How has the Democrats pushed their agenda? They passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill and it didn't pass. They tried to pass a bigger spending bill that was cut from 6 trillion to 1.7 trillion because most of the party is not on the far left. And that didn't even pass. So how is the far left taking over?
As far as the economy is going everyone harps on inflation but stays mum on high employment and higher wages. Leave the market alone. It will sort itself out.
I'm happy in life now because I no longer have to worry how bad the Democrats screw up or how rotten the Republicans can get.
The whirlwind has finally come. A complete criminal scheme to defraud the American electorate. There are videos, tapes, signatures, documents and confessions. In completely admitted collusion are Trump, Pence (possibly), Grassley, Powell, Manafort, Eastman, Giuliani, Clark, a large group of sitting congressmen, and GOP functionaries at the highest levels in 7 states. All Republican. All completely guilty. Investigations are now ongoing at both the state and federal levels. One of the biggest crimes in American history and I get to watch it all unfold. I get to watch the end of the entire Republican party in my lifetime.
I do admire the prescience of the first Weekly Standard cover. 100 years from now, historians will broadly agree that Newt Gingrich helped break America.
The apparent paradox of pushing for "transformative" legislation despite razor-thin congressional margins is easily resolved. Precisely *because* the window is so narrow, progressives feel they need to move before it closes. The precedent is the ACA--a policy that helps a lot of people but had a short-term political cost when enacted. To progressives, winning elections isn't the point; it's what you do after you win. Just sitting there and hoping stuff that you have little control over (Covid, inflation) will go away so that you can win the next time isn't worth the bother. Address the issues that currently concern Americans? Most of those issues aren't easily addressable with policy. Inflation is global; supply-chain problems simply have to be worked through; all but the most anodyne efforts to address Covid elicit furious backlash. Simply prattling about "addressing the real issues" with no idea of what would work doesn't cut it.
"Or maybe you do, because elements of the temporarily ruling party seem deeply invested in denial, excuses, and wish-casting."
And then...
"In part, this is understandable: The GOP is rife with cranks, bigots, conspiracy theorists, and clowns with flamethrowers. So, how could Democrats possibly be losing to these guys. And yet."
The lack of self-awareness here that the last statement demonstrates what is communicated in the first statement is all we need to see to understand why the Democrats are sinking. Keep talking about the other political side that way and inflate your own being and purpose... while you get smashed by that other political side.
I think the conversations with the average voter are going to be very fun in about 10 years. Asking how they traded "more common sense on COVID" and "not defunding the police" and "woke-dumb liberals" worked out after the authoritarians took over. Someone's gonna feel pretty dumb - or maybe not? Seems like a lot of people out there like that future.
I'm not sure there is much choice at the moment. I scream messaging, but what I am really screaming is....attack the Trumpism brand. There was an article about liberals needing to push back on trolls sites that attack the Democratic brand. Democrats are a vast coalition now, made up of both liberals and conservatives. This wasn't strikingly apparent until after the election. Its as if all the people that use Inductive Reasoning moved to Dem and all those that use Deductive Reasoning moved Rep. They have a simpler thought pattern, a more cohesive group, and they are willing to burn it all down to be right over wine cooolers vs. whiskey, pepsi vs. coke, UA vs Nike. Except, I am a whiskey, coke drinking UA dressing liberal and I think you are a seditionist dupe who has never read a single page of James Madison's thoughts. Take my American flag off and put on the flag of your conspiracy theory confederates. We need to pass a national database for police officers, so bad apples cant move from one force to the next. We need to pass a child tax credit and supplement childcare instead of corporate welfare. We need a national medicine buyers club for over 60. Just focus on these 3 things, separately, it touches most demographics. And add the word seditionist to every chat room, every journal article, every broadcast....Seditionist Ted Cruz, Seditionist Taylor Greene, Seditionist Trump. Just do it for 3 months and see what happens.
Here in California the Dems biggest problem is the attack on single-family neighborhoods. This is being instigated through mandated zoning changes that allow 10 or more housing units to be added to any single-family lot. These laws are promoted as making housing more affordable, yet the real and inevitable effect of upzoning is that it makes properties more expensive, which has the further effect of squeezing would-be homeowners out of the market in favor of investors who have the access to capital to redevelop these properties.
