I sent this e-mail to the guys yesterday and then replied to The Triad with it:
"Hi guys. Sending this mail in the hopes that one of you can address this in one of your podcasts, e-mails or whatever. I'm getting just about sick of Ruy Teixeira's schtick and am about to label him a closet republican. To be clear, I'm sure that he's a very nice and smart guy. Also, my own personal views on policy are very similar to his. I consider myself a moderate, maybe center-left or even progressive populist. I'm a 54 year old white, straight, meat eating, father of 2 engineers from Philly. But I've listened to him on, at least, Charlie's pod, and managed to get through his appearance on The Focus Group this weekend and he needs to be called out.
First is Biden and the age question. He, and Charlie has said this too, want President Biden to "address the age question". How the fuck is he suppose to "address the age question"? He's old. He knows he's old. We all know he's old. He looks old because he IS old. Should he get out there and say he's not old? Say he's really into EDM this year? Is he supposed to host Saturday Night Live or something? He'd look ridiculous. Should he have sent troops to pull vehicles out of Burning Man? How about, in the course of his presidency, he's flown into two, count 'em, TWO active war zones, called for MORE funding for the police and walked on a union picket line? And those aviators, do they count for nothing? How about, as old as he is, he's in infinitely better shape than TFG and probably Meatball Ron for that matter?
Time and time again during The Focus Group podcast, Sarah pressed Ruy on his criticisms of how Biden is "perceived". She would say Biden IS the moderate. He was historically viewed as TOO moderate for much of the democratic electorate. She asked if Ruy thought Biden was a socialist, was FOR illegal immigration, for teaching little kids about transgenderism, for letting trans men (I think, whichever one Bruce Jenner is) compete in women's sports and he would say no. He said no and then said that Biden, essentially, wears this perception like a stain because some segment of the population perceives that this is what the democratic party is now as opposed to the party of the working man. This is despite Joe getting bipartisan infrastructure done AND the aforementioned picket line. Why does this stain Uncle Joe because the perception is there? Wait for it. Because, yes, the democratic party tends to be more socially liberal and more highly educated than republicans or conservatives. News flash, one usually follows the other there. If you're playing the home game, here is what this boils down to. The Democratic Party IS still the party of the working man. Does it suck that some of those working men are misogynists, homophobes and racists? Yes. And yes, people of marginalized communities are going to tend to vote and support the party that isn't actively trying to outlaw their lives. WTF is PJB ACTUALLY supposed to do about this, sneak out an accidental/on purpose dog whistle on a hot mic? Ruy actually said at one point that part of the immigration crisis exists because the, again, perception in the latin world was that Biden would at least be kinder to them than trump. Well, OK. Yeah, Biden's not a monster so, he's got that going for him. The bottom line is that Ruy doesn't like what the party is. And he may have a point that the perception of what the party is will hurt us with some people, in some places who don't like it BUT the party is what the party is. Joe can't stop "press 1 for english". He can't stop that people that tend to like small, local privately owned coffee shops that serve rainforest safe coffee will tend to avoid the red maga hats and not care if the person in front of them is black, brown or gay. This is where the party is right now and I'll take that every day of the week and twice on Tuesday vs a racist, quasi-fascist that is trying to take over the country while letting his homie take over eastern Europe."
Biden on the Age issue to the American: “My fellow Americans, I’m old as Fuck, my opponent is old as Fuck. In these dangerous times I speak slowly, carefully while my opponent is pissing out of his mouth, with long pauses when he gets his lip caught in the zipper. I’m sane, he thinks Hannibal Lecter is a real person who likes him. (Pause, head shake, smile) if Hannibal the Cannibal were real he wouldn’t want to take the hours it would take to trim all the lard off Trump. So no, this fictional character wouldn’t like him. (Impish smile, puts on Aviators) And again, for all Bulwark members out there, I am old, feel free to play that on a continuous loop. Thank you and live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.”
Still waiting for Charlie to offer a mea culpa for calling BiDeN’s gambit of walking the picket line risky. As of yesterday the UAW has reached an agreement or a tentative agreement with all 3 auto companies. Waiting for that credit to be heaped onto Union Joe. But I know my wait is in vain.
It was risky. He was doing something no President had ever done before by actively joining a picket line. Labeling something as risky doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.
Going to the Middle East was risky, what credit was Biden going to get? Maybe we need to accept that a real President does risky things and only a coward judges their actions by votes it gets or loses.
When you take a risk and the results go your way, you'll get credit. If Biden wins next year he'll get plenty of credit for his risks. If he loses he'll get plenty of second guessing. That's the way things work.
Oh, in this example it was most definitely painted as bad. And as far as the strike goes, the workers achieved the majority of their aims. So yes, Biden deserves credit now, not after he wins in 2024.
The Democratic Party is still, and now the only one where the conversation, the discussion, the argument goes on. Unlike the Republicans where it’s shut up and get in line or be cast into the wilderness. Clearly there is a significant portion of the US population that is willing to accept authoritarian rule. Ironically, they point to the back and forth among Democrats as the main justification.
I've found Ruy's past appearances on Bulwark vehicles to be thought-provoking and in some cases compelling. But the case he was trying to make on The Focus Group was circular and (IMO) nonsensical. Basically....
Sarah: Listen to these voters who think the Democratic party has drifted too far left and sound like Republicans.
Ruy: Democrats should moderate their farther-left positions to court centrists and the blue-collar base that used to vote mostly D.
Sarah: Biden IS that moderate Democrat by both word and action.
Ruy: Those centrists and former Ds view Biden as too far left for their taste, so...Trump.
Sarah: Is that because of a media ecosystem that feeds them that perception 24x7, whether it's reality or not?
Ruy: No, you've committed the Fox News Fallacy. It's definitely not that.
Sarah: What's the issue then if not a media ecosystem?
Ruy: Democrats should moderate their farther-left positions to court centrists and the blue-collar base that used to vote mostly D.
And it starts over. Totally circular and totally without any real prescriptive answers.
I think standing on the picket line with striking workers could be supportive of the base. The problem is the right wing entertainment world funded by who the hell knows? But those who fund the right wing media surely hate the United States.
Well said. Teixeira is in the same category as Francis Fukuyama for me, intellectuals with a history of being wildly, profoundly wrong who nevertheless continue to be considered experts in their fields. I remember reading Teixeira talking about the imminent permanent Democratic/liberal majority as a result of demographic change and the Obama coalition back in 2008. As far as Galaxy-Class bad takes go it's no "End of History" but it's close.
Incidentally, and this is not to harangue just to educate since I believe you want to get it right - Jenner is considered a trans woman, a trans man is someone who was assigned female at birth who then transitions to male, and referring to her by her old name is considered rude (not that she particularly deserves deference, I think she's a pretty bad person, it's more for the benefit of everyone else).
I think "End of History" has been wildly misunderstood. It's not end as in "finish", it's end as in "telos".
Basically, he's arguing that liberal capitalist democracy is the final form of human social evolution, and that it won't be replaced by another system. The fact that the major challenges to liberal democracy have taken the form of reactionary authoritarianism is almost a boon to the theory, because it suggests the alternative is to look backwards and undo history instead of forward towards something new.
That said, I think he's both naively optimistic to assume we've reached that telos already (it's possible our democracies are just a historical blip) and naively pessimistic to assume nothing better can be created. Plus, he doesn't really have any support for the idea that history is teleological and not cyclic.
I agree that it's widely misunderstood, I do comprehend the argument that he is making - it's just that the argument he is making is pretty clearly incorrect or at my most charitable - incomplete. The core argument is that the advantages of liberal democracy are so proven and self-evident at this point that no one would ever attempt to change or subvert that system of governance, and that has been definitively disproven - by history.
His thinking is emblematic of a sort of post-cold war western triumphalism that, while understandable, does not really hold up to scrutiny and led to some fairly catastrophic geopolitical blunders, as the US in the 90s and 2000s imagined it could just do whatever it wanted forever and no one would get upset about it because it was Obviously Right.
Thank you. I did want to get the trans thing right and I forgot her name. I was kind of in a hurry to get that out, so didn't research. In the end, JVL beat me to it anyway. :D
Yep, listening to Ruy is agitating and hard to stick it out. BUT. He is correct that IF the Democratic party wants to strategize a win, we have to court votes, and that means courting the middle. And because the right wing media machine is so strong, it is bits of the GOP narrative that get absorbed by low information voters that do not consume right wing media, and there is little Democratic narrative getting in there along with it. Which means, if we find a vehicle to get a Democratic narrative to voters, it means more to those listeners if it connects with something they have already heard. For example, "Democrats don't want to put any ideology in classrooms; we just want available privacy in bathrooms in public. Like a family bathroom at the ballpark where Dad can take his 4 yo daughter to the bathroom without going in the lady's room or leaving her alone in the lady's room or subjecting a small girl to a men's bathroom. These family restrooms woud be used by nursing mothers, parents of multiple small children, sufferers of IBS/colitis, just to name a few. They are for anyone that wants more privacy or security than currently available."
I agree that Democratic strategies that address right wing lies and exaggeration feels wrong, like sinking to their level. Like ignoring IMPORTANT issues in order to hang out in the basement arguing dumb shit. But Ruy is correct; if we want to be sure to win to save Democracy, we need strategy.
It's a difficult game. The peril of being the Only Sane Party is that the Democrats have to appeal to the middle while not alienating the left because they can only win with the entire coalition sticking together due to the various ways the GOP has stacked the deck in its favor. Historically, the attitude has been to say more or less, "screw the left, they'll come along anyway". But this isn't enough for people like Teixeira. The cynical side of me suspects that Teixeira's real complaints are more along the lines of how surprisingly great Biden has been for organized labor.
I consider myself a leftist. Essentially, I don't want to seize the means of production but I also don't believe certain industries can be trusted to the private market. I have two mothers, one trans. I'm disabled in a way that dramatically limits my professional opportunities. As a result, I find myself opposed to a lot of the things Biden does, and clamoring for many things that he won't do.
Taking my own political hat off for a second and trying to look at his performance in a purely cynical, "will this optimize the amount of votes he will get" way, I can't really fault him much. In a sane electorate, he's checking all the right boxes, it's just that the electorate is increasingly disentangled from reality due to the continuing breakdown of the functioning of government in this country. The problems we face are ones that Biden can't really do anything about, but blame accrues to the top and so even if he bears no responsibility for things like the pathetic state of the House of Representatives or the wildly compromised Supreme Court, the fact that those problems exist screw up the vibes and people get angry at him anyway.
Ultimately, the Biden people are pretty smart - they don't need Ruy or Charlie telling them things they already know. If they lose in 2024 I suspect it will not be because of anything that they are capable of controlling for.
I’d say the electorate is increasingly disentangled from reality due to the fractured “news” media environment, and the rush to titillate viewers for whatever generates clicks (profit) rather than to convey reality to their audience. The cited “breakdown” of government is an effect of the media environment, not a cause - other than whatever might be the role of eliminating the Fairness Doctrine.
I don’t know, I think your Trump voter knows what’s real, so does your RFK Jr. Voter and Cornel West voter. As does the Haley, Bernie, Biden and DeeSantis or DehSantis voter. None of them are saying, “I can’t tell what’s real.” They all know, it’s just that their realities don’t align.
For them to say “I can’t tell what’s real’ would require an oxymoron level of awareness. But I agree; I have found red hatters often fold immediately when presented with the truth. I think a lot of them feel like they’re in on the hilarious gag of owning the libs. But the media environment is still the key to that phenomenon.
I find the left think Biden is serious but not strong, the right think Trump is strong but not serious. The left think Biden isn’t fixing mass shootings, or prices on things, or the Middle East because he lacks the ability to properly use the powers of his office. Whereas when Trump gives solutions to difficult problems that are ludicrous, the right think he’s purposely not being serious and is just mocking the libs.
"....it's just that the electorate is increasingly disentangled from reality due to the continuing breakdown of the functioning of government in this country." I must point out, Andrew, that tens of millions of Americans are untethered from reality, not because the government isn't functioning but because they have been captured by the disinformation industry. Ergo, this base of MAGA voters scare the republican politicians both politically and often physically. The dysfunction in the House is a symptom of the underlying disease: A largely ill-informed electorate.
So, I ask the same thing, what is your strategy? Biden can't come out and say "I'm not old" or "I'm just fine". It has the opposite effect. He CAN say the problem at the border is real, here's what I'm going to do, because I'm getting no help from congress. He can say the crime problem is real and here's what I'm going to do. I don't think there's anything he can do about inflation. Others have addressed this.
Biden comes out and says “Person, woman, man, camera, TV.” Holds up a finger for silence and after a brief pause, “Apple, hat table, bed, cup.” Starts grinning, shows serious face and holds up a finger again, “Window, ball, box, chair, ring.” Grins ear to ear and starts his real comments.
I am the worst strategist for anything interesting or important, though I can pack a mean trunk for camping. I did have 2 ideas for Joe months ago. One was that as he declared, he invite Dems to campaign along with Kamala, so "America could choose the candidate that would be his running mate and possible successor." And two, that he own his oldness; mention it and joke about it during every noncrisis speech or interview. That is the only way to make people more comfortable with it.
Today, all I can think of (besides good Presidenting) is touting his moderate decisions whenever possible, and contrasting them with Trump. "We must support Democracy abroad, as it staves off accumulation of authoritarian power. If you have Trump, he will let Putin & China divvy up all the places they want power and then they will band together against the United States. Meanwhile, America will be crying about the 2020 election and kissing our own democracy goodbye." (not a speechwriter either ;))
You should give yourself more credit for campaign strategy.They are good ideas.An occasional joke about his age maybe all right.(but don't go overboard with that).
Actually, I like Harris. But BEFORE he declared himself plus her, he could have stated he wants her, trusts her, etc, but let's let voters have a say. (We all like to express our opinion for President if nothing else about governance.) That would also appeal to anti Trumpers that seem to already dislike her. We would have seen Kamala debate a couple candidates, and she would have either emerged a reconfirmed choice, or someone else may have emerged. Either way, we would have some data and interest and perhaps a backup plan for Joes death which we all need to acknowledge can happen any day. People certainly die even if they have no current health crises.
I agree, this Biden is old is getting old. I am so tired of this being hammered at us here often. As if we were being told "You know what, unicorns don't exist". I so another poll today on DK. I don't know how accurate it is, when people were asked, among the two old possible candidates Biden and Trump, who would you vote for? The results were 61% for Biden and about 23 % for Trump. I assume the difference is from undecided. I don't believe in polls though. About the economy, the data cited here is not what I have been finding from many other sources. How about a 4.9% GDP? We are far from rich, my husband and I. However, we manage, we have not experienced "soaring inflation". Food prices are down at least in our Food Lion. Perception about the economy is driven by the media gloom and doom. But as I said, not all, I have seen very in-depth analysis by some economists, and we are not starving in the USA, unless we want to live on caviar and champagne and go out to eat at a 5-star restaurant once a week. Yes, the economy is not making people rich but our economy is very good compared to the rest or the world.
What do they want? For our old President to say "You know what folks, I got up this morning and found out that I am 80 years old, I have been in denial, now I am going to stop governing and go home to Delaware and play golf and watch TV and go on Twitter and thank those wise people who let me accept reality. Thank-you Charlie!!"
Apparently the best Teixeira will do by way of constructive suggestions is, "listen to them." Which I guess is a polite way of telling Biden supporters to STFU.
Oh, and then what, Ruy?
How is "listening" going to change their perceptions?
It's on a par with RT's demand that hoity toity Dems stop high hatting the great unwashed. Fine, and... crickets.
He doesn't even ask Biden to say to them, "I feel your pain " (As if that, too, wouldn't be mocked as condescending.)
