Ten Second News Links and Open Thread for the week of 10/10/22
There’s a phenomenon where someone writes an essay about this or that but someone else wants to discuss something that has not yet made it to Ten Second News.
This is unfair to everybody involved. It’s unfair to the guy who wrote the original essay because, presumably, he wants to talk about his original essay. It’s unfair to the guy who wants to talk about his link because it looks like he’s trying to change the subject. It’s unfair to the people who go to the comments to read up on the thoughts of the commentariat for the original essay and now we’re talking about some other guy’s links.
So!
The intention is to have a new one of these on the Sidebar every week. If you want to talk about a link, post it here! Or, heck, use it as an open thread.
And, if it rolls off, we’ll make a new one. With a preamble just like this one.
Interesting take from Ruy Texiera:
You may recall that Texiera is the guy who has his name next to John Judis on the cover of “The Emerging Democratic Majority“.
Some pollsters took a post of his from last year and polled it.
Both Republicans and Democrats polled north of 60% on every one of his points save one:
That one only got 55% agreement among Democrats. But everything else got north of 60% for both parties.
His statements polled well among Republicans. The one that got the least approval got 73%. That one was the *LOWEST*.
He’s frustrated that the party is embracing stuff that isn’t even majoritarian within the party…
And I think that this goes back to the whole “framework for understanding poverty” thing.
Look at the “wealth” column.
Social emphasis? *EXCLUSION*. If you want to fit in, you have to have views that are *FASHIONABLE*. By definition, trends are exclusionary. Embracing stuff that the majority embraces? How middlebrow! Ugh. What a fox pass!
Anyway, what Texiera wants and what the tip of the spear wants exclude each other.Report
Democrats are bad, hypocritical elitists who just want to humiliate and exclude others, Episode #2,590…
Seriously, don’t Democratic policy positions already enjoy much more broad and bipartisan support than Republican policy positions?
But, what ho! Republicans have a cunning plan to steal the popular center:
Republicans Plan Debt Crisis to Force Cuts to Medicare, Social Security
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/10/republican-plan-cut-medicare-social-security-debt-ceiling-crisis.htmlReport
Seems like a good way to shut that down would be to embrace the takes of the guy who co-wrote “The Emerging Democratic Majority”.
Might even be a good way to establish and hold political power.
The bad news: You’d be part of a majority.Report
We’ve been through this many times.
His thesis is that if only Democrats speak softer about racism LGBTQ issues and abortion, we will become more popular.
But…Joe Biden is the very model of this thesis, speaking in broad, already-very-centrist terms about these issues. Texiera’s list of statements sounds like a Job Biden speech.
And we can see that Republicans have adopted wildly unpopular positions on these issue anyway.
His fallacy is assuming that there is a large pool of totally-not-racist people who are voting for people like DeSantis, people who are generally welcoming of immigrants and LGBTQ people but somehow find Joe Biden too strident, too radical on these issues.
That’s…bizarre and completely without evidence.Report
Did you notice that Texiera didn’t say anything about Biden in the article? And that your comment didn’t say anything about anyone else?Report
Didn’t Biden get elected? Like, after he won the nomination?Report
Stop changing the subject back to the subject. This is why nobody likes you.Report
Both sides do it!Report
Isn’t Biden also unpopular?
And didn’t Gavin Newsom, the polar opposite of Texiera’s thesis, get re-elected handily?
Isn’t strong support for abortion one of the factors in tilting the election towards Democrats?
Your thesis assumes the existence of a voter who doesn’t seem to actually exist in any significant number.Report
Isn’t Biden also unpopular?
You mean *AFTER* he got elected and started going forward with policies that were a lot more culture-war loaded than the broad uncontroversial stuff that got him the nomination and then the election?
And didn’t Gavin Newsom, the polar opposite of Texiera’s thesis, get re-elected handily?
While I’m 99.44% sure that Gavin will get re-elected next month, I’m not yet in a place where I’m willing to say that it has already happened.
Isn’t strong support for abortion one of the factors in tilting the election towards Democrats?
It is.
Your thesis assumes the existence of a voter who doesn’t seem to actually exist in any significant number.
Texiera has an essay about that:
The Democrats’ Hispanic Voter Problem.Report
Gavin WAS re-elected, beating back the recall.
You didn’t wonder why I highlighted Nuri Martinez’s comments this week?Report
I didn’t know that the “recall” counted as “re-election”.
He did beat the recall, yes.
From what I recall, he did a good job of distancing himself from Chesa prior to that, no? Setting himself up as pretty moderate on, at least, crime issues? Talking about how, of course, people want the streets “cleaned up”?Report
The guy taking out billboards in Texas stridently proclaiming himself pro choice? That moderate guy?
The guy who makes a public announcement that Republicans are, and I quote, “doubling down on stupid”‽
The guy who made a name for himself as mayor of SF and defiantly performing same sex marriages in 2004 when then the conventional wisdom of guys like Texiera was that this was political suicide?
