The 2022 midterms and beyond

[hntnhole]

14 hours ago, ErosWired said:

Not that there’s a significant distinction.

Welllllllllll ..... that entity has been called the "great deceiver" ....... but there's nothing "great" about that woman, other than the depths of her vacancy, maybe.  

[hntnhole]

On 9/3/2022 at 7:10 AM, NEDenver said:

I think I could easily get behind Adam Kinzinger.

<<<polite cough>>>

I don't think that's quite what JimInWisc meant by "get behind" ...... 

 

[hntnhole]

On 9/1/2022 at 2:33 AM, BootmanLA said:

So what are your thoughts on how the midterms are going to turn out?

As a Liberal, I am cautiously optimistic, for two reasons:

1.  I think there are countless very, very pissed off women, determined to vote the "R's" (meaning repressives) out of office.  There are a number of R's (meaning Republicans) who are embarrassed by where the GOP is now, can't bring themselves to vote for a Dem, and simply will refrain from voting. 

2.  There are countless GLBTQ (and their supporters) that smell the coffee about to boil over, and will vote against the eventual cancellation of gay marriage rights, other non-glbtq folks of good will who will also vote that way.  There are also many R's who are not infused with Cheeto-Head's poisonous shit, who will either not vote at all, or change their registration.  

3.  I also think it's way past high time to go after these "churches" that preach political insurrection, while ignoring the founding principles of what they claim to honor.  When I read/hear about some candidate blathering about 'returning this country to it's "Christian" precepts, I could just hurl.  I say, tax them right out of business, and give the money to the poor. 

In short, there are more than enough people of good will to throw these hatemongers out of office, and replace them with decent minded men and women.  And all we have to do is make sure to vote Straight-ticket Democratic.  At the Federal level, the only way the Republicans can gain seats in either House is if the above-mentioned folks are too damn lazy to vote.  At the local level, in some areas the hatemongers do outnumber the progressives, and we can only hope that the Federal elections seat Liberal majorities in both houses, so Congress can pass progressive legislation into law - kinda like a row of dominos - one bill after another after another after another, reinforcing the foundations of the Democratic Republic, seemingly now so threatened. 

 

[Guest]

On 9/4/2022 at 3:22 PM, hntnhole said:

As a Liberal, I am cautiously optimistic, for two reasons:

1.  I think there are countless very, very pissed off women, determined to vote the "R's" (meaning repressives) out of office.  There are a number of R's (meaning Republicans) who are embarrassed by where the GOP is now, can't bring themselves to vote for a Dem, and simply will refrain from voting. 

2.  There are countless GLBTQ (and their supporters) that smell the coffee about to boil over, and will vote against the eventual cancellation of gay marriage rights, other non-glbtq folks of good will who will also vote that way.  There are also many R's who are not infused with Cheeto-Head's poisonous shit, who will either not vote at all, or change their registration.  

3.  I also think it's way past high time to go after these "churches" that preach political insurrection, while ignoring the founding principles of what they claim to honor.  When I read/hear about some candidate blathering about 'returning this country to it's "Christian" precepts, I could just hurl.  I say, tax them right out of business, and give the money to the poor. 

In short, there are more than enough people of good will to throw these hatemongers out of office, and replace them with decent minded men and women.  And all we have to do is make sure to vote Straight-ticket Democratic.  At the Federal level, the only way the Republicans can gain seats in either House is if the above-mentioned folks are too damn lazy to vote.  At the local level, in some areas the hatemongers do outnumber the progressives, and we can only hope that the Federal elections seat Liberal majorities in both houses, so Congress can pass progressive legislation into law - kinda like a row of dominos - one bill after another after another after another, reinforcing the foundations of the Democratic Republic, seemingly now so threatened. 

 

it’s the economy  

 

[Shotsfired]

I don't think either side should be proud of themselves. 

I think what we saw was the American voter waking up to the belief that elections matter, and that Democracy is more fragile than they think.

I think you also saw anger over constantly rehashing old battles  Its frustrating having to deal with abortion again for men and absolutely infuriating for women. 

And people are fed up with extremists left and right.

[BootmanLA]

18 hours ago, Shotsfired said:

I don't think either side should be proud of themselves. 