There is no more kitchen table issue than whether you have a right to own the kitchen in which that table rests. Unlike the building industry and big tech, homeowners don't have lobbyists to defend their interests before elected officials, but we should at least have the media examining whether progressive housing policies will really solve climate change, equity, and affordability, or it's just a ruse to give developers unfettered access to redevelop urban neighborhoods.
This issue shouldn't just be on the media's radar, it should be blinking in the middle of the screen.
The question arises, with respect to Ruy's bill of particulars: who among the Democratic leadership is saying these things? Pelosi? Schumer? Hoyer? President Biden? Vice President Harris? DNC Chair Harrison? Any of the DNC vice chairs?
If not any of these people are spreading these unhelpful messages, what do you propose they do about it?
Is the problem really with the Democrats, or is it really a matter of the noise machine making up narratives and focusing laser-like on “the left” of the Democratic Party? I think we all know the answer.
The problem for Biden is that, as the saying goes, you dance with the one that brung you to the dance and two different, opposing suitors are claiming the title. The gap is one of age: a younger, woke Obama cohort from 2018 and an older, moderate Jim Clyburn one from 2020.
I might personally identify more with the latter, but frankly, I get that we didn't deliver the same landslide margins as in 2018 to claim a mandate. That means the path to actual legislation runs through a dozen or so Senate Republicans looking for a Trump offramp (if they exist, and I say a dozen because none will want to be the 10th vote overriding a filibuster and ending their careers). That leaves Manchin, who has actually proposed plausible legislative solutions, driving the train.
If you're a progressive swept into the House or Senate in 2018, you've already gotten rolled by the establishment on BBB because there just weren't the votes or a clear path to passage and something - infrastructure - was clearly better than nothing. Still, leadership overpromised and then caved. Voting rights, meanwhile, is existential, prompting a further debate on blowing up the filibuster. The problem here is that voting rights is viewed and messaged through the lens of race in the midst of a rightwing coup.
We keep having the wrong debates over bloated bills ticking off the constituency boxes versus nothing. The right blend of ECA reform and John Lewis could address the most dire problems; the rest will take more votes and more seats in both houses in 2022, which at the moment is a long shot. Unfortunately each side has a claim on Biden; he needs the Clyburn side for the Senate and the Bernie/AOC side for the House.
The progressives are understandably tired of taking one for the team, but while the broader public is with them generally on Covid, the economy and the social safety net, it balks at the particulars and the cost. That was the 2020 vote; no on Trump, meh on Dems. The progressives have to blink and serious Republicans have to get off their asses and commit to a democratic future. Period, full stop.
It seems to me that if the GOP wants to make this a contest between Trump and Biden, I can't see Biden losing except by statehouse vote controls. If he was to lose a legit election, people have an appalling lack of recollection about the former administration.
Losing the congress is another matter. I see way more deep left influence than I want to see. While we may not be a center right country, we aren't a progressive left country either. Dumb stuff like "Defund the Police" or "free college" will not tug at America's heartstrings.
I think that in the next few years, we are going to get the government we deserve. That is not to say that individuals will be getting the government they deserve or have worked for (as individuals), but that our society at large will--because this whole thing is a cooperative effort.
A large number of people and organizations have cooperated to bring us to this pass. There is more than enough blame to go around.
Most of that blame, rightly, belongs to the voters. They actually DO have the power to change things (at least for now). Why are politicians such pieces of excrement? because you incentivize them to be that way. You reward them for it. You elect and re-elect them.
Why does nothing happen in government? because that is the general consensus--you elect and re-elect people who work hard to make sure nothing much actually happens.
I could keep going, but you get the point.
The media owns a big chunk of that blame, as well. Their primary goal/interest is to make money. That shapes what news is reported and how it is reported. That means that most news is not very "serious," not very informative, and rather shallow. This goes not only for factual news but also for opinion writing. this extends to corporations, at large, whose only real interest is profit... and usually short term profit at best.
Even when it isn't, it is usually located somewhere that a lot of people never see or look ar and the people seeing and looking at it are, themselves, often not competent to make substantive judgments regarding it.
The politicians own some blame as well--mostly due to lack of courage, lack of principle, and lack of actual leadership.
When I give it due consideration, I am actually amazed that things have gone as well as they have for as long as they have.
I am not so bold as to go on record as to what that government will be or how (exactly) it will function. I will be so bold as to say that, at first, it will seem like pretty much any other government (on the surface) and that a lot of people will find it acceptable for a variety of reasons.
It will slowly get worse. It will slowly get more noticeable. More openly authoritarian and corrupt.
