Most of the stuff moderates are looking for would be Obama 2.0. No one is asking for Ted Cruz.
I'd be OK with Obama 2.0, and so would the vast majority of Democrats. But Obama 2.0, like Beto and any of the plausible Democratic candidates, would be as unacceptable to the people who are looking for The Right Kind of Democrat (TM) as Obama 1.0 was -- another gun-grabbing, baby-killing socialist.
This is as good a place as any to ask the question. There have been male Presidential candidates who have been sexually attractive to women. Not many, I grant you, but some. This time, we may get a female candidate young and attractive enough to be sexually attractive to men. I'd be interested in hearing from women how sex has played in past elections, and from men on how they think it might play this time.
No, you don't. I've read the Harris post. Tod said he would vote for Harris. He did not make his vote conditional on agreement to substantive policy demands that Harris become, in effect, a Republican. When we get to whoever is writing the Biden post, we will see whether it is the next chapter or not.
Movie idea: Blazing Saddles 40 years later. Gov. LePetomaine needs help from Bart and the Waco Kid, who have shared a ranch in the mountains since leaving Red Rock. Call it Brokeback Saddles. None of the characters other than Bart and the Kid get what's going on.
1. "persuadables": persons whose minds are not made up, or whose views are so tentative that more information might change their minds about the matters covered by the Mueller Report and whatever implications those matters might have on their views of what to do about Trump.
2. Depends on what they already knew and what they thought based on what they already knew.
What I will wait to find out is whether any significant number of"persuadables" watched, and how they reacted. Like the lady we've all seen on TV who had been startled to learn that the Mueller Report did not say what Attorney General Cohn and Fox News said it said.
This topic has been something of a party game for me for years, though sometimes I put the question not as "which is better," but "which is more important." A few to throw into the pot: Gone With the Wind. Either way, I go with the movie. M*A*S*H -- for a bonus, you can throw in the TV show. Even if you think the movie was better/more important than the TV show, I think the TV show was a better/more important TV show than the movie was a movie. Gatsby -- the book, by a mile, over any movie version. I agree with you on the Godfather. Has there ever been a good movie adaptation of anything by Hemingway? There have been some very loose adaptations that are good movies taken on their own, but they have little to do with Hemingway. (I'm reminded of Richard Bentley, an 18th-century classical scholar, who said of Pope's translation of The Iliad, "It is a very pretty poem, but we must not call it Homer.")
Chip, you're wasting your time. Our mutual error was to assume that there was some there there, some proposition sufficiently definite and meaningful that it could be grappled with.
I respect the intelligence and, I think, understand the fears of the coal miners. Granted that Hillary wasn't the generational political talent and world-class bullshitter that Bill was, the substantive message in Hillary's speech, no different, except aesthetically, from the hypothetical AJ or Jaybird speech, or the one I would have given myself, was a predictable No Sale to fearful, desperate men watching their jobs disappear (and what they care about, George, is employment, not production) as their industry dies because of forces beyond anyone's control. They want their remembered way of life and the realistic alternatives do not appeal to them. They cannot be bullshat. Some of the miners know their bleak long-term future, and have said as much, but many of them ran to a transparent charlatan in the hope that he might cobble together some short-term expedient, kick the can down the road, and maybe stall the inevitable until they can retire, if they live that long. Sad and desperate, but sad and desperate men often prefer false hope to unpalatable reality. That is a much bigger issue than aesthetics.
At the very least, I could get people to discuss how what was said was true
Which "people" are you talking about? Lots of folks here have been talking at length about what's true and what's false about what can be done about the coal miners. Lots of people in the real world have discussed it as well. Nobody here, or, as far as I can tell, anywhere else, has suggested anything that would have been both true and substantively satisfactory to the coal miners, even if better phrased. Not to mention that no Democrat could have won West Virginia, no matter how they phrased the unpalatable truth.
If the question is whether Hillary was inept, I don't think anyone disputes that. I certainly don't. But you might want to watch your own video. Some of us watched it at the time.
Do you really think that any actually existing Democrat could go to West Virginia, make the very minor tweaks that would transform Hillary's comments into AJ's speech or yours, and be better received?
People have tried. They have said, in substance, pretty much what you and JA said. They will do it again, because, as you say, it is low cost and easy. Most professional politicians know how to do it. I'm pretty sure I could do it. Still, the people who have, supposedly, heard these things have insisted they were being told something else. Or they have rejected what they have been told. Or they have rejected the teller. For reasons that may or may not withstand examination.
