We all know the swastika is the universal symbol for "I'm afraid my job is going to China."
I think the thing I'm seething with is empathy.
UPDATE (1/4/2017, 9:57 PM): Technically, that's like a mile or two north of the UWS...
Showing posts with label #Hate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Hate. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
More Economic Anxiety on the Upper West Side
I think this is the third time in the last month the poor working class people of the UWS got so stressed out they just had to express it.
We all know the swastika is the universal symbol for "I'm afraid my job is going to China."
I think the thing I'm seething with is empathy.
UPDATE (1/4/2017, 9:57 PM): Technically, that's like a mile or two north of the UWS...
We all know the swastika is the universal symbol for "I'm afraid my job is going to China."
I think the thing I'm seething with is empathy.
UPDATE (1/4/2017, 9:57 PM): Technically, that's like a mile or two north of the UWS...
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Post-Mortem Roundup, Week of 1/1/2017
Less than a month to go before I write mine, and there's still a lot of information coming in.
Reed Galen, reviewing two books on the 2016 election, write that our polling methodology was bad, and aside from that,the portions were too small we did a bad job examining it:
Taylor Gee at Politico points the polling error at looking at the wrong counties, and names nine that were missed.
I spoke to Ari this morning and he's going to have a take on the geography and polling piece sometime soon based around a discussion we had last night about this:
Meanwhile Bill Scher (why didn't anyone tell me Liberal Oasis was back? -- they're going in the sidebar. Yay Bill and Traci!) thinks Trump would've beaten Obama if Obama weren't term-limited. I actually disagree (I think Obama's out-of-this-galazy charisma could've easily been worth 70,000 votes in three states), but Scher's point here is important:
This is a conclusion I'm coming close to in my own upcoming PM. Dems and groups like Black Lives Matter made impressive pushes for civil rights in Obama's second term, and that scared the crap out of rural and exurban whites. I'd be one of the last people to say we should tone down our inclusiveness; we just need to plan accordingly. Sean McElwee's got some great thoughts on that:
Over at the Paper of Record, David Paul Kuhn disagrees with the premise of the last few posts:
Carolina O responds to Kuhn with a tweetstorm:
Speaking of the mainstream media, from Digby (this rest of this post is going to get pretty Digby-heavy... she was on fire this week; what's new?) as she theorizes how they're going to behave in 2017:
The stance on the media isn't so relevant to this post, but the bolded phrase is one we really need to consider going forward in thinking about how much we can compare 2016 to other elections.
More relevant is this from Peter Daou (whom I enjoy a lot on Twitter):
And this, shared by Scott Lemieux:
And what kind of post-mortem post would this be without some Russia? From Digby:
And, of course, Comey:
A lot to chew on.
Reed Galen, reviewing two books on the 2016 election, write that our polling methodology was bad, and aside from that,
As Lewis’ book states, one cannot believe an uncertain outcome is possible if one does not believe the events that led to its occurrence. For example, much of the political elite (of both parties) and the media probably saw President Barack Obama’s election as transformational, but perhaps did not see his time in office as a radical departure from those who’ve served previously. We might have had some dim recognition that there were rumblings in the hustings, but having studied our electoral maps like they were the Talmud, we could not see anyway that Trump could possibly break the “Blue Wall.”
We reviewed national survey data that was both too small in its sample size, sometimes no more than 700 or 800, rarely more than 2,000 to expound on the beliefs of more than 200 million American voters. We regularly saw in black and white that Secretary Hillary Clinton, even on the “worst” days of Trump’s campaign, could barely escape the margin of error. While those same national surveys may have been accurate regarding the popular vote, they missed individual states badly; an enormously significant oversight given the Electoral College decides the presidency. An existing and significant non-response bias among certain demographics must also be studied and fixed moving forward.
Taylor Gee at Politico points the polling error at looking at the wrong counties, and names nine that were missed.
Crafted from the cumulative expertise of veteran campaign reporters, reams of polling data, decades of demographic and voting trends, these compilations of 10 and 25 and 50 counties offered the kind of comfort one gets listening to the captain drone on about flight time and cruising altitude. Sit back, the lists said, we’ve got this. Yeah, well, a funny thing happened in the voting booth. Turns out all of us experts were looking at the right battleground states, but the wrong counties. We were concentrating on places that had mattered in previous election cycles while Trump was pulling a card from his sleeve in towns and out-of-the-way counties that the pundits—and the Clinton campaign—hadn’t paid much attention to before. Florida could well be decided by Hillsborough County, many said. Actually, not this time. North Carolina hinges on the counties surrounding Winston-Salem and Raleigh, many predicted. Again, not so much. But there were other counties in those states that made a big difference in deciding who will have his hand on the Bible on January 20. So, with the benefit of hindsight we offer a list of places that mattered more than we expected. Keep them in mind when you put together your insider’s list in 2020.
I spoke to Ari this morning and he's going to have a take on the geography and polling piece sometime soon based around a discussion we had last night about this:
This is very likely the result of Republican-led voter suppression efforts in North Carolina: https://t.co/EmyRcaH7U0 pic.twitter.com/3Bbz2AC38P— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 1, 2017
Meanwhile Bill Scher (why didn't anyone tell me Liberal Oasis was back? -- they're going in the sidebar. Yay Bill and Traci!) thinks Trump would've beaten Obama if Obama weren't term-limited. I actually disagree (I think Obama's out-of-this-galazy charisma could've easily been worth 70,000 votes in three states), but Scher's point here is important:
Trump voters were also angered by how Obama handled race issues as president, especially his defense of Black Lives Matter activists. The New York Times Magazine’s Nikole Hannah-Jones spoke with Obama-to-Trump converts in Iowa and found “they had come to feel at odds with their party; it no longer reflected their own cultural norms. … Obama really turned [one voter] off when, after a vigilante killed a black teenager named Trayvon Martin, he said the boy could have been his son. She felt as if Obama was choosing a side in the racial divide, stirring up tensions.” ProPublica’s Alec MacGillis, after speaking to voters in Ohio, noted one who had “grown somewhat disenchanted” with Obama after supporting him, then “talked about how much the Black Lives Matter protests against shootings by police officers grated on him” and lamented, “If I say anything about that, I’m a racist.”
These anecdotes are also backed up by data. The 2016 exit poll asked, “Does the country’s criminal justice system treat all fairly or treat blacks unfairly?” Seventy-two percent of those saying blacks are treated unfairly were Clinton voters, while 73 percent of those saying blacks are treated as fairly as everyone else were Trump voters. Tesler further noted in a post-election Washington Post analysis that surveys showed “racial resentment and ethnocentrism — rating whites more favorably than other racial and ethnic minorities — were more closely linked to support for Donald Trump in 2016 than support for Mitt Romney in 2012.”
Clinton bore the brunt of this “whitelash,” instead of Obama, because she too defended Black Lives Matter in her campaign and spoke out against police brutality. Obama hadn’t forcefully engaged the subject in his 2008 and 2012 campaigns. As I noted back in September, he went out of his way eight years ago to sympathize with whites who held racial resentments because often they “see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor.”
This is a conclusion I'm coming close to in my own upcoming PM. Dems and groups like Black Lives Matter made impressive pushes for civil rights in Obama's second term, and that scared the crap out of rural and exurban whites. I'd be one of the last people to say we should tone down our inclusiveness; we just need to plan accordingly. Sean McElwee's got some great thoughts on that:
It’s too simplistic to think that slicker ads and better messaging alone will defeat racism, however. White people live segregated lives — three-quarters of white people report that they don’t have any friends who aren’t white. When a caller named Gary told Heather McGhee, president of Demos (the think tank where I work), that he was prejudiced and wanted to change his views on race, she encouraged him to enter spaces, such as churches, where he might encounter people of different races. They have had many conversations since the original call, as well as personal visits. Later during their conversations, Gary told McGhee, “Talk to white people. We need a little bit of guidance. We’re not really getting it from our politicians. They want to play one side against the other for votes.”
Over at the Paper of Record, David Paul Kuhn disagrees with the premise of the last few posts:
Mr. Obama’s support among these whites was at its peak in 2008 after the stock market crash. At the depths of the Great Recession that followed, blue-collar white men experienced the most job losses.
Their support began hemorrhaging after Mr. Obama chose early in his presidency — when congressional Democrats could have overcome Republican obstruction — to fight for health care reform instead of a “new New Deal.”
By 2016, Mr. Trump personified the vote against the status quo, one still not working out for them. A post-campaign study comparing the George W. Bush coalition in 2000 to the Trump coalition in 2016 found that Mr. Trump particularly improved in areas hurt most by competition from Chinese imports, from the bygone brick and tile industry of Mason City, Iowa, to the flagging furniture plants of Hickory, N.C. The study concluded that, had the import competition from China been half as large, Mrs. Clinton would have won key swing states and the presidency with them.
