We're all going to die because Democrats, liberals, progressives and leftists cannot sort out their coalition priorities and goals but for agreeing to react like Margaret Dumont in a Marx Brothers movie whenever some red-faced boor yells at them on talk radio or a distinguished nobody from nowhere drags his feet on something.

I am not a crackpot.

Yes, probably. But one has to keep moving as if that weren't true.

2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_of_faith#Knight_of_faith_and_the_knight_of_infinite_resignation

Yes. 12 years of Catholic schools.

(1) I really think it's less factional political maneuvering and just the corruption and antidemocratic features of our system that are gonna do us in. The left still gets in line more or less when push comes to shove. The problem is that the liberals can't deliver and don't appear to be trying.

The utter fecklessness of the recently ascendant Democratic elite are giving a shit ton of oxygen to the leftist and anarchist critiques of the liberal state, for better or for worse. It's gonna be a really weird time, these next few decades.

gensym: On those inventories that determine where you are on the political spectrum, I clock in as "establishment liberal". But boy howdy, your para is so spot-on. Even setting aside the perfidy of Cinemansion, our Dems are just not up to this fight.

The problem is that the liberals can't deliver and don't appear to be trying.

This is so weird as to be hallucinatory. On what issue of importance do the liberals appear to not be trying? How are these perfidious liberals served, rather than stymied, by the lack of democracy?

I understand part of it. The Nader/Trump view of the US is rooted in a contempt for democracy -- in the idea that Americans can't be trusted with self-government; in the notion that people working toward expanded healthcare or huge infrastructure investments or childcare or whatever must be kept out of power because they often lose.

Only people who try can fail. Trump and Nader understand this in their bones. An absolute, unyielding refusal to take responsibility is the route to perfection.

Nader's contempt for democracy made him the toast of certain circles, and Trump has gone pretty far. But what's your excuse? What do you get out of anti-democratic, alternative-fact bullshit?

politicalfootball: We keep getting told that it takes time to assemble cases, etc, etc. So gosh, it's only been a year. But it's been five years, five years, since TFG and his horde started criming to destroy our Republic. And nobody of any consequence has gone to prison for that. We got told that Manafort allocuted to all sorts of stuff that TFG didn't pardon him for, and yet ... *nuthin*. All the crimes (children thrown into camps, for fuck's sake) and nobody's gone to jail for it.

All that stuff started over five years ago, so some of those crimes are now expiring the statute of limitations, isn't that great?

So yeah, it sure looks like liberals in government can't or won't deliver the defense of our Republic. And at a minimum, they oughta be doing that. One starts to suspect that (just as in Don't Look Up) they have their private jets, ready to spirit them off to safer jurisdictions.

Five years. Five years. Not one.

politicalfootball: I should add: maybe I'm going in a different direction than gensym. They might be more exercised about economic issues, or immigration, or other things. I'm talking about the basic defense of our Republic against all enemies foreign and domestic. They're failing at this basic task.

Nader, Trump, people like that..,,,

Sorry, man, you lost me there.

But it's been five years, five years, since TFG and his horde started criming to destroy our Republic. And nobody of any consequence has gone to prison for that.

Yes, they have.

So yeah, it sure looks like liberals in government can't or won't deliver the defense of our Republic.

Most of the ones not in prison are not in prison because Trump let them out. But I'm sure you can explain why it's really the fault of liberals.

Agents of the Russian government?

"Nader, Trump, people like that"

Very wealthy, cranky old TV personalities who don't want you to vote Democrat and think that Russian undermining of US elections is all a big hoax. People like that.

Fuck Nader. He was a willing and potentially decisive participant in the effort to reëlect Bush in 2004. He's a Republican.

7: The Democratic elite are not responding to the Omicron crisis with any level of urgency. We're clocking a million new cases a day and the response from the Biden administration is little but platitudes and contempt. As far as I can tell, they're still fixing to *restart* the student loan crisis as soon as they can. The Biden CDC has been an absolute disaster.

The huge pool of unvaccinated people deliberately created by domestic and foreign political agents is the cause of the Omicron crisis. They didn't want Biden to have a clear economic recovery from the end of covid as a public health threat and they succeed.

I'm talking about the basic defense of our Republic against all enemies foreign and domestic. They're failing at this basic task.