To say that we should try to show solidarity is certainly "uncontroversial." It is also useless. There is more going on.
And if it’s possible to communicate “we know that this situation sucks and it can’t be changed but it can be mitigated” then that’s a hell of a lot better than “look at the big picture!”
I’m vaguely surprised that this is vaguely controversial.
That's not what's controversial. What's controversial is whether it means a damn when the reality being communicated is bleak and the hearer is, for various reasons, predisposed to reject, or even refuse to hear, what certain kinds of people say because of who is saying it rather than what they are saying or how they're saying it.
I spent several years doing hard, manly physical work, alongside men who had far less chance than I of getting out of it. (I'm glad I did; otherwise I'd be a wreck, if not dead, now.) Even now, and largely as a result, I spend a fair amount of my working time figuring out how to pitch my clients' interests to people like those I worked with. If I must say so myself, I'm pretty good at projecting solidarity with working class jurors. But there are limits to what I, or anyone else, can sell them. It isn't just marketing failures.
Indeed you did. And when I pointed out that lots of politicians have made substantially that very speech, and the hearers didn't go for it, you fell back on whether the speakers communicated solidarity. I have an idea what that means, which has "ugly implications," but I'll leave it to you to say for yourself what you mean.
Sounds like much that I, and the miners if they have listened to what they were told, have already heard, including with concrete plans. Why it hasn't worked so far may well have "ugly implications."
We already know that as a matter of short-term political success lying works better than the truth. What we haven't figured out is an alternative to lying that can address reality without sending reality's victims into the jaws of the liars.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “Kamala Harris”
Anything past that is just going to get weird.
You make that sound like a bad thing.
On “Vote Beto Because Why Not”
Most of the stuff moderates are looking for would be Obama 2.0. No one is asking for Ted Cruz.
I'd be OK with Obama 2.0, and so would the vast majority of Democrats. But Obama 2.0, like Beto and any of the plausible Democratic candidates, would be as unacceptable to the people who are looking for The Right Kind of Democrat (TM) as Obama 1.0 was -- another gun-grabbing, baby-killing socialist.
On “Kamala Harris”
This is as good a place as any to ask the question. There have been male Presidential candidates who have been sexually attractive to women. Not many, I grant you, but some. This time, we may get a female candidate young and attractive enough to be sexually attractive to men. I'd be interested in hearing from women how sex has played in past elections, and from men on how they think it might play this time.
On “Vote Beto Because Why Not”
No, you don't. I've read the Harris post. Tod said he would vote for Harris. He did not make his vote conditional on agreement to substantive policy demands that Harris become, in effect, a Republican. When we get to whoever is writing the Biden post, we will see whether it is the next chapter or not.
"
I hate Trump and will gladly vote against him if the Democrats nominate a Republican. Chapter 9,642.
On “Kamala Harris”
And many of the voters she will need actually like it, either the true or the misrepresented one
On “Actually, the Film Was Better Than These Books”
Movie idea: Blazing Saddles 40 years later. Gov. LePetomaine needs help from Bart and the Waco Kid, who have shared a ranch in the mountains since leaving Red Rock. Call it Brokeback Saddles. None of the characters other than Bart and the Kid get what's going on.
On “Tuning Out”
1. "persuadables": persons whose minds are not made up, or whose views are so tentative that more information might change their minds about the matters covered by the Mueller Report and whatever implications those matters might have on their views of what to do about Trump.
2. Depends on what they already knew and what they thought based on what they already knew.
On “My Class, Their Class, Our Class”
Yes, it would. And your point is?
On “Tuning Out”
What I will wait to find out is whether any significant number of"persuadables" watched, and how they reacted. Like the lady we've all seen on TV who had been startled to learn that the Mueller Report did not say what Attorney General Cohn and Fox News said it said.
On “My Class, Their Class, Our Class”
It would depend on what you said about it. The proof will be in the pudding.
On “Actually, the Film Was Better Than These Books”
This topic has been something of a party game for me for years, though sometimes I put the question not as "which is better," but "which is more important." A few to throw into the pot: Gone With the Wind. Either way, I go with the movie. M*A*S*H -- for a bonus, you can throw in the TV show. Even if you think the movie was better/more important than the TV show, I think the TV show was a better/more important TV show than the movie was a movie. Gatsby -- the book, by a mile, over any movie version. I agree with you on the Godfather. Has there ever been a good movie adaptation of anything by Hemingway? There have been some very loose adaptations that are good movies taken on their own, but they have little to do with Hemingway. (I'm reminded of Richard Bentley, an 18th-century classical scholar, who said of Pope's translation of The Iliad, "It is a very pretty poem, but we must not call it Homer.")