But as long as it is someone else getting the shaft it will remain acceptable... at least to those not getting the shaft (and how would they really know, anyway).
In the end, I think we need a true and extreme excrement extravaganza to drive a lot of things home to people. Obviously the last round wasn't extreme enough or excrement-y enough.
Don't worry, we will get there. It is hard to overcome raw emotion, unenlightened self-interest, ambition and greed.
Then we might straighten our act out for a bit, only to return to the same cycle again. We happen to be unlucky enough to (as the Chinese curse goes) live in interesting times.
I am currently reading a book (fiction) titled "Isolate." It is speculative fiction, set in a world that is similar to ours but with some clear differences (one of which is that there are people who are empaths, who can sense emotion, manipulate people, and even use emotion to kill). The author is L E Modesitt, who specializes in this kind of stuff. The book is mostly about politics and political structures and human interaction in those contexts. It is clearly informed and shaped by the American experience of the last several years/decades.
Some interesting ideas in there. The story isn't action filled and exciting... but that isn't its purpose. It would be a horrible movie or TV show LOL.
I and a few others have been asking Charlie to have more left of center guests on his show. Charlie, thanks for following through on the letter of our request but not so much on the spirit of our request. Instead you went and found a liberal that just agrees with you.
When Amanda and Tim fill in for you periodically they bring on guests that don't necessarily agree with them and they have fascinating conversations with lots of give and take.
I wish you would follow their example. It'd be nice to hear you have a conversation with liberals who don't necessarily agree with your takes and listen to you both hash it out. We complain about echo chambers all of the time and it looks to me like you've set up the Daily Bulwark podcast to be it's own echo chamber about how stupid and hapless the Democrats are and then complain when some fail to immediately join the Grand Coalition to Save Democracy(TM).
If you are taking requests for podcasts, ruth ben ghiat (CAVEAT - I am a Lucid substack subscriber) or Timothy Snyder (CAVEAT - Thinking About substack subsriber). His book On Tyranny is a great book and written for this very moment.
You know, if you are taking requests, these are my two!
How has the Democrats pushed their agenda? They passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill and it didn't pass. They tried to pass a bigger spending bill that was cut from 6 trillion to 1.7 trillion because most of the party is not on the far left. And that didn't even pass. So how is the far left taking over?
As far as the economy is going everyone harps on inflation but stays mum on high employment and higher wages. Leave the market alone. It will sort itself out.
I'm happy in life now because I no longer have to worry how bad the Democrats screw up or how rotten the Republicans can get.
The whirlwind has finally come. A complete criminal scheme to defraud the American electorate. There are videos, tapes, signatures, documents and confessions. In completely admitted collusion are Trump, Pence (possibly), Grassley, Powell, Manafort, Eastman, Giuliani, Clark, a large group of sitting congressmen, and GOP functionaries at the highest levels in 7 states. All Republican. All completely guilty. Investigations are now ongoing at both the state and federal levels. One of the biggest crimes in American history and I get to watch it all unfold. I get to watch the end of the entire Republican party in my lifetime.
I do admire the prescience of the first Weekly Standard cover. 100 years from now, historians will broadly agree that Newt Gingrich helped break America.
The apparent paradox of pushing for "transformative" legislation despite razor-thin congressional margins is easily resolved. Precisely *because* the window is so narrow, progressives feel they need to move before it closes. The precedent is the ACA--a policy that helps a lot of people but had a short-term political cost when enacted. To progressives, winning elections isn't the point; it's what you do after you win. Just sitting there and hoping stuff that you have little control over (Covid, inflation) will go away so that you can win the next time isn't worth the bother. Address the issues that currently concern Americans? Most of those issues aren't easily addressable with policy. Inflation is global; supply-chain problems simply have to be worked through; all but the most anodyne efforts to address Covid elicit furious backlash. Simply prattling about "addressing the real issues" with no idea of what would work doesn't cut it.
"Or maybe you do, because elements of the temporarily ruling party seem deeply invested in denial, excuses, and wish-casting."
And then...
"In part, this is understandable: The GOP is rife with cranks, bigots, conspiracy theorists, and clowns with flamethrowers. So, how could Democrats possibly be losing to these guys. And yet."
The lack of self-awareness here that the last statement demonstrates what is communicated in the first statement is all we need to see to understand why the Democrats are sinking. Keep talking about the other political side that way and inflate your own being and purpose... while you get smashed by that other political side.