I think this captures what I'm objecting to -- this "they" who are failing. By "they" you don't mean Trump, his minions, the media or the US electoral system.

You mean the decent people who want a better country and who are putting in the actual work to fix things. As you and gensym say quite directly: You mean the liberals, and particularly the ones who take on responsibility.

Once you adopt that stance, you place yourself in opposition to "them." You tend toward Trumpism or Naderism.

I'm sympathetic to your general bleak view of who is winning and who is losing. But I think we are failing.

Tell me you're not equating Trumpists and leftists. I mean, seriously, that's... really, really offensive.

Liberals and the Democratic elite had a theory of political governance. It was sufficiently convincing to the Democratic electorate and the public at large that they won the day in 2020. When I observe that their theory is demonstrably failing, and that maybe we should listen to the progressives with a better track record, that is not a critique that trends towards Trumpism or Naderism. I would *love* for the liberals to be right and succeed, really, I would. But you don't get to say, hey, don't knock the liberals because they're the only ones taking responsibility when they literally *fought* the progressives for that privilege!

Liberals and the Democratic elite had a theory of political governance. It was sufficiently convincing to the Democratic electorate and the public at large that they won the day in 2020.

Ah, I'd say that Trump and the Republicans repelled voters enough that Democrats won. And they have a governing trifecta by the thinnest of margins, and with the most obstinate other party and a fairly counterproductive media swamp. Should they be more progressive? Sure. Are they having to wade through molasses in order to fight for a more functional government? Also yes. The idea that the most lefty politicians wouldn't still be wading through molasses to accomplish anything is a fantasy.

Theory? Liberals? Have you ever met a suburban Pennsylvania voter? I'm not recommending it except as education. The alternative isn't a progressive. The alternative is Trump.

16 and 20 are Moby showing his usual political perspicacity.

Aside from the jokes he has been spot on.

I mean that jokes are good too--usually--but the clear-eyed despair of politics and human nature are a different kind of good.

I see that the "mainstream" R response is "boo hoo hoo, Biden is dividing the nation. he's a DIVIDER!"

May they all go fuck themselves in the ass with a meat hook. It's Murc's Law all the way down.

Tell me you're not equating Trumpists and leftists. I mean, seriously, that's... really, really offensive.

Leftists equated Trump and Clinton, so, you know, this should be familiar ground for you.

When I observe that their theory is demonstrably failing, and that maybe we should listen to the progressives with a better track record

A better track record. Mm.

But you don't get to say, hey, don't knock the liberals because they're the only ones taking responsibility when they literally *fought* the progressives for that privilege!

When you say literally here, you don't literally mean literally.

We're all going to get shot by a Q-cultist on horse de-worming medication, but I'll have been more right.

What Biden and the Democratic elite *are delivering* is going to lead right back to Trump.

I really, really hope I'm wrong.

As for what a idk Elizabeth Warren president might be doing differently? Responding to the crisis with the urgency and clarity. Calling out the fight against the revanchists with the same. I thought, and I continue to think, that swinging for the fences energizes the base and gets you political wins even when you lose battles.

I don't know that I'm right! But at least were she in that position, I'd hope she, and I, would accept critiques from liberals and not conflate them with the far right.

A favorite example of 24 is how even all the "liberal" legal commentators (including many I like) generally concede that a lot of subsequent judicial nomination nastiness has its roots in Bork, and specifically the Dem response. You know what was super partisan and ugly about the Bork thing? His getting the nomination in the first place. His role in the Saturday Night Massacre alone was utterly disqualifying. (Also swept under the rug was that he lost the straight up vote, not that he didn't clear a filibuster.

Not sure why that brought that up, but I will not that something like Jan 6 (and more so the coming "legal" Republican coup) is a direct line from the Federalist Society.

gensym, do you have specific "progressives" in mind? Bernie and the squad, or other people?

26: I do mean literally, for fuck's sake. An electoral contest can be fairly and literally characterized as a fight.

25: I was expressing dismay at politicalfootball's conflation of leftists with Trumpists. If you have a specific critique of _me_, please have at it. I don't condone the dirtbag left's strategic ineptitude and execrable judgment.