Carolina O responds to Kuhn with a tweetstorm:
Gee, why might it be case that white working class voters, but not Hispanic or black voters, thought Trump was "more on their side"? 1/ pic.twitter.com/127Fa2zQlC— Caroline O. (@RVAwonk) December 31, 2016
Speaking of the mainstream media, from Digby (this rest of this post is going to get pretty Digby-heavy... she was on fire this week; what's new?) as she theorizes how they're going to behave in 2017:
The problem we face is that Trump is sui generis and he is operating within a unique circumstance. The party he now leads was already at a peak moment of extremism and are unable and unwilling to act as a moderating force. And the modern media environment has made it possible for a fabulist like Trump to create an alternate narrative that is likely to be believed by millions of his followers, who are already far more gullible than most people.
The stance on the media isn't so relevant to this post, but the bolded phrase is one we really need to consider going forward in thinking about how much we can compare 2016 to other elections.
More relevant is this from Peter Daou (whom I enjoy a lot on Twitter):
This graphic is for people who still pretend coverage of Hillary was fair or proportional in ANY way.— Peter Daou (@peterdaou) December 29, 2016
(h/t @EricBoehlert) pic.twitter.com/s6arjPxvpD
And this, shared by Scott Lemieux:
And what kind of post-mortem post would this be without some Russia? From Digby:
Today we have an incoming GOP president facing off with the CIA over an an intelligence assessment concerning Russia. This time it’s about possible interference in the election with intent to install this same president in office. which certainly puts a strange new twist on the old story. Still, the dynamics aren’t all that different.
It's important to keep all this in mind as we try to assess what happened here. Donald Trump is now the president and he is stupid and he's crazy. Even if you think that Putin is actually a very nice guy who just wants to make the world a better place, I still wouldn't trust Trump. And frankly, I don't know why anyone thinks Putin is ok either. They seem like two sides of the same macho authoritarian card to me.
And, of course, Comey:
The big story of the 2016 election, the one which remains for me the most shocking and inexplicable, is the fact that James Comey, the director of the FBI, put a very heavy thumb on the scale which decided the election. It started back in July when he made inappropriate public criticism of Clinton even as he legally exonerated her. This is not something law enforcement is ever supposed to do, and it’s certainly unethical to do it in a highly charged political case. Donald Trump and the Republicans used that criticism as evidence that Clinton was still subject to prosecution and “lock her up” (and worse, like “hang the bitch” and “Hillary for prison”) became sickening rallying cries at Trump campaign events. Close advisers and associates called for Clinton to be” shot for treason” and “arrested, tried, and executed.”
The word “emails” became shorthand for alleged criminal behavior by Hillary Clinton. Under pressure from these hysterical Republicans, Comey continued to violate FBI practice by turning over the raw investigative files to congress, which he released in pieces and the Republicans promptly leaked, keeping the controversy going as the press once again used screaming “email” headlines to report nothing new or significant.
Despite all that, Clinton was leading in the polls going into the final stretch. And then as people all over the country were already voting, just 11 days before election day, Comey sent his famous letter to the congress announcing they had found some emails on a laptop that might or might not be relevant to the earlier Clinton probe. The Republicans in congress eagerly released it publicly calling it a “re-opening” of the case and the media predictably went wild, talking of little else for days and splashing the news across front pages all over the country.
A lot to chew on.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
On the Same Side
This is based on a piece I was going to write tomorrow, but I think I've got something in me at 2 AM...
As I'm sure I've said on this site a dozen times before, Ari and I are writing for our own edification more than for others to read; we were both gobsmacked by the events of 11/9 and are both looking for the lessons we can learn so that we can get involved in the fight ahead of us in our own way (we're best friends, but are in very different situations). We have our own lives and our own careers, and neither of us ever expects to make a living writing about politics, and are really happy to mostly aggregate the people we read regularly who do or are trying their asses off to do so (see the Daily Rounds in the right sidebar).
We bring our own strengths to the table; Ari brings bona fide economic expertise, and I sorta bring the ability to link a whole lot of crap together and make sense of it, but mostly I bring my heart on my sleeve. So, for the most part, I don't write thinking about how many people might read what I babble (though I like numbers so when they do climb it's fun to watch). I have found that about once every ten days or so I write something that I really want other people to read, and it's nice to have a platform beyond Facebook on which to do it. Last Wednesday night/Thursday morning was one of the times where I really appreciated that, even though I was a little hesitant:
After having some time to process and to chat about the situation with friends, I find myself proud that I did stand up not just for myself, but for the principles, like, uh, science, that I'm going to stubbornly cling to for as long as I can.
But happily, tonight I can tell a different story -- same location, same time of night, but different players. A couple of hours ago I was at the same bar, in roughly the same seat, and struck up a conversation with a Spaniard who was in Brooklyn on business. He really wanted to discuss American politics, and we agreed readily that Trump/Pence/Ryan/McConnell/other evil flotsam are just a horror show in waiting. From there, he stated that, as a European, he would've had a hard time accepting a politician as "moderate" as Hillary Clinton and that he thought that Bernie Sanders would've made a better President. There's obviously nothing unusual about discussing that, but the fact that at the same place where things nearly got out of hand after a Clinton/Trump exchange last week, I debated for over an hour about Clinton/Sanders with no violence (save for a "terrorist fist jab" -- ahhh, 2008, simpler times) left me with a wee bit of optimism. This contrast was magnified as I ambled home through Fort Greene listening to the mighty Digby on blog-to-speech:
3 AM now, and this is getting a bit incoherent. But what I'm getting at is that, though we are about to take some blows from the Republicans that were unimaginable two short months ago, we have the opportunity to emerge as a better team, even if we never in our lifetimes make up the ground we lose over the next four (or, FSM forbid, more) years. I am never going to agree with, or even try to find any common ground with, the Deplorables from last week who insisted I was a hypocrite because I supported abortion rights while fretting about 30,000+ gun deaths per year in this country. But I am, as Digby says, trying to maintain "a willingness to keep my eyes open and my mind as clear as I can keep it to sort through all the day to day chaos and try to see things as clearly as I can." I have no beef with the Sanders supporter who wants to provide free health insurance and education to every American; we both want that and just disagree on how close and how soon we can get to that and what the American political system can accommodate.
I happen to think that the 2016 Democratic Party platform was a political miracle. We came together and we assembled a document with the following Table of Contents:
Raise Incomes and Restore Economic Security for the Middle Class...................................... 3
Raising Workers’ Wages ............................................................................................................ 3
Protecting Workers’ Fundamental Rights................................................................................... 4
Supporting Working Families..................................................................................................... 4
Helping More Workers Share in Near-Record Corporate Profits............................................... 5Expanding Access to Affordable Housing and Homeownership ............................................... 5
Protecting and Expanding Social Security.................................................................................. 6
Ensuring a Secure and Dignified Retirement.............................................................................. 7
Revitalizing Our Nation’s Postal Service ................................................................................... 7Create Good-Paying Jobs............................................................................................................. 7
Building 21st Century Infrastructure .......................................................................................... 7
Fostering a Manufacturing Renaissance ..................................................................................... 8
Creating Good-Paying Clean Energy Jobs ................................................................................. 8
Pursuing Our Innovation Agenda: Science, Research, Education, and Technology .................. 9
Supporting America’s Small Businesses .................................................................................. 10
Creating Jobs for America’s Young People.............................................................................. 10
Fight for Economic Fairness and Against Inequality .............................................................. 10
Reining in Wall Street and Fixing our Financial System ......................................................... 11
Promoting Competition by Stopping Corporate Concentration................................................ 12
Making the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes................................................................. 12Promoting Trade That is Fair and Benefits American Workers ............................................... 13
Bring Americans Together and Remove Barriers to Opportunities...................................... 14
Ending Systemic Racism .......................................................................................................... 14
Closing the Racial Wealth Gap ................................................................................................. 14Reforming our Criminal Justice System................................................................................... 15
Fixing our Broken Immigration System ................................................................................... 16
Guaranteeing Civil Rights......................................................................................................... 18
Guaranteeing Women’s Rights................................................................................................. 18
Guaranteeing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights .............................................. 19Guaranteeing Rights for People with Disabilities..................................................................... 19
Respecting Faith and Service .................................................................................................... 19
Investing in Rural America ....................................................................................................... 20
Ending Poverty and Investing in Communities Left Behind .................................................... 20
Building Strong Cities and Metro Areas................................................................................... 21
Promoting Arts and Culture ...................................................................................................... 21
Honoring Indigenous Tribal Nations ........................................................................................ 21
Fighting for the People of Puerto Rico ..................................................................................... 23
Honoring the People of the Territories ..................................................................................... 24
iii
Protect Voting Rights, Fix Our Campaign Finance System, and Restore Our Democracy 24
Protecting Voting Rights........................................................................................................... 24
Fixing Our Broken Campaign Finance System ........................................................................ 25Appointing Judges .................................................................................................................... 25
Securing Statehood for Washington, D.C................................................................................. 26
Strengthening Management of Federal Government................................................................ 26
Combat Climate Change, Build a Clean Energy Economy, and Secure Environmental
Justice ........................................................................................................................................... 27
Building a Clean Energy Economy........................................................................................... 27
Securing Environmental and Climate Justice ........................................................................... 28
Protecting Our Public Lands and Waters.................................................................................. 29