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-gavin-newsom-gay-marriage-20180515-story.htmlReport
So Gavin won re-election in California, a pretty blue state, and therefore Texiera is wrong about the country as a whole?
Okay.Report
Yes, Texiera is wrong because he can’t support his thesis with facts, in any state.
He can’t point to any significant number of voters who would follow his suggested path.
And looking at all the contested elections- Warnock vs Walker, Crist vs DeSantis, Fetterman vs Oz, O’Rourke vs Abbot- Shows no difference between someone who is more Biden versus those who are more Newsom.
Democrats oppose Republicans because of their policies. Republicans oppose Democrats because they’re Democrats.Report
Yes, Texiera is wrong because he can’t support his thesis with facts, in any state.
Well, I’d point to the Wisconsin polling that was done on his statements as evidence. Now, you may argue that Wisconsin doesn’t matter. (There are many who have communicated such.)
He can’t point to any significant number of voters who would follow his suggested path.
Well, there’s that essay he wrote about the Hispanic voter problem. He has numbers for that.
Though I’d agree that primaries matter and they matter a lot. I mean, there’s the group of voters who will vote for your guy, no matter what… and the group of voters who will vote for the other guy, no matter what… but if there’s a third group of voters that could go either way, it becomes very important to not nominate someone crazy.Report
He documents that Latinos are receptive to anti-Black and anti-LGBTQ messages.
Those Latinos aren’t voting for people who embrace his laundry list of platitudes, but voting for people who want to ban LGBTQ books and arrest parents of trans kids.
That’s a refutation of his thesis, not a confirmation of it.
Even the most strident Democrat is moderate compared to the most moderate Republican.
If his theory were true, the post-Dobbs polls and post Walker-Abortion polls, would show a stronger swing as people flee the crazy radicals.
But we’re only seeing modest shifts.
Meaning, everyone who wants centrism is already voting Democrat.Report
From Texiera:
And, of course:
This doesn’t really strike me as “anti-Black”, though.
I don’t recall seeing anything in his writing about LGBTQ stuff. Could you show me what you’re seeing?Report
Are they voting for Beto, or the guy who wants to arrest parents of trans kids?
Are they voting for the President who presides over the 3% unemployment rate or the guy who can’t keep the power on?
Are they voting for the party that wants to provide free Healthcare or the party that wants to cut Medicare?
Show me how they vote and I’ll tell you what’s important to them.Report
Sounds like they will be voting on jobs, the economy, health care and the coronavirus. They also seem to be opposed to defunding the police, decreasing the size of police forces and the scope of their work, and reparations for the descendants of slaves by 2:1 or more.
So I guess the answer is “what’s important to them is themselves”.
And they vote for the party that is better at delivering the goods.
Hard to fault them for this, really. Patronage has a looooong tradition in politics.Report
If that is all true, they will be solid Democratic votes.
But if they vote Republican, it blows up Texiera’s theory.Report
I think that it would depend on how well the Democrats do their messaging on jobs, the economy, health care, and the coronavirus.
(And we don’t even know what that means… does “the coronavirus” mean “covid zero” or does it mean “get your booster and take your mask off”?)
The Democrats do have somewhat more muddled messaging on defunding the police, reducing the size of police forces and the scope of their work, and reparations for the descendants of slaves.
All that to say…
No. I don’t necessarily believe you.
I think that Texiera is right and the Democratic party has a messaging problem. Part of that is how the messaging changes week-to-week depending on what might be fashionable and, therefore, basis for exclusion.
So you’d say that if they make the fox pass of not agreeing with you that they’ve never been members of your coalition and should be treated like white Republicans?
I submit: This will be sweet on the tongue but bitter in the belly.Report
Again with barstool bloviating and unfalsifiable theorizing.
If they vote Democratic, you can point to Bidens centrist messages and say Texiera is right.
If they vote Republican you can point to some strident Newsom message and say Texiera is right.
“Messaging” is one of nebulous phrases that means anything you want it to mean because voters are barrage by a tsunami of messages, all different. How can you know if this message or that one causes them to vote a certain way?
You can’t, so you end up arbitrarily choosing the data that fits the outcome then shoehorning it into the theory.
Especially after you tell us that these people are voting on objective measurable metrics like jobs.
Especially when the Republican isn’t even bothering to talk-excuse me, “Messaging”- about any of the metrics the voters claim to find so important.
Look you can believe all you want, but everything you’ve shown us contradicts your theory.Report
I’d bet we could come up with a list of races that the Democrats could win in a typical year and classify the candidates as more Bidenesque or Newsomesque.Report
The theory is Texiera’s.
But we have polling as well and it’s polling that supports his theory rather than your own.
(What is the Democratic message on “Defund”, anyway? Could you sum it up quickly? Like, if that’s too difficult a question, what is Beto’s position on it?)
