As if you care.
There is new polling, extensive and high quality polling, that seems to make clear one small problem we have in the United States.
Nobody really gives a hoot about key issues such as abortion rights or democracy. People will get mad, there will be demonstrations, but when large percentages of Democrats (yes, I said Democrats) tell us that they prioritize gas prices over democracy, and polls show, as they do, that if the election were held today, Republicans would take over the US House and possibly the Senate, then we have to admit that we are a Republican nation, a nation not in favor of freedoms or democracy. We are an anti-abortion nation, a back ally nation, a nation where we are ready and seemingly even happy to let a right wing fascist government control our lives.
I see it day to day. I see people who in the past helped Democratic candidates not showing up, not donating money, letting someone else do it. But there is no “someone else.” When Democrats lose this rare two-year trifecta on November 8th, and a Republican House is sworn in come January, we will begin a two or four year long deconstruction of this country. Enough election deniers will be in the power positions in key states that the republican party will be able to “elect” (but not really elect) whomever their party puts up for 2024, probably Donald Trump. There is a good chance that at the same time Trump is sworn in, a Democratic house will be sworn in, but with only the slimmest majority. Then two years after that, Democrats will stay home again, and there will be a Republican (Trump) in the White House, a Republican Senate (with McConnell in charge), and a Republican House with who knows which monster in charge.
The only pertinent details will be which of the old men who are bent on turning us in to a fascist country die of natural causes earlier than their plans ideally require. But that is just a detail. Others are eager to step in.
I partly blame the left. We removed the possibility of empathy as part of our way of being when we shouted down anyone who claimed it, in our rush to blame our allies for everything that our enemies are actually doing. We threw out half our good messaging when it failed to come from a repressed group, even if it was about repression. We developed and deployed abysmally bad messaging and wore it as a chip on our shoulder, a guaranteed recipe for losing any argument. We let our identity politics undermine our pro equity efforts. Then, after doing that for about a decade, we stopped showing up. We explicitly put “self care” as our number one priority, then forgot to move to number two after a suitable recovery peirod.
I thought 2016’s election was depressing, but that was just the beginning of the end. The elections of 2022 and 2024 will be the actual end, and we are letting it happen. Making it happen. Choosing for it to happen. When the Republicans take the majority, we will simply have to admit that this is a MAGA Republican country. We are a democracy that is about to vote out democracy, democratically.
This is my third or fourth missive declaring our failures, but in the previous ones, I also asked for help, asked for people to step up. I now see that as too unlikely. Nobody stepped up, and the polls show that nobody will.
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Yup. Here we have two of the terrorist militias that support trump training “monitors” to go to voting site around Detroit and other areas to “watch and interview as needed” people who show up to vote to “prevent fraud”. That makes sense to the dedicated right who either lie or deny that this is a blatant attempt at intimidation, but people who can think see it for what it is.
We also have a proposal that would ensure women have the right to abortion. There is a huge campaign against it, with no end of false statements about it (some of the people arguing against it say it allows schools to set up safe spaces for furries, apparently a reference to the myth that schools were putting litter boxes in school restrooms for them). Several people have come to our door to rant to use about how wrong it is and how many evil things it allows. When I’ve been the one who answered the door I’ve asked them if they’ve read it: none of them have, they’ve been told what the bad things are. As rickA has demonstrated not reading things but “knowing” stuff is wrong is common for the modern right, as is opposing rights for people. It’s scary.
My favorite item was a neighbor who complained that Governor Whitmer has raised taxes and even taxes his retirement from his company. I pointed out that
A) taxes have not gone up during her time as governor, and
B) the specific tax he complained about was implemented while Rick Snyder was governor and was a republican move to bring in money lost by cutting tax for the top brackets.
Yup — governance by people who miss “separate but equal”, view anyone not rich make and white as automatically inferior, and who don’t believe women should be either vocal or outside the home. Heaven for people like the resident magat, hell for decent people.
Yep, it’s discouraging to show up at the Co-Ordinated Campaign headquarters and only 3 other people are there to go out and knock on doors.
I think that a major problem that’s leading to voter suppression is the way that we talk about politics in social media and among ourselves. We rarely talk about how things work, and how to come to meetings of the minds among people. Instead we use the 280 character limitation to tweet about how rotten everyone else is, and follow people who help us echo. The media talk about polls and horserace.
Does anyone know the best way to fight inflation and gas prices? Buy less, and drive less. It’s a matter, largely of supply and demand. Right now the unemployment rate in Minnesota is 2%, and when the unemployment is low it also means that there is more demand. This is why interest rates are one tool to reduce spending and demand.
But, if we change our mindset to reduce, reuse, repurpose, and recycle, we don’t have to buy as much. But, that will lead to higher unemployment. Scott Jensen can’t change that cycle as much as he claims to be able to reduce gas prices on his billboards. He can try to cut the gas tax, but then we have crappy roads that destroy our car’s suspension and mean we have to spend more money in the shop.
As for abortion, remember that the price of gas doesn’t really factor that much when your partner is dying of sepsis because her doctor is not allowed to remove a partial miscarriage.
Ben Rhodes’ guest spot on the Americast Podcast (BBC) really helps explain how social media just makes us unable to understand politics. This is why my Facebook account is inactive and I’m not really interested in social media, even though I’d love to participate.
Defeatism certainly won’t help.
I really hope you are wrong here and people need to work to make sure this doesn’t happen.
