Every state that is dominated by one party is pretty much going through the same thing.
Serious Republicans are dumping the GOP and running as independents or ersatz Democrats. Today's RINOs are tomorrow's DINOs.
In deep red states the Democrats are running largely symbolic campaigns often by wildly incompetent and borderline loony candidates who never have a chance at winning.
There are only about 12 states left where both parties remain competitive. Needless to say this is bad for democracy and our system of checks and balances.
"Having Padilla in office is not meaningfully different from putting up an automated “Generic Democrat” bot."
Wasn't that exactly why Joe Biden was elected? A generic Democrat bot is better than anything on offer from the Republicans. I voted for Biden for only one reason because I believed correctly that he would be capable enough to fill the office. It wasn't even a choice between the proverbial lesser of two evils. It was a forthright choice to choose the most anodyne and utilitarian occupant.
I wish Americans could understand that the merely adequate is about the most/best we can hope for and we should be grateful even for getting that.
Love the article. I’m so glad you brought up homelessness. It is so complex. I have not seen anyone succeed in attempting to solve it. I have seen both Republicans and Democrats fail miserably in California. Drugs, mental health, high AF rent make it challenging. Incarceration, psych holds, and boot straps aren’t great answers. State support is called “socialist” even if our waterways, levees, and neighborhoods are impacted. I rarely believe politicians when they say they will tackle homelessness. I call BS especially right now in this political crap show.
Building in California is also just damn expensive. Land near the coast is pricy, everyone has to comply with ADA codes, AND earthquake codes, AND new fire resistant codes and labor costs have got to be high, plus neighbors who can afford expensive lawyers who fight every development tooth and nail because human nature, and this is just me observing from afar. Without government subsidies, I just don’t know how you do it. Whatever it is that attracts companies to California (educated workforce, etc.), they need to start doing that in cheaper areas to live, but no one seems to put those two things together. Yes, you can’t put the nice climate in other parts of the country, but if I were Madison, Wisconsin, or near any other educated workforce that has some “climate change resistance factors” and relatively inexpensive housing, I would be selling that HARD.
Disappointed that you were so dismissive of Schellenberger. I thought one of the points of The Bulwark is that we need new ideas and ways of solving problems. Given Newsom's poor leadership, that all the more important.
He ran a horrific campaign. The point of the article is that we need new thinking that actually has a chance of being successful. His book was fine, his campaign was DOA.
I'm in Hancock Park in LA - my local Walgreens gets shoplifted from non stop - cops don't come if it's under $500 - the employees there (mostly Black women) are exhausted/ fed up. We can't walk our babies and dogs on sidewalks bc of homeless folks (abandoned mentally ill). It's not compassion it's cruel and chaotic. We pay a lot of taxes, need to build more and fast - but the low level crime/ quality of life issues are real.
I was in a grocery store today in upstate New Hampshire and there was a sign above a fireworks display that said "You must be 21 to buy these fireworks".
You could however go down the street and buy an AR15 if you were 18.
Bear in mind that the right to own fireworks is not explicitly guaranteed in the constitution.
I think that the real problem is the fantasy that gun ownership has a hope in hell of protecting citizens from a tyrannical or oppressive government. The government won't take you freedom at the point of a gun, they will take your freedom with lies and propaganda. If you do own a gun they will convince you to turn your gun on the unbelievers.
When there is a coup overthrowing a democratically elected government somewhere in the world the first thing they do is get a strange hold on the free press, and they leave peoples guns alone. Are there any dictators that have actually confiscated guns or prohibited gun ownership?
A big swing and a….foul tip on the summertime jams. The only thing keeping it from being a complete whiff is the inclusion of the Stones and exclusion of JVL’s Rebecca Black.
Because COVID-19 is aerosol transmitted, the standard surgical masks (let alone the fashionable cloth masks) have little use (not zero, just little). Better far that those of us who wish wear N-95/KN-95/D-95 masks (as I do) and leave all others to choose their own adventure.
While I am personally very pro-mask, there is a good reason for governors, mayors, and public health officials to keep their powder dry and resist mask mandates, and that reason is we don't know what kind of variants might evolve in the future, things could get MUCH worse, and there may come a time when we really do need mandates. So far COVID has demonstrated the ability to be possibly THE most contagious virus known to man, it can jump between humans and animals (e.g. cats, dogs, hamsters, and ferrets, lions, tigers, snow leopards, primates, hyenas, hippopotamuses, manatees, mink, white-tailed deer, and etc.), to suppress parts of the immune response, to evade antibodies from previous infection or vaccination, to infect a huge number of bodily tissue types. It is just wishful thinking that it won't be back with worse than we've already seen. So we should save the mandates until they are really needed.