Btw, here in NM the state mailed out multiple tax free checks specifically to alleviate COVID-related inflation. I can imagine how Republicans (and probably even RT himself) would react if Biden proposed such a remedy, but at least it's a thought.
Teixeira's suggestions are worse than his analysis. It seems like every time he's on he argues we should be throwing minority rights under the bus to satisfy bigoted centrists.
That is the biggest reason I can't stand listening to him. He wants to throw out decades of minority rights activism to beg for a few bigoted centrist voters.
And hence the modern Republican Party, born in The Voting Act of 1965. Call a black woman a welfare queen and you’re just speaking the truth, call a racist a racist and it’s an offense against freedom of thought.
And there we are. People who were happy to let Bill Clinton be accused of every criminal act (murder, drug-running, etc.) and that Obama was a secret Muslim drew the line at Trump.
“He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas" attributed to Poor Richard's Almanack
Take rancid butter, sour milk, add enRiched flour and white sugar (has to be white) blend it together, bake and be surprised when you take someone like Trump out of the oven.
I’d like this a million times. Seems like the razor sharp response to Israel-Gaza blunted “Biden old” a little bit. So on to inflation. Right on cue, here comes Ruy rolling out the strawman. Everyone knows inflation is a liability. But Biden’s only option is to focus on the positive aspects of the economy.
And Fox News fallacy? That’s where Ruy goes off the rails. Is the economy perfect? No, far from it. But is it Great Depression/Recession bad? Nope. Not even close. But that’s what Fox is peddling (in many cases arguing that Biden hurts the economy on purpose) and what too many people believe. No “helpful” suggestions in Ruy’s piece. Just some nice mocking that sounds awfully familiar to what we’re used to hearing from certain less than savory quarters. Sigh.
Thank you for saying what many of us are thinking. Maybe if we could hear some of the good things Biden has done occasionally. Lately is mostly Democrats bad, Biden is going to lose, here's another expert that will tell you why Democrats will lose, and last but not least here are some more focus groups of trump supporters. Sincerely I cannot bear to really listen to it much longer.
Had a good laugh reading this cause I had almost gotten around to posting something similar about Ruy's schtick. I don't claim Republican or Democrat and I do agree with a number of his criticisms about the Democratic party/base issues I find annoying but its more than that with him. Last time he was on with Charlie and was asked what could be done he basically said nothing. I was surprised to hear him mention on the Focus group that his book had suggestions of ways to change things.
Closet Republican is the appropriate label because its not even a tough love situation he has for his party. One party is literally trying to over turn elections and won't elect people who don't think the election was stolen but he is like its the Democrats fault for having people on their team yell fascism.
Teixeira's policy preferences are within the range of the Bulwark community. It is a bit odd that, unlike many here, he claims to *be* a Democrat when he has so little good to say about them.
I agree 100%. Is Biden old, yes, which in practical terms means he has at least 40 solid years of legislativee experience and has a deep understanding of the Constitution.
Trump is 3 years younger. He has spent his life living off his father's business and fortune. If he had done nothing instead investing in risky and fraudulent real-estate, his net worth would have been higher just from what he inherited from his father. (So he actually lost money by his stupidity in his business dealings.) Oh and he played a smart businessman/game show host on TV. AND He can't even spell Constitution. Who would you rather have as President?
All this is spot on, but in the words of Monty Python, "Have they got my leg?" I just had a conversation with my 35 yr old daughter in Washington State who has a Masters and can't get a job at PETCO or anywhere else. Her friends can't afford groceries (8.99 or not.) They are still mad about Bernie and Warren, and she says her whole generation is ready to shove the centrists over the cliff...that the only way to make progress and get her generation to vote is to go all out. So my question is, how are we going to get the millenials and the gen Zs to take the baby steps toward progress? They're working 3-5 piddling jobs and are legitimately uninspired by the Dems, even though they know the terrorists are a disaster. They need help NOW. Not at some future factory in the midwest.
All the talk of out-of-control inflation, cost of living spiraling on an ongoing basis, super-expensive cereal, even more super-expensive craft beer (now, that hurts), and other sky-is-falling innuendo doesn't quite pass the eyeball test with me when I see people find money for whatever they really want and don't wish to do without because of the "it's important to me" line of thinking -- cable or satellite TV when there are alternatives, season tickets to sporting events and clothing/swag to match, a bright red new truck that is well above their price range and more vehicle than they actually need (ditto new houses), too much food in the freezer and refrigerator that they wind up throwing away. And, hey, Taylor Swift -- my kid has to keep up with the other Swifties. All well and good if we are willing to accept that we sometimes engage in an act called hypocrisy while we point the fickle finger of blame at others.
My own feeling is that we as a nation have become quite an entitled, bitchy lot. I see Europeans endure higher cost of living and inflation spikes and, while not happy about it, aren't as whiny as some here who feel like they are owed as if a birthright cheap food, gas, and other items that often fall into the realm of free market forces at work, not political failure. Negativity has become quite a thing in our culture -- it's fun somehow to complain, blame someone else when our life choices don't work out, and paint a dark picture of our nation and the world without seeking full context and comparison with elsewhere. We actually have it pretty good here, all considered. I look around and life seems pretty normal to the average suburban sprawl resident. The GOP is fine with that as long as they can run the disinformation narrative that they are suffering, also while largely ignoring less affluent (also known as poor) people who actually are in a state of need as if out of sight equals out of mind. But then the GOP largely has become the Festivus Party in so many ways, with its customary airing of grievances. It should be a fun holiday season with them as they find still more ways to say that Joe Biden is responsible for it all while they themselves continue on their merry way.
I know this won't fit in a 30 second ad, nor resonate with an electorate that isn't going to do the deep thinking required; but...$8.99 cereal...largest European war since WWII in the breadbasket of Europe...maybe a connection? And maybe a reason why retreating from the world and letting things go to hell isn't a good plan for us. The US is in a good place to source most of what it needs in the western hemisphere, but that doesn't mean we won't pay more for it if the eastern hemisphere descends into armed chaos.
Yep. What you say reminds me of the old Fram oil filter commercial from the 1970s (dating myself, aren't I?), with the mechanic stating at the end that "You can pay me now. Or you can pay me later." We all know what that meant. It still holds true today, and in some much more important contexts.
You'd think a so-called 'conservative' party would understand the old saw about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. Of course, if the ounce of prevention comes with a microchip to track you when you forget your phone....
Wegmans is considered a higher-end grocery store, and cereal there is $2 a box. There is nowhere in the US suffering from grain shortages at this time, FFS.
Look, just tell people it's $9 a box. The people who watch the price of cereal aren't politically relevant. You want the grievancers with petty cash to spend. You can tell them cereal is $20 a box; why stop at 9?
Love your snark Dear Blue. I pay about $4.29 for a family sized box of cereal at Food Lion, it has been about the same since I remember, plus or minus 50 cents. You made me laugh, thank-you!! Neiman Marcus: LOL
There are people who live in cities abandoned by normal grocery stores and who rely on public transportation who probably have to hit the local bodega for many staples. For them I have sympathy. But Joe and Jan America doesn't go down to the Gas and Go to stock up on their weekly items.
As someone noted elsewhere, maybe if I lived on the North Slope and had my food flown in; $8.99 may even be a sale there. But here in the lower 48?
The infantilization of the American electorate began with Ronald Reagan, who bamboozled voters by tickling their ears with the message that the many responsibilities of government could be fulfilled without any kind of inconvenience or sacrifice, e.g., the ludicrous since-proven lie that cutting taxes would reduce the deficit. The Republican effort to get everyday Americans to vote against their own financial interests has been one of the most duplicitous yet outstandingly successful marketing campaigns in history.
Cereal has always been ridiculously priced which is why I almost never bought it. We are a toast, oatmeal, eggs and yogurt family.
Also, this year travel, sports and concert attendance is at record levels. Please don’t tell me that Americans aren’t buying wants rather than needs - and complaining when the credit card bill isn’t paid off at the end of the month at high interest rates.
I haven't bought cereal in thirty years or so. It's always seemed too expensive. I feel sorry for families that have to buy it because their children won't do without it.
Great comment! BTW, who the heck pays $8 for a box of cereal? I know that Wheat Chex are more expensive than Cheerios, but seriously - $8 a box? That's got to be an urban myth.
Also, every restaurant & pub in our town in Downeast Maine is full every single night, & reservations are required to get a table. That must be Joe Biden's fault, too.
You are correct. We have turned into a nation of whiners. God forbid we should ever have to face something as horrific as the Ukrainians are currently facing.
I can’t believe we are onto “cereal is expensive now!!!” It’s almost like Charlie is trolling JVL. last year it was eggs (because of bird flu) those prices collapse and it’s cereal now. Pretty amazing
For a nation that perceives itself to be in such economic trouble,we sure are spending a lot on ourselves.As you say, we do love to complain(not that there aren't any problems).Trump and the Trumpified GOP has become the negative, woe is me,grievence,dystopian party.That has permeated our sour mood.By the way, what is the likelihood that spending will be up this holiday season?
everything is expensive ffs. Has anyone tried to buy Concert tickets recently ? im assuming this is Bidens fault ? whats crazy is most of the venues are sold out !
This reminds me of when Romney said something like he's more worried about helping the middle class than helping the poor, because the poor are doing okay with the safety net we have in place.
But the risk of not helping the middle class is that they become poor, right? And once they're poor, they don't need help anymore.
I said this for the podcast yesterday, do any of you pundits bitching about inflation understand what deflation means? Maybe cracking open an Econ textbook is in order because The only thing we can hope for is that the rate of change in prices drops to zero while wages continue to increase. That’s it. Because deflation would be catastrophic. You think the GFC was bad? A deflationary spiral would make the Great Depression look like the roaring 20s. We are not going to get prices back to 2019 levels. People need to understand that.
The "people" also have no sense of context when it comes to inflation. They don't understand what the root causes are, and they don't understand that the US has managed to have lower inflation, post-COVID, than pretty much every industrialized nation. What offends me the most, however, is the thinking that life under Trump would be so much better.
It just makes me wonder. What if I think stuff was too expensive in 2019?! Hell I learned to drive back in the 90s, by that measure let’s have gas cost $1.50/gal.
I did a summer in Europe after high school. It was fabulous. I can’t imagine many parents today sending their 17 year old female child off to Europe for 10 weeks with a Eurorail pass, a stack of cashiers checks, a calling card (remember those?) and the pack on her back. Good times. 🤟
Agreed. We wore a cloak woven from innocence, naivety, adventurousness, and curiosity. It seemed to make one invincible. I've passed it to my children, although now I cloak them with my prayers.
Some people seem to be thinking, "well, we didn't have this problem when Trump was President, so that's a point in his favor. Why not put him back in and give him another chance?" I think that this is a fallacy, but I guess a lot of people disagree with me. I'm lurking in a pro-Trump fb group, and I sometimes see comments there along the lines of "I miss mean tweets and world peace." My guess is that almost no one in Ukraine or Israel is thinking, "you know, we never had these kinds of problems when Donald Trump was President of the U.S.", since not everything that happens in the world is about the United States, but apparently it is what some Americans think.
It's that logic that offends me, that post hoc ergo propter hoc bullshit. There is no leader in the world who considers Donald Fucking Trump a formidable leader. The Putins, the MBSs, the Orbans, and the Kim Jong Uns of the world look at Trump and see a mark. All they have to do is flatter him. And Russia knew this as early as 1986, if not earlier. From The New York Review of Books:
"In March 1986, Yuri Dubinin arrived in New York to assume his post as the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations. Dubinin’s daughter, Natalia, was already a diplomat serving at the Soviet mission, and she picked her father up at the airport and drove him into a city to which he’d never before been. (He wouldn’t stay long—within weeks of his arrival, Dubinin was reposted as Soviet ambassador to the United States and relocated to Washington, D.C.) Their first stop, Natalia told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, was a Tetris-like black skyscraper on Fifth Avenue. Professing himself impressed by what he saw in this monument to American capitalism, the graying apparatchik asked to meet its owner. So the Dubinins traveled to the top floor and were introduced to Donald Trump.
"It was a mutually delightful encounter. “The first thing I saw in the city is your tower,” the ambassador exclaimed to the developer (it must have been an exceptionally cloudy day on the Grand Central Parkway). “Trump melted at once,” Natalia recalled. “He is an emotional person, somewhat impulsive. He needs recognition. And, of course, when he gets it he likes it. My father’s visit worked on him like honey to a bee.”"
From what I can see we traded a forever war involving the US under Trump for a war draining one of our chief global rivals without our direct involvement. As for the ME, same as it ever was (yeah, I know it is more complicated than that).
Just checked the figures and we're spending less on Ukraine than we did in Trump's term on Afghanistan along with not having American boots on the ground to get killed and wounded. Beyond that, we know damn well that the blood and treasure poured into Afghanistan in Trump's term bore no real fruit. Supporting Ukraine seems very likely to be a big positive return for us, with a potential ally supported and a deadly advesary severely hurt.
It probably will be better for a lot of people...in the short term. I suspect that Trump will do all kinds of things to boost the short term at the expense of the long term.
But then you end up with inflation like 59% as in Turkey under Erdogan, an authoritarian. In Russia, I think inflation is like 12%, and it’s higher in Europe. Inflation is a world-side phenomenon right now post-COVID. Americans are so frightfully insulated that they have no clue.
But there’s another thing that is a problem in the US and that is the price of health care. It’s ridiculous.
I suspect big business (especially oil) raises (manipulates) prices during Democratic administrations, and lowers them during Republican eras, because the Republican agenda of low regulation and low corporate taxes are favorable, and they know how to control the masses into voting Republican - prices.
They're already manipulating the price of oil (taking 1Mbpd offline, driving up the price). You could argue that Trump being back in the WH would drive oil prices down (by expanding US production). But they support Trump because he's transactional (ignores human rights) and they would get arms and possibly nuclear technology.
True. I just think it will get worse. Right now gas is pretty decent where I am. Under $3 at Sheetz yesterday. But it's been higher than makes sense for a while now.
Another “sword dance” is calling. Light up the orb! (Imagine if Obama had engaged in such a bizarre [almost Satanic?] display; he was pilloried just for tilting his head slightly upon introduction.)
Yeah, but when a pundit says "It's about people's lived experiences, and you can theorize all you want but if people are hurting they're hurting," the pundit is right.
I've seen my personal economic concerns breezily dismissed, right here in this forum. If the opposing team had /anything/ to offer except repulsive scumbags, I would have waltzed right over to that side out of sheer disgust.
Saying "people are stupid" and "people need to get with the program" is exactly how you lose elections. Nobody owes you their vote.
No, it’s about pundits predicting an recession and then not offering apologies when they are completely weong. It’s about pundits not elucidating readers and viewers on why we are in our current situation. Times are quite literally tough for a certain segment of Americans every single day regardless of the broader economic outlook. This period is not significantly worse than any other period. It’s in fact better than a lot of periods.
The homeless are always hurting no matter what. Yet they can't vote because they have no address. To me it's not about dismissing voters who are struggling economically...its about asking voters to have some perspective and focus on what will truly address your economic issue. Is it student loans ? Lack of cost effective transportation? To costly to get education? Being able to vote is a right. Being able to exercise that right is a privilege that isn't universal. Taking a "I can't buy X,Y,Z. Like I did in 2016 so bring back trump" is a waste of that privilege IMO.
Pundits didn't just predict a recession, a majority of economists did, and around 40-45% of them still think we're in for one (as do I). Ever seen the yield curve inversion go as steeply as it has without us getting a recession in the last 60 or so years? We're not out of the woods yet and the rate hikes that the fed has done at the fastest pace in recent history haven't fully worked their way through the economy yet, although they're just now starting to.