Is there any evidence that could get you to change your mind on this?Report
I basically agree with Texiera but I also think there’s a larger story, which is an ongoing, self-indulgent, bipartisan misinterpretation of what happened in 2016. Instead of learning not to run people with such a long presence in national politics that they are guaranteed to have annoyed huge swathes of the electorate at some point, over something, the Democrats decided the real problem was running a moderate. Instead of moderating on the GOP’s various plans to gut entitlements (or at least learning to do a better job of lying about it to key constituencies), they decided that they could actually win with completely irresponsible clowns from the conservative media ecosystem. The result, with a few notable exceptions, has been a contest of who is trying to lose harder.Report
Whatever his polling shows, it isn’t translating into real world empirical data, AKA votes.
Centrist Republicans are losing almost everywhere , while the radical ones are winning.
So if the Democrats are losing centrist-loving voters, it sure as hell isn’t to Republicans.Report
Chip, he’s not arguing what Republicans ought to be doing instead of what they’re doing.
He’s arguing that Democrats ought to be doing instead of what they’re doing.
Also: I still don’t have an answer to my Beto question.Report
Did you just substitute “a centrist” with “Beto”?Report
“Teixeira notes that the statements above are too easy to agree with, because they are just common sense. ‘But if it’s just common sense,’ he asked, ‘why do so many Democrats have trouble saying these things?'”
Isn’t the answer here? “Common sense” platitudes are easy coming up with policy is hard. There are also a lot of ways in which these questions raise other questions with a lot of the devil is in the details. For example:
“There are underlying differences between men and women, but discrimination on the basis of gender is wrong.”
What are the underlying differences between men and women? Do Democrats and Republicans agree on the so-called underlying differences? Do people think that the so-called underlying differences mean women should be excluded from some jobs because it is just nature and vice-versa and it is not gender discrimination to do so? Are people willing to use the so-called underlying differences to excuse certain behaviors (“boys will be boys”).
And you can do this for nearly everything.Report
Well, you yourself have noted that the phrase “Defund the Police” causes a handful of problems.
On the one side you have people who say stuff like “it’s dishonest to interpret ‘Defund’ the way that you’re doing. We want the funds to be transferred away from the ‘Kill Minorities’ parts of the police and that money put into the ‘Help Minorities’ parts of social work.”
And on the other side you have people who say “Yes, We Mean Literally Abolish the Police.”
And he’s taking the attitude that says “JEEZ LOUISE QUIT SAYING THAT”.
When it comes to the underlying policies that involve improving the police, there have been a handful of essays discussing various reforms where any given single reform would not be a silver bullet but as part of a slate of reforms would actually help. Because, yes, policy is hard and the devil is in the details but the easy thing to argue is “QUIT SAYING DEFUND!!!”
And the problem is that you have to/get to do that for each of the things in his list.
You’d need a starting place similar to Oscar’s Altering the Police Paradigm to tackle the police and that’s a *STARTING* place.
And so you’d need a similarly complex set of things for each of the things that Texiera mentioned.
And none of them are likely to fit easily into something that would fit on a bumper sticker (and the things that would are things that would require another half-dozen bumper stickers next to it… and, let’s face it, we all know how we feel about cars that have seven political bumper stickers on the back).Report
Those are not politicians. Those are activists with a single-issue priority. I agree the statements are self-owned but believe it or not, said people do not have direct access to Biden, Harris, Pelosi, or Schumer. Thanks for nutpicking though.Report
Tangential but most activists/advocates for single issues are terrible. Not their causes but the myopia, lack of any political sense, lack of ability to understand/make trade offs and sense of proportionality make most of them ineffective and often irritating.Report
Yep but the defense of them is that they push forward what it is possible to accomplish which is also true. “Politics is the art of the possible” can be a profound statement but it can also be used to enforce and maintain the status quo.
A lot of activists care very passionately about one or maybe a few issues and this causes myopia as you note.
I’m not sure how to solve this problem or if it is just a fact of political life but center-left politics is generally an uneasy coalition with added mutual distrust amongst the activists and technocrats.Report
We’re not supposed to notice that the Republicans have moved drastically away from Texiera’s claimed center, and yet now are poised to gain both houses of Congress and most of the governorships.
And that in this electoral cycle, “Let trans people live as they want to live” is such a radical statement that it can get you fired in half a dozen states.
But “Gay teachers are secret pedophiles grooming their students” is something perfectly electable people can say.
But yeah, man, the center is where its at.Report
Republicans haven’t moved drastically from the center. You’re just assuming that trans rights are in the center now. When your assumption about what constitutes the center changes every year, you can’t blame it on your opponent moving.Report
I think the Republicans are hurting themselves pretty badly, just not the way or due to the issues Chip thinks they are. Under normal post war circumstances of American politics they should be riding a very favorable (for them) cycle and economic situation into a big win. And maybe they will still do that.