Provide Quality and Affordable Education.............................................................................. 30
Making Debt-Free College a Reality ........................................................................................ 30
Providing Relief from Crushing Student Debt.......................................................................... 31
Supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions.. 31
Cracking Down on Predatory For-Profit Schools..................................................................... 32
Guaranteeing Universal Preschool and Good Schools for Every Child ................................... 32Ensure the Health and Safety of All Americans ...................................................................... 34
Securing Universal Health Care................................................................................................ 34Supporting Community Health Centers.................................................................................... 35
Reducing Prescription Drug Costs............................................................................................ 35
Enabling Cutting-Edge Medical Research................................................................................ 36
Combating Drug and Alcohol Addiction.................................................................................. 36
Treating Mental Health ............................................................................................................. 36
Supporting Those Living with Autism and their Families........................................................ 37
Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice .................................................................. 37
Ensuring Long-Term Care, Services, and Supports.................................................................. 38
Protecting and Promoting Public Health................................................................................... 38
Ending Violence Against Women............................................................................................. 38
Preventing Gun Violence .......................................................................................................... 39
Principled Leadership ................................................................................................................ 39
Support Our Troops and Keep Faith with Our Veterans....................................................... 40
Defense Spending ..................................................................................................................... 40
Veterans and Service Members................................................................................................. 41
Military Families....................................................................................................................... 41
A Strong Military...................................................................................................................... 41
Confront Global Threats............................................................................................................ 42
Terrorism................................................................................................................................... 42
Syria .......................................................................................................................................... 42
Afghanistan ............................................................................................................................... 43
iv
Iran ............................................................................................................................................ 43
North Korea............................................................................................................................... 43
Russia ........................................................................................................................................ 43
Cybersecurity and Online Privacy ............................................................................................ 44
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Weapons ......................................... 44
Global Climate Leadership ....................................................................................................... 45
Protect Our Values...................................................................................................................... 45
Women and Girls...................................................................................................................... 45
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People..................................................................... 46Trafficking and Modern Slavery............................................................................................... 46
Young People ............................................................................................................................ 46
Religious Minorities.................................................................................................................. 47
Refugees.................................................................................................................................... 47
Civil Society.............................................................................................................................. 47
Anti-Corruption......................................................................................................................... 47
Torture....................................................................................................................................... 47
Closing Guantánamo Bay ......................................................................................................... 47
Development Assistance ........................................................................................................... 48
Global Health ............................................................................................................................ 48
HIV and AIDS .......................................................................................................................... 48
International Labor.................................................................................................................... 48
A Leader in the World................................................................................................................ 49
Asia-Pacific ............................................................................................................................... 49
Middle East ............................................................................................................................... 49
Europe ....................................................................................................................................... 50
Americas ................................................................................................................................... 50
Africa ........................................................................................................................................ 51
Global Economy and Institutions.............................................................................................. 51
Look at the items I bolded. Most of those were, while not entirely anathema to the Democratic Party of the 1990s, would have been considered divisive. But they're there now. Why? Because we're the good guys. We know we are, and the other side seems to be proud they're not.. I'm glad to be a member of Hillary Clinton's party. I'm glad to be a member of Barack Obama's party. I'm glad to be a member of the party that Bernie Sanders decided was a proper vehicle for his progressive message. We're all on the same team, and we have a blueprint for the future of America.
I spent most of the early part of the day playing on Twitter, and found that this offhand tweet I made to Karoli at Crooks & Liars received an inordinate number of likes (17!):
I was on the fence until recently regarding the Greenwald/Snowden/Manning crowd, but no. Y'all make me think #pecsandhorse, and I think the seventeen people who liked my tweet think so too.
As we enter 2017, I ask anyone reading this (all seven of you):
As I'm sure I've said on this site a dozen times before, Ari and I are writing for our own edification more than for others to read; we were both gobsmacked by the events of 11/9 and are both looking for the lessons we can learn so that we can get involved in the fight ahead of us in our own way (we're best friends, but are in very different situations). We have our own lives and our own careers, and neither of us ever expects to make a living writing about politics, and are really happy to mostly aggregate the people we read regularly who do or are trying their asses off to do so (see the Daily Rounds in the right sidebar).
We bring our own strengths to the table; Ari brings bona fide economic expertise, and I sorta bring the ability to link a whole lot of crap together and make sense of it, but mostly I bring my heart on my sleeve. So, for the most part, I don't write thinking about how many people might read what I babble (though I like numbers so when they do climb it's fun to watch). I have found that about once every ten days or so I write something that I really want other people to read, and it's nice to have a platform beyond Facebook on which to do it. Last Wednesday night/Thursday morning was one of the times where I really appreciated that, even though I was a little hesitant:
Last night, I visited a local watering hole in Brooklyn that I tend to frequent. I was busy studying for an exam, so I pretty much had my head in a book for much of the night. However, I couldn't keep it there because there were not one, but two incidents of Trump supporters in this bar (where there were maybe 15 people) trying to provoke others.
.
.
.
The Tennessean then asked me if I knew what the "wood treatment" was. I said no, and he said, "It's when I slam your head into the bar." Despite the fact that he was much bigger than me, I thought to myself that I had a moral obligation to stand up to him. I did exactly that -- I got off my seat, and said "You think so?" and he somehow backed down, and then the three glared at me as they left without finishing their beers.
I was actually a bit embarrassed. I'm not the kind of guy who gets into physical fights. I apologized to the bartender for the situation, and he said, "No, don't apologize. I thank you, because someone needs to give actual facts and statistics to guys like that."
After having some time to process and to chat about the situation with friends, I find myself proud that I did stand up not just for myself, but for the principles, like, uh, science, that I'm going to stubbornly cling to for as long as I can.
But happily, tonight I can tell a different story -- same location, same time of night, but different players. A couple of hours ago I was at the same bar, in roughly the same seat, and struck up a conversation with a Spaniard who was in Brooklyn on business. He really wanted to discuss American politics, and we agreed readily that Trump/Pence/Ryan/McConnell/other evil flotsam are just a horror show in waiting. From there, he stated that, as a European, he would've had a hard time accepting a politician as "moderate" as Hillary Clinton and that he thought that Bernie Sanders would've made a better President. There's obviously nothing unusual about discussing that, but the fact that at the same place where things nearly got out of hand after a Clinton/Trump exchange last week, I debated for over an hour about Clinton/Sanders with no violence (save for a "terrorist fist jab" -- ahhh, 2008, simpler times) left me with a wee bit of optimism. This contrast was magnified as I ambled home through Fort Greene listening to the mighty Digby on blog-to-speech:
We are in uncharted territory with a new leader at the top of a political party that has reached peak insanity in a world in which the very concept of truth is being challenged. It feels as though everything liberals and progressives care about is about to come under assault from a dozen different directions. It's going to take a concerted effort just to understand it all much less figure out how to resist it.
I don't have the answers about how to do that. But I do have a willingness to keep my eyes open and my mind as clear as I can keep it to sort through all the day to day chaos and try to see things as clearly as I can. If we can do that in this chaotic media environment I think we're halfway there.
3 AM now, and this is getting a bit incoherent. But what I'm getting at is that, though we are about to take some blows from the Republicans that were unimaginable two short months ago, we have the opportunity to emerge as a better team, even if we never in our lifetimes make up the ground we lose over the next four (or, FSM forbid, more) years. I am never going to agree with, or even try to find any common ground with, the Deplorables from last week who insisted I was a hypocrite because I supported abortion rights while fretting about 30,000+ gun deaths per year in this country. But I am, as Digby says, trying to maintain "a willingness to keep my eyes open and my mind as clear as I can keep it to sort through all the day to day chaos and try to see things as clearly as I can." I have no beef with the Sanders supporter who wants to provide free health insurance and education to every American; we both want that and just disagree on how close and how soon we can get to that and what the American political system can accommodate.