I think what we saw was the American voter waking up to the belief that elections matter, and that Democracy is more fragile than they think.

I think you also saw anger over constantly rehashing old battles  Its frustrating having to deal with abortion again for men and absolutely infuriating for women. 

And people are fed up with extremists left and right.

Sorry - but I call BS on the "left and right" bit.

Only one side is infuriating women and frustrating men by cooking up abortion bans.

Only one side is making democracy fragile by trying to limit voting and enable the overturning of elections.

To mention issues not addressed in your post:

Only one side is pushing for legislation to overturn same-sex marriage.

Only one side is actively blocking addressing long-standing, systemic racism in this country.

Only one side is actively blocking addressing climate change, which is an existential threat to our continued life on this planet.

Only one side is ... I could go on and on, but the point is simple: one side wants to make the world better for people in general, and the other side wants to make the world better for themselves and their ilk only. It's a  never-ending battle because those who oppose change will always oppose change and will have to be dragged kicking and screaming into a better future - one they're always ready, at the drop of a hat, to vote out of existence if they for one moment gain the levers of power.

Are there leftist extremists? Sure, but they don't drive policy for the progressive side. The cuckoos on the right, meanwhile, dominate their party. 

[hntnhole]

Thank you, BootmanLA, for the comprehensive reply.

When ShotsFired mentions 'Americans waking up ...', I do think he's got a point.  Civics isn't taught in public schools anymore, and the resulting ignorance has been showing for some years now.  But, the American voting population managed to wake up in time to take the requisite action.  This time.  

But it's not just abortion rights: it's a comprehensive effort to destroy Democracy - i.e. the idea that active participation in Government is required of the citizens.  Now that Orange Jesus has thrown his Cheeto-colored pompadour into the ring again (reasons are debatable, of course), we're in for another tiresome shitstorm sucking up the energy of everyone.  

[ErosWired]

I’m not so optimistic.

The underlying driver of the populist unrest is inequity, and that has not changed. Too much wealth is concentrated in the hands of too few, and systems are arranged to make it more so. The wealth and power of the culture accrue to the cities in unequal proportion to the countryside. The disfavored and dispossessed are tired and bitter and fed up with it, and you can see it laid bare on every political map.

Nature seeks states of equilibrium, along paths of least resistance. This applies here as well. The dispossessed and disenfranchised will seek equity with the wealthy and powerful not by trying to lift themselves to that level - which requires more energy - but by dragging them down, removing their power, rights, and privilege, eliminating wealth.

The powerful and wealthy are not strongly incentivized to raise the dispossessed to their level, because doing so would mean that their own power and wealth would cease to have relative value; its value is dependent on the inequity.

What we begin to see now is the inequity metastasizing as the ultra-wealthy (Trump, Musk) begin to manipulate the disenfranchised using their own terms and  distorting populist movements to deepen cultural division.

Trump didn’t create Trumpism, he simply correctly identified the festering state of unrest and capitalized on it. What makes him reprehensible is that he’s perfectly willing to advance and enrich himself by drawing callously from a national sea of pain and suffering.

So until the inequity is somehow resolved, it’s hard to sea how any of this begins to change in a meaningful way.

[BootmanLA]

4 hours ago, ErosWired said:

I’m not so optimistic.

The underlying driver of the populist unrest is inequity, and that has not changed. Too much wealth is concentrated in the hands of too few, and systems are arranged to make it more so. The wealth and power of the culture accrue to the cities in unequal proportion to the countryside. The disfavored and dispossessed are tired and bitter and fed up with it, and you can see it laid bare on every political map.

That is true. But if that were the only underlying issue, all that rage and bitterness would be targeted at the people in power, who are overwhelmingly supportive of Republicans. Money has a way of seeking protection from those who want to maintain the money status quo.

One can argue, of course, whether particular policies are especially helpful to those at the bottom and middle of the scale (for instance, the Covid-era stimulus checks). One can argue whether such policies are sufficiently targeted at those who need them most (as in the student loan forgiveness program). But there is no arguing that Republicans offer no such policies, or at best crumbs from the massive giveaways they engineer for their wealthy donors.

