump entering office? You're gonna be cynical for life.
But the culture really does want things to be more liberal, and the conservatives will always wage culture wars to stay in office.
Right. That's on purpose. That feeling you feel? It's being cultivated by the Republicans. "Look at this mess (that we made). Biden has done nothing to stop it/us. Aren't you sad for (what we did to) your country? Stay home and be mad."
Populism arises in times of scarcity. Resources have become increasingly scarce since the Long Boom. Historically, cultures in scarcity pull together or pull apart - post-war Britain pulled together, post-collapse Russia pulled apart. Populists? Always pull apart.
And they do so by cultivating
EXACTLY
that
feeling.
Yeah :/
I mean you're obviously right that the Republicans are screwing things up a lot more. I just wish there was any real resistance.
I think it would be cool to have a little more anti-corporate, anti-billionaire populism than we do now though
Polling has really wide margins of error at this early stage. I think people are likelier to say challenger over incumbent the farther from the vote you actually are. And in this case, it's probably more pronounced, because you know Uncle Joe is going to hammer J6 footage on TV ads until our eyes bleed. Mitt Romney had a lead in MI in early polls in 2012 and lost by like 9 points. Trump will fade. He may be more senile than Biden, and that will become more clear the more people have to actually watch him. He can't even keep Nikki Haley and Nancy Pelosi straight anymore. The Big Mac gunk is degrading his synapses by the day, and I don't think 50% of people are that stupid no matter how little they think of Biden. Call me an optimist. I've been wrong a lot.
The dislike of Biden is (1) high inflation, which is moderating (2) anger at stripped rights, see Spence's outrage over a Republican plan that has been in motion since 1977 (3) anger over Israel. There's plenty to disapprove of and lo and behold, Biden is at a 51% disapproval rating. Trump's at 52, though, so what's your point?
The next nine months are going to be about Biden getting re-elected and Trump getting his day in five different courts. Apparently I'm the only one who has ever noticed that approval ratings always suck going into an election year and that "who don't you like" and "who do you want to be president" rarely align.
The disapproval goes deeper than that in the midwest. It’s also “I’m sick of the dems woke shit” and “he seems dementic”. That’s what friends and family tell me.
But in the end it's still a lesser-of-two-evils type of vote, and Trump is doing exactly nothing to not continue to scare the shit out of everyday voters. His entire campaign is built around stop the steal. It is not an appealing message. I agree with your trepidation about Biden's weakness, but in the end we don't get to compare Biden to our perfect ideal of a candidate on voting day. We compare him to Trump. And to me that's like having the choice between eating hardtack and an actual shit sandwich. Hardtack sucks, but it's nutrition.
To you, but have you always voted for the winning candidate?
The hard truth is that people aren't nearly as freaked out about a second Trump term as we (or apparently the dems) expect. Biden looks like a strong wind will knock him over, and sounds worse. Trump will definitely want to debate Biden, and he will utterly destroy him if Biden does.
Also, no one I know likes Kamala. No one.
Biden has no clothes and the dems are pretending he does: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/
- To you, but have you always voted for the winning candidate?
Lol. I turned 18 just in time to vote for Gore. That was a nice welcome into presidential politics. Been shitty every since. I remember being so angry, disappointed, and disillusioned by the result that I didn't want to get out of bed for like 3 days. But I was 18. Things affect you more at that age. But on the other hand, Bush turned out to be the worst president in American history hands down, and I include Trump in that assessment. So I suppose I was right to be down.
I do not think Trump has much of a shot in the rematch, but I also think his chances are non-zero. However, I do not share your pessimism that it will lead to the dissolution of the USA. We survived it once intact. We will again. None of this "he knows how to do it next time" carries water, because he doesn't give a fuck about policy. He cares about being in the news, and he'll never cede power to anyone who upstages him. So nothing will get done in Trump 2.0 either.
And I also do not know anyone who like Harris. I almost didn't vote Biden because he picked her. But my Trump hate was stronger than my conviction that I'd never vote for her. And I think that's true of a lot of other people, too.
I'ma go out on a limb and guess you don't have a lot of friends outside your bubble. To the contrary, I own a women's health clinic. Our patients talk.
I like Kamala. I donated to her attorney general campaign back in the day, and I have friends who campaigned for her.
Biden fell over on a bike when he couldn't get his foot out of the pedal clips. Trump barely made it down a ramp from Air Force One.
I recognize that this doesn't fit your doomsday narrative? So I'm going to stop trying.
The thing is Trump has a good chance of winning right now. Sure lots of things could change but the guy should have no chance in hell but here we are. If the the goal is to squeak by with a 1-2% margin like it’s a union vote then the democrats got this down, if the goal is some sort of ruling majority capable of governing, well that shit ain’t looking good. 4 more years of disfunction under Trump or Biden is a pretty terrible outcome in my book. Even if Biden wins we still loose just a little less it’s not much you cheer for even if I have to eventually hold my nose and vote for the guy.
I don't think you believe I live in a bubble. Ann Arbor is definitely a bubble, and Biden is very safe here, but I have lots of relations outside of A2.
It's a second Trump term. That's not a crazy proposition or a narrative. The Dems thought Hillary was going to win. They think Biden will win again. I think they are wrong.
- My only hope is that the SCOTUS nerfs Trump due to insurrection.
In your scenario, what makes you think that Trump gives any credence to any sort of SCOTUS nerfing?