Here's what surveys of economists were saying almost exactly a year ago:
"...more than half of respondents said the U.S. is headed toward a recession in the next 12 months. An additional 11% think the economy is already in a recession, commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of shrinking growth."
"Reuters polls of economists over the past year showed the risk of a recession one year out rising from 25% in April 2022, the month after the first rate hike of the Fed's current tightening cycle, to 65% in October. The most recent read: 55%."
It’s not happening. Repeatedly saying it and then being right at some point in the distant future is in no way accurately predicting anything. And they are and have been universally wrong. Because none of them have contended with the fact that these conditions are happening in an exploding jobs market on the heels of a black swan event.
Look, the field of economics is all about looking at historical data and trying to apply that to present data to indicate what lies in the near to middle term. I've heard many economist in the media over the last 6 to 8 months say they are befuddled by the continued strength of employment and GDP growth despite signals that would indicate a near term recession based on historical patterns. Do you expect them to say that we should all ignore those historical patterns, even if the pandemic was an event without any recent precedent?
And regarding "average" Americans, while those that feel that the economy is a dumpster fire are obviously not seeing (or willing to see) the actual overall picture, the fact is that we had very low inflation <2.5% for decades - if I remember correctly, some years ago there was even concern about deflation. You can't blame people for continuing to be anchored to February 2020 prices when they had no experience of sustained shockingly rapid price increases for everything (except housing of course, but even that took a hit in the early 2010s in many markets) unless they were already adults in the late 1970s / early 1980s. And yes, I understand that the recent period of high inflation didn't last anywhere near as long, but again, that was been a very very long time ago.
And you’re right, nobody owes Biden a vote. But those voters do owe themselves a well educated vote. And when people choose to act stupidly in the face of overwhelming evidence against their position, they open themselves up to criticism, that’s a part of being a member of society.
True, but it ain't the far left that's keeping people's economic concerns from being addressed with real action. It's Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema doing stuff like playing rope-a-dope with the child tax credit for 18 months when everyone knows they could have had *exactly* what they wanted from the very first, because everyone knew that they held all the cards.
Non-Republicans don't dislike Biden because he's a hyper-liberal; they dislike him because they imagine he's feckless about the things they care about. And they have that sense because there are a multitude of third rails he's not allowed to touch because money likes the status quo, and money rules our politics. And *that* is something we can't fix until we address the people like Joe Manchin.
"Non-Republicans" covers an awful lot of voters. It's probably a mistake to think they have a consistent set of political values from one end of the cohort to the other.
In the end it's not about who's right or wrong or who has the best analysis. There's voters getting ready to vote who are hurting and scared and if you can't figure out how to reach them you will not get their vote. And if you look down on them you will not figure out how to reach them. Good luck enjoying moral and intellectual superiority on November 6, 2024.
I don't want to conflate "looking down on people" with "telling them the facts about the economy" because we all deserve the facts. Telling people unemployment is low is not talking down to people or being condescending. I know because it's one of the few things I'm allowed to tell my family without pushback. Everyone knows we should be keeping track of economic indicators, aka "what's up with the economy and shit". My fear is that propaganda is drowning out facts, and keeping facts from people is actually being condescending.
It's good that you find that hard to believe because it's not true and it misses the point entirely. Maybe give understanding another try. You won't get far shadow-boxing a phantom.
Same here. I am on a fixed income and inflation is real to me. I mentioned my predicament in a comment last week. A responder felt the need to explain the importance of the social safety net to me, as if I were twelve. Or a moron. The condescension. No wonder Republicans hate us.
Good point.Lecturing never helps or convinces.The best way for Biden to approach this is to say the economy is improving but we aren't there yet and we are trying(for campaign purposes).
Thank you for your questions and for this rare example of someone actually willing to listen to the other side. Let me see if I can answer them.
I think Biden is doing fine, and I would never vote for Trump. For me personally, that's not the issue here -- but for many people it is, and I honestly think the only way to reach them is to talk to them like you just did. I despair that more people are not doing that.
What is pushing me away from the left are the many examples I am seeing, including in this thread, of intolerance, rigidity, disdain for others, blind, "let them eat cake"-level oblivion to other people's feelings and circumstances ... and apparent inability to see that this is /not/ a seminar room, we are /not/ about to get patted on the head by some cosmic professor for our clever analysis, and it doesn't matter a whit how tired or exasperated we are. Remember how when this all started we used to solemnly intone to each other, "Nobody is coming to rescue us"? It's still true. And we won't rescue ourselves by dissing the opposition. (I mean, go after the leadership creeps as much as you want, but not the rank and file, it's obviously self-defeating.)
You said, "I just think you have a perspective on this issue I don't and would be interested to hear what you think."
Thank you for sharing. I can see how that message is coming across. I wonder if that message is from the "rank and file"? Those who have a platform aren't always speaking on behalf of anyone but themselves and their friends. The rank and file don't have this platform. When Rank and File expresses themselves directly as you have,dialogue works well.
I learned something from your post.
When one uses a leader as ones stand in, and someone is critical of that leader it's slightly incorrect to say "you are being mean to me". No i am being mean to that leader. You picked your avatar!
I find It's difficult to paint any group with a broad brush and it's equally challenging to find ones "tribe". That's why I personally focus more locally when it comes to finding a group...whether that's the city I live or the orgs I join. There is only so much synergy I can have with a wide groups like "left", "right", etc.
Yikes! The “intellectual” response to people who are feeling the pinch is, “fuck your feelings”? No. Biden needs to talk about why it’s the difference between earnings and costs that make people feel poorer and that the economy is not working for them. Talk about those high paying jobs that are on deck with the infrastructure spending. Republicans have raised victimhood to new heights. Democrats need to acknowledge the pain (remember the master of feeling your pain was Bill Clinton) but make sure they place the blame squarely on the GOP where it belongs.
They do do this but you don’t see it because it doesn’t make the news. Biden and his admin have been traveling the country doing ribbon cutting events (sadly with their Republican colleagues as well who voted down those exact bills). The reason you don’t see it is because the news would rather cover the wars, gop implosion, trump trials, Trump tweets, impeachment, hunter biden, etc. what you described will never breakthrough
I know right? I mean you have red states turning down help because that help came from Biden! Trying to defund the IRS? Without tax revenue how will the lawmakers and cops get paid? Suing over student loan relief even though student loans don't care what your political affiliation is? Keeping health care tied to your job, not the fact that you work..but the actual job you have??
Biden has said with both words and actions "that he feels your pain". Hakeem Jefferies too..giving votes to keep the country open. I mean at some point what more can be done at the Federal level?
It is one of the reasons why it is difficult for me to take the "what democrats need to do to convince (insert group here) to vote for them" advice without sighing. It feels like the goal posts are always moving!
Also Republicans aren't winning on their messaging. If they were they wouldnt have lost 8 of the last nine popular vote or whatever that stat is WI overwhelming voted D, but have a minority at the state level. And do the majority of folks really agree that women should be paid less then men just becuase they have vaginas?? Or that 16 year olds should only be able to read Anne of Green Gables?
They are winning on their gerrymandering, their voter purges, their taking over of schools, their shamelessness. For dems to be where the repubs are they would have to be willing to do these same things, to value power and control above all else.
This is well said. Republicans play ABSOLUTE power politics and never, ever win the majority of the electorate and yet we have to hear from ex-republicans that say “this is what you should do.” I used to be a Republican but I recognized my advice might not be as helpful but listening to people say “don’t do x or y or z” because moderates won’t vote for you drives me crazy. The Democratic Party has a huge tent so they have to do things for different parts of their electorate. Let’s be serious, if moderates are convinced about Trump over Biden now, I’m sorry there is almost nothing the Democratic Party can do with POLICY to convince those moderates to vote for Biden. It’s crazy but you cannot look at these 2 candidates and say “I would have voted for Biden but he did (insert some random policy idea here)”
No one is telling these people “fuck your feelings.” But we can tell people that more people are working today than at almost any other time in the history of this country. We can tell them that this isn’t a local problem, it’s a global problem. And I think it’s more than fair to expect people in the most advanced country on the planet to have a bit of common sense on what’s happening.
I responded to this kind of comment yesterday that the ideal situation is not price *deflation* (that would be very bad), but rather that wage inflation either keeps pace with or out-paces a lower rate of inflation (2%) than we currently have (3.7%)--and even more ideally would be that rent inflation wouldn't be so much higher than wage inflation is right now (7.2% vs 4%).
I don't attribute any of this to being Biden's fault. Inflation is worse in the UK and Germany right now and Joe Biden isn't president of any of those places--nor do I think presidents have that much control over the domestic economy anyway (the federal reserve is a different story).
The unfortunate reality is that Biden can't do much right now, but I certainly wouldn't go around cheering "Bidenomics" right now either when the perceptions of most voters are that the economy sucks. And unfortunately, most voters are underinformed and just typically blame whoever is in charge for a shit economy. So yea, not a lot Biden or his team can do about that, but I'd certainly change the tune from "look how great Bidenomics is!" to a message about empathy for consumers who are dealing with this inflation spike while highlighting the things his admin is doing to bring inflation back down.
One policy I'd try to advance if I was Biden though: using federal funds to help partially cover new mortgage acquisitions until rates come back down and people can refinance at something better than 7.5%. Like student loan debt relief, he'd have to get this thing through hurdles to get funds appropriated, but by putting the ball in the GOP's court and then having them sink it he's showing that he's doing *something* to help prospective homeowners and then can demonize the GOP for refusing to help Americans who are struggling to afford homes.
I'd also recommend that he get a roundtable of dem mayors and governors at the WH with the topics covering how to increase housing inventories, how to push back against local NIMBYism, and how to reduce the amount of homeless people on the streets in dem cities--and then I'd get the press to cover the fuck out of that roundtable. Think of it as a sort of domestic G7 conference at the WH to get dem mayors and governors on board for rolling out policies in dem cities/states where they won't face opposition from the GOP like they do in congress.
What are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac doing? That's how I bought my first house, but nobody mentions them any more. It seems like they are still giving out assistance to first-time home buyers.
How many people do you know who absolutely know better that are complaining about both inflation and interest rates? Because I know a lot of them. Complain about one or the other, not both. It's like griping about the potholes and then whining about all the roadwork.
Pundits and people alike don't realize what deflation is just like they don't realize that Presidents don't control economy.And the government has very limited means to influence it
Who is pretending that the extremists and disgusting pro-Hamas left doesn’t exist? I seem to read each day about how one of the spox for the White House is denouncing the views as abhorrent and wrong. Seems like they are taking a pretty decisive line. Could they be doing more? Maybe, but is that our politics these days? As I type this out, I am listening to MSNBC talking about how the White House is looking to address the anti-semitism and Islamophobia on college campuses.
Am I missing where the Democrat party and and Democrat leadership is sweeping it under the rug? Seems to me they are willing to risk angering the ire of young adults who they undoubtedly need to win the election to emphasize that what Hamas did was barbaric and wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L34a-ubW8E - Jayapal, leader of Progressive Democratic caucus, largest in the House, comparing Israel to Russia, which is patently dumb (her forte) but also pretty disgusting.
I think Biden and the Democratic leadership have done a really decent job pushing back on all this crap, but it really is larger and more pervasive that many Democrats are willing to admit..
Maybe my network isn’t big enough, but it seems like there are plenty of folks wringing their hands over the split happening within the Democratic Party and their supporters. No one is shying away from it. It is on every news network, Democratic reps are asked to weigh in on the comments during interviews. Hell, on one of the first links on Drudge is about the schism in the left over Hamas and Israel. The week is young, let’s see how things play out for Jayapal over time. I’m already seeing the White House pushing back on that statement.
What more should be done? Should they be expelled from Congress?
Well, my hope is that she gets voted out of office, but I don't think that's in the cards here in deep blue Seattle. But honestly, why is she even the leader of the caucus? She says SO MANY dumb things all the time, so apparently those idiotic things are what the majority of the Democratic House support? That's.. a problem. (!)
She should have stepped down (or been forced out) as Chair when she put forward that letter demanding Biden negotiate with Russia over Ukraine two weeks before the Nov election last year.
I lost any respect for her when she (and her fellow caucus members) became inflation deniers - saying that pumping a whole bunch of money into consumers' hands at a time of production and supply constraints had zero effect on inflation, claiming that it instead it was all "corporate greed." They knew it was lie, and frankly a malevolent one (no, I will not apologize for casting aspersions on their moral character, and I think I've been vindicated by their recent pro-Hamas comments). And they even said that twice as much money (or more) should have been given to consumers. Look, compared to the 2020 election deniers on the Repub side it obviously is not as dangerous an offense, but you can't deny that it's in the same vein - spouting lies to pander to your most crazed and extreme voters because they always show up in the primaries.
You know, I honestly went back and forth this morning and I was too lazy to look it up. I had hoped the intent of my comment would be sufficient, but its cool getting lit up for small shit. I appreciate the assumptions about me though, great to see so many from someone who has never met me!
Please don't reduce this to just grammar. Republicans use "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" to be derogatory. Some have even attempted to associate Democrats with rats. Eventually it is the intent that makes the usage of certain words problematic. For E.g. "Negro", grammatically, simply meant the color black. But it has become a shunned word because of what it was used to mean. BTW playing with words is something the Republicans often resort to and misuse. Hence the their issue with the moniker BLM when it never meant non-Blacks don't matter.
Lifelong Democrat(ic) voter here, only recently immersed in political discourse like The Bulwark, and I have to say I didn't know the nomenclature was a 'thing' until just now. I'm with you on this ,Sko. Please, people, let's pick our battles. (P.S. haven't watched Fox Noise enough to know what terminology those propagandists use for anything)
The problem is that Republicans have been waging war on words for a long time. I get that being called a DemonRAT isn’t the biggest deal if you’re not a child, but the right has been flinging around words like “genocide,” “Communist” and so forth for awhile. When Biden offered to send medical professionals to help neighborhoods with COVID, MTG called them “brown shirts.”
Jayapal, my miserable rep, out there banging the anti-Israel drum is the leader the Progressive caucus, the largest caucus in the Democratic House. A leader, and very high profile. That ain't nothin..
Who in fact went on MTP this past weekend and compared Israel to Russia (!!!!). With "leaders" like that, you don't need enemies..
And they've been passionately denounced by Democratic lawmakers and voters. Too bad the GOP lawmakers (with a few exceptions) and voters didn't speak up against trumpian authoritarianism as passionately.
They have not been denounced by voters. When Talib, Lee, etc. get voted out, then you can say that.
And quite frankly, not a whole lot of the left's leaders - not just politicians, but academics, cultural - are not condemning the antisemites in their midst.
I was trying to think of names. For organizations, all I could think of was the Anti-Defamation League. They've been busy. I don't think the average voter (as if there were such a beast) would care what the Yale student paper has to say, and who knows who leads BLM or why this would require their involvement but Bernie Sanders is the most prominent leader of the DSA, I think? Those are all politicians. I was wondering if there is a non-political leader who is standing firm against anti-Semitism.
Summer Lee is my representative. She adamantly pro-Palestine giving the perfunctory “the Oct 7 attacks were terrible” and then 7 paragraphs about why Israel is bad and Palestinians are victims.
She also represents Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, home of one of the largest Jewish populations in the US and where the Tree of Life massacre took place five years ago.
"I have to admit I'm a bit startled to see what's being said on the far left regarding Israel."
STARTLED?!?! I guess you're not old enough to remember Tankies, Hanoi Jane, Sandinista Symps, and all the other "Fellow Traveller" irrelevancies of the last 70 years or so.