On “My Class, Their Class, Our Class”
Chip, you're wasting your time. Our mutual error was to assume that there was some there there, some proposition sufficiently definite and meaningful that it could be grappled with.
"
I respect the intelligence and, I think, understand the fears of the coal miners. Granted that Hillary wasn't the generational political talent and world-class bullshitter that Bill was, the substantive message in Hillary's speech, no different, except aesthetically, from the hypothetical AJ or Jaybird speech, or the one I would have given myself, was a predictable No Sale to fearful, desperate men watching their jobs disappear (and what they care about, George, is employment, not production) as their industry dies because of forces beyond anyone's control. They want their remembered way of life and the realistic alternatives do not appeal to them. They cannot be bullshat. Some of the miners know their bleak long-term future, and have said as much, but many of them ran to a transparent charlatan in the hope that he might cobble together some short-term expedient, kick the can down the road, and maybe stall the inevitable until they can retire, if they live that long. Sad and desperate, but sad and desperate men often prefer false hope to unpalatable reality. That is a much bigger issue than aesthetics.
"
At the very least, I could get people to discuss how what was said was true
Which "people" are you talking about? Lots of folks here have been talking at length about what's true and what's false about what can be done about the coal miners. Lots of people in the real world have discussed it as well. Nobody here, or, as far as I can tell, anywhere else, has suggested anything that would have been both true and substantively satisfactory to the coal miners, even if better phrased. Not to mention that no Democrat could have won West Virginia, no matter how they phrased the unpalatable truth.
"
If the question is whether Hillary was inept, I don't think anyone disputes that. I certainly don't. But you might want to watch your own video. Some of us watched it at the time.
Do you really think that any actually existing Democrat could go to West Virginia, make the very minor tweaks that would transform Hillary's comments into AJ's speech or yours, and be better received?
"
People have tried. They have said, in substance, pretty much what you and JA said. They will do it again, because, as you say, it is low cost and easy. Most professional politicians know how to do it. I'm pretty sure I could do it. Still, the people who have, supposedly, heard these things have insisted they were being told something else. Or they have rejected what they have been told. Or they have rejected the teller. For reasons that may or may not withstand examination.
To say that we should try to show solidarity is certainly "uncontroversial." It is also useless. There is more going on.
"
And if it’s possible to communicate “we know that this situation sucks and it can’t be changed but it can be mitigated” then that’s a hell of a lot better than “look at the big picture!”
I’m vaguely surprised that this is vaguely controversial.
That's not what's controversial. What's controversial is whether it means a damn when the reality being communicated is bleak and the hearer is, for various reasons, predisposed to reject, or even refuse to hear, what certain kinds of people say because of who is saying it rather than what they are saying or how they're saying it.
I spent several years doing hard, manly physical work, alongside men who had far less chance than I of getting out of it. (I'm glad I did; otherwise I'd be a wreck, if not dead, now.) Even now, and largely as a result, I spend a fair amount of my working time figuring out how to pitch my clients' interests to people like those I worked with. If I must say so myself, I'm pretty good at projecting solidarity with working class jurors. But there are limits to what I, or anyone else, can sell them. It isn't just marketing failures.
"
It was Chris Rock, but what the hell, they all look alike.
On “Trump’s Useful Idiot”
Indeed you did. And when I pointed out that lots of politicians have made substantially that very speech, and the hearers didn't go for it, you fell back on whether the speakers communicated solidarity. I have an idea what that means, which has "ugly implications," but I'll leave it to you to say for yourself what you mean.
"
From an episode of the Mary Tyler Moore Show, when Ted Baxter confides his pre-wedding jitters to Lou Grant in a bar and asks for advice:
Lou: Ted, you know the way you always are?
Ted: Yes.
Lou: Don't be like that.
Equally informative and useful advice.
On “My Class, Their Class, Our Class”
If Mike wants to join your side on this, don't discourage him.
On “Trump’s Useful Idiot”
Sounds like much that I, and the miners if they have listened to what they were told, have already heard, including with concrete plans. Why it hasn't worked so far may well have "ugly implications."
"
Sounds good. What is your speech to the coal miners? In actual words.
"
We already know that as a matter of short-term political success lying works better than the truth. What we haven't figured out is an alternative to lying that can address reality without sending reality's victims into the jaws of the liars.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.