27: My wife who has a vast capacity for imaginatively negative outcomes has unfortunately been very fucking right a lot of the time for the last 5 years.

I would have voted for Warren in the primary if it weren't already decided before we voted. She would have lost.

As for what a idk Elizabeth Warren president might be doing differently? Responding to the crisis with the urgency and clarity. Calling out the fight against the revanchists with the same.

For example, she might have stood up and said something really clear and unmistakeable like "Here is the truth: The former president of the United States has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election. He's done so because he values power over principle. Because his bruised ego matters more to him than our democracy or Constitution." https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1479099527978270720

But you don't get to say, hey, don't knock the liberals because they're the only ones taking responsibility when they literally *fought* the progressives for that privilege!

I had a link I was going to send to Heebie but I'll post it here, particularly because I'm not sure my thoughts are particularly intelligent.

This profile of Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is very good and worth reading. It gave me a different sense of her, and the city.

It also connects to something I've been thinking about lately -- an unavoidable question from the 2020 election is, "we just had a contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Are these really the best people the system can produce? Why don't we have more exciting people running for president?"*

We can talk about all the systemic forces that make the path more difficult, and filter out a wide range of people. The system is broken in many ways, but also think we should have more sympathy for the people who are running, because there isn't an unlimited supply of qualified competent people available to run. The actual day-to-day work of electoral politics seems . . . fairly unappealing. I really believe that politics takes practice, both winning elections and governing, and like anything else, the best way to get better is to have experience. But, gosh, I can understand why people would leave. There are so many ways to run up against deep intractable problems and find yourself at odds with both political opponents and allies about the best way to respond.

I'd like to see more progressives in office; I think that would help, and part of why I often defend the liberals currently in office is because they're not in an easy position either. Of course, the people in office are often selfish, lazy, or shortsighted, and there are many people not currently in office that would be less selfish, lazy, or shortsighted, but that doesn't mean that the person who replaces an incumbent will necessarily be less selfish, lazy, or shortsighted . . .!

* I'll note both that I was excited about Warren in the primary, and I'm very worried that, had the won the primary she would not have won the general election.

Lance bottoms. Heh.

I think it's pretty clear she would have lost the general. It wasn't clear as late as the night of the election when I still thought Biden was going to win PA by over 2%, but with the tipping point at 1.2% it seems inconceivable to me that there aren't that many people in PA who rank Biden > Trump > Warren.

34: Yeah, I genuinely thought she would be able to win, and I was clearly wrong. I don't think she would have brought out one more voter on her side, and she would have lost enough self-hating women to lose the EC (although not the popular vote).

And of course that brings us to the root of the problem: 52.3% of the 2-party vote gets liberals a razor-thin* EC win; 47.8% gets right wing fanatics an EC win. The Senate is worse. Liberals/anti-Trump voters are a smaller part of the country than we want to think, and our effective power is less than our actual numbers.

This leads to a conviction that the clear majority of the country supports us in email, and rage that Dems tend to act like they have razor-thin margins.

*as Campos points out, 3 states, enough to flip the EC, were decided by less than IIRC 30k votes each

I agree with what politicalfootball and ajay have been saying in this thread.

So tired of leftists blaming liberals for things that are obviously the fault of centrists and Republicans.

I voted for Warren in the primary, but I don't think there's any way she would have won the general, which makes me feel a real underpants gnomes quality to gensym's critique. Sure, if we lived in a country that would have elected Elizabeth Warren president, then a whole lot of things would be different. We do live in a country that elected Donald Trump president, and very nearly re-elected him.

Can we become a country that could elect an Elizabeth Warren? I think we can.

I don't know whether a more progressive candidate would have won Senate races in Maine or North Carolina. I do know that a more progressive candidate would not have won our Senate race, and that internet warriors who act like that's a possibility are so out of touch with reality that one has to wonder what color the sky is in their world. (I know enough people in Montana politics that I can ask such people to name a name or two, and of course they completely fall apart. Humans run for office, not issue packets or resumes.)

AIHMB, I'm feeling pretty glum about our congressional race. We got a new district, and if you'd asked me before the census -- if you RTFA -- you'd see that I was very confident it would be a blue seat. We got it, and now I think we're more likely than not going to elect a Republican, fired for being too corrupt to be in the Trump cabinet. We'll see, and I'll knock doors for the nominee next fall. But if she doesn't create broad-based enthusiasm among voters -- not just twitter people and existing partisans -- then it's just not going to work.

