Vive la Resistance! aka non-Trump US politics

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

A good spot for this here, although it could easily be philosophy or any other thing as well.

While I was in Europe interviewers kept asking me how to define “privilege,” and I said that one way to look at it was who’s allowed to make mistakes. https://t.co/Lac475riWM

— Celeste Ng (@pronounced_ing) May 5, 2018

I've been reaching for how to describe what is 'privilege' for a long time. I think this just nails it: "Who’s allowed to make mistakes?"

[The Man]

Greg Sargent on Trump’s likely impact on the upcoming congressional election and how Democrats have been dealing with him. The short version is that while Trump’s approval rating has risen slightly, it’s still historically awful for this point of his presidency, and his strong disapproval ratings are much higher than his strong approval ratings, which points to an enthusiasm gap. Meanwhile, Democrats largely have been winning local and Congressional races by focusing on issues, despite the press’ narrative that the Democrats are just talking about Trump.

Sargent doesn’t really get into this, but while that may be the case at the national level, there isn’t one narrative that will win Congressional races. There are 435. Each district has its own political concerns, and candidates for each district will have to tailor their message to the district. As a result, you don’t have one consistent narrative between candidates from the same party throughout the country. That’s the entire reason Congressional districts even exist; different districts have different concerns, and the races naturally reflect that. This should be intuitively easy to understand, but political journalists mostly don’t understand policy (or, for that matter, politics) any better than they understand, say, technology, so this escapes an awful lot of reporting about Congress.

Anyway, Sargent is worth reading, and he links to Nate Silver and Ron Brownstein (NB: autoplay video in the latter), who are also worth reading. Sargent also points out, among other things, that insurance premium hikes are likely to occur shortly before the election date in November, and they are entirely the fault of Republicans’ sabotage of the ACA. Moreover, he links to Krugthulu, who points out that it’s unlikely that Republicans can escape blame for this.

Silver’s article also points out that just because a president’s approval ratings are relatively stable, that does not guarantee that they will continue to be so. Nixon is, of course, the most relevant case study here, and is explicitly cited in the headline, but Johnson and G.H.W. Bush also had catastrophic collapses in their approval ratings after relatively stable numbers in their first 500 days.

Brownstein largely focuses on how the Democrats’ national message will largely focus on healthcare and taxes, linking the two together. While political journalism has mostly treated them as two separate issues, voters haven’t perceived them that way; they’ve seen both as emblematic of ways Washington isn’t looking out for the little guy. As a result, Democrats have largely been running on policy issues rather than character issues.

I do have a couple of criticisms of Brownstein’s article: firstly, it presents the narrative that Hillary Clinton’s campaign focused on character issues at the expense of policy issues. While her advertising did largely focus on Trump’s character, she talked about policy throughout the campaign, and the media, including CNN (which published Brownstein’s article) refused to cover her policy discussion at all. Brownstein’s piece also focuses largely on the unemployment rate when discussing the economy, when of course other indicators like wages, workforce participation, and number of hours worked per week are equally important. Regardless, it’s worth reading.

Krugthulu goes through the history of sabotage (listen all y’all it’s a sabotage, LISTEN ALL Y’ALL IT’S A SABOTAGE… sorry). The metaphor he uses is termites, which is an appropriate one. I won’t attempt to summarise. Go read him.

I can’t stand it; I know you planned it I’ma set it straight, this Watergate

Anyway I’ll close off with a couple hilarious SNL videos just in case anyone missed them.

Michael Cohen Wiretap Cold Open - SNL - YouTube

A Kanye Place - SNL - YouTube

[SR71]

Trump Supporters "Tricked by the Devil" are Now Facing Financial Ruin: "I Feel So Stupid" | Alternet

Small business owners who supported Donald Trump are complaining about troubles hiring foreign seasonal labor the Lexington Herald-Leader reports.

The newspaper interviewed multiple landscaping business owners who claim they are unable to hire Americans for the same wages.

Haha, like they couldn't have seen that coming. Political and business geniuses!

[The Man]

Former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has pancreatic cancer, but it looks like they caught it early enough to operate and the surgery seems to have been successful. Too early to know if they got it all but it sounds promising. Fingers crossed for him & his family.

A statement from the family of @SenatorReid pic.twitter.com/7RT7vTW9BM

— Senator Harry Reid (@SenatorReid) May 14, 2018

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

This Twitter meltdown is going to be awesome.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

MAGA

show spoiler

two weeks ago today a white woman tried to call the police on about 8 black folks barbecuing. Today in that same spot this was the scene pic.twitter.com/ltxzZQe57h

— carvell (@carvellwallace) May 21, 2018

[davidm]

Originally Posted by The Man

... and the media, including CNN (which published Brownstein’s article) refused to cover her policy discussion at all.

Wow ... just, wow.

Evidence?

This place has become just as much of an echo chamber and hall of mirrors as any half-baked right-wing site, with nonsense like the above. Good luck in dislodging Trump in 2020, if you keep thinking like this.

[erimir]

Let's not get carried away with hyperbole!

One wouldn't want to look at this and say "They refused to cover Hillary's policies at all" rather than "they spent far more time on scandals for Clinton than for Trump, despite her scandals being far less significant and less substantiated, and her policies clearer, more detailed and less self-contradictory. The result was that Clinton coverage was dominated by scandals, especially one particular scandal of little relevance to governance, which made it seem highly significant, while Trump's was mostly based on policy and coverage of his scandals was diffuse, enabling him to be seen as the less corrupt and more honest candidate despite being, perhaps, the most corrupt and dishonest candidate ever."