While I agree that mask mandates are a bad idea politically, I completely fail to understand the relevance to the age or vaccination status of the person being asked to wear one. If it's been at least 2 months since your last shot or covid infection, you are just as likely to catch and spread covid as any other person. And to the extent that vaccines and youth reduce the severity of symptoms, you're more likely to be out and about not even realizing your contagious while you're spreading the plague. I find it odd when I see service workers in air conditioned buildings surrounded by strangers all day and not wearing a mask. When they catch covid, they usually don't have paid leave to rely on. Seems like a bizarre life choice for them to be making. But now that the N-95s are cheap and readily available, and we have more treatments, the people who want to protect themselves have options so it's probably time for the government to chill out unless or until hospitals become strained.
I'm not surprised that there Republican politicians becoming Democrats. I have always been Independent and voted for the best candidate. Often he or she was Republican. Not anymore. Even if the Republican is not a Trump follower, today's Republicans do not allow members to not vote the party line. Voting for a moderate Republican will still get you a politician who will capitulate to MAGA. So if a Republican hates Trump and disagrees with MAGA and that the country should become a gun toting dictatorship, his only choice is to become a Democrat. A third party won't help him or her.
Voters simply need to do more homework than before. For example, if you go to the campaign website of some "Independents," you find out they are actually Trumpists trying to avoid the GOP stigma.
Yes. You capture a dark truth about what we have seen before our eyes for the past 18 months. I can count only two Republicans in national politics (and a few governors?) who offer a counterpoint to your argument.
Tim, so great to see you here. BTW... I've ordered two copies of your book (one as a gift, because I'm confident it will be a good gift.) I agree with you on the mask mandates; although I'm elderly with a serious genetic disease. The mask mandates probably saved my life in the early days (before the vaccines and therapeutics.) These days, because Science is frigging awesome, most folks needn't bother with a mask. I wear one (and shockingly have been yelled at for that ??) but am fine with others not wearing one, (while I do really hope others have been vaccinated.) Anyway. Really great work this morning! And thanks for the word "hopium", never heard it before 👍🏽
Living in DTLA, the atrophy of the city is in sharp relief. In 2019, I walked home from work with my daughter on the sidewalk. She was in a stroller then. A homeless person yelled at me with her in the stroller when said stroller touched their tent. In 2020, taking the sidewalk was no longer possible. In 2022, the homeless camp fights to clog the holes of the rat infestation that grew underneath their filth. It is clear that no elected person in Los Angeles really gives a damn about the black people in the homeless camps.
And you might see anything if you glance towards the tents. A black little person face down in filth with no pants. A black woman passed out in her tent with a garden hose in her rectum. A black man with a bent spine who used to look sharp in spite of his disability now looks like a skeleton. A black man with no legs sitting on the sidewalk next to his tent.
Garcetti doesn't care. De Leon, the area's city council rep, doesn't care. The cops don't care. Even the BLM zealots couldn't be bothered to care.
My wife and I were Caruso voters because no one currently or recently involved in Los Angeles city government should ever be allowed near a public office ever again.
It's a problem. But then if you were homeless wouldn't in LA or Miami. Chicago is a horrible place homeless. 90's and humid in summer, <20 degrees and snowing in the winter.
Apparently it's now a crime to be homeless in Miami, and the numbers have gone down, but apparently that's deceiving. Florida itself has thec3rd largest homeless population in te US.
Tim,
I believe the correct spelling for the plural of ‘you’ is ‘yous’ or ‘yous guys’. I’m here to help.
Every state that is dominated by one party is pretty much going through the same thing.
Serious Republicans are dumping the GOP and running as independents or ersatz Democrats. Today's RINOs are tomorrow's DINOs.
In deep red states the Democrats are running largely symbolic campaigns often by wildly incompetent and borderline loony candidates who never have a chance at winning.
There are only about 12 states left where both parties remain competitive. Needless to say this is bad for democracy and our system of checks and balances.
