Wisconsin may have the oddest politics of any state in the union... no offense Charlie Sykes. Think about it - the state elected Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin as Senators. Johnson is far right (though I would argue he's just a lunatic more than being a conservative) and Baldwin is far left. There were actual Wisconsin voters who voted for Johnson and Baldwin. If Johnson runs for re-election (which I am skeptical he will do), the Ds should be able to win as long as they nominate someone who at least sounds moderate and is not a lunatic. While the Ds might avoid the lunatic candidate, I doubt they will nominate anyone other than a far left Democrat who will struggle to win in what should be a Republican year.
Regarding your Politico article: full disclosure, I have only read your excerpt here(don't have the time at the moment), you are right on the money. With precious few exceptions, the left and right sides see police shootings of "unarmed" black men or white progressives, as unjust, regardless of the facts of each case. And that is how they should be decided, on the facts, not on someone's biases. No, it doesn't always work justly, and we still have a long way to go. But in the Jacob Blake case, there was testimony that he was in the process of turning when he was shot in the back. In other words, it might well not have been a "vicious and cowardly racist act". It could just, at least partially, be the laws of physics. And in the mother of all, the Trayvon Brown shooting, there was credible evidence that Zimmerman (the shooter) was in the process of getting beaten to death. What was he supposed to do?
I identify as a liberal, but I am also a layperson very much interested in laws and legalities. In these situations, yup, on both sides, the facts are less important than the narrative.
Please get JVL to open up comments on the Triad. To him I say, Progressivism IS the more conservative choice--It's about reinforcing the resiliency of the system. Five decades of the radical economic policies of neo-"conservatism" have hollowed out this country and left its people in a precarious state. The cult of lower taxes and deregulation *uber alles* isn't in any way conservative. At best, it's faith-based economics; at worst, it's short-term opportunism. Neither of which is good for long-term stability.
Every day the Democrats and their left wingnuts in control are not only proving that Trump had been right about everything political, but he had understated the problem.
Per Wisconsin Senatorial candidate Mandela Barnes:
"The reality is, the United States of America is the most wealthy, it is the most powerful nation on earth, and that is because of forced labor on stolen land. We have to teach the reality of why we are where we are or else people will just assume it just happened this way because of hard work because of pulling up by your boot straps."
Because the whole country has always been the South! And nothing else! No one in the United States has ever worked hard, and that goes double for all you blue collar voters in Wisconsin, riding on the coattails of slavery to this very day. This message will do wonders for Ron Johnson; he may be an insurrectionist sympathizer and Q-curious, but at least he won't insult you and everything you've ever worked for. How many times do Democratic candidates need to be told how to talk to voters before the lightbulb goes off?
Charlie, are you aware that you're saying the democrats are in the thrall of ideological narratives, while then posting about how people are saying JFK Jr is alive and about how MTG et all are saying that the driver who plowed into that parade was a terrorist? You cannot be that blind. Please tell me you're trolling.
The other problem is this: if voters look at Rittenhouse, a man who was armed with a gun he wasn't allowed to have and driven to his community he wasn't supposed to be in, and shot three people, two of them fatally, and go 'yeah we think that the people lionizing him are better than the democrats' then we might as well pack it in. Because if voters, not elites or the media, decide that actually armed vigilante murderers are good, then there's really no reason to think that this republic of ours has a chance of success.
Furthermore, does it really matter why police shot someone that many times in the back? Are we really going to say that we don't have a problem with police violence? This isn't a tough on crime issue. This is an issue where the police, who as demonstrated with the refusal in many places to get vaccinated, see themselves as above the law and feel justified that they can do anything because they wear a badge. That all they need to feel is threatened and they can shoot people with impunity. The police see themselves as hostile occupiers in many places, and as a result are more paranoid and violent than they need to be. And yeah, it's a dangerous job, but more cops died of covid in the last year than in the line of duty.
Part of the problem is if voters look at the shooting of black men and at armed vigilante children and go 'actually that's good' then we're basically admitting that law is for white men and no one else. Because if there's no consequences, why wouldn't people simply keep doing it?
I fear that you're dislike of 'the left' or whatever that may be is blinding you to the fact that you're not staking out 'moderate' positions, and instead justifying behaviors that are entirely unconservative. There's nothing conservative about child soldiers or caste systems, at least not in our western traditions.
Let's instead ask what Democrats should have done instead. And remember, the riots are real, a reaction to something that happened. I am old enough to remember the riots of the 1960s. The one in Newark in '66 started because the police harassed a black cab driver.
There is no way to win rural voters. So had the Democrat said - justice has been done. Ok, turn over any chance of winning (by depressing black turnout?)
Riot are invariably shitty. But they represent genuine outrage.
And yes, some left wing speakers did apologize for rioting. But those in power did not (at least not generally - i don't have the time to check every quote.
Even now, a few African Americans who appear on places like MSNBC are in outrage mode over the failure of Biden to push through new voter rights bills - non starters in the Senate.
Good on you, Mary. But women beware. From Atlantic article by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, '...' Lawless Masculinity' :
A conquest-without-consequences masculinity, posing as a “return to traditional values,” tracks with authoritarianism’s rise and parallels the discarding of the rule of law and accountability in politics.