But if, say, they don’t take the Senate due to nominating people like Dr. Oz and Herschel Walker in eminently winnable races they’re going to look like complete idiots, even if they eke out a narrow house majority. Not so much because they’ve strayed from the political/cultural center, but because they’ve let a megalomaniac ruin their primary process to the point that they’re running obviously incompetent people in swing races.Report
“Center” can mean either a place equidistant between the two political poles, or a fixed set of values roughly corresponding to support for liberal democracy and minority rights.
I use the word in the latter sense.Report
For one thing, Texiera was talking about the parties capturing voters, so he certainly meant “center” in the former sense. You’re using a definition that doesn’t match his.
Beyond that, you’d be surprised if you looked back at how much change that “fixed set of values” has gone through in the past, say, 10 years. That’s not an expression, either. If you looked at it, you would be surprised.Report
I’m glad I’m on the record saying that the Oz nomination may have lost the Republicans the Senate. I’ve been more optimistic about wins in governors’ races because I think there’s probably a lot of anti-covid-restriction hostility out there.Report
I’m somewhat sympathetic to popularism and that Americans are not quite as far left as twitter wants them to be but I largely concur with your view. No one expects better of Republicans.Report
No, Saul, you pointed out, and let me copy and paste this:
Isn’t the answer here? “Common sense” platitudes are easy coming up with policy is hard.
And my answer involved politicians embracing policy instead of the nuts. Coming out and saying “We need to *FUND* the police!”
Like, you know, Biden did in the State of the Union.
And this should happen for all of the stuff that Texiera mentioned in his essay. And, yes, the devil is in the details but it is possible to work with details and come up with detailed lists of policies.
But you can’t really do that if the common sense positions are terrified of standing up to the oh-so-easily picked nuts.Report
A callback to something we argued about a month ago:
Here’s the sentence that grabbed my attention:
Report
How a case about pigs is flummoxing the Supreme Court: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/10/11/23398875/supreme-court-pigs-national-pork-producers-ross-california-dormant-commerce-clauseReport
https://awfulannouncing.com/espn/troy-aikman-misogynistic-comment-monday-night-football.html
Troy Aikman went and said something stupid, offensive, and sexist in response to a questionable Roughing the Passer penalty:
“My hope is the [NFL] Competition Committee looks at this in the next set of meetings, and you know, we take the dresses off.”
Quite predictably, ESPN (his employer) and the NFL have yet to comment on the matter.
The reporting has been interesting, with headlines ranging from naming the problem with his comment (like the linked one here) to some merely deeming it “controversial” to others simply noting that he said it and not actually commenting on the problems with it. Also feels pretty predictable these days.Report
ESPN and the NFL are absurdly liberal. Aikman’s statement was fine. Actually, when I heard about it I figured that “liberals rage” was just going to be a right-wing talking point. It surprises me that anyone is actually complaining about it.Report
The NFL blackballed Colin Kaepernick for his political views and expression. And before you argue that of course they didn’t do that it was just that he sucked, they signed a multi-million dollar settlement with him to resolve his claims of collusion. So, yea.
Yes, the NFL and ESPN definitely have plenty of moments of performative wokeness but whenever push comes to shove, they put their money where their mouth is and almost always take a more conservative approach.
But, hey, if you think Aikman’s comments were just fine and dandy, so be it. And good on you for coming on here and saying so (quasi) publicly. Me? I think they’re pretty obviously offensive. I’m curious how you would explain that the comment ISN’T offensive. Do you see any potential meaning behind his comment other than “Women are soft and football is a man’s game”?Report
Your P2 assumes that the NFL would go for money over politics, but your P1 suggests that they roll over for political points. Not saying that they don’t care about money, but they’ve likely decided that leftism will bring in more money in the long run.Report
Not sure all of that follows…
My point is that the NFL will do things like write “Resist Racism” or “Unity” in a couple places that most people don’t even notice anymore but they won’t actually do things to address racism within their organizations (let alone more broadly in society… not that that is their responsibility). That is what I mean by performative wokeness.
But the NFL is essentially a consortium of 32 Billionaires who overwhelming skew conservative (which is not to say that they are overwhelmingly conservative… just that the vast majority of owners would be identified as conservative/Republican). So when it comes down to making major decisions, we see things like Ben Roethlisberger and DeShaun Watson signing hundred million dollar deals and Colin Kaepernick getting an unprecedented, NFL-led sham workout.
If you want to focus on the stickers they put on helmets as indicative of what the NFL’s politics are, you are really missing the boat.Report
That doesn’t make sense though. I mean, what did Kaepernick do that was any different from sham helmet stickers? What does it mean to say that organizations provide billions of free advertising for liberal causes but are really conservative?Report
(I would have gone with “they put their mouth where their money is.”)
I’d want answers to the following questions:
1. If they fire Aikman, how many viewers will they lose? How much money will they lose?
2. If they keep Aikman and say nothing, how many viewers will they lose? How much money will they lose?
3. If they make mealy-mouthed statements about the importance of gender equality everywhere, including football, and otherwise change nothing else, how many viewers will they lose? How much money will they lose?