"Having Padilla in office is not meaningfully different from putting up an automated “Generic Democrat” bot."
Wasn't that exactly why Joe Biden was elected? A generic Democrat bot is better than anything on offer from the Republicans. I voted for Biden for only one reason because I believed correctly that he would be capable enough to fill the office. It wasn't even a choice between the proverbial lesser of two evils. It was a forthright choice to choose the most anodyne and utilitarian occupant.
I wish Americans could understand that the merely adequate is about the most/best we can hope for and we should be grateful even for getting that.
First, do no harm.
Love ya Tim, but your musical selection...eh...Meh.
I mean...Harry Styles? C'mon man!
He is a big fan, he has talked about him on the pod several times...lol
Love the article. I’m so glad you brought up homelessness. It is so complex. I have not seen anyone succeed in attempting to solve it. I have seen both Republicans and Democrats fail miserably in California. Drugs, mental health, high AF rent make it challenging. Incarceration, psych holds, and boot straps aren’t great answers. State support is called “socialist” even if our waterways, levees, and neighborhoods are impacted. I rarely believe politicians when they say they will tackle homelessness. I call BS especially right now in this political crap show.
Building in California is also just damn expensive. Land near the coast is pricy, everyone has to comply with ADA codes, AND earthquake codes, AND new fire resistant codes and labor costs have got to be high, plus neighbors who can afford expensive lawyers who fight every development tooth and nail because human nature, and this is just me observing from afar. Without government subsidies, I just don’t know how you do it. Whatever it is that attracts companies to California (educated workforce, etc.), they need to start doing that in cheaper areas to live, but no one seems to put those two things together. Yes, you can’t put the nice climate in other parts of the country, but if I were Madison, Wisconsin, or near any other educated workforce that has some “climate change resistance factors” and relatively inexpensive housing, I would be selling that HARD.
Disappointed that you were so dismissive of Schellenberger. I thought one of the points of The Bulwark is that we need new ideas and ways of solving problems. Given Newsom's poor leadership, that all the more important.
He ran a horrific campaign. The point of the article is that we need new thinking that actually has a chance of being successful. His book was fine, his campaign was DOA.
Thanks Tim - appreciate the feedback. Best.
I'm in Hancock Park in LA - my local Walgreens gets shoplifted from non stop - cops don't come if it's under $500 - the employees there (mostly Black women) are exhausted/ fed up. We can't walk our babies and dogs on sidewalks bc of homeless folks (abandoned mentally ill). It's not compassion it's cruel and chaotic. We pay a lot of taxes, need to build more and fast - but the low level crime/ quality of life issues are real.
Worthy of note:
I was in a grocery store today in upstate New Hampshire and there was a sign above a fireworks display that said "You must be 21 to buy these fireworks".
You could however go down the street and buy an AR15 if you were 18.
These politicians aren't going to do shit.
Insane! This is an issue worth fighting on
Bear in mind that the right to own fireworks is not explicitly guaranteed in the constitution.
I think that the real problem is the fantasy that gun ownership has a hope in hell of protecting citizens from a tyrannical or oppressive government. The government won't take you freedom at the point of a gun, they will take your freedom with lies and propaganda. If you do own a gun they will convince you to turn your gun on the unbelievers.
When there is a coup overthrowing a democratically elected government somewhere in the world the first thing they do is get a strange hold on the free press, and they leave peoples guns alone. Are there any dictators that have actually confiscated guns or prohibited gun ownership?
A big swing and a….foul tip on the summertime jams. The only thing keeping it from being a complete whiff is the inclusion of the Stones and exclusion of JVL’s Rebecca Black.
Because COVID-19 is aerosol transmitted, the standard surgical masks (let alone the fashionable cloth masks) have little use (not zero, just little). Better far that those of us who wish wear N-95/KN-95/D-95 masks (as I do) and leave all others to choose their own adventure.
While I am personally very pro-mask, there is a good reason for governors, mayors, and public health officials to keep their powder dry and resist mask mandates, and that reason is we don't know what kind of variants might evolve in the future, things could get MUCH worse, and there may come a time when we really do need mandates. So far COVID has demonstrated the ability to be possibly THE most contagious virus known to man, it can jump between humans and animals (e.g. cats, dogs, hamsters, and ferrets, lions, tigers, snow leopards, primates, hyenas, hippopotamuses, manatees, mink, white-tailed deer, and etc.), to suppress parts of the immune response, to evade antibodies from previous infection or vaccination, to infect a huge number of bodily tissue types. It is just wishful thinking that it won't be back with worse than we've already seen. So we should save the mandates until they are really needed.