Fascists at work.
https://twitter.com/Garrett_Archer/status/1583661765795074050
Those are probably the same people who were harassing indigenous people on the Phoenix Capitol Grounds and asking for their green cards.
The polls have been wrong over so many election cycles, that I don’t trust any polling data anymore.
When is the last time you have answered a poll? It has been decades for me. I screen my landline calls and only answer if I recognize the number. My phone alerts me to potential spam calls and I usually do the same as with my landline.
If I do accidently answer the phone and a computer is talking I hang up.
My point is that nobody answers the pollsters anymore. They must be getting a very very skewed sample if they aren’t making it all up in the first place.
So I wouldn’t worry to much. The polls will no doubt turn out to be very wrong again.
Here in MI the worst of the worst (folks on the right, as they always are now) aren’t even pretending they aren’t ignorant bigoted scum. There are scores of reasons we need to prevent the modern right from dominating in government: this is just one of them.
https://www.mlive.com/public-interest/2022/10/michigan-parents-may-face-life-in-prison-for-providing-minors-gender-affirming-care-under-bill.html
60 – 80% remit or desist. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8596152/
So minors should not be allowed to make this decision, especially against the wishes of the parents. Even if the parents are ok with surgery or puberty blockers, they should be properly educated that they are sterilizing their children and permanently cutting off parts of their bodies (although you would think they would know that).
What parent would allow surgery or chemical castration, knowing 80% will want to reverse it later in life? Bad parents – that is who.
The UK just came out with a sane policy against surgery or puberty blockers for minors – and I couldn’t agree more.
Only a crazy person (or a democrat or dean) would allow a minor to make a life changing decision which will sterilize them – because of a social contagion and fad. That is just nuts. I hope every state makes it illegal for minors to get surgery or hormone blockers and makes it illegal for any third party to try to persuade a minor they are “born in the wrong body”.
The fact that teachers and schools are conspiring to do this behind parents backs is truly a crime. That adults would do this to children is on par with priests raping children – truly a massive betrayal. Morally wrong.
If an adult wants to chemically castrate themselves, sterilize themselves and undergo irreversible surgery – I say go for it. But to try to influence a child to do this or even to permit it is truly evil.
Kids – wait until you are adults and 80% of you will be happy you waited.
By the way – A large swath of the trans kids are merely gay or lesbian. Nobody is born into the wrong body – that is just bull.
I get that this goes against your 1700s understanding of science and law rickA. Par for the course for you on complicated issues: if it involves big words it’s wrong.
As usual, you have no clue, and your bigoted notions are just crap.
I wouldn’t be so quick to call Rick a bigot on this issue. There are several issues that are coming out of Britain and Sweden regarding the early treatment and assumption that kids are trans. I myself am a skeptic that there really is such a thing as being transgender. The Cass Review is near completion after several whistleblowers at the Tavistock Clinic of the GIDS noted that therapists were rushing children into puberty blockers off-label, with the assurance that the effects are reversible. But there is no evidence that they are. And, if you look at all of the necessary growth that happens during puberty and adolescence; to the heart, to the bones, and to the lungs as well as the brain, how can we accep that blocking puberty is harmless? How can someone who has been on blockers for their teen life suddenly have the maturity needed to make decisions to go on HRT or have surgeries to remove their breasts or genitals in the false hope that it will change their sex? These are decisions that can’t be taken back.
I’ve met and spoken with detransitioners who have said they were rushed into transitioning, with no counseling to determine if or how their own sexual histories may have led them to decide that they were transgender. And they can’t restore the parts of their bodies that were removed, they have to live with it.
There is growing evidence that many kids who are gay are being steered towards transitioning, and also evidence that without “affirming” treatment, they resolve their issues. Many parents report that their children desisted once their access to the internet was restricted, so there must be more study.
There are too many bills threatening parents with prison either for not affirming their child’s gender, or for affirming it, and it’s a huge question that needs better answers before we send parents who are confused about this to prison for trying to do the right thing.
NHS is now reviewing the practice of therapists prescribing blockers off-label, and is now placing a policy that they may only be prescribed as part of strict-protocol studies. You may object that this article is in the Telegraph, but that would be poisoning the well. It is an accure description of what Dr. Cass is uncovering.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/23/children-who-think-transgender-just-going-phase-says-nhs/
If nothing else, it’s better to take a “wait and see” and demeaning Rick may be your hobby, but I agree with him here. Our sex is determined by our genetics, and gender is a social structure. According to Dennis Kavanaugh, too many gay and lesbian kids are being steered towards medical treatment for symptoms that merely are contrary to the gender expectations that we have for males and females. That’s one of the reasons that Tavistock was shut down.
There is no settled science on this.
You give ricka too much credit. He’s never based an injection on science, whether for this, climate change, or anything . His argument here stems from his dismissal of gays and lesbians (they aren’t natural, being allowed to be married is wrong, etc.)
His lack of concern over the bill I mentioned is also linked to his rabid devotion to the modern authoritarian qop: go back and read his defenses of the trump motivated attack on the Capitol (the attackers didn’t have weapons, it was not an attempt to disrupt the government, and more). If the right proposes anything it’s fine with him.
Os, in the end, it’s very safe to attribute his objection to bigotry – history supports that.
Just read a great new paper, which I highly recommend:
https://www.utvarpsaga.is/file/2022/07/SSRN-id4000800.pdf