I think the conversations with the average voter are going to be very fun in about 10 years. Asking how they traded "more common sense on COVID" and "not defunding the police" and "woke-dumb liberals" worked out after the authoritarians took over. Someone's gonna feel pretty dumb - or maybe not? Seems like a lot of people out there like that future.
I'm not sure there is much choice at the moment. I scream messaging, but what I am really screaming is....attack the Trumpism brand. There was an article about liberals needing to push back on trolls sites that attack the Democratic brand. Democrats are a vast coalition now, made up of both liberals and conservatives. This wasn't strikingly apparent until after the election. Its as if all the people that use Inductive Reasoning moved to Dem and all those that use Deductive Reasoning moved Rep. They have a simpler thought pattern, a more cohesive group, and they are willing to burn it all down to be right over wine cooolers vs. whiskey, pepsi vs. coke, UA vs Nike. Except, I am a whiskey, coke drinking UA dressing liberal and I think you are a seditionist dupe who has never read a single page of James Madison's thoughts. Take my American flag off and put on the flag of your conspiracy theory confederates. We need to pass a national database for police officers, so bad apples cant move from one force to the next. We need to pass a child tax credit and supplement childcare instead of corporate welfare. We need a national medicine buyers club for over 60. Just focus on these 3 things, separately, it touches most demographics. And add the word seditionist to every chat room, every journal article, every broadcast....Seditionist Ted Cruz, Seditionist Taylor Greene, Seditionist Trump. Just do it for 3 months and see what happens.
Here in California the Dems biggest problem is the attack on single-family neighborhoods. This is being instigated through mandated zoning changes that allow 10 or more housing units to be added to any single-family lot. These laws are promoted as making housing more affordable, yet the real and inevitable effect of upzoning is that it makes properties more expensive, which has the further effect of squeezing would-be homeowners out of the market in favor of investors who have the access to capital to redevelop these properties.
There is no more kitchen table issue than whether you have a right to own the kitchen in which that table rests. Unlike the building industry and big tech, homeowners don't have lobbyists to defend their interests before elected officials, but we should at least have the media examining whether progressive housing policies will really solve climate change, equity, and affordability, or it's just a ruse to give developers unfettered access to redevelop urban neighborhoods.
This issue shouldn't just be on the media's radar, it should be blinking in the middle of the screen.
The question arises, with respect to Ruy's bill of particulars: who among the Democratic leadership is saying these things? Pelosi? Schumer? Hoyer? President Biden? Vice President Harris? DNC Chair Harrison? Any of the DNC vice chairs?
If not any of these people are spreading these unhelpful messages, what do you propose they do about it?
Is the problem really with the Democrats, or is it really a matter of the noise machine making up narratives and focusing laser-like on “the left” of the Democratic Party? I think we all know the answer.
The problem for Biden is that, as the saying goes, you dance with the one that brung you to the dance and two different, opposing suitors are claiming the title. The gap is one of age: a younger, woke Obama cohort from 2018 and an older, moderate Jim Clyburn one from 2020.
I might personally identify more with the latter, but frankly, I get that we didn't deliver the same landslide margins as in 2018 to claim a mandate. That means the path to actual legislation runs through a dozen or so Senate Republicans looking for a Trump offramp (if they exist, and I say a dozen because none will want to be the 10th vote overriding a filibuster and ending their careers). That leaves Manchin, who has actually proposed plausible legislative solutions, driving the train.
If you're a progressive swept into the House or Senate in 2018, you've already gotten rolled by the establishment on BBB because there just weren't the votes or a clear path to passage and something - infrastructure - was clearly better than nothing. Still, leadership overpromised and then caved. Voting rights, meanwhile, is existential, prompting a further debate on blowing up the filibuster. The problem here is that voting rights is viewed and messaged through the lens of race in the midst of a rightwing coup.
We keep having the wrong debates over bloated bills ticking off the constituency boxes versus nothing. The right blend of ECA reform and John Lewis could address the most dire problems; the rest will take more votes and more seats in both houses in 2022, which at the moment is a long shot. Unfortunately each side has a claim on Biden; he needs the Clyburn side for the Senate and the Bernie/AOC side for the House.
The progressives are understandably tired of taking one for the team, but while the broader public is with them generally on Covid, the economy and the social safety net, it balks at the particulars and the cost. That was the 2020 vote; no on Trump, meh on Dems. The progressives have to blink and serious Republicans have to get off their asses and commit to a democratic future. Period, full stop.