I happen to think that the 2016 Democratic Party platform was a political miracle. We came together and we assembled a document with the following Table of Contents:
Raise Incomes and Restore Economic Security for the Middle Class...................................... 3
Raising Workers’ Wages ............................................................................................................ 3
Protecting Workers’ Fundamental Rights................................................................................... 4
Supporting Working Families..................................................................................................... 4
Helping More Workers Share in Near-Record Corporate Profits............................................... 5Expanding Access to Affordable Housing and Homeownership ............................................... 5
Protecting and Expanding Social Security.................................................................................. 6
Ensuring a Secure and Dignified Retirement.............................................................................. 7
Revitalizing Our Nation’s Postal Service ................................................................................... 7Create Good-Paying Jobs............................................................................................................. 7
Building 21st Century Infrastructure .......................................................................................... 7
Fostering a Manufacturing Renaissance ..................................................................................... 8
Creating Good-Paying Clean Energy Jobs ................................................................................. 8
Pursuing Our Innovation Agenda: Science, Research, Education, and Technology .................. 9
Supporting America’s Small Businesses .................................................................................. 10
Creating Jobs for America’s Young People.............................................................................. 10
Fight for Economic Fairness and Against Inequality .............................................................. 10
Reining in Wall Street and Fixing our Financial System ......................................................... 11
Promoting Competition by Stopping Corporate Concentration................................................ 12
Making the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share of Taxes................................................................. 12Promoting Trade That is Fair and Benefits American Workers ............................................... 13
Bring Americans Together and Remove Barriers to Opportunities...................................... 14
Ending Systemic Racism .......................................................................................................... 14
Closing the Racial Wealth Gap ................................................................................................. 14Reforming our Criminal Justice System................................................................................... 15
Fixing our Broken Immigration System ................................................................................... 16
Guaranteeing Civil Rights......................................................................................................... 18
Guaranteeing Women’s Rights................................................................................................. 18
Guaranteeing Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Rights .............................................. 19Guaranteeing Rights for People with Disabilities..................................................................... 19
Respecting Faith and Service .................................................................................................... 19
Investing in Rural America ....................................................................................................... 20
Ending Poverty and Investing in Communities Left Behind .................................................... 20
Building Strong Cities and Metro Areas................................................................................... 21
Promoting Arts and Culture ...................................................................................................... 21
Honoring Indigenous Tribal Nations ........................................................................................ 21
Fighting for the People of Puerto Rico ..................................................................................... 23
Honoring the People of the Territories ..................................................................................... 24
iii
Protect Voting Rights, Fix Our Campaign Finance System, and Restore Our Democracy 24
Protecting Voting Rights........................................................................................................... 24
Fixing Our Broken Campaign Finance System ........................................................................ 25Appointing Judges .................................................................................................................... 25
Securing Statehood for Washington, D.C................................................................................. 26
Strengthening Management of Federal Government................................................................ 26
Combat Climate Change, Build a Clean Energy Economy, and Secure Environmental
Justice ........................................................................................................................................... 27
Building a Clean Energy Economy........................................................................................... 27
Securing Environmental and Climate Justice ........................................................................... 28
Protecting Our Public Lands and Waters.................................................................................. 29
Provide Quality and Affordable Education.............................................................................. 30
Making Debt-Free College a Reality ........................................................................................ 30
Providing Relief from Crushing Student Debt.......................................................................... 31
Supporting Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions.. 31
Cracking Down on Predatory For-Profit Schools..................................................................... 32
Guaranteeing Universal Preschool and Good Schools for Every Child ................................... 32Ensure the Health and Safety of All Americans ...................................................................... 34
Securing Universal Health Care................................................................................................ 34Supporting Community Health Centers.................................................................................... 35
Reducing Prescription Drug Costs............................................................................................ 35
Enabling Cutting-Edge Medical Research................................................................................ 36
Combating Drug and Alcohol Addiction.................................................................................. 36
Treating Mental Health ............................................................................................................. 36
Supporting Those Living with Autism and their Families........................................................ 37
Securing Reproductive Health, Rights, and Justice .................................................................. 37
Ensuring Long-Term Care, Services, and Supports.................................................................. 38
Protecting and Promoting Public Health................................................................................... 38
Ending Violence Against Women............................................................................................. 38
Preventing Gun Violence .......................................................................................................... 39
Principled Leadership ................................................................................................................ 39
Support Our Troops and Keep Faith with Our Veterans....................................................... 40
Defense Spending ..................................................................................................................... 40
Veterans and Service Members................................................................................................. 41
Military Families....................................................................................................................... 41
A Strong Military...................................................................................................................... 41
Confront Global Threats............................................................................................................ 42
Terrorism................................................................................................................................... 42
Syria .......................................................................................................................................... 42
Afghanistan ............................................................................................................................... 43
iv
Iran ............................................................................................................................................ 43
North Korea............................................................................................................................... 43
Russia ........................................................................................................................................ 43
Cybersecurity and Online Privacy ............................................................................................ 44
Non-Proliferation of Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Weapons ......................................... 44
Global Climate Leadership ....................................................................................................... 45
Protect Our Values...................................................................................................................... 45
Women and Girls...................................................................................................................... 45
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People..................................................................... 46Trafficking and Modern Slavery............................................................................................... 46
Young People ............................................................................................................................ 46
Religious Minorities.................................................................................................................. 47
Refugees.................................................................................................................................... 47
Civil Society.............................................................................................................................. 47
Anti-Corruption......................................................................................................................... 47
Torture....................................................................................................................................... 47
Closing Guantánamo Bay ......................................................................................................... 47
Development Assistance ........................................................................................................... 48
Global Health ............................................................................................................................ 48
HIV and AIDS .......................................................................................................................... 48
International Labor.................................................................................................................... 48
A Leader in the World................................................................................................................ 49
Asia-Pacific ............................................................................................................................... 49
Middle East ............................................................................................................................... 49
Europe ....................................................................................................................................... 50
Americas ................................................................................................................................... 50
Africa ........................................................................................................................................ 51
Global Economy and Institutions.............................................................................................. 51
Look at the items I bolded. Most of those were, while not entirely anathema to the Democratic Party of the 1990s, would have been considered divisive. But they're there now. Why? Because we're the good guys. We know we are, and the other side seems to be proud they're not.. I'm glad to be a member of Hillary Clinton's party. I'm glad to be a member of Barack Obama's party. I'm glad to be a member of the party that Bernie Sanders decided was a proper vehicle for his progressive message. We're all on the same team, and we have a blueprint for the future of America.
I spent most of the early part of the day playing on Twitter, and found that this offhand tweet I made to Karoli at Crooks & Liars received an inordinate number of likes (17!):
The question is not, as Karoli asks, "Are we not Americans before partisans?" It's "Is it not necessary to be partisan as Americans today?" Howard Zinn and all that. All of us resisting Trump and his ilk need to come together under the Democratic Party umbrella, no matter which candidate we supported in the primaries. If you can't recognize that the Democratic Party is a general force for good as we enter 2017, you're not my ally. If you're out to turn the party into a circular firing squad, ditto.@Karoli I like it. Tells who's not really on our side. Took me until almost 37, but I've found a left boundary for my vision of the D Party.— Great Consolidation (@tgconsolidation) December 30, 2016
I was on the fence until recently regarding the Greenwald/Snowden/Manning crowd, but no. Y'all make me think #pecsandhorse, and I think the seventeen people who liked my tweet think so too.
As we enter 2017, I ask anyone reading this (all seven of you):
- Are we going to accept foreign meddling in our elections?
- Are you OK with gutting the American safety net?
- Can you countenance the erosion of rights of people because of their gender, race, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation?
- Should Americans be prevented from having affordable education and health care?
- Can you accept further degradation of our air, water, and other natural resources, leaving a wasteland for future generations?
Thursday, December 22, 2016
Flipping the Switch
Last night I was concerned about the sheer authoritarianism of Trump and his followers, but we also need to remember that there are extreme policy reasons for our leadership to do something about him before his Putin-pounded butt gets into the White House.
Medicare and Medicaid getting into Paul Ryan's grubby hands:
Paul Krugman reminds us:
Then, there's a nightmare bill regarding civil rights going through Congress that I wasn't aware of:
Once again, Republicans are terrible people. And now they're going to be extremely hard to stop. I have to keep reminding myself that despite my tendency to describe the approach of the Apocalyse, I really want to highlight potential ways to mitigate as much of the harm that we can. Rude Pundit has an idea that doesn't seem so wacky:
I think the Democrats would do well to hire bloggers as strategists. Not kidding.
Medicare and Medicaid getting into Paul Ryan's grubby hands:
Under Ryan’s plan, once you reach retirement, instead of being automatically enrolled in Medicare, you will be given the option to buy insurance from a number of private plans. At first glance, this might not seem like a bad idea since the option to enroll in the traditional system will remain in place. However, it is very possible — and we would argue very likely — that this measure is only the first step towards a full privatization of the program.
Assuming the GOP can pass this bill, then Ryan’s goal of privatizing Medicare will be that much closer to reality. If they are successful then it’s possible Social Security could be next.
Paul Krugman reminds us:
Does the GOP even care about the deficit? pic.twitter.com/xcESJgXhrT— Jeffrey Levin (@jilevin) December 22, 2016
Then, there's a nightmare bill regarding civil rights going through Congress that I wasn't aware of:
FADA would prohibit the federal government from taking "discriminatory action" against any business or person that discriminates against LGBTQ people. The act distinctly aims to protect the right of all entities to refuse service to LGBTQ people based on two sets of beliefs: "(1) marriage is or should be recognized as the union of one man and one woman, or (2) sexual relations are properly reserved to such a marriage."
Ironically, the language of the bill positions the right to discriminate against one class of Americans as a "first amendment" right, and bans the government from taking any form of action to curb such discrimination—including withholding federal funds from institutions that discriminate. FADA allows individuals and businesses to sue the federal government for interfering in their right to discriminate against LGBTQ people and would mandate the Attorney General defend the businesses.A few months ago, we thought we were done with the gay marriage arguments.