I was expressing dismay at politicalfootball's conflation of leftists with Trumpists

This, of course, didn't happen. I said "Nader," and Nader is/was a microscopic phenomenon as far as his actual following, even on the left. You might usefully reflect on why you need to conflate "Nader" with "the left."

I do equate Naderism with Trumpism in some ways -- the contempt for liberalism, obviously, but also the disdain for democracy and the rejection of factuality as a method of perceiving the world.

So for instance, you adopt the Naderite mode here when you say I conflate leftists with Trumpists. I say "Nader" and you pretend I said "the left" because it allows you to adopt the stance of the offended victim -- a favorite pose of both the Naderite and Trumpist tendency. Then, after you conflate Nader and the left, you accuse me of conflating unlike things. That's another favorite Trumpist technique: Every accusation is a confession.

And now, we find out in 28 that when you talk about liberals, Democrats and Democratic leadership, somehow Elizabeth Warren is in none of those categories. That's absurd -- and we know which national figures have adopted aggressive absurdity as a technique. Warren is the great liberal leader who said "I am a capitalist in my bones," and who has a long academic and political record to back that up.

Elizabeth Warren is a Democratic member of the Senate who ran for president of the United States as a Democrat and lost to a Democrat who is pushing hard -- along with 90% of the other elected Democrats -- for many of her most important priorities.

The key thing about Warren -- and about Nader, but not Trump -- is that she lost. There is a tiny sub-segment of the left that worships defeat because it relieves them of responsibility. (Warren herself, of course, takes her responsibility as a senator and Democrat seriously.)

In 2016, I was prepared to put Trump in that category, but his victory was an interesting breakthrough: He and his supporters found that he could win and still completely reject responsibility. But the key is still always identifying the bad people who try to get things done and who therefore are responsible for all the failures.

Humans run for office, not issue packets or resumes.

This is part of the point I was trying to make in 36.

I don't have much to say on this thread except that Naderism is deeply unrepresentative of people left of the Democratic mainstream at this point. He peaked in 2000. Stein in 2016 got half the votes Nader did in 2000, and that was a local maximum for them. The rise of Bernie Sanders basically wiped out Green Party power where it was at all building at the local level.

Nader is irrelevant but there are a lot of leftists who use "democrats" when they refer to 50 fucking Republicans and a handful of corporatist shitheads.

You mean the decent people who want a better country and who are putting in the actual work to fix things. As you and gensym say quite directly: You mean the liberals, and particularly the ones who take on responsibility.

Once you adopt that stance, you place yourself in opposition to "them." You tend toward Trumpism or Naderism.

The clear reading here is that leftist critiques of Biden and the liberals are of a piece with Trumpism and Naderism.

If that was not your intended meaning, awesome.

Can't help but observe that (1) had the right of it and my (5) was mired in hopeless naivety.

A younger, more cheerful (gensym) had a stronger mastery of HTML as well.

45: Right. I'm using "Nader" in this context is a synecdoche. No similar politician since has been anywhere near as successfully contemptuous of liberals and Democrats. Some folks would say "Bernie Bros" instead, but I don't like that because Sanders himself is a good guy.

48 And Sanders' followers *very* substantially supported HRC and then Biden in the general elections. My beef with him is that in 2016 he stayed in too long after it was clear he couldn't win, while doing irreparable damage to the nominee. In 2020, he stayed in after it was obvious he wasn't going to win, but, like all the others, got out without doing any real damage.

I'd have been glad to support him in the general if he'd won, especially so if he'd won as he set out to do -- by hugely increasing turnout among the young and the marginalized.

I find the definite claims that so-and-so could not have won the election really bizarre. Taking the electorate that turned out for one election and adjusting it for a different election is interesting and informative, but not dispositive. You're not giving the alternate history candidate the benefit -- or handicap! -- of running their campaign. Enthusiasm in the electorate and the charisma and messages of the candidate reinforce each other and make a big difference on the margins at least.