No, I'm not, Gee. And I admit I've been watching the degeneracy of the modern GOP for so long that my eyes haven't been on the far left. I'm a man without a party. When I look at the far left and the far right, and how each of them detest democracy and equal rights for all, it makes me question whether or not we're actually capable of self government.
Speaking of Speaker Johnson, I was in touch with news media most of the day yesterday, and I did not learn of his gambit to reverse the recently increased funding of the IRS until reading it here in Charlie’s newsletter. So I guess I should forgive a bit of voter stupidity.
Frankly, I'm at the point where if the House GOP wants to drive over the cliff, let them. Because they have fused religious fundamentalism with their politics, you can't negotiate with them in good faith because they view the world in black-in-white, Manichean terms. After all, from their point of view, if Joe Biden stole the election in 2020, why would they negotiate with someone they deem illegitimate. Let them own the disaster.
I would like to know specifically which Bible verse they are using for each of their decisions, since apparently that is where they are getting a lot of their ideas and justifications.
True. And yet, the Sermon on the Mount, the clothing of the naked, the welcoming of the stranger, the feeding of the hungry, etc., never seem to be cited.
I agree and have indulged in a lot of imaginary Schadenfreude when their surprisingly bitter fruit is spit out. It won’t take much; they’ll panic if cold beer is no longer available at the convenience store thanks to their nihilism. BUT I worry their fever dream destruction of “the administrative state” would be a one-way trip, without the benefit of a learning curve to find a way back.
But that's not consistent with what's happened in the past. When Gingrich shut down the government back in the 90s, Clinton wasn't blamed. When Cruz shut down the government, Obama wasn't blamed. If the crazies shut down the government, they'll get blamed. Besides, they want the shutdown. They don't care if Ukrainian, Israeli, or Palestine children are killed. So draw the contrast between responsible, global leadership -- Biden -- with mindless, irresponsible nihilism -- MAGA.
Hey I know, how about Ruy Teixeira give a solution? Ummm, perhaps the Fed can lower interest rates? Hmmm, wait a minute, but then the prices of housing would skyrocket again. You know why Ruy Teixeira's analysis drives me crazy? Because he gives red state talking points without solutions.
The far right didn't like Hillary Clinton either and they spent all their waking hours for years trashing her. It paid off. Now they are all out for Biden who in reality has been remarkably effective as president. Remember, the far right wants no government at all.
Seeing as how all these people replying to you would leave if they did, I really do hope they hire him. Can't you snowflakes learn to hate-read him like normal people?
Sure! But I'm trying to cut down on my hate reading. :) My opinion on Ruy Teixeira is let me know when he interviews people or does any new fact gathering. I think he is naïve when he throws the Black working class under the bus. It's not going to work as well as he thinks it is, and if we can learn anything from MAGA, learn DO NOT throw people under the bus merely because they have less power than you. But I'm always willing to give him a read if he offers new interviews or new data, which he hasn't recently.
Again, the GOP EMBRACED that "vocal minority" of extremists b/c they said the cruel and hateful things out loud AND they voted GOP. The rise of trump and his ilk is b/c "establishment" Republicans were just fine with that mess on the far right b/c JUDGES were much more important to them.
In no way did the GOP ignore the tea party and their other gangs.
Cut funding for the IRS...party of the rich. You've got reasonable technical points, but the big picture is that things like this can stick if the dems decided to message like the republicans do on these kinds of things. Hammer it home over and over again: "The reason you are hurting in a good economy is that the republicans are blatantly favoring the super rich over the rest of us who make this country work. From doctors to bricklayers to lawyers to teachers to nurses to cops, they aren't your party because they are helping the super rich plunder our economy."
Ruy Teixeira? C'mon Charlie, you still give this moke the time of day? When will these so called experts call out price gouging by corporations that were allowed to create virtual monopolies and can price goods at will with no threat of a competitor under pricing them?
Richard, as I mentioned here last week, Teixeira works for the American Enterprise Institute, not the Brookings or even the Cato Institute. And that’s for good reasons.
Where the hell is cereal $8.99? Alaska? A quick check of Walmart online shows the most common price is $4.98. Walmart “Great Value” brand, which I imagine a house cleaner might get, is $2.98
Jeff, you are more than likely correct. At a Sam’s in my area a twin pack of Raisin Bran for example is close to $10.00. But that’s for a twin pack totaling almost 80 ozs, which is over double a conventional box of cereal. Cheerios and other brands are lower priced than that.
I think someone decided to try for outrage & clicks / likes … never mind the truth … sure could you find somewhere charging $8.99, Yeh, but is it the price nearly everywhere else, Nup.
I agree with much of what Teixeira writes, including that there is much general concern about price levels (not just any continuing inflation). But then he seems to suggest that Biden needs to get general price levels to drop: "The only thing that might [make a dent in public perception] is focusing intensely on voters’ chief economic concern," and that concern is the current general price level. In other words, the Biden administration (and I guess the Fed) should have a laser focus on achieving general price level decline, otherwise known as deflation. But the only way to get deflation is to engineer a severe recession/depression. That is NOT going to make people happy or re-elect Biden.
1) WTF is Joe Biden supposed to actually do about the economy? He doesn't control it. None of these politicians control it. They don't decide prices. They don't control inflation. They don't even really control monetary policy.
Richard Nixon tried wage and price controls back in the day.--it helped him get re-elected in the short term, but it caused problems in the longer term.
I understand quite well that the President tends to get blame or praise for what the economy does... because people are stupid and simplistic. But the question IS, what, exactly, does Biden do? Especially with the GoP in control of the House?
2) Pundits talk a lot about what politicians or policy makers need to do (in general terms)--but that seems to me to be largely meaningless and more contributory to the problem than presenting any actual solution or useful course of action.
It is easy to see that certain courses of action would be better (or worse) than others. It is easy to understand that there are useful and postibe changes that we could make to our institutions that would actually move us towards fixing some of the crap that we are dealing with.
The problem isn't usually in seeing these things. The problem is in DOING these things... and, in many cases, actually doing the necessary things is effectively impossible. I have discussed various aaspects of this at length in the comments here over the last few years.
One of the things that drives people towards authoritarianism is the realization that the necessary changes cannot be made. It creates a frustration level that builds over time until you hit a crisis point. We are VERY near that crisis point.
You can do things to manage or shift perceptions. The problem is that it takes a broadband, long term effort to do so and it requires the cooperation of a variety of actors across politics, the economy, the media, etc.
And you are NOT going to get that cooperation because of the existing incentive structures and the conflicting interests.
And you are not going to get the necessary time to do it (because the reality is that it is far too late to start playing that game).
So, again, what do you actually do? Not couched in terms of meaningless generalities (Biden needs to address the age question--WTF does that mean?).
I have the very same problem at work. As many might know, I am a public school teacher. I see lots of very vague slutions put out about how to improve student achievement. There is lots and lots of discussion, using the latest and greates buzz words and cool ideas.
And most of that is really nothing more than mental masturbation or tinkering around the edges until someone takes offense at it for some reason and you are forced to stop.
It isn't as though people do not know/understand what it takes for kids to be academically/educationally successful
It is that it is largely impossible to actually do the necessary things--largely for political and economic reasons.
You just can't do it. The will does not exist for it. The funding does not exist for it.
So we do what the politicians do... we kick the can down the road. We make reassuring noises that people usually do not believe (for good reason).
It is emotionally and physically exhausting and demoralizing. It is one of the reasons why the teaching profession is having a manpower crisis.
If I did not have 27 years invested in this, I would be gone. I WILL be gone when I top out my pension at 30 years (if not before) and I will be glad to be gone. Not because I hate teaching or I do not want to help kids, but simply because I cannot face this BS any more.
And a LOT of Americans feel the same way as me about a lot of things that are going on.
A LOT of Americans want decisive and substantive action (even if that decisive action would actually be disastrous in outcome, if you actually knew enough to understand that--which most do not).
Yes, most people are completely ignorant when it comes to thinking the Prez has control over prices. I have grad and undergrad degrees in Economics and I can safely say the President has as much influence over pricing as the weatherman has over the weather. That said, all the money thrown at people during covid played some small part, but maybe only at the second decimal place, and if anything it contributed to avoiding the much predicted recession. The inflation we've experienced has a lot of moving parts, including a tight labor market, snarled supply lines, product shortages due to weather or animal epizootics, and so forth.
A good point at the top. All these folks voting for trump nostalgia haven't actually asked him how he plans to fix inflation say. I can remember when Reagan felt the need to put forth a plan. Which was criticized of course but he did put forth a plan and defended it. Now voters have lost the need to hear a plan but appear satisfied that the "right" person will do something whatever it is to make it better. Yep the problem is really us. Exactly when and what changed eludes me a little though... But we are different.
It isn't really that the media changed (at least not the mainstream media) The stories and narratives that they construct now are not all that different from the ones that we around when I was young.
Two things did change:
1) The incentive structure (largely around pacing and the demand for continuous coverage); and
2) The atomization of segments of the market.
The continuous nature of current coverage (the need to simply say things, lots of things, often meaningless or wrong or actually non-serious)) leads to a lot of... problematic coverage. It also creates a HUGE amount of noise. It also creates a sort of zeitgeist--general world/emotional context--which is largely filled with noise, social angst, and negativity.
Atomization means the construction of multiple and largely unconnected realities/narratives with little to no overlap--the loss of a baseline, shared world.
Both of these things are huge societal and political problems--and we KNOW this (and do nothing about it, because we can do nothing about it).
Yeah, the MSM hasn't really changed, nor has network news, but I can point to 3 momentous things in the 80s that set the table for where we are today:
1) CNN/Headline News
2) Rush Limbaugh
3) The deregulation that made Rush Limbaugh possible.
Limbaugh and his clones eventually gained millions of acolytes while staying largely shielded from public awareness on their AM dials. CNN is not terribly successful its first ten years, then the first Gulf War hits, and suddenly it appears there is a market for 24 hour news, as long as the content is sensational enough. Then you get FoxNews, cuz librul bias, and MSNBC arrives and drifts further left.
Later on, throw in technology with the internet and mobile phones, news feeds on social media, and algorithms that figure you out, and you have a recipe for idiocracy.
The electorate has changed. We no longer operate on a shared set of facts. And at the extremes, picking your facts results in inexplicable behavior. It's the only way you can vote for Trump after he incited an insurrection at the Capitol and tried to end American democracy. It's the only way you can defend Hamas after they took pics of themselves engaged in a Medieval orgy of slaughter of Israelis so they could send footage back to mom.
People have always been really good at choosing their own facts (but were somewhat constrained by the limited amount of facts available)... and now they have a wider range of carefully curated facts to choose from. A set of facts for any desired taste.
I sent this e-mail to the guys yesterday and then replied to The Triad with it:
"Hi guys. Sending this mail in the hopes that one of you can address this in one of your podcasts, e-mails or whatever. I'm getting just about sick of Ruy Teixeira's schtick and am about to label him a closet republican. To be clear, I'm sure that he's a very nice and smart guy. Also, my own personal views on policy are very similar to his. I consider myself a moderate, maybe center-left or even progressive populist. I'm a 54 year old white, straight, meat eating, father of 2 engineers from Philly. But I've listened to him on, at least, Charlie's pod, and managed to get through his appearance on The Focus Group this weekend and he needs to be called out.
First is Biden and the age question. He, and Charlie has said this too, want President Biden to "address the age question". How the fuck is he suppose to "address the age question"? He's old. He knows he's old. We all know he's old. He looks old because he IS old. Should he get out there and say he's not old? Say he's really into EDM this year? Is he supposed to host Saturday Night Live or something? He'd look ridiculous. Should he have sent troops to pull vehicles out of Burning Man? How about, in the course of his presidency, he's flown into two, count 'em, TWO active war zones, called for MORE funding for the police and walked on a union picket line? And those aviators, do they count for nothing? How about, as old as he is, he's in infinitely better shape than TFG and probably Meatball Ron for that matter?
Time and time again during The Focus Group podcast, Sarah pressed Ruy on his criticisms of how Biden is "perceived". She would say Biden IS the moderate. He was historically viewed as TOO moderate for much of the democratic electorate. She asked if Ruy thought Biden was a socialist, was FOR illegal immigration, for teaching little kids about transgenderism, for letting trans men (I think, whichever one Bruce Jenner is) compete in women's sports and he would say no. He said no and then said that Biden, essentially, wears this perception like a stain because some segment of the population perceives that this is what the democratic party is now as opposed to the party of the working man. This is despite Joe getting bipartisan infrastructure done AND the aforementioned picket line. Why does this stain Uncle Joe because the perception is there? Wait for it. Because, yes, the democratic party tends to be more socially liberal and more highly educated than republicans or conservatives. News flash, one usually follows the other there. If you're playing the home game, here is what this boils down to. The Democratic Party IS still the party of the working man. Does it suck that some of those working men are misogynists, homophobes and racists? Yes. And yes, people of marginalized communities are going to tend to vote and support the party that isn't actively trying to outlaw their lives. WTF is PJB ACTUALLY supposed to do about this, sneak out an accidental/on purpose dog whistle on a hot mic? Ruy actually said at one point that part of the immigration crisis exists because the, again, perception in the latin world was that Biden would at least be kinder to them than trump. Well, OK. Yeah, Biden's not a monster so, he's got that going for him. The bottom line is that Ruy doesn't like what the party is. And he may have a point that the perception of what the party is will hurt us with some people, in some places who don't like it BUT the party is what the party is. Joe can't stop "press 1 for english". He can't stop that people that tend to like small, local privately owned coffee shops that serve rainforest safe coffee will tend to avoid the red maga hats and not care if the person in front of them is black, brown or gay. This is where the party is right now and I'll take that every day of the week and twice on Tuesday vs a racist, quasi-fascist that is trying to take over the country while letting his homie take over eastern Europe."
Biden on the Age issue to the American: “My fellow Americans, I’m old as Fuck, my opponent is old as Fuck. In these dangerous times I speak slowly, carefully while my opponent is pissing out of his mouth, with long pauses when he gets his lip caught in the zipper. I’m sane, he thinks Hannibal Lecter is a real person who likes him. (Pause, head shake, smile) if Hannibal the Cannibal were real he wouldn’t want to take the hours it would take to trim all the lard off Trump. So no, this fictional character wouldn’t like him. (Impish smile, puts on Aviators) And again, for all Bulwark members out there, I am old, feel free to play that on a continuous loop. Thank you and live from New York, it’s Saturday Night.”
Guest starring:Darrrrk Brrrandon.
This deserves a nice Chianti! 😉
(stands and applauds) Well done sir. Well done.
We need more than a like button. LOVE!!!
Edit it down to the first two words of each statement and you've got a pretty nifty campaign slogan.
Twumpy Tweeted BS.
He never built a damn thing besides that mountain of fraud that's crashing around his ears right now.
Well, he built a cult, I give him that.
Still waiting for Charlie to offer a mea culpa for calling BiDeN’s gambit of walking the picket line risky. As of yesterday the UAW has reached an agreement or a tentative agreement with all 3 auto companies. Waiting for that credit to be heaped onto Union Joe. But I know my wait is in vain.
It was risky. He was doing something no President had ever done before by actively joining a picket line. Labeling something as risky doesn't necessarily mean it's bad.
Going to the Middle East was risky, what credit was Biden going to get? Maybe we need to accept that a real President does risky things and only a coward judges their actions by votes it gets or loses.
"Hiway to the danger zone.Ride away to the Danger zone". *Kenny Loggins
When you take a risk and the results go your way, you'll get credit. If Biden wins next year he'll get plenty of credit for his risks. If he loses he'll get plenty of second guessing. That's the way things work.