My guess will be that the stuff that involves losing the fewest viewers and least money will be the path that they’re most likely to take. (Here’s where we discussed ESPN back in 2019.)Report
For all three: Not many, not much, and not much difference whether they do 1, 2, or 3.Report
Well, if there’s no reason to believe that they have evidence that acting politically in the past had negative repercussions, seems like there’d be no additional cost to doing The Right Thing.Report
I would agree with that, though probably for different reasons. Doesn’t mean they’d do the Right Thing, but they could if they wanted.Report
Seems to me there’s not a super big segment of the NFL audience that would be particularly upset by Aikman’s comment here.Report
Awful Announcing (the website cited) has two tweets talking about their article.
This one:
And this one:
The replies and quote tweets of the story seem to be overwhelmingly negative.Report
Well then, if people on Twitter think that was an okay thing to say, the rest of us should just go kick rocks I suppose.
[Quickly checks notes]… oh… we’re talking about fewer than 700 total replies if I’m reading the stats here correctly.
Meanwhile, judging from this quick search (https://www.google.com/search?q=troy+aikman+dresses&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS970US970&oq=troy+aikman+dresses&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i3i512j0i390l3.4554j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8) the following sites have all written on the matter:
Daily Mail
Yahoo Sports
The US Sun
New York Post
USA Today
Washington Examiner
Sports Illustrated
Fox News
Fox Sports
Sporting News
Unsurprisingly, people are divided on whether it was an offensive comment. But… citing a couple hundred Tweet responses as evidence of… well, anything… I mean… wait, why am I even taking anything you write here seriously?Report
Is the response of the NFL audience relevant?
What is the best way to gauge the NFL audience?
I’m happy with saying that the twitter replies to the story that you linked to is not a good way to gauge that, but I also don’t know that it being covered in newsrooms is a good way to gauge the NFL audience response either.
So I ask: What do you think the best way to gauge the NFL audience would be?Report
The USA Today article is currently titled “Troy Aikman hopes ‘we take the dresses off’ for roughing the passer calls”. The web page title is “troy-aikman-makes-misogynistic-comment-monday-night-football/”. So apparently the media are still figuring out how to present this.Report
I was watching the game Monday when he said it and didn’t think anything of it. Not even sure it really registered. The sports talk I listen to has been going off about the roughing the passer calls this year. I don’t think I’ve heard anyone exercised about Aikman, other than the usual issue, that he is a shameless Dallas fan.Report
Good news. Newark NJ is leading the way on police reform. I grew up near there and had aunts who lived there for years. I remember how bad parts of Newark were and now they are making a lot of improvements. Reforms that people have been calling for seem to be working.
Using “reform” since it’s the most appropriate word for what is going on. Not getting into the debate over terrible slogans. This is the actual real deal in action whatever it’s called.
https://news.yahoo.com/newark-was-one-of-the-deadliest-cities-in-america-now-it-wants-to-be-a-blueprint-for-public-safety-reform-163320757.htmlReport
From the article:
That’s a good article!Report
Yeah. The quality of slogan is very different from the good of the policies. What Newark is doing is Reform and Defund not that the labels matter. Newark is doing good and if we could only spend more time talking about that. Not subtle dig at activists here, but i wish they would spend more time loudly trumpeting real world success like this.Report
Here’s where we discussed Camden, NJ, back in 2020.Report
I wonder what his stance is on performance enhancing substances?
Report
I bet Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson would pick all of Teixeira’s popular stances and win a gazillion votes and no one would have any idea what Party he represented.Report
The closest trial to this that I know about is the Oberlin case. Oberlin was able to stonewall for a while but not forever. The stonewalling reached the point where Oberlin had to pay interest.
I don’t think that Alex Jones will be as skilled at stonewalling as Oberlin was.Report
Alex Jones is a far more reputable source of information than Rachel Maddow.
One of them is censored by the regime. The other one is promoted by it.Report
Rachel Maddow has never had one of her catchphrases remade over the theme song to Ducktales.