Warren is just much less popular than Biden across the board. There's just literally zero Warren > Trump > Biden voters. I would feel much less confident predicting Sanders vs. Trump where you'd get changes in both directions relative to Biden or even Buttigieg who seemed to have a bit of Obama's knack with midwesterners.

51 is my thinking too.

50 I suppose it's a question of whether one thinks of the electorate as really that variable over that short a span, and whether those things -- including charisma -- make that kind of difference in an electorate that is voting, in pretty large numbers, on identity. But we don't have to guess, with no data, about how well Sen Warren would do in inspiring a broad based charisma- and issues-driven wave in her favor, because the experiment was run, in limited yet still pretty useful circumstances.

Just as we don't have to imagine whether Sanders get big enough gains to the electorate to materially change the results. That was his theory and it's a great theory, it just turns out not to work. So far.

Losing candidates can serve important purposes -- Rev Jackson's 1984 campaign is a good example, I think -- but it's just ridiculous to say that a candidate who couldn't catch fire in a primary had any real possibility of catching fire in a general. This is an important purpose of primaries! It weeds out candidates, even those who look good on paper, but can't put together all the elements it takes to win. It's not just money: Trump proved that you don't need either money or the backing of party regulars to win a nomination. What you do have to have is a combination of attributes that gets a whole lot of people to vote for you.

In 2008, HRC might have beaten Obama with a smarter team, I'll give you that. But that's because she was already a big league player, only to be overwhelmed by a rookie to the big leagues, who nonetheless put it together.

20: adding - some old school conservative Republican friends in the Philly suburbs actively organized and voted for Biden. They were anti-Trump but I'm not sure they'd have voted for a Democrat with a different nominee.

Cala: Yes indeed, that's how I remember it. I was a loud-and-proud Warren voter, then Gillibrand, then ... etc, etc, and then finally Biden. Why not Sanders ? B/c Warren had his issues, had actual experience getting stuff done, and didn't have his shitty friends. But Sanders' politics, stands on issues? I was 100% for them. 100%. Biden was last on my list, but it was clear to me after he took SC, that he was the only choice, and that anybody else would mean losing to TFG. And for sure, I was pleasantly surprised by how good Biden's been (it's wonderful to be wrong like that, wonderful to have to acknowledge being wrong like that). I don't have to like it, to acknowledge that Biden was almost certainly the only Dem candidate capable of beating TFG.

Well, I don't belong here. I sorta knew that. Off to join Nader and Trump and Hitler and other people like me.

People getting compared to Hitler when it's hyperbolic has never happened before on the internet.

Nader and Trump and Hitler and other people like me

You forgot Poland!

Speaking of Hitler, I just discovered the saga of the 1990 British sitcom Heil Honey I'm Home! Eleven episodes planned, eight filmed but only the one aired. The one that aired was about Neville Chamberlain coming to the apartment, the rest of the season was "a story arc involved Hitler's secretive attempts to kill the Goldensteins" who were their Ethel and Fred next door neighbors.

My wife and I watched the first episode (the only one that aired) and for what I think they were going for we thought it was actually moderately well done. Because we're monsters.

It means nothing about anything, but it was grimly amusing to watch Ted Cruz prostrate himself in front of Tucker Carlson's audience last night after having described 1/6 as a terrorist attack.

One of the chryons as Tucker was dressing him down was "Cruzing for a bruising."

Tucker must protect the delicate feelings of violent racists.

swinging for the fences energizes the base

Energizes *both* bases, which is a straight-up terrifying condition right now.

63: Right. The single most important recent development in my personal sense of US politics is realizing/accepting that it's simply no longer true (if ever it was) that "when Dems turn out, we win." When we turn out, they turn out. But both liberals* and leftists want the old story to be true, and they keep acting and arguing as if it is.

Maybe there's some secret way to turn out D voters that doesn't activate Rs, but it's definitely not any of the solutions that people tout (give people free money! legalize weed! focus on young people!). And obviously you might be able to turnout just enough extra to win tight races, eg in Georgia. But there's no world where 10% more Ds start showing up to the polls and they aren't matched by 9-11% more Rs.

*not using this as code for centrist professional Dems; don't know or care what they believe on this point. I mean regular old NPR-loving liberal Dems.

64 is completely correct.

Well, I don't belong here. I sorta knew that. Off to join Nader and Trump and Hitler and other people like me.