Oh, in this example it was most definitely painted as bad. And as far as the strike goes, the workers achieved the majority of their aims. So yes, Biden deserves credit now, not after he wins in 2024.
The Democratic Party is still, and now the only one where the conversation, the discussion, the argument goes on. Unlike the Republicans where it’s shut up and get in line or be cast into the wilderness. Clearly there is a significant portion of the US population that is willing to accept authoritarian rule. Ironically, they point to the back and forth among Democrats as the main justification.
Whoowee, that was a righteous rant!!
I've found Ruy's past appearances on Bulwark vehicles to be thought-provoking and in some cases compelling. But the case he was trying to make on The Focus Group was circular and (IMO) nonsensical. Basically....
Sarah: Listen to these voters who think the Democratic party has drifted too far left and sound like Republicans.
Ruy: Democrats should moderate their farther-left positions to court centrists and the blue-collar base that used to vote mostly D.
Sarah: Biden IS that moderate Democrat by both word and action.
Ruy: Those centrists and former Ds view Biden as too far left for their taste, so...Trump.
Sarah: Is that because of a media ecosystem that feeds them that perception 24x7, whether it's reality or not?
Ruy: No, you've committed the Fox News Fallacy. It's definitely not that.
Sarah: What's the issue then if not a media ecosystem?
Ruy: Democrats should moderate their farther-left positions to court centrists and the blue-collar base that used to vote mostly D.
And it starts over. Totally circular and totally without any real prescriptive answers.
I didn't listen to that Focus group podcast but judging from the comments not a lot of love there for Ruy.
I think standing on the picket line with striking workers could be supportive of the base. The problem is the right wing entertainment world funded by who the hell knows? But those who fund the right wing media surely hate the United States.
I teared up.
Well said. Teixeira is in the same category as Francis Fukuyama for me, intellectuals with a history of being wildly, profoundly wrong who nevertheless continue to be considered experts in their fields. I remember reading Teixeira talking about the imminent permanent Democratic/liberal majority as a result of demographic change and the Obama coalition back in 2008. As far as Galaxy-Class bad takes go it's no "End of History" but it's close.
Incidentally, and this is not to harangue just to educate since I believe you want to get it right - Jenner is considered a trans woman, a trans man is someone who was assigned female at birth who then transitions to male, and referring to her by her old name is considered rude (not that she particularly deserves deference, I think she's a pretty bad person, it's more for the benefit of everyone else).
Go Birds!
I think "End of History" has been wildly misunderstood. It's not end as in "finish", it's end as in "telos".
Basically, he's arguing that liberal capitalist democracy is the final form of human social evolution, and that it won't be replaced by another system. The fact that the major challenges to liberal democracy have taken the form of reactionary authoritarianism is almost a boon to the theory, because it suggests the alternative is to look backwards and undo history instead of forward towards something new.
That said, I think he's both naively optimistic to assume we've reached that telos already (it's possible our democracies are just a historical blip) and naively pessimistic to assume nothing better can be created. Plus, he doesn't really have any support for the idea that history is teleological and not cyclic.
I agree that it's widely misunderstood, I do comprehend the argument that he is making - it's just that the argument he is making is pretty clearly incorrect or at my most charitable - incomplete. The core argument is that the advantages of liberal democracy are so proven and self-evident at this point that no one would ever attempt to change or subvert that system of governance, and that has been definitively disproven - by history.
His thinking is emblematic of a sort of post-cold war western triumphalism that, while understandable, does not really hold up to scrutiny and led to some fairly catastrophic geopolitical blunders, as the US in the 90s and 2000s imagined it could just do whatever it wanted forever and no one would get upset about it because it was Obviously Right.
Thank you. I did want to get the trans thing right and I forgot her name. I was kind of in a hurry to get that out, so didn't research. In the end, JVL beat me to it anyway. :D
In Ruy's defense he conflated the popular vote with the Electoral College vote.
Which isn't much of a defense since he wrote this having lived through the 2000 election already.
Agreed.
Go Birds!
Yep, listening to Ruy is agitating and hard to stick it out. BUT. He is correct that IF the Democratic party wants to strategize a win, we have to court votes, and that means courting the middle. And because the right wing media machine is so strong, it is bits of the GOP narrative that get absorbed by low information voters that do not consume right wing media, and there is little Democratic narrative getting in there along with it. Which means, if we find a vehicle to get a Democratic narrative to voters, it means more to those listeners if it connects with something they have already heard. For example, "Democrats don't want to put any ideology in classrooms; we just want available privacy in bathrooms in public. Like a family bathroom at the ballpark where Dad can take his 4 yo daughter to the bathroom without going in the lady's room or leaving her alone in the lady's room or subjecting a small girl to a men's bathroom. These family restrooms woud be used by nursing mothers, parents of multiple small children, sufferers of IBS/colitis, just to name a few. They are for anyone that wants more privacy or security than currently available."
I agree that Democratic strategies that address right wing lies and exaggeration feels wrong, like sinking to their level. Like ignoring IMPORTANT issues in order to hang out in the basement arguing dumb shit. But Ruy is correct; if we want to be sure to win to save Democracy, we need strategy.
It's a difficult game. The peril of being the Only Sane Party is that the Democrats have to appeal to the middle while not alienating the left because they can only win with the entire coalition sticking together due to the various ways the GOP has stacked the deck in its favor. Historically, the attitude has been to say more or less, "screw the left, they'll come along anyway". But this isn't enough for people like Teixeira. The cynical side of me suspects that Teixeira's real complaints are more along the lines of how surprisingly great Biden has been for organized labor.
I consider myself a leftist. Essentially, I don't want to seize the means of production but I also don't believe certain industries can be trusted to the private market. I have two mothers, one trans. I'm disabled in a way that dramatically limits my professional opportunities. As a result, I find myself opposed to a lot of the things Biden does, and clamoring for many things that he won't do.
Taking my own political hat off for a second and trying to look at his performance in a purely cynical, "will this optimize the amount of votes he will get" way, I can't really fault him much. In a sane electorate, he's checking all the right boxes, it's just that the electorate is increasingly disentangled from reality due to the continuing breakdown of the functioning of government in this country. The problems we face are ones that Biden can't really do anything about, but blame accrues to the top and so even if he bears no responsibility for things like the pathetic state of the House of Representatives or the wildly compromised Supreme Court, the fact that those problems exist screw up the vibes and people get angry at him anyway.
Ultimately, the Biden people are pretty smart - they don't need Ruy or Charlie telling them things they already know. If they lose in 2024 I suspect it will not be because of anything that they are capable of controlling for.
I’d say the electorate is increasingly disentangled from reality due to the fractured “news” media environment, and the rush to titillate viewers for whatever generates clicks (profit) rather than to convey reality to their audience. The cited “breakdown” of government is an effect of the media environment, not a cause - other than whatever might be the role of eliminating the Fairness Doctrine.
I don’t know, I think your Trump voter knows what’s real, so does your RFK Jr. Voter and Cornel West voter. As does the Haley, Bernie, Biden and DeeSantis or DehSantis voter. None of them are saying, “I can’t tell what’s real.” They all know, it’s just that their realities don’t align.
For them to say “I can’t tell what’s real’ would require an oxymoron level of awareness. But I agree; I have found red hatters often fold immediately when presented with the truth. I think a lot of them feel like they’re in on the hilarious gag of owning the libs. But the media environment is still the key to that phenomenon.
I find the left think Biden is serious but not strong, the right think Trump is strong but not serious. The left think Biden isn’t fixing mass shootings, or prices on things, or the Middle East because he lacks the ability to properly use the powers of his office. Whereas when Trump gives solutions to difficult problems that are ludicrous, the right think he’s purposely not being serious and is just mocking the libs.
"I can't tell you why" *Eagles
"....it's just that the electorate is increasingly disentangled from reality due to the continuing breakdown of the functioning of government in this country." I must point out, Andrew, that tens of millions of Americans are untethered from reality, not because the government isn't functioning but because they have been captured by the disinformation industry. Ergo, this base of MAGA voters scare the republican politicians both politically and often physically. The dysfunction in the House is a symptom of the underlying disease: A largely ill-informed electorate.
“Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” -George Bernard Shaw
Charlie and Ruy get paid to talk, not to actually get people elected.
“Do or do not. There is no try.” -Yoda
So, I ask the same thing, what is your strategy? Biden can't come out and say "I'm not old" or "I'm just fine". It has the opposite effect. He CAN say the problem at the border is real, here's what I'm going to do, because I'm getting no help from congress. He can say the crime problem is real and here's what I'm going to do. I don't think there's anything he can do about inflation. Others have addressed this.
Biden comes out and says “Person, woman, man, camera, TV.” Holds up a finger for silence and after a brief pause, “Apple, hat table, bed, cup.” Starts grinning, shows serious face and holds up a finger again, “Window, ball, box, chair, ring.” Grins ear to ear and starts his real comments.
I am the worst strategist for anything interesting or important, though I can pack a mean trunk for camping. I did have 2 ideas for Joe months ago. One was that as he declared, he invite Dems to campaign along with Kamala, so "America could choose the candidate that would be his running mate and possible successor." And two, that he own his oldness; mention it and joke about it during every noncrisis speech or interview. That is the only way to make people more comfortable with it.
Today, all I can think of (besides good Presidenting) is touting his moderate decisions whenever possible, and contrasting them with Trump. "We must support Democracy abroad, as it staves off accumulation of authoritarian power. If you have Trump, he will let Putin & China divvy up all the places they want power and then they will band together against the United States. Meanwhile, America will be crying about the 2020 election and kissing our own democracy goodbye." (not a speechwriter either ;))
I like this idea, open it with the Cornucopia bloodbath as befit all Hunger Games.
You should give yourself more credit for campaign strategy.They are good ideas.An occasional joke about his age maybe all right.(but don't go overboard with that).
"I am the worst strategist for anything interesting or important..."
Well, at least you got that part right.
Give me more if it makes a diff in your life...
My apology for being snarky, Carolyn. It was a bad day that had left me in a mood.
And have them choose if they want to hang Harris or not, get some of that Republican crossover vote.
Actually, I like Harris. But BEFORE he declared himself plus her, he could have stated he wants her, trusts her, etc, but let's let voters have a say. (We all like to express our opinion for President if nothing else about governance.) That would also appeal to anti Trumpers that seem to already dislike her. We would have seen Kamala debate a couple candidates, and she would have either emerged a reconfirmed choice, or someone else may have emerged. Either way, we would have some data and interest and perhaps a backup plan for Joes death which we all need to acknowledge can happen any day. People certainly die even if they have no current health crises.
This also might have given the media something to do besides ask Repubs who won the 2020 election.
I agree, this Biden is old is getting old. I am so tired of this being hammered at us here often. As if we were being told "You know what, unicorns don't exist". I so another poll today on DK. I don't know how accurate it is, when people were asked, among the two old possible candidates Biden and Trump, who would you vote for? The results were 61% for Biden and about 23 % for Trump. I assume the difference is from undecided. I don't believe in polls though. About the economy, the data cited here is not what I have been finding from many other sources. How about a 4.9% GDP? We are far from rich, my husband and I. However, we manage, we have not experienced "soaring inflation". Food prices are down at least in our Food Lion. Perception about the economy is driven by the media gloom and doom. But as I said, not all, I have seen very in-depth analysis by some economists, and we are not starving in the USA, unless we want to live on caviar and champagne and go out to eat at a 5-star restaurant once a week. Yes, the economy is not making people rich but our economy is very good compared to the rest or the world.
My advice to Charlie comes via Neil Young, “Old man, take a look at my life, I'm a lot like you.”
What do they want? For our old President to say "You know what folks, I got up this morning and found out that I am 80 years old, I have been in denial, now I am going to stop governing and go home to Delaware and play golf and watch TV and go on Twitter and thank those wise people who let me accept reality. Thank-you Charlie!!"
And one president went to Mara Lago to sulk.
"I need someone to love me the whole day through."
Very well said!!! Go Birds!
DALLAS SUCKS!!
Apparently the best Teixeira will do by way of constructive suggestions is, "listen to them." Which I guess is a polite way of telling Biden supporters to STFU.
Oh, and then what, Ruy?
How is "listening" going to change their perceptions?
It's on a par with RT's demand that hoity toity Dems stop high hatting the great unwashed. Fine, and... crickets.
He doesn't even ask Biden to say to them, "I feel your pain " (As if that, too, wouldn't be mocked as condescending.)
Btw, here in NM the state mailed out multiple tax free checks specifically to alleviate COVID-related inflation. I can imagine how Republicans (and probably even RT himself) would react if Biden proposed such a remedy, but at least it's a thought.
Teixeira's suggestions are worse than his analysis. It seems like every time he's on he argues we should be throwing minority rights under the bus to satisfy bigoted centrists.
That is the biggest reason I can't stand listening to him. He wants to throw out decades of minority rights activism to beg for a few bigoted centrist voters.
And hence the modern Republican Party, born in The Voting Act of 1965. Call a black woman a welfare queen and you’re just speaking the truth, call a racist a racist and it’s an offense against freedom of thought.
And there we are. People who were happy to let Bill Clinton be accused of every criminal act (murder, drug-running, etc.) and that Obama was a secret Muslim drew the line at Trump.
“He that lieth down with dogs shall rise up with fleas" attributed to Poor Richard's Almanack
Take rancid butter, sour milk, add enRiched flour and white sugar (has to be white) blend it together, bake and be surprised when you take someone like Trump out of the oven.
I’d like this a million times. Seems like the razor sharp response to Israel-Gaza blunted “Biden old” a little bit. So on to inflation. Right on cue, here comes Ruy rolling out the strawman. Everyone knows inflation is a liability. But Biden’s only option is to focus on the positive aspects of the economy.
And Fox News fallacy? That’s where Ruy goes off the rails. Is the economy perfect? No, far from it. But is it Great Depression/Recession bad? Nope. Not even close. But that’s what Fox is peddling (in many cases arguing that Biden hurts the economy on purpose) and what too many people believe. No “helpful” suggestions in Ruy’s piece. Just some nice mocking that sounds awfully familiar to what we’re used to hearing from certain less than savory quarters. Sigh.
Thank you for saying what many of us are thinking. Maybe if we could hear some of the good things Biden has done occasionally. Lately is mostly Democrats bad, Biden is going to lose, here's another expert that will tell you why Democrats will lose, and last but not least here are some more focus groups of trump supporters. Sincerely I cannot bear to really listen to it much longer.
Had a good laugh reading this cause I had almost gotten around to posting something similar about Ruy's schtick. I don't claim Republican or Democrat and I do agree with a number of his criticisms about the Democratic party/base issues I find annoying but its more than that with him. Last time he was on with Charlie and was asked what could be done he basically said nothing. I was surprised to hear him mention on the Focus group that his book had suggestions of ways to change things.
Closet Republican is the appropriate label because its not even a tough love situation he has for his party. One party is literally trying to over turn elections and won't elect people who don't think the election was stolen but he is like its the Democrats fault for having people on their team yell fascism.
Holy crap! He might be a closet Republican! How did he end up here in a site started by Republicans for moderates from both parties?
Teixeira's policy preferences are within the range of the Bulwark community. It is a bit odd that, unlike many here, he claims to *be* a Democrat when he has so little good to say about them.
I agree 100%. Is Biden old, yes, which in practical terms means he has at least 40 solid years of legislativee experience and has a deep understanding of the Constitution.
Trump is 3 years younger. He has spent his life living off his father's business and fortune. If he had done nothing instead investing in risky and fraudulent real-estate, his net worth would have been higher just from what he inherited from his father. (So he actually lost money by his stupidity in his business dealings.) Oh and he played a smart businessman/game show host on TV. AND He can't even spell Constitution. Who would you rather have as President?