Wisconsin may have the oddest politics of any state in the union... no offense Charlie Sykes. Think about it - the state elected Ron Johnson and Tammy Baldwin as Senators. Johnson is far right (though I would argue he's just a lunatic more than being a conservative) and Baldwin is far left. There were actual Wisconsin voters who voted for Johnson and Baldwin. If Johnson runs for re-election (which I am skeptical he will do), the Ds should be able to win as long as they nominate someone who at least sounds moderate and is not a lunatic. While the Ds might avoid the lunatic candidate, I doubt they will nominate anyone other than a far left Democrat who will struggle to win in what should be a Republican year.
I don't disagree with any of your points, but -7 times? Gun vs knife.
Regarding your Politico article: full disclosure, I have only read your excerpt here(don't have the time at the moment), you are right on the money. With precious few exceptions, the left and right sides see police shootings of "unarmed" black men or white progressives, as unjust, regardless of the facts of each case. And that is how they should be decided, on the facts, not on someone's biases. No, it doesn't always work justly, and we still have a long way to go. But in the Jacob Blake case, there was testimony that he was in the process of turning when he was shot in the back. In other words, it might well not have been a "vicious and cowardly racist act". It could just, at least partially, be the laws of physics. And in the mother of all, the Trayvon Brown shooting, there was credible evidence that Zimmerman (the shooter) was in the process of getting beaten to death. What was he supposed to do?
I identify as a liberal, but I am also a layperson very much interested in laws and legalities. In these situations, yup, on both sides, the facts are less important than the narrative.
Please get JVL to open up comments on the Triad. To him I say, Progressivism IS the more conservative choice--It's about reinforcing the resiliency of the system. Five decades of the radical economic policies of neo-"conservatism" have hollowed out this country and left its people in a precarious state. The cult of lower taxes and deregulation *uber alles* isn't in any way conservative. At best, it's faith-based economics; at worst, it's short-term opportunism. Neither of which is good for long-term stability.
Every day the Democrats and their left wingnuts in control are not only proving that Trump had been right about everything political, but he had understated the problem.
Per Wisconsin Senatorial candidate Mandela Barnes:
"The reality is, the United States of America is the most wealthy, it is the most powerful nation on earth, and that is because of forced labor on stolen land. We have to teach the reality of why we are where we are or else people will just assume it just happened this way because of hard work because of pulling up by your boot straps."
Because the whole country has always been the South! And nothing else! No one in the United States has ever worked hard, and that goes double for all you blue collar voters in Wisconsin, riding on the coattails of slavery to this very day. This message will do wonders for Ron Johnson; he may be an insurrectionist sympathizer and Q-curious, but at least he won't insult you and everything you've ever worked for. How many times do Democratic candidates need to be told how to talk to voters before the lightbulb goes off?
Charlie, are you aware that you're saying the democrats are in the thrall of ideological narratives, while then posting about how people are saying JFK Jr is alive and about how MTG et all are saying that the driver who plowed into that parade was a terrorist? You cannot be that blind. Please tell me you're trolling.
The other problem is this: if voters look at Rittenhouse, a man who was armed with a gun he wasn't allowed to have and driven to his community he wasn't supposed to be in, and shot three people, two of them fatally, and go 'yeah we think that the people lionizing him are better than the democrats' then we might as well pack it in. Because if voters, not elites or the media, decide that actually armed vigilante murderers are good, then there's really no reason to think that this republic of ours has a chance of success.
Furthermore, does it really matter why police shot someone that many times in the back? Are we really going to say that we don't have a problem with police violence? This isn't a tough on crime issue. This is an issue where the police, who as demonstrated with the refusal in many places to get vaccinated, see themselves as above the law and feel justified that they can do anything because they wear a badge. That all they need to feel is threatened and they can shoot people with impunity. The police see themselves as hostile occupiers in many places, and as a result are more paranoid and violent than they need to be. And yeah, it's a dangerous job, but more cops died of covid in the last year than in the line of duty.
Part of the problem is if voters look at the shooting of black men and at armed vigilante children and go 'actually that's good' then we're basically admitting that law is for white men and no one else. Because if there's no consequences, why wouldn't people simply keep doing it?
I fear that you're dislike of 'the left' or whatever that may be is blinding you to the fact that you're not staking out 'moderate' positions, and instead justifying behaviors that are entirely unconservative. There's nothing conservative about child soldiers or caste systems, at least not in our western traditions.
Let's instead ask what Democrats should have done instead. And remember, the riots are real, a reaction to something that happened. I am old enough to remember the riots of the 1960s. The one in Newark in '66 started because the police harassed a black cab driver.
There is no way to win rural voters. So had the Democrat said - justice has been done. Ok, turn over any chance of winning (by depressing black turnout?)
Riot are invariably shitty. But they represent genuine outrage.
And yes, some left wing speakers did apologize for rioting. But those in power did not (at least not generally - i don't have the time to check every quote.
Even now, a few African Americans who appear on places like MSNBC are in outrage mode over the failure of Biden to push through new voter rights bills - non starters in the Senate.
So its a lose lose for Democrats.
Good on you, Mary. But women beware. From Atlantic article by Ruth Ben-Ghiat, '...' Lawless Masculinity' :
A conquest-without-consequences masculinity, posing as a “return to traditional values,” tracks with authoritarianism’s rise and parallels the discarding of the rule of law and accountability in politics.
Bring back the Pussy hats!
You focus on Dems in Wisconsin, but no mention of the GOP state legislature's anti-democratic and authoritarian antics trying to take over elections.
Amanda’s article….bullseye!
Let it be noted…..the majority of the people that stood up to Trump in REAL TIME were women: Fiona Hill, Marie Yavanovitch, Liz Cheney, Nancy Pelosi.
Just sayin’