No need to be like that. I feel like political discussions here have been notably contentious since (at least) the 2016 primaries, but I wouldn't want anybody to feel like they're speaking for an unfogged consensus or feeling like they need to bow out out of deference to an imagined consensus.

So, supposedly the RNC is considering Pittsburgh for their 2024 convention. Tourist marketing people apparently asked them to consider it because capitalists suck.

swinging for the fences energizes the base

Citation needed.

64.1 -- It's not causally related, though. They're turning out to keep AOC from knocking down Mt Rushmore, whether or not Dems are turning out. We have to turn out big just to keep pace.

Obviously, there are going to be places where Republicans are already turning out, and a big mobilization drive make the difference -- ie Georgia in 2021. People have looked around talking about who will be the Stacey Abrams of Montana. Certainly, there is progress to be made in registering people in Indigenous communities, and doing so may make a difference in a few legislative races. Turnout was like 90% here in my county in '20 -- maybe 91% of deliverable ballots? -- that's getting close to an upper limit in a place where registrations of students and other transient people live on after they've moved away. There just aren't that many more voted to get.

Having always heard the same thing, I guess I was a little surprised in the immediate aftermath of 2020 to find that the state party's model correctly predicted that the curve showing Dem votes and votes overall doesn't just keep climbing up to 100%, but tops out and starts going down in like the high 70s or something.

I mean regular old NPR-loving liberal Dems.

Nice to know that as an NPR-hating leftist Dem, I'm in the clear

67: It's my opinion or judgment.

I'd ask for evidence for the apparent group consensus on display here, but I'm going to just keep on living my life instead.

A parting thought: review the thread from the day of the insurrection and consider how welm the judgments and predictions have played out thus far.

64.1:. I kinda realized this wasn't true in 2004, when Kerry got 400,000 votes more than Bush did in 2000, and still lost.

I mean, Stacey Abrams knows how to turn out Democrats. It may not be whatever conventional wisdom about putting weed on the ballot, and it may require herculean organization, effort, and tailoring to a specific location, and being open to changing how we do things.

I'm a very bad prognosticator and hopefully good at living my life regardless of what everybody else here thinks. But looking at who voted in primaries and the general election isn't really prognostication. Obviously, it is prognostication to guess who would have showed up in the candidate had been different, but it doesn't feel like a stretch to assume that if people didn't show up for Sanders or Warren in the primary, you shouldn't count on them to vote in the general regardless of who wins.

I voted for Elizabeth Warren on Super Tuesday (when it was kind of over), but 45% went for Joe, 30% for Sanders and only 15% for Warren. Howard Dean won the Vermont primary in 2004 even though Kerry had the nomination wrapped up.

A lot of moderate people in her home state don't love her. Hell, Charlie Baker is our Governor. He's not running again, though, so my efforts are going to be on working to get the best Dem possible elected. He has just gone AWAL on the pandemic.

Absent with awesome leave?

Stacey Abrams and the many other organizers and organizations she worked with. It definitely wasn't a one-woman show. The WI Dems did a pretty creditable job in 2020 on voter turnout as well, and that paid off; whether that's reproducible and gets Ron Johnson out is an open question.

I think Florida is going to need a big lift in general. My completely uninformed sense is that U.S. elites generally ignore and shit on Florida in counterproductive and unfair ways. Maybe it really is hopeless, though?

70.1 Our wins in 1998, 2006, and 2018 were about identity in opposition to Republicanism, not about swinging for the fences, don't you think? Just as our losses in 1994, 2010, and 2014 were about identity on the other side. Clinton in 92 and 96, Obama in 08 and 12, Biden in 20 -- no swinging for the fences in any of those races. In each case, they came in on 'my God, what a mess the Republicans have made.' None of them were running on some kind of new New Deal. Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016 came in on Dems Suck, with a healthy side, from the media, of 'don't worry, they're not really going to do anything wild -- except tax cuts, but those will help everyone.' The unspoken final clause being 'that owns a media outlet.'

People with more book learning can and will correct me, but it seems to me that experience shows that if you think it's about swinging for the fences, you're playing the wrong sport.

I'm not elite, but I'm a little bit guilty of that. Sorry.

78 to 76.