While I agree that mask mandates are a bad idea politically, I completely fail to understand the relevance to the age or vaccination status of the person being asked to wear one. If it's been at least 2 months since your last shot or covid infection, you are just as likely to catch and spread covid as any other person. And to the extent that vaccines and youth reduce the severity of symptoms, you're more likely to be out and about not even realizing your contagious while you're spreading the plague. I find it odd when I see service workers in air conditioned buildings surrounded by strangers all day and not wearing a mask. When they catch covid, they usually don't have paid leave to rely on. Seems like a bizarre life choice for them to be making. But now that the N-95s are cheap and readily available, and we have more treatments, the people who want to protect themselves have options so it's probably time for the government to chill out unless or until hospitals become strained.
I'm not surprised that there Republican politicians becoming Democrats. I have always been Independent and voted for the best candidate. Often he or she was Republican. Not anymore. Even if the Republican is not a Trump follower, today's Republicans do not allow members to not vote the party line. Voting for a moderate Republican will still get you a politician who will capitulate to MAGA. So if a Republican hates Trump and disagrees with MAGA and that the country should become a gun toting dictatorship, his only choice is to become a Democrat. A third party won't help him or her.
Voters simply need to do more homework than before. For example, if you go to the campaign website of some "Independents," you find out they are actually Trumpists trying to avoid the GOP stigma.
Really? Interesting.
Yes. You capture a dark truth about what we have seen before our eyes for the past 18 months. I can count only two Republicans in national politics (and a few governors?) who offer a counterpoint to your argument.
It's really scary because there are no people in power to draw the line, i.e. we will not become a dictatorship and over throw the elected leaders.
Listening to Summa22 and I can't get the image out of my head of Cruz and Hawley dad dancing to 212.
Tim, so great to see you here. BTW... I've ordered two copies of your book (one as a gift, because I'm confident it will be a good gift.) I agree with you on the mask mandates; although I'm elderly with a serious genetic disease. The mask mandates probably saved my life in the early days (before the vaccines and therapeutics.) These days, because Science is frigging awesome, most folks needn't bother with a mask. I wear one (and shockingly have been yelled at for that ??) but am fine with others not wearing one, (while I do really hope others have been vaccinated.) Anyway. Really great work this morning! And thanks for the word "hopium", never heard it before 👍🏽
Thanks Dee Dee! I hope you will enjoy the book :)
Living in DTLA, the atrophy of the city is in sharp relief. In 2019, I walked home from work with my daughter on the sidewalk. She was in a stroller then. A homeless person yelled at me with her in the stroller when said stroller touched their tent. In 2020, taking the sidewalk was no longer possible. In 2022, the homeless camp fights to clog the holes of the rat infestation that grew underneath their filth. It is clear that no elected person in Los Angeles really gives a damn about the black people in the homeless camps.
And you might see anything if you glance towards the tents. A black little person face down in filth with no pants. A black woman passed out in her tent with a garden hose in her rectum. A black man with a bent spine who used to look sharp in spite of his disability now looks like a skeleton. A black man with no legs sitting on the sidewalk next to his tent.
Garcetti doesn't care. De Leon, the area's city council rep, doesn't care. The cops don't care. Even the BLM zealots couldn't be bothered to care.
My wife and I were Caruso voters because no one currently or recently involved in Los Angeles city government should ever be allowed near a public office ever again.
It's a problem. But then if you were homeless wouldn't in LA or Miami. Chicago is a horrible place homeless. 90's and humid in summer, <20 degrees and snowing in the winter.
Not really knowledgeable about Florida’s homelessness. Would be curious to hear about their situation.
Apparently it's now a crime to be homeless in Miami, and the numbers have gone down, but apparently that's deceiving. Florida itself has thec3rd largest homeless population in te US.
California (151,278)
New York (92,091)
Florida (28,328)
Texas (25,848
Those same four states are also the most populous in general:
California (Population: 39,613,493) Homeless rate 0.38%
Texas (Population: 29,730,311) 0.09%
Florida (Population: 21,944,577) 0.12%
New York (Population: 19,299,981) 0.47%