All this is spot on, but in the words of Monty Python, "Have they got my leg?" I just had a conversation with my 35 yr old daughter in Washington State who has a Masters and can't get a job at PETCO or anywhere else. Her friends can't afford groceries (8.99 or not.) They are still mad about Bernie and Warren, and she says her whole generation is ready to shove the centrists over the cliff...that the only way to make progress and get her generation to vote is to go all out. So my question is, how are we going to get the millenials and the gen Zs to take the baby steps toward progress? They're working 3-5 piddling jobs and are legitimately uninspired by the Dems, even though they know the terrorists are a disaster. They need help NOW. Not at some future factory in the midwest.
All the talk of out-of-control inflation, cost of living spiraling on an ongoing basis, super-expensive cereal, even more super-expensive craft beer (now, that hurts), and other sky-is-falling innuendo doesn't quite pass the eyeball test with me when I see people find money for whatever they really want and don't wish to do without because of the "it's important to me" line of thinking -- cable or satellite TV when there are alternatives, season tickets to sporting events and clothing/swag to match, a bright red new truck that is well above their price range and more vehicle than they actually need (ditto new houses), too much food in the freezer and refrigerator that they wind up throwing away. And, hey, Taylor Swift -- my kid has to keep up with the other Swifties. All well and good if we are willing to accept that we sometimes engage in an act called hypocrisy while we point the fickle finger of blame at others.
My own feeling is that we as a nation have become quite an entitled, bitchy lot. I see Europeans endure higher cost of living and inflation spikes and, while not happy about it, aren't as whiny as some here who feel like they are owed as if a birthright cheap food, gas, and other items that often fall into the realm of free market forces at work, not political failure. Negativity has become quite a thing in our culture -- it's fun somehow to complain, blame someone else when our life choices don't work out, and paint a dark picture of our nation and the world without seeking full context and comparison with elsewhere. We actually have it pretty good here, all considered. I look around and life seems pretty normal to the average suburban sprawl resident. The GOP is fine with that as long as they can run the disinformation narrative that they are suffering, also while largely ignoring less affluent (also known as poor) people who actually are in a state of need as if out of sight equals out of mind. But then the GOP largely has become the Festivus Party in so many ways, with its customary airing of grievances. It should be a fun holiday season with them as they find still more ways to say that Joe Biden is responsible for it all while they themselves continue on their merry way.
I know this won't fit in a 30 second ad, nor resonate with an electorate that isn't going to do the deep thinking required; but...$8.99 cereal...largest European war since WWII in the breadbasket of Europe...maybe a connection? And maybe a reason why retreating from the world and letting things go to hell isn't a good plan for us. The US is in a good place to source most of what it needs in the western hemisphere, but that doesn't mean we won't pay more for it if the eastern hemisphere descends into armed chaos.
Yep. What you say reminds me of the old Fram oil filter commercial from the 1970s (dating myself, aren't I?), with the mechanic stating at the end that "You can pay me now. Or you can pay me later." We all know what that meant. It still holds true today, and in some much more important contexts.
You'd think a so-called 'conservative' party would understand the old saw about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. Of course, if the ounce of prevention comes with a microchip to track you when you forget your phone....
Well, as I expect you fully understand, pretty much all of the TradCon values have left the building. No reason to just point out up-front prevention.
Fiscal responsibility?
Personal responsibility?
Respect for law and order?
Free-ish trade?
Restraints on gov't power?
It's pretty amazing that the right is effectively opposed to nearly all traditional conservative values these days.
Not to mention values of personal character like honor, integrity, courtesy, modesty, self-control, or respect.
Excellent. Thanks for remembering that commercial (you brought it back for me too!).
Where do you shop for $8.99 cereal? Neiman Marcus?
Wegmans is considered a higher-end grocery store, and cereal there is $2 a box. There is nowhere in the US suffering from grain shortages at this time, FFS.
https://shop.wegmans.com/shop/categories/1243?tags=gluten_free&open_sidecart=true
Look, just tell people it's $9 a box. The people who watch the price of cereal aren't politically relevant. You want the grievancers with petty cash to spend. You can tell them cereal is $20 a box; why stop at 9?
Whole Paycheck.
Whole Foods= Whole paycheck
Eat Oatmeal. It's cheaper and better for you!
Love your snark Dear Blue. I pay about $4.29 for a family sized box of cereal at Food Lion, it has been about the same since I remember, plus or minus 50 cents. You made me laugh, thank-you!! Neiman Marcus: LOL
There are people who live in cities abandoned by normal grocery stores and who rely on public transportation who probably have to hit the local bodega for many staples. For them I have sympathy. But Joe and Jan America doesn't go down to the Gas and Go to stock up on their weekly items.
As someone noted elsewhere, maybe if I lived on the North Slope and had my food flown in; $8.99 may even be a sale there. But here in the lower 48?
And who really needs boxed cereal? It’s always been an overpriced version of “nutrition”.
Thank you for the digression into denial.
It where they’re shopping, I live in a county where the average home price is over a million and I pay $4.99 for my cereal.
The infantilization of the American electorate began with Ronald Reagan, who bamboozled voters by tickling their ears with the message that the many responsibilities of government could be fulfilled without any kind of inconvenience or sacrifice, e.g., the ludicrous since-proven lie that cutting taxes would reduce the deficit. The Republican effort to get everyday Americans to vote against their own financial interests has been one of the most duplicitous yet outstandingly successful marketing campaigns in history.
Cereal has always been ridiculously priced which is why I almost never bought it. We are a toast, oatmeal, eggs and yogurt family.
Also, this year travel, sports and concert attendance is at record levels. Please don’t tell me that Americans aren’t buying wants rather than needs - and complaining when the credit card bill isn’t paid off at the end of the month at high interest rates.
I haven't bought cereal in thirty years or so. It's always seemed too expensive. I feel sorry for families that have to buy it because their children won't do without it.
Spoken like someone that's never sampled the exquisite bliss of Peanut Butter Crunch. ;-)
Or even just regular Cap'n Crunch. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Great comment! BTW, who the heck pays $8 for a box of cereal? I know that Wheat Chex are more expensive than Cheerios, but seriously - $8 a box? That's got to be an urban myth.
Also, every restaurant & pub in our town in Downeast Maine is full every single night, & reservations are required to get a table. That must be Joe Biden's fault, too.
You are correct. We have turned into a nation of whiners. God forbid we should ever have to face something as horrific as the Ukrainians are currently facing.
I work in Customer Service. We ARE a entitled, bitchy lot. Believe me!
I loved “entitled bitchy lot”!
It goes hand-in-hand with narcissism; my new baseline metric for all problems plaguing America.
I can’t believe we are onto “cereal is expensive now!!!” It’s almost like Charlie is trolling JVL. last year it was eggs (because of bird flu) those prices collapse and it’s cereal now. Pretty amazing
For a nation that perceives itself to be in such economic trouble,we sure are spending a lot on ourselves.As you say, we do love to complain(not that there aren't any problems).Trump and the Trumpified GOP has become the negative, woe is me,grievence,dystopian party.That has permeated our sour mood.By the way, what is the likelihood that spending will be up this holiday season?
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.
Edward Arlington Robinson
THIS! One of your best pieces, and you tend to correctly read current "feelings" often. Spoiled people 🙄 Entitled people 🙄 ‼️
Rather Puritanical in pp1 (our public violates sumptuary laws); a reminder on pp2 that a grumpy public votes nevertheless.
everything is expensive ffs. Has anyone tried to buy Concert tickets recently ? im assuming this is Bidens fault ? whats crazy is most of the venues are sold out !
This reminds me of when Romney said something like he's more worried about helping the middle class than helping the poor, because the poor are doing okay with the safety net we have in place.
But the risk of not helping the middle class is that they become poor, right? And once they're poor, they don't need help anymore.
I
I said this for the podcast yesterday, do any of you pundits bitching about inflation understand what deflation means? Maybe cracking open an Econ textbook is in order because The only thing we can hope for is that the rate of change in prices drops to zero while wages continue to increase. That’s it. Because deflation would be catastrophic. You think the GFC was bad? A deflationary spiral would make the Great Depression look like the roaring 20s. We are not going to get prices back to 2019 levels. People need to understand that.
The "people" also have no sense of context when it comes to inflation. They don't understand what the root causes are, and they don't understand that the US has managed to have lower inflation, post-COVID, than pretty much every industrialized nation. What offends me the most, however, is the thinking that life under Trump would be so much better.
It just makes me wonder. What if I think stuff was too expensive in 2019?! Hell I learned to drive back in the 90s, by that measure let’s have gas cost $1.50/gal.
Lol. Remember how far we used to get on $5?
"We could use a man like Herbert Hoover again..."
“…those were the days…”
Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? ;-)
So said Archie Bunker.
"Europe on 5 Dollars a Day"
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3536665-europe-on-5-dollars-a-day)
I did a summer in Europe after high school. It was fabulous. I can’t imagine many parents today sending their 17 year old female child off to Europe for 10 weeks with a Eurorail pass, a stack of cashiers checks, a calling card (remember those?) and the pack on her back. Good times. 🤟
Agreed. We wore a cloak woven from innocence, naivety, adventurousness, and curiosity. It seemed to make one invincible. I've passed it to my children, although now I cloak them with my prayers.
When gas finally crossed $1.00/gal for good there was the same amount of craziness. There'd be stories about on the news every day.
Some people seem to be thinking, "well, we didn't have this problem when Trump was President, so that's a point in his favor. Why not put him back in and give him another chance?" I think that this is a fallacy, but I guess a lot of people disagree with me. I'm lurking in a pro-Trump fb group, and I sometimes see comments there along the lines of "I miss mean tweets and world peace." My guess is that almost no one in Ukraine or Israel is thinking, "you know, we never had these kinds of problems when Donald Trump was President of the U.S.", since not everything that happens in the world is about the United States, but apparently it is what some Americans think.
It's that logic that offends me, that post hoc ergo propter hoc bullshit. There is no leader in the world who considers Donald Fucking Trump a formidable leader. The Putins, the MBSs, the Orbans, and the Kim Jong Uns of the world look at Trump and see a mark. All they have to do is flatter him. And Russia knew this as early as 1986, if not earlier. From The New York Review of Books:
"In March 1986, Yuri Dubinin arrived in New York to assume his post as the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations. Dubinin’s daughter, Natalia, was already a diplomat serving at the Soviet mission, and she picked her father up at the airport and drove him into a city to which he’d never before been. (He wouldn’t stay long—within weeks of his arrival, Dubinin was reposted as Soviet ambassador to the United States and relocated to Washington, D.C.) Their first stop, Natalia told the newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, was a Tetris-like black skyscraper on Fifth Avenue. Professing himself impressed by what he saw in this monument to American capitalism, the graying apparatchik asked to meet its owner. So the Dubinins traveled to the top floor and were introduced to Donald Trump.
"It was a mutually delightful encounter. “The first thing I saw in the city is your tower,” the ambassador exclaimed to the developer (it must have been an exceptionally cloudy day on the Grand Central Parkway). “Trump melted at once,” Natalia recalled. “He is an emotional person, somewhat impulsive. He needs recognition. And, of course, when he gets it he likes it. My father’s visit worked on him like honey to a bee.”"
This is the playbook on Trump.
"I miss mean tweets and world peace."
From what I can see we traded a forever war involving the US under Trump for a war draining one of our chief global rivals without our direct involvement. As for the ME, same as it ever was (yeah, I know it is more complicated than that).
Just checked the figures and we're spending less on Ukraine than we did in Trump's term on Afghanistan along with not having American boots on the ground to get killed and wounded. Beyond that, we know damn well that the blood and treasure poured into Afghanistan in Trump's term bore no real fruit. Supporting Ukraine seems very likely to be a big positive return for us, with a potential ally supported and a deadly advesary severely hurt.
Spot on.
It probably will be better for a lot of people...in the short term. I suspect that Trump will do all kinds of things to boost the short term at the expense of the long term.
But then you end up with inflation like 59% as in Turkey under Erdogan, an authoritarian. In Russia, I think inflation is like 12%, and it’s higher in Europe. Inflation is a world-side phenomenon right now post-COVID. Americans are so frightfully insulated that they have no clue.
But there’s another thing that is a problem in the US and that is the price of health care. It’s ridiculous.
Hell, inflation is currently 6.7% in the UK right now! We're doing much better that the rest of the world.
I suspect big business (especially oil) raises (manipulates) prices during Democratic administrations, and lowers them during Republican eras, because the Republican agenda of low regulation and low corporate taxes are favorable, and they know how to control the masses into voting Republican - prices.
Also our "friends" the Saudis prefer Trump and may well get in the oil price manipulation game next year.
They're already manipulating the price of oil (taking 1Mbpd offline, driving up the price). You could argue that Trump being back in the WH would drive oil prices down (by expanding US production). But they support Trump because he's transactional (ignores human rights) and they would get arms and possibly nuclear technology.
True. I just think it will get worse. Right now gas is pretty decent where I am. Under $3 at Sheetz yesterday. But it's been higher than makes sense for a while now.
Another “sword dance” is calling. Light up the orb! (Imagine if Obama had engaged in such a bizarre [almost Satanic?] display; he was pilloried just for tilting his head slightly upon introduction.)
Exactly like he did the last time he was in office. He's not capable of anything else.
Adulation and the animal instinct of self preservation. And I wouldn't put a 3rd term past him to try.
Seriously. People do not understand that as bad as inflation is, deflation would be catastrophic.
Yeah, but when a pundit says "It's about people's lived experiences, and you can theorize all you want but if people are hurting they're hurting," the pundit is right.
I've seen my personal economic concerns breezily dismissed, right here in this forum. If the opposing team had /anything/ to offer except repulsive scumbags, I would have waltzed right over to that side out of sheer disgust.
Saying "people are stupid" and "people need to get with the program" is exactly how you lose elections. Nobody owes you their vote.
No, it’s about pundits predicting an recession and then not offering apologies when they are completely weong. It’s about pundits not elucidating readers and viewers on why we are in our current situation. Times are quite literally tough for a certain segment of Americans every single day regardless of the broader economic outlook. This period is not significantly worse than any other period. It’s in fact better than a lot of periods.
As JVL repeatedly states, no economy is perfect.Someone is always hurting.No matter how the economy is doing,
The homeless are always hurting no matter what. Yet they can't vote because they have no address. To me it's not about dismissing voters who are struggling economically...its about asking voters to have some perspective and focus on what will truly address your economic issue. Is it student loans ? Lack of cost effective transportation? To costly to get education? Being able to vote is a right. Being able to exercise that right is a privilege that isn't universal. Taking a "I can't buy X,Y,Z. Like I did in 2016 so bring back trump" is a waste of that privilege IMO.
You write them off, they vote for Trump. Is that what you want?
I'm not writing anybody off.
This is exactly it.
Pundits didn't just predict a recession, a majority of economists did, and around 40-45% of them still think we're in for one (as do I). Ever seen the yield curve inversion go as steeply as it has without us getting a recession in the last 60 or so years? We're not out of the woods yet and the rate hikes that the fed has done at the fastest pace in recent history haven't fully worked their way through the economy yet, although they're just now starting to.