So why, one might ask, do Republicans still garner support from populists at the lower end of the income/wealth spectrum? Hint: they're almost uniformly white, and substantially more male than female. Republicans excel at dividing people and causing resentment on the basis of race and ethnicity, and to a lesser extent sex; it's always "those" people who are taking the jobs, getting the things that these voters' parents used to get and took for granted. It's the immigrants, the "lazy welfare recipients" (ie Blacks), the angry feminist women who have taken all the opportunity from white men with high school educations or less. 

And we (that is, Democrats/progressives/liberals) are horrible at messaging why that isn't so - in part, because the real answers are complex. How much things like automation and offshoring and so forth affect the jobs market is a complicated analysis, but that makes it easier for the GOP to say "brown people took your job". And easier for them to scream "socialism!" at any attempt to rebalance things more fairly. 

It's much simpler to hammer home the point that GOP fat cats pocket all the savings from offshoring, from automation, from all the things that took good blue collar jobs out of the reach of so many Americans, but that requires a commitment to disgorge excessive corporate profits that today's Democratic party just doesn't have. 

[PozBearWI]

@BootmanLA I fear there are legion of our fellow citizens who seek a king more than a president.  Maybe not in name but in effect.  Our progression to oligarchy appears to be well on its way.  And yet, perhaps some of that may be crumbling if Twitter, FTX, even Amazon are the canary in the mine.  A little too soon to determine how the Republican's will organize.  45 certainly didn't bring in the votes...

[NEDenver]

I don’t think it’s as true that Democrats suck at messaging as it is that the people who control media apparatus are determined to minimize the spread of the Democrats’ message.

[hntnhole]

5 hours ago, ErosWired said:

The underlying driver of the populist unrest is inequity

Of course.  The underlying question therefore becomes, Why Is This So?  

 

5 hours ago, ErosWired said:

The powerful and wealthy are not strongly incentivized to raise the dispossessed to their level, because doing so would mean that their own power and wealth would cease to have relative value; its value is dependent on the inequity

Obviously.  Which means, therefore, exactly what needs to happen?

 

5 hours ago, ErosWired said:

he simply correctly identified the festering state of unrest and capitalized on it.

Certainly.  Hardly intelligent, yet quite clever, he pried up the rocks under which this inequity - or better, fear of loss of dominance - has festered for centuries. Now.  What institution in this Nation has so thoroughly described the very definition of "inequity", that the perceived dominance of one group of citizens - terrified of losing their (here's a hint) privilege, that they will do anything - literally anything - to preserve it?  Witness 1/6/21.  Trump (the individual) isn't more than a fart in a windstorm.  The fears he stirred up, the fires he fanned, have been with us for centuries.  

 

5 hours ago, ErosWired said:

The dispossessed and disenfranchised will seek equity with the wealthy and powerful not by trying to lift themselves to that level - which requires more energy - but by dragging them down, removing their power, rights, and privilege, eliminating wealth.

I cannot agree.  The dispossessed and disenfranchised want only equal opportunity, equal rights, equality before the Law.  Obviously there are some that want to grab whatever they can get - and it's hardly a wonder.  They've been disenfranchised for centuries, down to this very day.  The group in question well-deserved the "covid checks", just like everyone did.  What they want and deserve is the equal opportunity to lift themselves out of the circumstances imposed upon them.  

 

5 hours ago, ErosWired said:

Trump didn’t create Trumpism, he simply correctly identified the festering state of unrest and capitalized on it. What makes him reprehensible is that he’s perfectly willing to advance and enrich himself by drawing callously from a national sea of pain and suffering.

So until the inequity is somehow resolved, it’s hard to sea how any of this begins to change in a meaningful way.

 

This question has gone unanswered for centuries now, and the answer is both utterly simple and seemingly impossible at the same time.  There simply needs to be a national awakening, a reckoning, and a substantial course-correction,  These maga people are scared to fucking death that their sense of privilege will be erased, as well it should have been many many years ago.  There needs to be a complete and thorough national effort to finally, finally deal with the filth of our forefathers, once and for all.  It may take work on the Constitution - written in large part by wealthy men who got that way off the bleeding backs of their "property" - to right the wrongs.  One thing is crystalline however:  unless we figure it out, we won't - and don't deserve to survive as the "shining city upon a hill made by enslaving our fellow human beings", as a particularly vacant man once intoned.  