Once again, Republicans are terrible people. And now they're going to be extremely hard to stop. I have to keep reminding myself that despite my tendency to describe the approach of the Apocalyse, I really want to highlight potential ways to mitigate as much of the harm that we can. Rude Pundit has an idea that doesn't seem so wacky:
So while we're still tilting at the burning windmills of Russian interference and possible Obama spine-stiffening on things like Merrick Garland, let's not overlook one real Hail Mary pass on confronting Donald Trump and halting his history-demolishing agenda. What about trying to turn three Republican senators into Democrats (or, at least, turn independent and then caucusing with the Democrats)? It's crazy, sure, and unlikely, in that it relies on the possibility of there existing rational Republicans, but surely there are ones who have a gut-level fear of what Trump might do.My guess is that it can't work. Of the Senators mentioned, I think Murkowski is the only realistic flip, because she might only be in the party because of her family history. Too many give McCain, Collins, and Graham credit, and I think they sold their souls long ago and are basically with Ryan on most policy issues. However, it really is worth a shot because it could be a world-saver. I would be SO much less nervous if the Democrats had one house of Congress.
I think the Democrats would do well to hire bloggers as strategists. Not kidding.
Sunday, December 18, 2016
Post-Mortem Roundup, 12/18/16
I appear to be doing these roughly weekly, and I'm going to try to continue with that.
There are a lot of contradictions in this bunch. Let's start with the Clinton campaign.
I told a friend a couple of weeks before the election that I felt really good about Clinton's chances based on the fact that the campaign appeared to be using a lot of the Obama strategy and infrastructure. However, I was viewing that from the bubble of the volunteer room at Brooklyn HQ and the Brooklyn field office, where, yes, it appeared we were doing things right between sending hundreds of people every weekend to canvass in Philly and making hundreds of thousands of calls to Florida. But the fact is that that I cannot speak for what the campaign was doing in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Edward-Isaac Dovere at Politico said that the Clinton strategy in Michigan was just off:
Building on Dovere's piece, Ed Kilgore says the campaign was too smart for its own good (which is silly in itself, but I'm sure worked well as clickbait):
Josh Marshall implies also, that factors other than Comey helped create the rift in the "Blue Firewall," in this case in Wisconsin.:
Back to bashing the Clinton campaign, in what appears to be John Judis's final postmortem, he calls the Clinton campaign "abysmal" and that they got outflanked.
I do seem to remember Trump showing up in puzzling states like New Jersey down the stretch, so I don't think that she really got outflanked in that sense. She could've done better, but nearly everyone thought Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were in the bag, and there were plenty of calls for Hillary to expand the playing field (which she did, in making Arizona and Texas much closer than expected).
Here's a handy graphic of the candidates' appearances down the stretch:
Judis continues:
Nate also says:
Ron Brownstein discussed how traditional energy impacted the votes of said white voters.
There might be something to it; I noticed driving through rural Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia today, I saw a number of billboards essentially saying that without fossil fuels, particularly coal, jobs there are gone, I don't know who paid for them. Could the Dems have put up billboards talking about bringing jobs to those areas? Should they have?
Digby also shared a post from Craig Newmark about who actually did and didn't vote. Some takeaways:
-Trump cleaned up with older voters and white voters
-Blacks turned out at a greater rate than Hispanics or white (which would seem to contradict what we've heard about them staying home)
-Hispanics and blacks were much more likely to have wanted to vote but found they were unable than whites.
-Hispanic voters had much longer waits to vote than whites did
-Black and Hispanic voters were almost twice more likely to have had to fill out a provisional ballot (could've been the difference right there; do we know how many were ultimately counted?)
-Millennials were the most likely to have had to file a provisional ballot, followed by Gen X. Once again, how many were actually counted?
Jenee Desmond Harris interviewed Cornell Belcher about his new book, and I picked up on this:
Ta-Nahisi Coates talked to President Obama and said a bit more about the above:
and from Trump himself:
We've been told a lot about how Hillary Clinton didn't speak to white working class voters (ignoring that a huge part of the working class isn't white), and that she needed to speak more about economics. From David Roberts at Vox:
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There are a lot of contradictions in this bunch. Let's start with the Clinton campaign.
I told a friend a couple of weeks before the election that I felt really good about Clinton's chances based on the fact that the campaign appeared to be using a lot of the Obama strategy and infrastructure. However, I was viewing that from the bubble of the volunteer room at Brooklyn HQ and the Brooklyn field office, where, yes, it appeared we were doing things right between sending hundreds of people every weekend to canvass in Philly and making hundreds of thousands of calls to Florida. But the fact is that that I cannot speak for what the campaign was doing in Michigan and Wisconsin.
Edward-Isaac Dovere at Politico said that the Clinton strategy in Michigan was just off:
FBI Director Jim Comey’s letter shifting late deciders, the lack of a compelling economic message, the apparent Russian hacking. But heartbroken and frustrated in-state battleground operatives worry that a lesson being missed is a simple one: Get the basics of campaigning right.
Clinton never even stopped by a United Auto Workers union hall in Michigan, though a person involved with the campaign noted bitterly that the UAW flaked on GOTV commitments in the final days, and that AFSCME never even made any, despite months of appeals.
The anecdotes are different but the narrative is the same across battlegrounds, where Democratic operatives lament a one-size-fits-all approach drawn entirely from pre-selected data — operatives spit out “the model, the model,” as they complain about it — guiding Mook’s decisions on field, television, everything else. That’s the same data operation, of course, that predicted Clinton would win the Iowa caucuses by 6 percentage points (she scraped by with two-tenths of a point), and that predicted she’d beat Bernie Sanders in Michigan (he won by 1.5 points).
Building on Dovere's piece, Ed Kilgore says the campaign was too smart for its own good (which is silly in itself, but I'm sure worked well as clickbait):
Now the Clinton campaign was not unique in its reliance on a “model” for understanding election dynamics. One of the big trends since 2012 among political practitioners and observers alike has been the gradual displacement of random-sample polling with models of the electorate based on voter-registration files, supplemented by tracking polls of this fixed universe of voters. This approach tends to create a more static view of the electorate and its views, and probably builds in a bias for thinking of campaigns as mechanical devices for hitting numerical “targets” of communications with voters who are already in your column. You could see this new conventional wisdom (and the pseudoscientific certainty it bred) in pre-election models published by Bloomberg Politics and in an Election Day modeling experiment conducted by Slate. Having invested heavily in its own “model” for what it needed to do when and where, the Clinton campaign was naturally resistant to conflicting signals from the ignoramuses on the ground.
It is in that respect that just about everyone within and beyond the Clinton campaign erred in crediting it with a state-of-the-art “ground game” worth a point or two wherever it was deployed. Clinton had lots of field offices, to be sure. She had more money for get-out-the-vote operations. Team Clinton did much, much more targeted outreach to key voters in key states than did Team Trump. But in the end “Brooklyn’s” decisions were based on assumptions that had very little to do with actual developments on the “ground;” its hypersophisticated sensitivity to granular data about many millions of people made it fail to see and hear what was actually happening in the lead-up to the election.
For now it probably doesn’t matter whether it was James Comey or the campaign’s faulty self-confidence that cost Clinton the election. But when it comes time to build the next presidential general-election campaign, the people setting up the organization and paying the bills might want to rely a bit less on any system that values analytical omniscience at the expense of a willingness to change the game plan if there are signs that that is needed.This is where I step in and say that one of the things we found was that maybe Trump didn't have a ground game, except he sort of did...
Josh Marshall implies also, that factors other than Comey helped create the rift in the "Blue Firewall," in this case in Wisconsin.:
What all of this comes down to is that something very big happened in this election that was quite separate from Comey and Putin. Let's put a pin in that for a moment before we discuss what that 'something' was. These outside interventions (obviously of very different kinds) were something like the straw that broke the camel's back. I think it's quite likely that without them Clinton would have held on in a tight race. Perhaps the shift in Wisconsin would have been 6% or 6.5% rather than 7.7% The consequences of this defeat, which are frankly massive, would be vastly different. But the shifting politico-demographic shift would be only slightly less steep.
If you believe in the integrity of our elections, American sovereignty and - yes, let's say it - the importance of the legitimacy of the Trump presidency, the Russian sabotage and influence campaign is hugely important. But if you can't distinguish between let's say the 1 or 2 percentage point shift caused by Russia and Comey, from the 5 or 6 or 7 percentage point shift that made that small shift so consequential, I really don't know how to help you. They're both extremely important, but for very different reasons.Krugman also places the blame on Russia and the FBI:
Did the combination of Russian and F.B.I. intervention swing the election? Yes. Mrs. Clinton lost three states – Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania – by less than a percentage point, and Florida by only slightly more. If she had won any three of those states, she would be president-elect. Is there any reasonable doubt that Putin/Comey made the difference?
And it wouldn’t have been seen as a marginal victory, either. Even as it was, Mrs. Clinton received almost three million more votes than her opponent, giving her a popular margin close to that of George W. Bush in 2004.