No, we need measured takes that eschew hyperbole, like saying that the media and FBI/Comey played no role in Clinton's loss, and her loss by ~70,000 votes was solely due to her being "a shitty candidate." That's an appropriately nuanced claim.

Let's not concern ourselves with pushing back on media bias or FBI ratfucking/GOP pseudoscandals. Those have no effect on anything, and Democrats should just sit back and let them do their thing. And also only the Democratic candidate has any effect on anything, because only Democrats have agency.

So our primary concerns should be 1. not nominating Hillary Clinton again and 2. only nominating candidates that make davidm's thighs tingle.

[The Man]

Originally Posted by davidm

Wow ... just, wow.

Evidence?

This place has become just as much of an echo chamber and hall of mirrors as any half-baked right-wing site, with nonsense like the above. Good luck in dislodging Trump in 2020, if you keep thinking like this.

Two points re: policy coverage:

1. Hyperbole - Wikipedia, because you obviously need a refresher course in recognising it, or (more likely) you're being deliberately obtuse.

2. There are a number of studies going over how little coverage policy received; this great Vox piece links a few. Perhaps most startlingly, ABC, NBC, and CBS' primetime news gave three times more coverage to Clinton's email server than to all policy issues combined (IIRC, twenty-five minutes between the three networks). There's much more, but this work break is almost over.

Re: Comey, I also think this is necessary reading:

Let’s Talk About Bubbles and James Comey – Mother Jones

I may address other issues at some point but I am absolutely dead from work most of the time (note to davidm: that is also hyperbole) so it may be awhile.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Cry havok, and let slip the dogs of civic participation

Those who can vote, please keep all those nukes out of the hands of a fascist America.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

“Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage. Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are.”

― Augustine of Hippo

[The Man]

Rapist governor of Missouri resigns in disgrace; Roseanne Barr's heinous racism gets her crappy TV show cancelled. The fact that these occurred on the same day somehow seems significant.

(Also, Merriam-Webster also chimed in to say that both "cancelled" and "canceled" are accepted spellings. That also seems significant, as though the dictionary was throwing shade at Roseanne Barr.)

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

What about Bill Maher? After Roseanne Barr gets fired, conservatives cite joke comparing Trump to an ape https://t.co/3ssfUTnBnT pic.twitter.com/SLme4eTePJ

— Newsweek (@Newsweek) May 29, 2018

First they came for Roseanne and I was like "Hell yeah."
Then they came for Bill Maher and I was like "Holy shit. Is it my birthday?"

— The Failing New York Tim™ (@TimDuffy) May 29, 2018

You guys.

YOU GUYS.

Conservatives think they're going to avenge Roseanne and punish liberals by getting Bill Maher taken off the air.

LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

Oh no. *flails arms limply* Please don't. *falls asleep on couch*

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) May 29, 2018

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

President @realDonaldTrump: NO. Mexico will NEVER pay for a wall. Not now, not ever.

Sincerely, Mexico (all of us).

— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) May 30, 2018

[The Man]

Even if Bill Maher weren’t… eh… shall we say, not universally loved among the left, he’d still be a horrible example for right-wingers’ argument because ABC already fired him.

But beyond all that, reactionaries have demonstrated how poorly they understand the objections to Barr’s tweet in that, as awful as Maher can be, comparing Trump to an orangutan isn’t racist, so the two ‘jokes’ aren’t comparable.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Rosanne blames Ambien.

Sanofi's reply:

show spoiler

[specious_reasons]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

Rosanne blames Ambien.

Sanofi's reply:

Rosanne is very sorry she let the racism out. If she hadn't been on Ambien, it would have remained barely concealed.

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

What Happened to Jill Stein’s Recount Millions?

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Aww, Rosanne forgives the people who called her out.

[Kevlar]

Yet another day in Wonderland:

Congressional Candidate In Virginia Admits He's A Pedophile

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Today in Resistance we have an alliance between wind, solar, and *squints at Tweet* the oil industry.

This has got to be one for the record books. Oil industry joins with solar and wind industry to condemn Trump admin plan to prop up coal industry by forcing electric grid to buy coal power. Oil/wind/solar as allies? Fascinating times. pic.twitter.com/PmTRyw70SK

— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) June 1, 2018

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Days before primaries in California where a divided Dem coalition could cost us the House in November, Jane Sanders weighs in on unity. pic.twitter.com/HjbhvtVJdR

— The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer) June 3, 2018

[erimir]

One of the worst things about Bernie, IMO, is the people he surrounds himself with, and his spouse is no exception.

Interestingly enough, that's also one of the worst things about Hillary

Although she did purge a lot of the shit people for her 2016 run (like Mark Penn). The fact that I don't see Bernie purging some of his toxic surrogates is why I'm skeptical he'll do very well in 2020 if he runs. If his surrogate team for winning black votes in the South is still Nina Turner, Cornel West and Killer Mike... it's not going to go a whole lot better.

A younger, fresher candidate who is running on a progressive platform but without Hillary's baggage is going to be appealing to a lot of Bernie's base and have a lot more allies who say a lot less stupid shit (and more candidates in general will siphon off the voters who voted for Bernie because they didn't like Hillary moreso than because they loved him, which was a non-negligible chunk of his support).

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Today, I voted in America for the first time. Felt better than yelling at the telly. #BeTheChange #vote #CaliforniaPrimary2018 @RepAdamSchiff @AmandaRenteria

— Minnie Driver (@driverminnie) June 5, 2018

Read the replies.

I think I have a crush.