Report
I assume that will come down on appeal. I wonder how many times the “No, eleventy gajillion is not a real number” conversation has happened either between jury members or between a judge and a jury.Report
There can’t be an appeal on liability, since Jones defaulted. An appeal of the default is hopeless. Appellate review of damages is circumscribed. There are standards, but even if an appellate court cuts the award in half, that’s still more than Jones has.Report
You’re the lawyer, but I’m reading that the damages are ostensibly all compensatory, which is obviously nonsense. Maybe “appeal” isn’t the right term, but surely he can dispute the amount on the grounds that it’s wildly out of proportion to actual damages and an obvious attempt to do an end run around Connecticut’s punitive damages cap?Report
Yes, but even with a drastic reduction he’s still going to be on the hook for far more than he has.Report
Connecticut jury hits Alex Jones for 1 billion dollars in damages: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2022/10/12/us/alex-jones-verdict-sandy-hookReport
Alex Jones should be appointed as next president of the University of Florida- NOT Ben Sasse.Report
Charlie Kirk chooses the stupidest hill to die on: https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1580293579032776704?s=20&t=VsHB7fTf-RiFbMRbiiLjAgReport
Los Angeles Councilwoman Nury Martinez Resigns Following Outrage Over Racist Remarks
https://apple.news/Ax2Gj8DztTcWKCD4n5dAAlAReport
An interesting chart from WaPo on how much Americas drink. I have probably drunk one or two glasses of alcohol a night with dinner since turning 22. Usually just one. This still puts me in the heavy drinker range for Americans. I wonder how many Americans drink 6-7 alcoholic beverages a week but do it in a more concentrated fashion (i.e. getting smashed at a bar once or twice a week).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/25/think-you-drink-a-lot-this-chart-will-tell-you/?fbclid=IwAR3_ttNJbI3xBRzFx-zF9QCllo7NB28mc3vMYcDgZ8F_S1iyd-S9MIxczEoReport
While the Pareto Principle continues to rule everything around me, there *ARE* a handful of criticisms of how they did the measurements.
Like, this is amount of alcohol purchased rather than drank. (But the person who buys a bottle of wine and pours half of it out isn’t going to skew this a whole lot.)
Here’s an essay with the criticism from the last time this went viral in 2014.Report
More people choosing very stupid hills to die on: https://twitter.com/RonFilipkowski/status/1580319533159497728?s=20&t=YKI1sKc3DSdc53O92CqWcQReport
Speak of the Devil and he will appear.
Ruy Texiera has a new column!
A Three Point Plan To Fix the Democrats and Their Coalition
It Can Be Done But It Won’t Be Easy
Do you like numbered lists? Golly, I sure do!
1. Democrats Must Move to the Center on Cultural Issues
2. Democrats Must Promote an Abundance Agenda
3. Democrats Must Embrace Patriotism and Liberal Nationalism
He breaks each of these down, for the record. And, no, he doesn’t paint any given one of them as being a “silver bullet”.Report
He lives in an interesting fantasy world doesn’t he? to claim that Democrats, much less progressives are NOT patriotic because we want America’s dark past to inform a brighter future of equality and liberty for all is not patriotic is fantasy. To claim that 40 year highs in inflation are the problem but not 50 year highs in corporate profits are not is fantasy. To assert that any administration could have prevented OPEC+ from throttling oil production to pump up prices is fantasy. To believe that addressing climate change is not a kitchen table issue, even as the number of $1 Billion storms per year is increasing is fantasy. To believe that moving to the “Center” when the GOP has gone so far right will solve what ails us is fantasy.
But hey, I guess even fiction writers are entitled to their opinions in the public square.Report
Well, he *IS* the guy who wrote “The Emerging Democratic Majority”.Report
He lives in a world of wanting to be able to run 1990s Clintonianism forever.Report
Which was classically centerist . . . . and explains why the GQP’s march to the far Right has been so problematic for people like him because a lot of what he wants Democrats to do policy wise is where the GQP was 3 or 4 decades ago.Report
Which is also why it is such stupid political advice, even on its own terms.
“Centrism” meaning the point equidistant the two poles is absurd when one of the poles is cultural grievance and ethnic resentment.
There simply is no such thing as the “center on cultural issues”.
Or to put it differently, any such “center” would consist of the liberal ideal of letting people live as they wish, aka the current position of the Democratic Party.Report
That’s an admission that what you guys call centrism wouldn’t pass as such anymore.Report
Yes and?Report
That’s something that some of your side seem to be reluctant to admit. You’re talking as if there are simple fixed standards that the Democrats have always maintained while the Republicans have lost their way. That doesn’t fit with the acknowledgement that the liberal position is constantly changing. I mean, as I’ve said before I do sometimes blur you and Chip (and probably a couple of others), but I thought it was worth noting that Saul at least sees the Democrats as moving leftward – and it was particularly worth noting as it was only implied and might have been missed.Report
The Democrats as a party have moved rightward on economic policy and leftward on social policy in the classic sense. Its one of the reasons that a lot of progressives no longer identify as Democrats.Report
Eh, they went race-based instead of class-based.
They also abandoned any concept of required reading.Report
Maybe in the 1990s but I think they have moved leftward on economics during the Obama era and beyond and it is mainly aesthetic-emotional fee fees that keep arguments like this one alive. Labor historian Erik Loomis considers Biden to be one of the most consistently pro-Labor Presidents in the United States and I don’t think he can be called neoliberal in anyway, shape, or form.