So this was a tainted election. It was not, as far as we can tell, stolen in the sense that votes were counted wrong, and the result won’t be overturned. But the result was nonetheless illegitimate in important ways; the victor was rejected by the public, and won the Electoral College only thanks to foreign intervention and grotesquely inappropriate, partisan behavior on the part of domestic law enforcement.
Back to bashing the Clinton campaign, in what appears to be John Judis's final postmortem, he calls the Clinton campaign "abysmal" and that they got outflanked.
The Hillary Clinton camp continues to dwell on the fact that she won the popular vote by 2.8 million, even though she lost the electoral college. But Clinton spent twice as much on the election as Trump did, and spent money to drive up the vote in Chicago, New Orleans, and California. According to Politico, the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee were actually worried that while Clinton would win the electoral college, Trump would win the popular vote.
Trump, as his pollster Tony Fabrizio later explained, focused entirely on swing states, and didn’t try to “run up the score” in states like Texas, Georgia and Arizona that Trump expected to win. From October 21 to election day, Trump’s ad spending was entirely focused on swing states, while Clinton was still spending in Texas and California. If the two candidates had spent an equal amount, and if Trump had spent in states like Texas that he assumed he would win and in states like California where his margin was well below Mitt Romney in 2012, I believe the popular vote would have been much closer.
I do seem to remember Trump showing up in puzzling states like New Jersey down the stretch, so I don't think that she really got outflanked in that sense. She could've done better, but nearly everyone thought Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania were in the bag, and there were plenty of calls for Hillary to expand the playing field (which she did, in making Arizona and Texas much closer than expected).
Here's a handy graphic of the candidates' appearances down the stretch:
The last 10 weeks of 2016 campaign stops in one handy gif: https://t.co/Hxc9cbKtTV pic.twitter.com/nYGulLESwN— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) December 17, 2016
Judis continues:
FBI Director James Comey definitely hurt Clinton’s chances when he re-raised the issue of her emails on October 28, but he may not have cost her the election. If you look at the Los Angeles Times tracking poll, which proved to be the most accurate predictor of the results, Clinton had pulled even with Trump soon after the release of the NBC videotape showing Trump bragging about his sexual exploits, but Trump had begun to pull ahead again on October 26, two days before Comey stepped in.The LAT tracking poll was actually the most inaccurate of all of the polls. Additionally, Nate Silver would beg to differ about Comey, saying that the Comey letter (which maddeningly, was NOTHING), did move the needle by a couple of points among late deciders:
andComey had a large, measurable impact on the race. Harder to say with Russia/Wikileaks because it was drip-drip-drip. https://t.co/LgJkfYpZCk https://t.co/9FYMNz763b— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016
andThere's more evidence, too: Late-deciding voters broke strongly against Clinton in swing states, enough to cost her MI/WI/PA. pic.twitter.com/8r801ahDQO— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016
I'll put it like this: Clinton would almost certainly be President-elect if the election had been held on Oct. 27 (day before Comey letter).— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 11, 2016
Nate also says:
Data was clear that white noncollege voters were overrepresented in swing states, helping Trump in EC. Narrative-driven coverage ignored it.— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) December 17, 2016
Ron Brownstein discussed how traditional energy impacted the votes of said white voters.
Comparing the latest federal figures on states’ per capita carbon emissions with the 2016 election results produces a clear pattern. Trump carried all of the 22 states with the most per capita carbon emissions, except for New Mexico, and 27 of the top 32 in all. (Colorado, Illinois, Delaware, and Minnesota were the Clinton-voting exceptions.) The Democratic nominee won 15 of the 18 states with the lowest per capita emissions—with the exception of Florida, North Carolina, and Idaho.
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The Democrats’ challenge is that their coalition has crumbled in states that fear these changes, particularly in the Rustbelt, faster than it has coalesced in the states benefiting from them, which are mostly across the Sunbelt. To recapture the White House in four years, they’ll need recovery on both fronts. But the Democrats’ long-term prospects will likely rely on accelerating their leap across these overlapping economic, cultural, and energy divides.
Though renewable sources are gaining ground in some Midwest states, Democrats face structural challenges in a preponderantly white and older region where manufacturing powered by low-cost, coal-generated electricity looms so large. More promising for them may be racially diversifying Sunbelt states that are also decoupling from fossil fuels as they shift toward both renewable energy sources and post-industrial employment. Already, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, and Florida rank in the bottom 20 states for carbon emissions.
There might be something to it; I noticed driving through rural Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia today, I saw a number of billboards essentially saying that without fossil fuels, particularly coal, jobs there are gone, I don't know who paid for them. Could the Dems have put up billboards talking about bringing jobs to those areas? Should they have?
Digby also shared a post from Craig Newmark about who actually did and didn't vote. Some takeaways:
-Trump cleaned up with older voters and white voters
-Blacks turned out at a greater rate than Hispanics or white (which would seem to contradict what we've heard about them staying home)
-Hispanics and blacks were much more likely to have wanted to vote but found they were unable than whites.
-Hispanic voters had much longer waits to vote than whites did
-Black and Hispanic voters were almost twice more likely to have had to fill out a provisional ballot (could've been the difference right there; do we know how many were ultimately counted?)
-Millennials were the most likely to have had to file a provisional ballot, followed by Gen X. Once again, how many were actually counted?
Jenee Desmond Harris interviewed Cornell Belcher about his new book, and I picked up on this:
In battleground states, particularly more diverse states, the percentage of white people voting Democrat decreases significantly as that population gets more diverse. So diversity is having an opposite impact that is harmful to Democrats.
That’s why I argue to Democrats that you are going to lose more and more white votes, and unless there is a major party realignment, this is going to continue to be a phenomenon. As the Republican Party is seen more and more as the racial identification party for white people, you’re not gonna see us all of a sudden winning blue-collar white voters.
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Jenée Desmond-Harris
So is there a way any of this — the strong influence of racial aversion and racial antagonism in politics — can be brought under control or stopped, or do we just have to wait for demographic changes that will make people who are motivated by racial antagonism less influential?
Cornell Belcher
I think the point I would argue it has to happen before demographic change — you already have people taking to the streets yelling they want to take our country back. What does that look like 10 years from now? What happens when that angry 45, 46 percent think they’re losing power, because they are losing power? We have to solve for this.
Jenée Desmond-Harris
But nobody has figured out how to solve for that, right?
Cornell Belcher
But we have to stop pretending that it doesn’t exist. That’s a start.
Jenée Desmond-Harris
I can see how pretending it doesn’t exist would be an important first step. It’s always strange to me to hear people say that Obama “triggered political polarization,” without explaining the race part. As if it’s a total mystery why that happened.
Cornell Belcher
One of the great tragedies is that the election of the first black president, as opposed to being a racial breakthrough, has in fact given rise to the opposite. It really has triggered an antagonism, or uncertainty, or fear that was dormant, at least up until now.
Ta-Nahisi Coates talked to President Obama and said a bit more about the above:
Whiteness in America is a different symbol—a badge of advantage. In a country of professed meritocratic competition, this badge has long ensured an unerring privilege, represented in a 220-year monopoly on the highest office in the land. For some not-insubstantial sector of the country, the elevation of Barack Obama communicated that the power of the badge had diminished. For eight long years, the badge-holders watched him. They saw footage of the president throwing bounce passes and shooting jumpers. They saw him enter a locker room, give a businesslike handshake to a white staffer, and then greet Kevin Durant with something more soulful. They saw his wife dancing with Jimmy Fallon and posing, resplendent, on the covers of magazines that had, only a decade earlier, been almost exclusively, if unofficially, reserved for ladies imbued with the great power of the badge.
For the preservation of the badge, insidious rumors were concocted to denigrate the first black White House. Obama gave free cellphones to disheveled welfare recipients. Obama went to Europe and complained that “ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs.” Obama had inscribed an Arabic saying on his wedding ring, then stopped wearing the ring, in observance of Ramadan. He canceled the National Day of Prayer; refused to sign certificates for Eagle Scouts; faked his attendance at Columbia University; and used a teleprompter to address a group of elementary-school students. The badge-holders fumed. They wanted their country back. And, though no one at the farewell party knew it, in a couple of weeks they would have it.
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When I told Obama that I thought Trump’s candidacy was an explicit reaction to the fact of a black president, he said he could see that, but then enumerated other explanations. When assessing Trump’s chances, he was direct: He couldn’t win.
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This speech ran counter to the history of the people it sought to address. Some of those same immigrants had firebombed the homes of the children of those same slaves. That young naval lieutenant was an imperial agent for a failed, immoral war. American division was real. In 2004, John Kerry did not win a single southern state. But Obama appealed to a belief in innocence—in particular a white innocence—that ascribed the country’s historical errors more to misunderstanding and the work of a small cabal than to any deliberate malevolence or widespread racism. America was good. America was great.
Over the next 12 years, I came to regard Obama as a skilled politician, a deeply moral human being, and one of the greatest presidents in American history. He was phenomenal—the most agile interpreter and navigator of the color line I had ever seen. He had an ability to emote a deep and sincere connection to the hearts of black people, while never doubting the hearts of white people. This was the core of his 2004 keynote, and it marked his historic race speech during the 2008 campaign at Philadelphia’s National Constitution Center—and blinded him to the appeal of Trump. (“As a general proposition, it’s hard to run for president by telling people how terrible things are,” Obama once said to me.)