3-mo/10-y yield curve inversion here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y3M
2-y/10-y yield curve inversion here: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y2Y
Here's what surveys of economists were saying almost exactly a year ago:
"...more than half of respondents said the U.S. is headed toward a recession in the next 12 months. An additional 11% think the economy is already in a recession, commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of shrinking growth."
source: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/recession-coming-2023-economist-predict-nabe/
Here's what economists are saying now:
"Reuters polls of economists over the past year showed the risk of a recession one year out rising from 25% in April 2022, the month after the first rate hike of the Fed's current tightening cycle, to 65% in October. The most recent read: 55%."
source: https://www.reuters.com/markets/us/with-gallic-shrug-fed-bids-adieu-recession-that-wasnt-2023-08-16/
It’s not happening. Repeatedly saying it and then being right at some point in the distant future is in no way accurately predicting anything. And they are and have been universally wrong. Because none of them have contended with the fact that these conditions are happening in an exploding jobs market on the heels of a black swan event.
Look, the field of economics is all about looking at historical data and trying to apply that to present data to indicate what lies in the near to middle term. I've heard many economist in the media over the last 6 to 8 months say they are befuddled by the continued strength of employment and GDP growth despite signals that would indicate a near term recession based on historical patterns. Do you expect them to say that we should all ignore those historical patterns, even if the pandemic was an event without any recent precedent?
And regarding "average" Americans, while those that feel that the economy is a dumpster fire are obviously not seeing (or willing to see) the actual overall picture, the fact is that we had very low inflation <2.5% for decades - if I remember correctly, some years ago there was even concern about deflation. You can't blame people for continuing to be anchored to February 2020 prices when they had no experience of sustained shockingly rapid price increases for everything (except housing of course, but even that took a hit in the early 2010s in many markets) unless they were already adults in the late 1970s / early 1980s. And yes, I understand that the recent period of high inflation didn't last anywhere near as long, but again, that was been a very very long time ago.
And the yield curve inversion?
I think it's un-inverting (read that last week - no time to look for a reference so apologies if I'm wrong).
And you’re right, nobody owes Biden a vote. But those voters do owe themselves a well educated vote. And when people choose to act stupidly in the face of overwhelming evidence against their position, they open themselves up to criticism, that’s a part of being a member of society.
Voters owe EVERYONE a well educated vote. Civic duty is so old fashioned.
True, but it ain't the far left that's keeping people's economic concerns from being addressed with real action. It's Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema doing stuff like playing rope-a-dope with the child tax credit for 18 months when everyone knows they could have had *exactly* what they wanted from the very first, because everyone knew that they held all the cards.
Non-Republicans don't dislike Biden because he's a hyper-liberal; they dislike him because they imagine he's feckless about the things they care about. And they have that sense because there are a multitude of third rails he's not allowed to touch because money likes the status quo, and money rules our politics. And *that* is something we can't fix until we address the people like Joe Manchin.
"Non-Republicans" covers an awful lot of voters. It's probably a mistake to think they have a consistent set of political values from one end of the cohort to the other.
It does, but I stand by it. The specific items vary, but the sense of "this guy isn't fighting in the space I care about" doesn't.
What's your opinion about Joe Biden?
In the end it's not about who's right or wrong or who has the best analysis. There's voters getting ready to vote who are hurting and scared and if you can't figure out how to reach them you will not get their vote. And if you look down on them you will not figure out how to reach them. Good luck enjoying moral and intellectual superiority on November 6, 2024.
I don't want to conflate "looking down on people" with "telling them the facts about the economy" because we all deserve the facts. Telling people unemployment is low is not talking down to people or being condescending. I know because it's one of the few things I'm allowed to tell my family without pushback. Everyone knows we should be keeping track of economic indicators, aka "what's up with the economy and shit". My fear is that propaganda is drowning out facts, and keeping facts from people is actually being condescending.
I'm not sure how you get from "telling them the facts" to "looking down on them"?
The problem is the assumption that the facts need to be explained. That’s condescension.
It's good that you find that hard to believe because it's not true and it misses the point entirely. Maybe give understanding another try. You won't get far shadow-boxing a phantom.
Same here. I am on a fixed income and inflation is real to me. I mentioned my predicament in a comment last week. A responder felt the need to explain the importance of the social safety net to me, as if I were twelve. Or a moron. The condescension. No wonder Republicans hate us.
Good point.Lecturing never helps or convinces.The best way for Biden to approach this is to say the economy is improving but we aren't there yet and we are trying(for campaign purposes).
Thank you for your questions and for this rare example of someone actually willing to listen to the other side. Let me see if I can answer them.
I think Biden is doing fine, and I would never vote for Trump. For me personally, that's not the issue here -- but for many people it is, and I honestly think the only way to reach them is to talk to them like you just did. I despair that more people are not doing that.
What is pushing me away from the left are the many examples I am seeing, including in this thread, of intolerance, rigidity, disdain for others, blind, "let them eat cake"-level oblivion to other people's feelings and circumstances ... and apparent inability to see that this is /not/ a seminar room, we are /not/ about to get patted on the head by some cosmic professor for our clever analysis, and it doesn't matter a whit how tired or exasperated we are. Remember how when this all started we used to solemnly intone to each other, "Nobody is coming to rescue us"? It's still true. And we won't rescue ourselves by dissing the opposition. (I mean, go after the leadership creeps as much as you want, but not the rank and file, it's obviously self-defeating.)
You said, "I just think you have a perspective on this issue I don't and would be interested to hear what you think."
I say, ^^THIS^^
Thank you for sharing. I can see how that message is coming across. I wonder if that message is from the "rank and file"? Those who have a platform aren't always speaking on behalf of anyone but themselves and their friends. The rank and file don't have this platform. When Rank and File expresses themselves directly as you have,dialogue works well.
I learned something from your post.
When one uses a leader as ones stand in, and someone is critical of that leader it's slightly incorrect to say "you are being mean to me". No i am being mean to that leader. You picked your avatar!
I find It's difficult to paint any group with a broad brush and it's equally challenging to find ones "tribe". That's why I personally focus more locally when it comes to finding a group...whether that's the city I live or the orgs I join. There is only so much synergy I can have with a wide groups like "left", "right", etc.
Yikes! The “intellectual” response to people who are feeling the pinch is, “fuck your feelings”? No. Biden needs to talk about why it’s the difference between earnings and costs that make people feel poorer and that the economy is not working for them. Talk about those high paying jobs that are on deck with the infrastructure spending. Republicans have raised victimhood to new heights. Democrats need to acknowledge the pain (remember the master of feeling your pain was Bill Clinton) but make sure they place the blame squarely on the GOP where it belongs.
They do do this but you don’t see it because it doesn’t make the news. Biden and his admin have been traveling the country doing ribbon cutting events (sadly with their Republican colleagues as well who voted down those exact bills). The reason you don’t see it is because the news would rather cover the wars, gop implosion, trump trials, Trump tweets, impeachment, hunter biden, etc. what you described will never breakthrough
I know right? I mean you have red states turning down help because that help came from Biden! Trying to defund the IRS? Without tax revenue how will the lawmakers and cops get paid? Suing over student loan relief even though student loans don't care what your political affiliation is? Keeping health care tied to your job, not the fact that you work..but the actual job you have??
Biden has said with both words and actions "that he feels your pain". Hakeem Jefferies too..giving votes to keep the country open. I mean at some point what more can be done at the Federal level?
It is one of the reasons why it is difficult for me to take the "what democrats need to do to convince (insert group here) to vote for them" advice without sighing. It feels like the goal posts are always moving!
Also Republicans aren't winning on their messaging. If they were they wouldnt have lost 8 of the last nine popular vote or whatever that stat is WI overwhelming voted D, but have a minority at the state level. And do the majority of folks really agree that women should be paid less then men just becuase they have vaginas?? Or that 16 year olds should only be able to read Anne of Green Gables?
They are winning on their gerrymandering, their voter purges, their taking over of schools, their shamelessness. For dems to be where the repubs are they would have to be willing to do these same things, to value power and control above all else.
This is well said. Republicans play ABSOLUTE power politics and never, ever win the majority of the electorate and yet we have to hear from ex-republicans that say “this is what you should do.” I used to be a Republican but I recognized my advice might not be as helpful but listening to people say “don’t do x or y or z” because moderates won’t vote for you drives me crazy. The Democratic Party has a huge tent so they have to do things for different parts of their electorate. Let’s be serious, if moderates are convinced about Trump over Biden now, I’m sorry there is almost nothing the Democratic Party can do with POLICY to convince those moderates to vote for Biden. It’s crazy but you cannot look at these 2 candidates and say “I would have voted for Biden but he did (insert some random policy idea here)”
No one is telling these people “fuck your feelings.” But we can tell people that more people are working today than at almost any other time in the history of this country. We can tell them that this isn’t a local problem, it’s a global problem. And I think it’s more than fair to expect people in the most advanced country on the planet to have a bit of common sense on what’s happening.
China’s economy is suffering right now due to deflation. It’s not a healthy scenario.
Low information voters will kill off freedom.
I responded to this kind of comment yesterday that the ideal situation is not price *deflation* (that would be very bad), but rather that wage inflation either keeps pace with or out-paces a lower rate of inflation (2%) than we currently have (3.7%)--and even more ideally would be that rent inflation wouldn't be so much higher than wage inflation is right now (7.2% vs 4%).
Dude, we aren’t doing this again. And I literally said in my comment what you’re saying here.
Yea I think I missed that line in the middle, my bad.
I don't attribute any of this to being Biden's fault. Inflation is worse in the UK and Germany right now and Joe Biden isn't president of any of those places--nor do I think presidents have that much control over the domestic economy anyway (the federal reserve is a different story).
The unfortunate reality is that Biden can't do much right now, but I certainly wouldn't go around cheering "Bidenomics" right now either when the perceptions of most voters are that the economy sucks. And unfortunately, most voters are underinformed and just typically blame whoever is in charge for a shit economy. So yea, not a lot Biden or his team can do about that, but I'd certainly change the tune from "look how great Bidenomics is!" to a message about empathy for consumers who are dealing with this inflation spike while highlighting the things his admin is doing to bring inflation back down.
One policy I'd try to advance if I was Biden though: using federal funds to help partially cover new mortgage acquisitions until rates come back down and people can refinance at something better than 7.5%. Like student loan debt relief, he'd have to get this thing through hurdles to get funds appropriated, but by putting the ball in the GOP's court and then having them sink it he's showing that he's doing *something* to help prospective homeowners and then can demonize the GOP for refusing to help Americans who are struggling to afford homes.
I'd also recommend that he get a roundtable of dem mayors and governors at the WH with the topics covering how to increase housing inventories, how to push back against local NIMBYism, and how to reduce the amount of homeless people on the streets in dem cities--and then I'd get the press to cover the fuck out of that roundtable. Think of it as a sort of domestic G7 conference at the WH to get dem mayors and governors on board for rolling out policies in dem cities/states where they won't face opposition from the GOP like they do in congress.
What are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac doing? That's how I bought my first house, but nobody mentions them any more. It seems like they are still giving out assistance to first-time home buyers.
Remember reading it- well said.
Thank you!!!!
How many people do you know who absolutely know better that are complaining about both inflation and interest rates? Because I know a lot of them. Complain about one or the other, not both. It's like griping about the potholes and then whining about all the roadwork.
It’s being frustrating and the worst part is when provided proof, they will claim you can no longer trust the bureau of labor statistics.
Pundits and people alike don't realize what deflation is just like they don't realize that Presidents don't control economy.And the government has very limited means to influence it
Who is pretending that the extremists and disgusting pro-Hamas left doesn’t exist? I seem to read each day about how one of the spox for the White House is denouncing the views as abhorrent and wrong. Seems like they are taking a pretty decisive line. Could they be doing more? Maybe, but is that our politics these days? As I type this out, I am listening to MSNBC talking about how the White House is looking to address the anti-semitism and Islamophobia on college campuses.
Am I missing where the Democrat party and and Democrat leadership is sweeping it under the rug? Seems to me they are willing to risk angering the ire of young adults who they undoubtedly need to win the election to emphasize that what Hamas did was barbaric and wrong.
BTW, it's not "Democrat" party or leadership. The proper designation is "Democratic". Please don't use magat terms.
The far left is not the left. The far right otoh is the right.
Simple language like that is what’s needed to drill home that truth.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L34a-ubW8E - Jayapal, leader of Progressive Democratic caucus, largest in the House, comparing Israel to Russia, which is patently dumb (her forte) but also pretty disgusting.
I think Biden and the Democratic leadership have done a really decent job pushing back on all this crap, but it really is larger and more pervasive that many Democrats are willing to admit..
Maybe my network isn’t big enough, but it seems like there are plenty of folks wringing their hands over the split happening within the Democratic Party and their supporters. No one is shying away from it. It is on every news network, Democratic reps are asked to weigh in on the comments during interviews. Hell, on one of the first links on Drudge is about the schism in the left over Hamas and Israel. The week is young, let’s see how things play out for Jayapal over time. I’m already seeing the White House pushing back on that statement.
What more should be done? Should they be expelled from Congress?
Well, my hope is that she gets voted out of office, but I don't think that's in the cards here in deep blue Seattle. But honestly, why is she even the leader of the caucus? She says SO MANY dumb things all the time, so apparently those idiotic things are what the majority of the Democratic House support? That's.. a problem. (!)
She should have stepped down (or been forced out) as Chair when she put forward that letter demanding Biden negotiate with Russia over Ukraine two weeks before the Nov election last year.
I lost any respect for her when she (and her fellow caucus members) became inflation deniers - saying that pumping a whole bunch of money into consumers' hands at a time of production and supply constraints had zero effect on inflation, claiming that it instead it was all "corporate greed." They knew it was lie, and frankly a malevolent one (no, I will not apologize for casting aspersions on their moral character, and I think I've been vindicated by their recent pro-Hamas comments). And they even said that twice as much money (or more) should have been given to consumers. Look, compared to the 2020 election deniers on the Repub side it obviously is not as dangerous an offense, but you can't deny that it's in the same vein - spouting lies to pander to your most crazed and extreme voters because they always show up in the primaries.
You know, I honestly went back and forth this morning and I was too lazy to look it up. I had hoped the intent of my comment would be sufficient, but its cool getting lit up for small shit. I appreciate the assumptions about me though, great to see so many from someone who has never met me!
I’m a Dem too. This pile on reaction to your use of Democrat was not okay. People need to stick to the content and not nit pick small things.
It's not offensive to me, it's just bad grammar. Democratic is an adjective, Democrat is a noun.
Please don't reduce this to just grammar. Republicans use "Democrat" instead of "Democratic" to be derogatory. Some have even attempted to associate Democrats with rats. Eventually it is the intent that makes the usage of certain words problematic. For E.g. "Negro", grammatically, simply meant the color black. But it has become a shunned word because of what it was used to mean. BTW playing with words is something the Republicans often resort to and misuse. Hence the their issue with the moniker BLM when it never meant non-Blacks don't matter.
No, I understand what everyone is talking about, but the right has been doing this for years.
We have bigger fish to fry right now.
It is offensive and insidious. It’s an attempt to disassociate Democrats from democracy. We are the Democratic Party and the democratic party.
I don't sweat the small stuff.
Lifelong Democrat(ic) voter here, only recently immersed in political discourse like The Bulwark, and I have to say I didn't know the nomenclature was a 'thing' until just now. I'm with you on this ,Sko. Please, people, let's pick our battles. (P.S. haven't watched Fox Noise enough to know what terminology those propagandists use for anything)
The problem is that Republicans have been waging war on words for a long time. I get that being called a DemonRAT isn’t the biggest deal if you’re not a child, but the right has been flinging around words like “genocide,” “Communist” and so forth for awhile. When Biden offered to send medical professionals to help neighborhoods with COVID, MTG called them “brown shirts.”
"Our" politics are not unserious: the GOP is unserious, and speaker Johnson is a contemptible Christian nationalist ass.