The Democratic Party, for better or for worse, is a big and diverse coalition party that includes traditional working-class politicians like Tim Ryan (Joe Manchin also fits here to dismay), representatives of the modern working class like AOC (more diverse, more female, more service, retail, and admin workers), and also plenty of socially liberal and well to do suburban districts like those represented by Abigail Spanberger, Kahtleen Rice, and Gottheimer.
We need all these districts and politicians for a center-left majority in the United States. There is a persistent fantasy of somehow creating a “multicultural working class democracy” that jettisons middle-class and college-educated Democrats. This desire as a lot of underpants gnomes to it. Poll after poll and study after study has revealed that the most consistent socially and economically liberal voters in the country are middle-class and above, college-educated, bougie-boho, white, (((white))), or Asian professionals. Everyone seems to hate this fact with the fury of 999 trillion suns.Report
I think your point about how big and diverse the Democrats are needs to be emphasized.
Like here is an article about the two Democrats running for Council District 5 in Los Angeles.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-10-08/2022-california-election-los-angeles-council-district-5-yaroslavsky-yebri-guide
Both are Democrats, but one (Sam Yebri) is a moderate, with the backing of business groups while the other, (Yaroslovsky) has the backing of women and environmental groups.
The “One party state” has actually several distinct wings, falling along generally liberal/ conservative lines.
Rick Caruso, the billionaire running for mayor, was a moderate Republican until just a few years ago when he started to get serious about running for mayor.
People who spend too much time online have a tendency to get a wildly distorted picture of who and what the Democrats really are.Report
“He lives in a world of wanting to be able to run 1990s Clintonianism forever.”
Joe Biden is President and his VP is Black Hillary Clinton, so, I guess he’s getting what he wants?Report
Life under Democrats:
‘Medical care right where you are’: L.A. County launches mobile clinics as big as semis
So the Department of Health Services launched its own system of rolling clinics this fall, expanding the range of medical care that its clinicians can immediately offer to unhoused people.
The big blue trucks, each equipped with a pair of private examination rooms, boast a range of services that can be difficult or impossible to perform on a sidewalk or inside a tent.
The rolling clinics can provide primary and urgent care, including ultrasounds and electrocardiograms; psychiatric care and substance use treatment, including medications to ease addiction; and gynecological care such as Pap smears, among other services. The mobile clinics can also connect patients with social workers and financial screeners to enroll them in programs.
Beginning in September, the county has been regularly stationing the clinics at spots close to homeless encampments and short on medical services.
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The county spent more than $2.2 million to purchase the vehicles using federal money meant to provide relief for health providers that assisted COVID-19 patients; the day-to-day operating costs are being shouldered by the county through its general budget, although it is also seeking reimbursements from health plans.
You know what would be great? If people voted based on health care issues.Report
Life under Republicans:
Two Child Incest Victims Denied Abortions in Florida
The young patients, one in middle school, were forced to travel “at least two, three states away” for an abortion, according to Planned Parenthood.
https://jezebel.com/two-child-incest-victims-denied-abortions-in-florida-1849652906?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
You know what would be great? If people voted based on health care issues.Report
cheaters in fact don’t win:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/13/sport/ohio-fishing-tournament-cheating-indicted/index.htmlReport
Alex Jones killed no one. He apologized for his erroneous reports, of which there weren’t many. Nevertheless in a trial where he wasn’t allowed to defend himself on free speech grounds he’s now being ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars. Stalin’s ghost has returned.Report
Guys, I’m worried that we Democrats won’t be able to compete with this savvy messagery strategery.Report
Have faith, comrade. This shall flush out all who will be made subject to shadow deplatforming. For the good of the collective, of course.Report
Maybe you’ll fight it to a nigh-draw but get a plurality anyway.
Then you can call it a mandate!Report
I would still love to know why Republicans think free speech is also consequence free.Report
They believe that the law protects but does not bind them and that the law binds but does not protect Democrats.Report
They’re also not people but tiny little race cars that pretend to be people.Report
Nonsense.
They’re banning more and more books all the time!Report
NANCY SMASH
https://twitter.com/Acyn/status/1580712690766712833?s=20&t=SbChDITQNNbqDVC33qdtyAReport
So while all the manly macho Republican he-men like Josh Hawley were wetting themselves and running away, Nancy Pelosi took charge and kicked ass.Report
Raising awareness about climate change.
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It’s funny, I’ve been reading this, so I’ve had climate action on the brain, but throwing tomato soup on an old painting in a museum doesn’t seem to fit any sort of logic for direct action by climate activists. I mean, at this point, we’re well beyond the “making people take notice” stage of climate change politics, right?Report
Well, it is an oil painting.Report
Apparently not. I am pretty down on the idea that we are going to do anything about fighting climate change. If anything people should be looking to move away from places like Florida and Texas (no offense) and to cooler climates. Polling indicates something like 57 percent of Americans prefer warmer weather and would respond to my view with “why are you against shorts in December? Are you some kind of nerd?”Report
I’m definitely down with getting the hell out of Texas. We’re hoping to get out in the next 12 months.Report
Eh, it’s nice to finally get out of the house.Report
Reports are that the painting was behind a glass pane and not damaged.