76.1 Absolutely not a one-woman show, as SA points out. Using her name is just a short-hand. Agreed on the Wis Dems, and maybe they can pull it off again!

I feel like people overstate the Abrams effect. She's a strong candidate both in terms of personal appeal and organizational success, and it's important to run good candidates, but mostly what's happening is that Atlanta is growing rapidly and is also moving left. Which is why Abrams actually lost, and then Biden and Ossoff and Warnock won.

I think "decent execution" is ultimately more important than politics.

Running a Black man named Barack Hussein Obama in 2008 was a swing for the fences. That worked out better than most other things that have been tried.

That said, I would be very happy if we could put together a game made out of base hits, doubles, and stolen bases. Focus on execution, building out party infrastructure, long term vision. I'm not seeing a lot of that from current Democratic leadership.

As best I can tell, they've made consistent attempts to turn the 2016 and 2020 campaigns into infrastructure. The hidden downside is that they expect me to do stuff and I'm tired.

I don't know about vision.

Vision is in Biden's Medicare plan, along with dental and hearing.

I think Obama blowing away Howard Dean's "50 state strategy" infrastructure after 2008 was a huge mistake. Its too bad those guys never got along.

Centrists don't want to hear it but "Legal Weed and Everybody Gets Dental Coverage" is a strong platform.

Meth addicts have the greater need for dentists.

We had legal weed on the ballot and our popular two term governor got more votes in 2020 than he got in 2016 and still lost by 10 points. Weed won by 13. Republican candidates were not pro-weed.

If you look at the polling trajectory, you see that Republicans got a good bump from the BLM protests in Portland, which is why that talked about it, and what socialists even centrists Democrats would be, incessantly.

The Republican campaign here -- and maybe even in NH -- was a constant barrage of 'Dems are swinging for the fences on guns, gays, anarchy, socialism etc.' Were they crazy to make such a big show of opposing what people actually wanted? Evidently not.

Focus on execution, building out party infrastructure, long term vision. I'm not seeing a lot of that from current Democratic leadership.

I agree with this. Parties in the US are skeleton organizations held together with chewing gum and bailing wire. Trump needed to win the nomination in 2016, so he had to be in a party, but he showed what I think everyone understood -- that it's a paper tiger. Not even a paper tiger, more like a paper capybara. The Democratic party could be doing a bunch of things if it was built, staffed, and funded to be doing them. It just isn't. And no one wants to do the work (and spend the money) of making it into an organization that could do those things, because it would still be a shell waiting to be taken over by some start-up every few years.

Or, worse yet, it would wield actual power at the behest of . . . who, exactly?

Candidates win elections, with messaging and infrastructure they've largely created. The parties are shells that host elections and picnics, schedule debates, and, because of the way contribution laws are written, provide a way for particular people to funnel money to particular nominees. Parties don't make policy in any real sense: they adopt a platform, but it's a marketing document everyone is free to ignore before the ink is dry.

'Dems are swinging for the fences on guns, gays, anarchy, socialism etc

Sure, but that's their message whether we swing for the fences or not. Republicans don't exist in the same reality we do, so changing our reality to fit their whims isn't going to fix anything.

The Democratic party could be doing a bunch of things if it was built, staffed, and funded to be doing them. It just isn't.

From the perspective of a local party official in a purple state, this is absolutely true. A well-run national party would figure out how to get us resources and provide us with infrastructure to strengthen our ability to inform and mobilize voters. The one thing that we do have is Act Blue, and that's a platform that evolved independently of the Democratic establishment.

89.3. Here it was more "Nancy Pelosi ate your balls." It was barely even Lee Atwater-ized.

I'm not saying we should change our reality based on their whims. I am saying, though, that the idea that we would totally win if only we ran on X -- where our supposed support of X is the principal line of successful attack from the other side -- seems more than a little underdeveloped.

It's completely ridiculous that we buy software on a county-party-by-county-party basis -- that there isn't even a state, much less national, standard for data coding and tagging. I think we did a pretty good job in our county in 19/20, but we were basically completely on our own. But the state party is like 6 people, none with any power at all. If we did have them picking vendors and setting standards, they'd probably mess it up, because most counties are small and rural, and we really do elect officers giving counties equal votes, regardless of size, regardless of whether they can't get even 30% of voters to vote for our candidates. And a national standard would work for larger organizations with paid staff, but overwhelm the volunteer retirees executing most party processes. Just to do one simple and obviously helpful thing you'd have to re-invent the party.