Which is a bigger problem by far than anti-semitism on the extreme left.
At the same time, Howard, I have to admit I'm a bit startled to see what's being said on the far left regarding Israel.
I think he means that those people are a tiny proportion of left of center politics and have no power. Johnson has plenty of power.
Correct!
And tim is correct too: there has been a stunning amount of anti-semitism surfaced.
Jayapal, my miserable rep, out there banging the anti-Israel drum is the leader the Progressive caucus, the largest caucus in the Democratic House. A leader, and very high profile. That ain't nothin..
Who in fact went on MTP this past weekend and compared Israel to Russia (!!!!). With "leaders" like that, you don't need enemies..
And they've been passionately denounced by Democratic lawmakers and voters. Too bad the GOP lawmakers (with a few exceptions) and voters didn't speak up against trumpian authoritarianism as passionately.
Correct. Biden has denounced those people in unambiguous terms.
or anti-semitism, for that matter. (Jewish space lasers anyone?)
They have not been denounced by voters. When Talib, Lee, etc. get voted out, then you can say that.
And quite frankly, not a whole lot of the left's leaders - not just politicians, but academics, cultural - are not condemning the antisemites in their midst.
Lol, what a ridiculous bar to have. Love to paint the entire party with the views of 100000 Democrats in MI. Completely rational.
I'm trying to figure out the name of a leftist leader who isn't a politician and coming up short. Jon Stewart? Steven Colbert?
Black lives matter? Democratic Socialists of America? How about them?
I wouldn't exactly call a couple of comedians "leftist leaders" but...that's where we are as a county - celebrities are leaders...
https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/fringe-left-groups-express-support-hamass-invasion-and-brutal-attacks-israel
I was trying to think of names. For organizations, all I could think of was the Anti-Defamation League. They've been busy. I don't think the average voter (as if there were such a beast) would care what the Yale student paper has to say, and who knows who leads BLM or why this would require their involvement but Bernie Sanders is the most prominent leader of the DSA, I think? Those are all politicians. I was wondering if there is a non-political leader who is standing firm against anti-Semitism.
Oh and add in all the leaders of various student organizations across the US.
How about the editors of the Yale student newspaper?
https://nypost.com/2023/10/30/media/yale-campus-newspaper-censors-pro-israel-writers-column-on-hamas-beheading-men-raping-women/
Wrong!
Summer Lee is my representative. She adamantly pro-Palestine giving the perfunctory “the Oct 7 attacks were terrible” and then 7 paragraphs about why Israel is bad and Palestinians are victims.
She also represents Squirrel Hill in Pittsburgh, home of one of the largest Jewish populations in the US and where the Tree of Life massacre took place five years ago.
She’ll never get my vote now.
"I have to admit I'm a bit startled to see what's being said on the far left regarding Israel."
STARTLED?!?! I guess you're not old enough to remember Tankies, Hanoi Jane, Sandinista Symps, and all the other "Fellow Traveller" irrelevancies of the last 70 years or so.
No, I'm not, Gee. And I admit I've been watching the degeneracy of the modern GOP for so long that my eyes haven't been on the far left. I'm a man without a party. When I look at the far left and the far right, and how each of them detest democracy and equal rights for all, it makes me question whether or not we're actually capable of self government.
You shouldn't be, this has been building for years.
Speaking of Speaker Johnson, I was in touch with news media most of the day yesterday, and I did not learn of his gambit to reverse the recently increased funding of the IRS until reading it here in Charlie’s newsletter. So I guess I should forgive a bit of voter stupidity.
Frankly, I'm at the point where if the House GOP wants to drive over the cliff, let them. Because they have fused religious fundamentalism with their politics, you can't negotiate with them in good faith because they view the world in black-in-white, Manichean terms. After all, from their point of view, if Joe Biden stole the election in 2020, why would they negotiate with someone they deem illegitimate. Let them own the disaster.
This is the way.
I would like to know specifically which Bible verse they are using for each of their decisions, since apparently that is where they are getting a lot of their ideas and justifications.
Yes! This should be put to their new Speaker, with every decision he makes.
Particularly him, since he has publicly stated that to know what he thinks, just read the Bible.
What a set up. We need to hold up our end!
There is one for every occasion, no matter how contradictory.
True. And yet, the Sermon on the Mount, the clothing of the naked, the welcoming of the stranger, the feeding of the hungry, etc., never seem to be cited.
So true.
I agree and have indulged in a lot of imaginary Schadenfreude when their surprisingly bitter fruit is spit out. It won’t take much; they’ll panic if cold beer is no longer available at the convenience store thanks to their nihilism. BUT I worry their fever dream destruction of “the administrative state” would be a one-way trip, without the benefit of a learning curve to find a way back.
The problem with that is Biden is the President. So if we go over the cliff, Democrats likely will take the blame.
But that's not consistent with what's happened in the past. When Gingrich shut down the government back in the 90s, Clinton wasn't blamed. When Cruz shut down the government, Obama wasn't blamed. If the crazies shut down the government, they'll get blamed. Besides, they want the shutdown. They don't care if Ukrainian, Israeli, or Palestine children are killed. So draw the contrast between responsible, global leadership -- Biden -- with mindless, irresponsible nihilism -- MAGA.
Given their response to mass shootings in schools, they don't appear to care if American children get killed.
Nope, they don't. They care about achieving and maintaining power for all time.
Hey I know, how about Ruy Teixeira give a solution? Ummm, perhaps the Fed can lower interest rates? Hmmm, wait a minute, but then the prices of housing would skyrocket again. You know why Ruy Teixeira's analysis drives me crazy? Because he gives red state talking points without solutions.
And look who Ruy Teixeira works for- The American Enterprise Institute which has lots of Koch money.
Norman Ornstein is also with AEI.
Ruy feels like a Trojan Horse, but less clever.
The far right didn't like Hillary Clinton either and they spent all their waking hours for years trashing her. It paid off. Now they are all out for Biden who in reality has been remarkably effective as president. Remember, the far right wants no government at all.
Omfg, more Ruy Teixeira?
Please, please, please do not hire him. I have a sinking feeling this is where all the Ruy love is heading.
I hope they don’t hire his as well. It is quickly becoming JVL and Joe’s Press Pass as the reason I keep my subscription.
Oh no! I never considered that, but it seems plausible. It would be my Exit Pass from The Bulwark.
I wouldn't exit, but I'd downgrade from a founding subscription.
JVL, Sarah and Tim are my heroine.
Same here. Dare I say, there appears to be a generational divide?
Shit... I hope not...
Seeing as how all these people replying to you would leave if they did, I really do hope they hire him. Can't you snowflakes learn to hate-read him like normal people?
Sure! But I'm trying to cut down on my hate reading. :) My opinion on Ruy Teixeira is let me know when he interviews people or does any new fact gathering. I think he is naïve when he throws the Black working class under the bus. It's not going to work as well as he thinks it is, and if we can learn anything from MAGA, learn DO NOT throw people under the bus merely because they have less power than you. But I'm always willing to give him a read if he offers new interviews or new data, which he hasn't recently.
I'm too busy laughing at him to hate him.
Again, the GOP EMBRACED that "vocal minority" of extremists b/c they said the cruel and hateful things out loud AND they voted GOP. The rise of trump and his ilk is b/c "establishment" Republicans were just fine with that mess on the far right b/c JUDGES were much more important to them.
In no way did the GOP ignore the tea party and their other gangs.
Agreed. They went into this eyes wide open.
Hey, Travis:
Cut funding for the IRS...party of the rich. You've got reasonable technical points, but the big picture is that things like this can stick if the dems decided to message like the republicans do on these kinds of things. Hammer it home over and over again: "The reason you are hurting in a good economy is that the republicans are blatantly favoring the super rich over the rest of us who make this country work. From doctors to bricklayers to lawyers to teachers to nurses to cops, they aren't your party because they are helping the super rich plunder our economy."
Ruy Teixeira? C'mon Charlie, you still give this moke the time of day? When will these so called experts call out price gouging by corporations that were allowed to create virtual monopolies and can price goods at will with no threat of a competitor under pricing them?
Richard, as I mentioned here last week, Teixeira works for the American Enterprise Institute, not the Brookings or even the Cato Institute. And that’s for good reasons.
Well, reasons, not necessarily good ones.
Where the hell is cereal $8.99? Alaska? A quick check of Walmart online shows the most common price is $4.98. Walmart “Great Value” brand, which I imagine a house cleaner might get, is $2.98
This! It's faux outrage and beneath The Bulwark.
I’m guessing it is the family/Costco sizes.
Jeff, you are more than likely correct. At a Sam’s in my area a twin pack of Raisin Bran for example is close to $10.00. But that’s for a twin pack totaling almost 80 ozs, which is over double a conventional box of cereal. Cheerios and other brands are lower priced than that.
I lived in Alaska (just moved south in August). The "Mega" sized cereal was between $6-$7.
I think someone decided to try for outrage & clicks / likes … never mind the truth … sure could you find somewhere charging $8.99, Yeh, but is it the price nearly everywhere else, Nup.
I bought 2 family-size cheerios for $10 yesterday. Not sure where Bill is getting his cereal, what kind or how big.
I think it was Chicago. And since cherry picking is a thing, it may well have been from a convenience store.
I replied to this claim a day or two ago. Meijer in Chicago isn't this expensive. It's probably at a place that also cashes your paycheck for a fee.
I agree with much of what Teixeira writes, including that there is much general concern about price levels (not just any continuing inflation). But then he seems to suggest that Biden needs to get general price levels to drop: "The only thing that might [make a dent in public perception] is focusing intensely on voters’ chief economic concern," and that concern is the current general price level. In other words, the Biden administration (and I guess the Fed) should have a laser focus on achieving general price level decline, otherwise known as deflation. But the only way to get deflation is to engineer a severe recession/depression. That is NOT going to make people happy or re-elect Biden.
1) WTF is Joe Biden supposed to actually do about the economy? He doesn't control it. None of these politicians control it. They don't decide prices. They don't control inflation. They don't even really control monetary policy.
Richard Nixon tried wage and price controls back in the day.--it helped him get re-elected in the short term, but it caused problems in the longer term.
I understand quite well that the President tends to get blame or praise for what the economy does... because people are stupid and simplistic. But the question IS, what, exactly, does Biden do? Especially with the GoP in control of the House?
2) Pundits talk a lot about what politicians or policy makers need to do (in general terms)--but that seems to me to be largely meaningless and more contributory to the problem than presenting any actual solution or useful course of action.
It is easy to see that certain courses of action would be better (or worse) than others. It is easy to understand that there are useful and postibe changes that we could make to our institutions that would actually move us towards fixing some of the crap that we are dealing with.
The problem isn't usually in seeing these things. The problem is in DOING these things... and, in many cases, actually doing the necessary things is effectively impossible. I have discussed various aaspects of this at length in the comments here over the last few years.
One of the things that drives people towards authoritarianism is the realization that the necessary changes cannot be made. It creates a frustration level that builds over time until you hit a crisis point. We are VERY near that crisis point.
You can do things to manage or shift perceptions. The problem is that it takes a broadband, long term effort to do so and it requires the cooperation of a variety of actors across politics, the economy, the media, etc.
And you are NOT going to get that cooperation because of the existing incentive structures and the conflicting interests.
And you are not going to get the necessary time to do it (because the reality is that it is far too late to start playing that game).
So, again, what do you actually do? Not couched in terms of meaningless generalities (Biden needs to address the age question--WTF does that mean?).
I have the very same problem at work. As many might know, I am a public school teacher. I see lots of very vague slutions put out about how to improve student achievement. There is lots and lots of discussion, using the latest and greates buzz words and cool ideas.
And most of that is really nothing more than mental masturbation or tinkering around the edges until someone takes offense at it for some reason and you are forced to stop.
It isn't as though people do not know/understand what it takes for kids to be academically/educationally successful
It is that it is largely impossible to actually do the necessary things--largely for political and economic reasons.
You just can't do it. The will does not exist for it. The funding does not exist for it.
So we do what the politicians do... we kick the can down the road. We make reassuring noises that people usually do not believe (for good reason).
It is emotionally and physically exhausting and demoralizing. It is one of the reasons why the teaching profession is having a manpower crisis.
If I did not have 27 years invested in this, I would be gone. I WILL be gone when I top out my pension at 30 years (if not before) and I will be glad to be gone. Not because I hate teaching or I do not want to help kids, but simply because I cannot face this BS any more.
And a LOT of Americans feel the same way as me about a lot of things that are going on.
A LOT of Americans want decisive and substantive action (even if that decisive action would actually be disastrous in outcome, if you actually knew enough to understand that--which most do not).
Yes, most people are completely ignorant when it comes to thinking the Prez has control over prices. I have grad and undergrad degrees in Economics and I can safely say the President has as much influence over pricing as the weatherman has over the weather. That said, all the money thrown at people during covid played some small part, but maybe only at the second decimal place, and if anything it contributed to avoiding the much predicted recession. The inflation we've experienced has a lot of moving parts, including a tight labor market, snarled supply lines, product shortages due to weather or animal epizootics, and so forth.
Shockingly, economics is hideously complex. Whoda thunk it?
Not voters, apparently.
Wait, I thought we had inflation because "too many dollars chasing too few goods." That's it, right? Nothing more to it. /s
A good point at the top. All these folks voting for trump nostalgia haven't actually asked him how he plans to fix inflation say. I can remember when Reagan felt the need to put forth a plan. Which was criticized of course but he did put forth a plan and defended it. Now voters have lost the need to hear a plan but appear satisfied that the "right" person will do something whatever it is to make it better. Yep the problem is really us. Exactly when and what changed eludes me a little though... But we are different.
I think what changed is cable news, and then everything else media after that.
It isn't really that the media changed (at least not the mainstream media) The stories and narratives that they construct now are not all that different from the ones that we around when I was young.
Two things did change:
1) The incentive structure (largely around pacing and the demand for continuous coverage); and
2) The atomization of segments of the market.
The continuous nature of current coverage (the need to simply say things, lots of things, often meaningless or wrong or actually non-serious)) leads to a lot of... problematic coverage. It also creates a HUGE amount of noise. It also creates a sort of zeitgeist--general world/emotional context--which is largely filled with noise, social angst, and negativity.
Atomization means the construction of multiple and largely unconnected realities/narratives with little to no overlap--the loss of a baseline, shared world.
Both of these things are huge societal and political problems--and we KNOW this (and do nothing about it, because we can do nothing about it).
Yeah, the MSM hasn't really changed, nor has network news, but I can point to 3 momentous things in the 80s that set the table for where we are today:
1) CNN/Headline News
2) Rush Limbaugh
3) The deregulation that made Rush Limbaugh possible.
Limbaugh and his clones eventually gained millions of acolytes while staying largely shielded from public awareness on their AM dials. CNN is not terribly successful its first ten years, then the first Gulf War hits, and suddenly it appears there is a market for 24 hour news, as long as the content is sensational enough. Then you get FoxNews, cuz librul bias, and MSNBC arrives and drifts further left.
Later on, throw in technology with the internet and mobile phones, news feeds on social media, and algorithms that figure you out, and you have a recipe for idiocracy.
The electorate has changed. We no longer operate on a shared set of facts. And at the extremes, picking your facts results in inexplicable behavior. It's the only way you can vote for Trump after he incited an insurrection at the Capitol and tried to end American democracy. It's the only way you can defend Hamas after they took pics of themselves engaged in a Medieval orgy of slaughter of Israelis so they could send footage back to mom.
People have always been really good at choosing their own facts (but were somewhat constrained by the limited amount of facts available)... and now they have a wider range of carefully curated facts to choose from. A set of facts for any desired taste.