 

24 minutes ago, BootmanLA said:

So why, one might ask, do Republicans still garner support from populists at the lower end of the income/wealth spectrum? Hint: they're almost uniformly white, and substantially more male than female. Republicans excel at dividing people and causing resentment on the basis of race and ethnicity, and to a lesser extent sex; it's always "those" people who are taking the jobs, getting the things that these voters' parents used to get and took for granted. It's the immigrants, the "lazy welfare recipients" (ie Blacks), the angry feminist women who have taken all the opportunity from white men with high school educations or less. 

Exactly. 

One political party actually tries to improve opportunities, the other offers only efforts to placate the repressed and keep them "in their place".  For that matter, anyone that isn't like them is to be targeted.  Truly decent Americans of other faith traditions (recall those ridiculous little boys with the tiki torches from Walmart) walking (hardly marching) mouthing an ancient, unspeakable hatred fomented by their Caucasian forbears.  More of "the other" to hate.  Ever wonder why the British slave-traders chose Africa to steal human beings from and sell into slavery?  Because they were clearly, visibly different than Caucasians.  Can't be mistaking pale people for slaves now, can we.  They have to look waaay different from "us".  To the immigration issue:  unless we have Native American blood coursing through our veins, we are either immigrants ourselves, or descendants of immigrants.  

I trace this current self-reflection of the American People back to the murder of George Floyd.  Millions of American Caucasians - drifting through their privileged lives - nodding in agreement with the commentary of the disenfranchised, yet unable to recognize any of the causes in themselves - were suddenly, violently hit directly in the face by their complicity in the repression.  Unless we are actively working to dislodge the inhuman depravity of Institutionalized white privilege, we are actively (if passively) supporting it.  Looking the other way just hasn't cut it for all these years, and there's no reason to expect it to somehow redress the situation.  

The Republikans have been obliquely using this fear of losing white privilege to their own advantage (I mean personal advantage) since the early 1960's.  It simply cannot continue.

 

Thanks to both ErosWired and BootmanLA for the excellent discussion. Apparently there are others who responded while I was writing this - so a round of thanks to every guy. 

[hntnhole]

39 minutes ago, JimInWisc said:

45 certainly didn't bring in the votes...

I think we should pass a resolution in the new Congress to the effect that there was no 45th President of the United States.  Only a mickey that slipped through on a bed of hatred.

[ErosWired]

47 minutes ago, hntnhole said:

The dispossessed and disenfranchised want only equal opportunity, equal rights, equality before the Law.  Obviously there are some that want to grab whatever they can get - and it's hardly a wonder.  They've been disenfranchised for centuries, down to this very day.  The group in question well-deserved the "covid checks", just like everyone did.  What they want and deserve is the equal opportunity to lift themselves out of the circumstances imposed upon them.  

My dear good man, I commend your charitable heart, but I have lived in Appalachia all my life, amongst the rednecks, ‘white trash’, and hillbillies. I can say such things because they’re my gene pool. I come from hill-and-holler dirt farmers, and I can tell you that many, many people of this ilk are not nobly seeking ‘only’ what is equal - they want that, plus what they figure they’re by God owed, and if they can’t have it, can’t nobody have it. They figure that if a man hasn’t been as miserable as they are, they’re undeserving. Don’t imagine they’d stop at equal if they could swap places with the fat cats - a big part of what stirs their populism is plain jealousy and envy. They want the opportunity to lift themselves? Some of these bubbas can’t be bothered to lift their asses out of their lawn chairs to go fishing.

Your point about the fear of losing their ‘privilege’ is true, but it’s nuanced - the ‘privilege’ is worth relatively little for these people compared to those in the upper tiers of society. They fear losing the little privilege they have because it’s the thin line that separates them from the truly dispossessed below them in the social stratification. It may not be more than a smear of privilege, but it’s all he’s got. So hell yes, he’s going to come out swinging when somebody tries to take it.

[PozBearWI]

2 hours ago, hntnhole said:

I think we should pass a resolution in the new Congress to the effect that there was no 45th President of the United States.  Only a mickey that slipped through on a bed of hatred.

No matter who he is, he was 45.  No wishing can rewrite history.  History has its great times and its challenging times.  But pretending it didn't happen brings us down to his level.  We're better than that.