But if the president’s inability to cement his legacy in the form of Hillary Clinton proved the limits of his optimism, it also revealed the exceptional nature of his presidential victories. For eight years Barack Obama walked on ice and never fell. Nothing in that time suggested that straight talk on the facts of racism in American life would have given him surer footing.
I've been wondering if happenings during Obama's second term had an effect on the Democrats' chances in 2016. For one thing, many non-liberal whites circled the wagons around Robert Zimmerman and thought of Black Lives Matter (which Clinton embraced) as a racist institution. Also, from the Weekly Standard:
Then there's race relations. Obama was elected in large part because of his promise to heal racial wounds. It hasn't worked out that way. In 2001, Gallup found that 70 percent of blacks and 62 percent of whites thought race relations in America were somewhat or very good. By the time Obama was inaugurated those numbers had flipped, with 61 percent of blacks and 70 percent of whites (having just absolved themselves by voting for Obama, one suspects) rating race relations as good. During Obama's tenure, both numbers have been in freefall. Today, only 51 percent of blacks and 45 percent of whites think relations between the races are good.
and from Trump himself:
“The country has practically never been as divided as it is now,” the billionaire added. “We’re going to bring everybody together. white, black. We’re going to bring everybody together. We’re bringing our country together, the richer the poorer, everybody!”
The talking point went around and we heard many quotes along those lines from Trump voters, as well as the one (which for some reason I can't find) about how Hillary talked to Latinos, blacks, and other minority groups, but not "regular Americans."
We've been told a lot about how Hillary Clinton didn't speak to white working class voters (ignoring that a huge part of the working class isn't white), and that she needed to speak more about economics. From David Roberts at Vox:
Put aside, for a moment, the notion that economic issues can be separated from identity politics (they cannot). Let’s focus on the critique of Clinton. It’s one I’ve heard so many times that I got curious: What did Clinton talk about?
To find out, I gathered all her campaign speeches (from both the primary and general campaigns) into one document and did a simple word-frequency analysis.
The results are below. As you can see, I’ve been as generous as possible in filing things under “identity politics.” Anything about minorities or criminal justice or gay people or immigrants, I filed as identity politics. I even included mentions of climate and clean energy in that category, though in a sane world those would be top-tier economic issues.
So, without further ado, what did Hillary Clinton talk about?
That bliie line at the bottom that's three times as long as any others? "Jobs."
So, this is another time where the numbers don't bear out the assertions.
Still so much to unravel!
Tuesday, November 29, 2016
Monday, November 28, 2016
She Was Overcome By Economic Anxiety
Posting this per John Cole's request:
If you can't watch, here's a newspaper account:
I'm operating on the premise that bringing this sort of actions to light will help minimize them. We'll see. 300,000 views and counting.
If you can't watch, here's a newspaper account:
LAKEVIEW — A woman apparently enraged by a suggestion she buy a larger grocery bag for her Michaels purchases unleashed her fury on two employees at the Lakeview store the day before Thanksgiving.
Several people recorded the episode in videos that have since gone viral, during which the customer calls a black cashier "an animal" and suggests that the cashier and the manager, who are both African American, are discriminating against her because she voted for Donald Trump in the presidential election.
During the 10-minute YouTube video — which had almost 150,000 views as of Monday morning — the woman berates bystanders for recording her and declares that Michaels' corporate offices are "going to have a s--- show" after she reports the alleged discrimination.Too bad comments are disabled on the YouTube video. They would've been, um, fun.
I'm operating on the premise that bringing this sort of actions to light will help minimize them. We'll see. 300,000 views and counting.
Sunday, November 27, 2016
Noting for Further Exploration
Just last week, I said on Facebook: "I'm three episodes behind on The Walking Dead, and I'm not sure if I'm going to catch up because it's hitting too close to home..."
There may be something to that:
UPDATE (11/28/16, 1:18 AM): Digby has something to say on the topic, as well.
There may be something to that:
Deep Root Analytics, a media consulting company founded in 2013, moves beyond traditional “spray and play” advertising operations in order to maximize their clients’ television commercial campaigns. So when Forbes writer Steven Bertoni explains Kushner and the Trump campaign’s use of the company’s services as “identifying shows popular with specific voter blocks in specific regions,” he isn’t mincing his words. These tools literally let them identify what programs potential voters were watching, targeted them via those shows, and amplified any and all successful efforts.
Hence why The Walking Dead fans saw so many pro-Trump ads during their favorite show’s commercial breaks — especially ads pertaining to the Republican nominee’s stance on immigration. After all, it’s a series about a dystopian future in which the protagonists must fight against a constant barrage of outsiders, both dead and alive. Rick Grimes and company aren’t too fond of newcomers, be they old allies from seasons past or violent antagonists equipped with barbed wire-encrusted baseball bats.On Daily Kos today, Ian Reifowitz wrote about how the election came down to race, not the economy:
Given that Trump began his campaign with racist rhetoric and never really stopped, it also makes quite a bit of sense on the surface. There’s one problem: The numbers say it doesn’t hold water.
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From the national exit polls, here are the numbers that disprove the whitelash thesis: Trump did a slim 1 percent better among whites than Mitt Romney did four years ago. Were some whites drawn to Trump’s side by racism? Absolutely. But he appears to have lost pretty much an equal amount among those whites disgusted by it.
Furthermore, Trump improved over Romney by much more among every non-white ethno-racial group large enough to measure. He improved by 7% among blacks, 8% among Latinos, and 11% among Asian voters. Along similar lines, an exit poll conducted by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) found that Trump received 13% of the Muslim vote. That doesn't sound like much, but it represents almost twice the percentage Romney won. No whitelash there.
Overall, turnout looks like it will come in at just about the same percentage of the eligible voter population as we saw in 2012. However, as Northern Ohio University political science professor Robert Alexander explained, “You saw turnout spike in more rural counties. If you take a look at a lot of the larger cities you did see depressed turnout there. It certainly was more consequential for Hillary Clinton than it was for Trump.”
Despite the more heavily rural voting population compared to 2012, Trump didn’t do significantly better than did Romney among whites overall. Of course, given that whites are about two-thirds of the voting population, gaining 1 percent among whites is important, but the gain of about 8 percent overall in the one-third of the voter population that is not white adds up to more votes.On the same day, Andrew Prokop at Vox asserts essentially the opposite; the election did not hinge on the economy, or at least not as far as the Senate goes:
Interestingly enough, in two of those crucial Midwestern states that flipped to Trump, Democratic Senate candidates campaigned on economically populist platforms — but they did notably worse than Hillary Clinton. Russ Feingold underperformed Clinton by 2.4 points in Wisconsin, and Ted Strickland underperformed her by 12.8 points in Ohio. Feingold amassed a populist record of challenging big money and special interests when he was in the Senate, and Strickland harshly condemned trade deals during his campaign against Rob Portman (who served as George W. Bush’s US trade representative).
Meanwhile, the two Democratic Senate candidates in competitive races who outperformed Clinton the most both self-consciously presented a moderate image rather than running as liberal firebrands. In Missouri, Jason Kander overperformed Clinton by 15.9 points, and in Indiana, Evan Bayh did 9.6 points better than her (though they both lost).I'm still figuring that out myself; I'm going to save this post to review in a couple of weeks after all of the ballots have been counted and matched up against the exit polls.
UPDATE (11/28/16, 1:18 AM): Digby has something to say on the topic, as well.
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Trump's Multipronged Strategy of Hate
I'm posting this two week old article by Rembert Browne about how white supremacy won the election for Trump not just because Rembert is one of the best writers out there, but because I really like how he phrased something I've been saying to my friends since 11/9:
His base of voters, egged on by foul statements in rooms across the country, did not have a single target. For over a year, their hatred was a revolving door. The did not discriminate: They hated black people, they hated women, they hated immigrants, they hated Muslims, they hated Jews, they hated gay people, they hated Hispanic people — and if you could be white and any of those things, they hated you, too.
In the numerous civil-rights movements of the 21st century, a degree of savvy about how to deal with racists, or homophobes, or Islamophobes, or sexists in isolation developed. But this expertise, from years (or in some cases, generations) of experience, was typically learned one form of oppression at a time. Progressives talk a lot about intersectionality — meaning, thinking about race and sex and class simultaneously — but Trump won the presidency by making hate intersectional. He encouraged sexists to also be racists and homophobes, while saying disgusting things about immigrants in public and Jews online. Hate, like love, is infectious, and it is contagious. And for so many, the adrenaline felt by blaming one group for one’s personal ills bled into blaming all the others.Something the Trump campaign (I was originally thinking Bannon but this precedes him) hit on that we overlooked is that while I'd been taking for granted that the percentage of racists in this country has dropped considerably and that it's no longer possible to win the Presidency based on hatred against one group, it is possible to win by hating on all groups! Everyone hates someone. In that sense, Trump really has been a unifier.