Just like the various vote monitoring systems the various campaigns and states had in the 2020 primaries. Do you empower the national party to pick one vendor? Or do you let campaigns create their own tracking and alert system?

I am saying, though, that the idea that we would totally win if only we ran on X -- where our supposed support of X is the principal line of successful attack from the other side -- seems more than a little underdeveloped.

OK, but the theory of "we'll give them candidates who attack the positions of our own side and maybe the Republicans will stop hitting us" is at least equally dismal in practice and creates additional damage by alienating the party's core supporters.

At least running on a set of shared, left of center issues X, Y, and Z provides a framework that supports a broader party message and creates a mandate to get things done once in office. Running on a platform of "I'm not like those other Dems" undermines all that.

Do you empower the national party to pick one vendor? Or do you let campaigns create their own tracking and alert system?

How do the Republicans handle this sort of thing?

we'll give them candidates who attack the positions of our own side and maybe the Republicans will stop hitting us

Citation needed.

95 The thing is, Nancy Pelosi can win as Nancy Pelosi in her district. No one can win as Nancy Pelosi in my district. Do you want a Senate full of Joe Manchins? Or do you want 30 Senate seats altogether?

Voters and districts are different. Of course candidates are going to be different.

Right. I'd like zero Sinemas and two Kellys. She's just a bad person and not a particularly good candidate. I'm thrilled that Manchin managed to win in WV, and I would like for him to be the 55th vote instead of the 50th. I wish Manchin were a bit more like Doug Jones, but Jones didn't get reelected so what are you going to do? We need people like Jones or Tester winning in states like NC, ME, PA, OH, FL etc. and if we get a Manchin too that's a luxury.

Citation needed.

What about that raft of House moderates who gleefully worked to tank Build Back Better, and who will be the first ones out of a job when the red wave happens?

What makes you think that they are motivated by a belief that taking the position they've taken will prevent Republicans from bashing them? They know they are going to be in a tough fight that they probably won't survive. Because their constituents aren't going to turn out for them if they go along with Nancy Pelosi. They are desperately trying to stay above water with voters in their districts.

I get that you think they are wrong about how to do that -- because you know their constituents better than they do, apparently -- but I don't see any reason at all to construct a myth about them cowering before the Republican onslaught while actually thinking Republicans can be appeased by voting one way or another on some bill.

I endorse UPETGI's points in 99. Particularly with regard to Sinema.

70: A parting thought: review the thread from the day of the insurrection and consider how welm the judgments and predictions have played out thus far.

OK. I went back and reviewed and in general I do not see wildly off predictions. I do think there was some (in my view misplaced optimism (cough, pf, cough), but the median comment did not exhibit sanguinity.

103: too late, he's already Emersonned off.

I've been here long enough to remember when people left mostly because of Halford.

And then even Halford left because of Halford.

It was the most in-character thing he's ever done.

(in my view misplaced optimism (cough, pf, cough)

Yeah, no question. In my defense, even Mitch McConnell briefly thought that insurrection was a bridge too far.

Charlie, are you aware of that Broockman paper that finds elected officials erroneously think their districts are more conservative than they are?

Does that include counting who shows up to vote?

Moby: I remember reading a paper about Reps and the communications they get from their districts. And yeah, it turns out that there are all sorts reasons that conservative voices from their districts get amplified and liberal voices get muffled. So that in the end, they get a message from their district is more conservative than the actual *voters* (not merely citizens). A simple example I remember, is that when prioritizing who gets face or phone time, it always goes to wealthier people and businessmen, not Dirty F**kin' Hippies.

Yeah, money in politics is getting worse.

Full House's cast has had some issues:

Death
Prison
Billionaire
Target of brutal Alanis Morissette song
Other Billionaire

Wrong thread.

To someone looking at the fucking archives who finds this outside of the context of the other active threads at the time: It didn't make much sense in the right thread either.

109/111: isn't part of this effect explained by them being more likely to send death threats?

109 No, thanks, that's interesting, although not surprising.