That BPD hair, though.Report
Seeing multiple reports that US Chip policy is ‘decapitating’ Chinese semi-conductor industry.
Not entirely sure if it’s being over stated; but if it’s not… hard to see China not taking significant counter measures – I know not what, exactly.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-sanctions-china-semiconductors-industry-b2202941.htmlReport
Ron Johnson could not bring himself to say something nice about his opponent. This is the most routine of debate questions and he felt compelled to get in a dig: https://twitter.com/HeartlandSignal/status/1580729957550272513?s=20&t=fJCbGoBM54jIhBo_dftp6AReport
The AP has published a fact check against the people who claim that Pfizer lied about testing the impact on transmission prior to the vaccine rollout:
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Life under Republicans:
Michigan bill seeks to define gender-affirming care for minors as first-degree child abuse
State Republican lawmakers in Michigan have introduced a bill that would amend the state’s penal code to classify gender-affirming health care for transgender youth as first-degree child abuse.
According to the bill filed Tuesday, a person would be found guilty of first-degree child abuse — punishable by life imprisonment — if they “knowingly or intentionally” cause serious physical or mental harm to a child, including by assisting a child obtain a “gender transition procedure.”
The bill was introduced by state Reps. Ryan Berman, Steve Carra, Luke Meerman, Beau LaFave and Steve Marino, who are all Republicans.
…
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) in August introduced the first piece of federal legislation to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors nationwide. Greene’s bill, co-sponsored by more than 40 House Republicans, would make it a felony punishable by up to 25 years in prison to provide gender-affirming care to youth under 18.
The axe of grievance and resentment is always looking for new necks. And as ever, the cruelty is the point.Report
Cruelty is to confuse kids, feed into delusions, chemically and physically castrate them.
ETA: The bill appears to only criminalize procedures, which includes the hormone therapy and mutilation but not the counseling. And I thought we were all in agreement that the surgery shouldn’t and doesn’t happen to minors.Report
Your first paragraph shows where the second is headed.
No matter how many times Republicans protest, “But it isn’t really that bad!” they can’t help but blurt out the truth, that they are opposed to any form of non-binary gender affirmation, for anyone anywhere.
And they aren’t able anymore, to even offer the most limp and unconvincing assertion of “live and let live”. They make it clear that, given the power to ban something, they WILL ban it.Report
Related:
Kari Lake refuses to say whether she will accept election results if she loses
https://twitter.com/axios/status/1581659991567896576?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Eembeddedtimeline%7Ctwterm%5Escreen-name%2Fslug%3Adrfarls%2Flawyers-guns-and-money%7Ctwcon%5Es1
Republicans refuse to accept anyone outside of their own tribe as fellow Americans, and refuse to accept their votes as legitimate.
So when a parent chooses to affirm their child’s gender, all the talk of “parental choice” falls away. They take it upon themselves to dictate the family’s choice, just as they take it upon themselves to dictate a woman’s choice.
In their view, these people are not co-equals who are entitled to share power but subjects to be brought to heel.Report
I think both your arguments are bad, but to say that they’re “related” is just throwing rocks at cars. Tell ya what: let’s go back to all of human history up until a few hours ago and stop telling kids they should be mutilated / stop mutilating them, and we’ll see if we can get along on those terms.Report
Even by your own arguments, you refuse to live in peace with trans people or accept them as fellow citizens entitled to live life on their own terms.
And, you’re the “reasonable” Republican!
Like, your logic assumes that whether parents are allowed to circumcise their children, pierce their ears, or even apply growth hormones is not a “right” based on mutual respect and trust and scientific consensus of harms, but merely a privilege that can be dispensed or withheld (by you, of course).
Republicans reject the foundational premise of small-l liberalism, of allowing people the freedom to pursue happiness as they see fit.
I’ll say it again. Even “reasonable” Republicans view the rest of us as lesser beings, unworthy of the same rights and freedoms as Republicans.Report
When you say “circumcision”, you mean male, right? We can agree that female child circumcision is illegal and should remain so, right? A woman who is 18 or older can pay to have that done to her, but public and private regulating bodies may have a say.Report
Breaking:
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Good news!
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The creation of bioweapons that can kill more than 50% of the populace is generally regarded as bad news.
If you do not think Russia is working on the same thing… I don’t know what to say.Report
The comparison that I saw was that this is like an NBA player showing up at a college game.
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Trump places Jews on his enemies list officially:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11320933/Trump-tells-American-Jews-act-appreciate-bizarre-post.htmlReport
If you read the message you know that’s not a fair representation of it.
I don’t understand people who are tooimpatient to wait for Trump to say something offensive.Report
The same banks that hold George Soros accounts and hedge funds also held Jeffrey Epstein accounts and hedge funds.Report
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