Monday, November 21, 2016
Rope-A-Dope on Obamacare?
More from TPM on "Repeal and Replace":
In other news:
Yesterday, I published quite the stemwinder disagreeing with Ed at Gin and Tacos. Today, I agree 100% with this:
UPDATE: Adam Johnson at FAIR has more on "identity politics" and appealing to the "white working class voter."
McCaskill challenged Trump and Republicans "to be honest" and actually come up with a plan rather than just ragging on Obamacare.I don't know if this is the best strategy, but is another one available to the Democrats? The problem here is, it depends on both shame and the fear of the response from voters. The Republicans have no shame, and enough may be in really safe seats or be backstopped by the prospect of cushy think tank or lobbyist jobs if they succeed in gutting Obamacare or do lose. The potential gain for Republican backers if they get Obamacare repealed is likely massive in comparison to having to promise a "safety net" to Republicans taking the leap on their behalf.
"Let's see how that would work for the millions of people who have certainty and security right now," she said.
Democrats admit that Obamacare needs some fixing, but they are dubious Republicans can just do it themselves.
"I think they should fix Obamacare and call it a repeal and replace," said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-HI).
"That is both the best public policy and the best politics for them. If they actually repeal the thing, people are going to suffer and they will suffer electorally."
Republicans are balancing conflicting pressures. On the one hand, they have promised their constituents for nearly seven years that they would repeal and replace this law. They have little wiggle room to escape that now. They've gone through the motions to pass legislation repealing it dozens of times, but the president's veto was a stop gap.
In other news:
Republicans, according to Politico, plan to roll back DAPA, an Obama administration order that gave the parents of DREAMers legal status to stay in the U.S. without fear of deportation. Republicans also want to reverse Obama's fiduciary rule, which was designed to eliminate conflicts of interests for financial advisers who were balancing corporate clients and individual investors. The other rule Republicans want to eliminate is an overtime rule that requires companies pay overtime to employees making $47,000 or less a year, Politico reported.Obviously, Republicans want to screw immigrants. But look at the other items they're trying to get through. Overtime? Easing rules on banks? Tax cuts on the wealthy? This should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention at all, but for the media to keep saying the it's the DEMOCRATS who can't appeal to the working class?
Republicans are also prioritizing tax cuts, according to the Politico piece. While they will use the procedural process known as budget reconciliation to repeal and replace Obamacare as soon as January, they are also considering using another budget reconciliation process for the 2018 budget to push through tax cuts.
Yesterday, I published quite the stemwinder disagreeing with Ed at Gin and Tacos. Today, I agree 100% with this:
Given that reality, the Democrats' failure was in not offering a scapegoat. Maybe it's time to dust off the Joe Hill / Mother Jones / Eugene Debs playbook. If scapegoating is the only thing that wins these people over, then the best strategy is to point them in the right direction again and remind them that Capital is the enemy of Labor. End the worship of and fixation with Job Creators and the idea that the boss is your buddy and your role in the economy is a matter of personal responsibility, fully within one's own control.It's not that the Democrats don't have a message that can appeal to the "white working class." It's that their message is inherently not as strong as racism, and if the Democrats want their votes, they need to push their economic message at least twice as hard as the Republicans push their racist one, which slides down as smoothly as butter.
Is that going to work? Doubtful. Racism is an easier, more effective play. Anything that requires people to think is going to lose out to anything that plays directly into their basest prejudices. I don't know how you beat the path of least resistance. The older I get, the less I believe that is possible.
UPDATE: Adam Johnson at FAIR has more on "identity politics" and appealing to the "white working class voter."
Thursday, November 17, 2016
Viewing Hate from the Receiving End.
Have you been the victim of a hate crime? Have you ever really experienced true hatred before? Hate is different from anger because it's irrational. You can be angry that someone wronged you, but it would be irrational to hate whatever race or ethnicity that person belongs to because of that incident. Or maybe you were never even wronged by an individual within the group you hate. You just "know" that they are the reason things aren't perfectly rosy around you. Experiencing hate firsthand is an indescribable feeling. You are left confused, angry, and saddened all at once. While I was a graduate student in upstate New York in 2006, a restaurant refused my partner and I service because we were an interracial couple. Racism was one of those things that you only read about, but not really experience when you aren't black. Yet, there it was in all of its glory just three hours west of New York City.
In 1991, an individual set my synagogue on fire. As a 10-year old, it was the first time I had experienced hate firsthand. Of course as a Jew, we learn about 3,200 year old Egyptian enslavement, as well as Babylonian, Persian, and Roman persecution. Most Jews probably remember learning about the 525 year old Spanish Inquisition and pogroms in Europe during the "Age of Enlightenment." And all can probably cite how many Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany and her allies in the 1930s and 1940s.
But it's hard to really know hate until you are a target. And while my synagogue burning down was the first time I experienced hate, I first became a target of hate in 1994 when I was in 8th grade. I attended a typical small public suburban school much like students attend anywhere in the United States. Mine happened to have just been named to the prestigious Federal Blue Ribbon list. Early that Spring semester I was handed a note in class (note to Millennials, this was the 20th Century's version of texting) with a crude sketch of Hitler and a box-form swastika. A week later, my locker was vandalized with three more swastikas drawn at eye level. My school launched a campaign to bring in a local holocaust survivor and added content to its European History curriculum. The culprit turned himself in, apologized to me and the rest of the school and pled ignorance. For the longest time, even as I accepted his apology, I didn't fully trust his story of ignorance. After all, I was only a few years removed from the incident at my synagogue.
I bring this up for two reasons. First, I, like most of you, did not know the first thing about different forms of the swastika (did you click that last link?). As it turns out though, with the emergence of the alt-right, we have had to deal with a lot more swastikas since President Obama was elected. And their swastikas are different from the ones that were drawn at my school in the early 1990s. The Nazi Swastika is drawn at a 45 degree angle. The swastikas at my school were of the garden variety found everywhere in the world up until World War II. A real anti-Semite would probably know the difference and would have probably drawn the one that reflects hatred. But the average American? Probably not.
My second point is that with the the tightening linkages between the alt-Right and the incoming Trump Administration via its chief strategist Steve Bannon, neo-Nazis have suddenly become empowered and legitimized. So much so that they are enboldened to engage in the same type of behavior that the original Nazis engaged in when they took power. Take a look at the swastika graffiti in North Carolina. That's no garden-variety swastika. Many believe it to have been an inside-job. But whether it was or wasn't, it is still part of the mainstreaming of hate that has been occurring at an accelerated pace over the last 18 months.
The hate I have seen this year is unparalleled by any I have seen in my lifetime. And Trump still hasn't even taken office yet.
In 1991, an individual set my synagogue on fire. As a 10-year old, it was the first time I had experienced hate firsthand. Of course as a Jew, we learn about 3,200 year old Egyptian enslavement, as well as Babylonian, Persian, and Roman persecution. Most Jews probably remember learning about the 525 year old Spanish Inquisition and pogroms in Europe during the "Age of Enlightenment." And all can probably cite how many Jews were murdered by Nazi Germany and her allies in the 1930s and 1940s.
But it's hard to really know hate until you are a target. And while my synagogue burning down was the first time I experienced hate, I first became a target of hate in 1994 when I was in 8th grade. I attended a typical small public suburban school much like students attend anywhere in the United States. Mine happened to have just been named to the prestigious Federal Blue Ribbon list. Early that Spring semester I was handed a note in class (note to Millennials, this was the 20th Century's version of texting) with a crude sketch of Hitler and a box-form swastika. A week later, my locker was vandalized with three more swastikas drawn at eye level. My school launched a campaign to bring in a local holocaust survivor and added content to its European History curriculum. The culprit turned himself in, apologized to me and the rest of the school and pled ignorance. For the longest time, even as I accepted his apology, I didn't fully trust his story of ignorance. After all, I was only a few years removed from the incident at my synagogue.
I bring this up for two reasons. First, I, like most of you, did not know the first thing about different forms of the swastika (did you click that last link?). As it turns out though, with the emergence of the alt-right, we have had to deal with a lot more swastikas since President Obama was elected. And their swastikas are different from the ones that were drawn at my school in the early 1990s. The Nazi Swastika is drawn at a 45 degree angle. The swastikas at my school were of the garden variety found everywhere in the world up until World War II. A real anti-Semite would probably know the difference and would have probably drawn the one that reflects hatred. But the average American? Probably not.
My second point is that with the the tightening linkages between the alt-Right and the incoming Trump Administration via its chief strategist Steve Bannon, neo-Nazis have suddenly become empowered and legitimized. So much so that they are enboldened to engage in the same type of behavior that the original Nazis engaged in when they took power. Take a look at the swastika graffiti in North Carolina. That's no garden-variety swastika. Many believe it to have been an inside-job. But whether it was or wasn't, it is still part of the mainstreaming of hate that has been occurring at an accelerated pace over the last 18 months.
The hate I have seen this year is unparalleled by any I have seen in my lifetime. And Trump still hasn't even taken office yet.
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