O/T: Breyer to retire. https://www.aol.com/justice-stephen-breyer-retire-supreme-165900528.html
Looks like somebody's been reading tea leaves. Or maybe this newsletter.
It seems to me that if the GOP wants to make this a contest between Trump and Biden, I can't see Biden losing except by statehouse vote controls. If he was to lose a legit election, people have an appalling lack of recollection about the former administration.
Losing the congress is another matter. I see way more deep left influence than I want to see. While we may not be a center right country, we aren't a progressive left country either. Dumb stuff like "Defund the Police" or "free college" will not tug at America's heartstrings.
I think that in the next few years, we are going to get the government we deserve. That is not to say that individuals will be getting the government they deserve or have worked for (as individuals), but that our society at large will--because this whole thing is a cooperative effort.
A large number of people and organizations have cooperated to bring us to this pass. There is more than enough blame to go around.
Most of that blame, rightly, belongs to the voters. They actually DO have the power to change things (at least for now). Why are politicians such pieces of excrement? because you incentivize them to be that way. You reward them for it. You elect and re-elect them.
Why does nothing happen in government? because that is the general consensus--you elect and re-elect people who work hard to make sure nothing much actually happens.
I could keep going, but you get the point.
The media owns a big chunk of that blame, as well. Their primary goal/interest is to make money. That shapes what news is reported and how it is reported. That means that most news is not very "serious," not very informative, and rather shallow. This goes not only for factual news but also for opinion writing. this extends to corporations, at large, whose only real interest is profit... and usually short term profit at best.
Even when it isn't, it is usually located somewhere that a lot of people never see or look ar and the people seeing and looking at it are, themselves, often not competent to make substantive judgments regarding it.
The politicians own some blame as well--mostly due to lack of courage, lack of principle, and lack of actual leadership.
When I give it due consideration, I am actually amazed that things have gone as well as they have for as long as they have.
I am not so bold as to go on record as to what that government will be or how (exactly) it will function. I will be so bold as to say that, at first, it will seem like pretty much any other government (on the surface) and that a lot of people will find it acceptable for a variety of reasons.
It will slowly get worse. It will slowly get more noticeable. More openly authoritarian and corrupt.
But as long as it is someone else getting the shaft it will remain acceptable... at least to those not getting the shaft (and how would they really know, anyway).
In the end, I think we need a true and extreme excrement extravaganza to drive a lot of things home to people. Obviously the last round wasn't extreme enough or excrement-y enough.
Don't worry, we will get there. It is hard to overcome raw emotion, unenlightened self-interest, ambition and greed.
Then we might straighten our act out for a bit, only to return to the same cycle again. We happen to be unlucky enough to (as the Chinese curse goes) live in interesting times.
I am currently reading a book (fiction) titled "Isolate." It is speculative fiction, set in a world that is similar to ours but with some clear differences (one of which is that there are people who are empaths, who can sense emotion, manipulate people, and even use emotion to kill). The author is L E Modesitt, who specializes in this kind of stuff. The book is mostly about politics and political structures and human interaction in those contexts. It is clearly informed and shaped by the American experience of the last several years/decades.
Some interesting ideas in there. The story isn't action filled and exciting... but that isn't its purpose. It would be a horrible movie or TV show LOL.
I and a few others have been asking Charlie to have more left of center guests on his show. Charlie, thanks for following through on the letter of our request but not so much on the spirit of our request. Instead you went and found a liberal that just agrees with you.
When Amanda and Tim fill in for you periodically they bring on guests that don't necessarily agree with them and they have fascinating conversations with lots of give and take.
I wish you would follow their example. It'd be nice to hear you have a conversation with liberals who don't necessarily agree with your takes and listen to you both hash it out. We complain about echo chambers all of the time and it looks to me like you've set up the Daily Bulwark podcast to be it's own echo chamber about how stupid and hapless the Democrats are and then complain when some fail to immediately join the Grand Coalition to Save Democracy(TM).
If you are taking requests for podcasts, ruth ben ghiat (CAVEAT - I am a Lucid substack subscriber) or Timothy Snyder (CAVEAT - Thinking About substack subsriber). His book On Tyranny is a great book and written for this very moment.
You know, if you are taking requests, these are my two!
Oh yea, no way to know that Newt was a POS...keep telling yourself that