Slacker Saturday
Friday, July 01, 2022
Elite Reproduction
A new mild interest of mine (mild interest means I have been pondering it but NOT actually spending much time researching it) is differences/similarities how countries perpetuate their elite caste systems. Every country has it, to some degree. UK is different from France is different from Spain is different from the US etc.
Money/inherited wealth plays a nontrivial part, of course, but one can be in the club with being rich, or be rich without being in the club, generally. Though this too varies by country!
Failsons and failgrandsons of elites keep their status, somehow.
Please Don't Vote MAGA, But Republicans Are Good
I don't want any lectures from Professional Democrats about messaging.
All of those candidates will be on the ballot in some of the toughest House battleground districts this fall. And the House Democrats’ campaign arm will spend the next several months campaigning against what its chief calls the “MAGA Republican” brand — on everything from abortion to Donald Trump-backed election subversion.As long as Dems don't use the MAGA word, they're good! Vote for them, make them strong!“There’s all these dangerous people running under the new MAGA Republican brand. They’re going to pay a price for it,” said Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.), who leads the House Democrats’ campaign arm. Using the term “MAGA” nine times in a roughly 9-minute interview, he said: “We’re going to beat them over the head with that.”
Also this is a bit like nerds telling you the Elves are good but Dökkálfar are bad and expecting you to know what the fuck they are talking about.
College Starts In About 7 weeks
Imagine sending your kids off to university in one of these psycho states, if any other options are available.
I'm not telling people what to do, but I can't imagine doing it.
Going to be so many horror stories.
Billionaires Are Dumb
A benefit of twitter has been to demystify famous people of all kinds, especially the billionaires. "Everybody" now knows that Zuck and Elon are evil dumbasses. Something certainly not the case of Zuck 10 years ago or Elon even 2.
Views Differ
I think a lot depends on whether large news outlets simply stop covering the new reality of medical care for women because it's cOnTrOvErsial.
People commonly (justified) joke that men don't have a very good sense of how women actually function, and they certainly don't have a good sense of the reality of even non-Ob/Gyn medical care for women. The "get a pregnancy test before practically anything," which was already the case, still surprises people.
Will be numerous possible stories every single day. Numerous deaths.
Thursday, June 30, 2022
Fighting Inflation
If price rises are largely due to supply chain issues, market pricing power, and rising rents due to constrained supply, then doing things like driving down housing starts by raising interest rates is not going to help!!!
Perry Speak, You Listen
There were seeds planted in the Bush years, both insidery and more outsidery things, that were embraced, Obama stamped most of them out, what was left were just vehicles for the Clinton campaign, and after she lost... nothing.
Pelosi, Biden and other Democratic leaders of course don’t sit on the Supreme Court or in state legislatures. But too many of them have been major players in the party over the past two decades as it has failed to create an apparatus of media, think tanks and other institutions to rival what exists on the right. They have been deeply involved in bland Democratic campaigns and candidates who often lose key races to Republicans, even as the GOP has much less popular policy goals.
Emphasis Changes
I've posted this type of thing before and it makes some people mad because they think I am saying something I am not (often, if not always, the fault of the writer). But, really, in general, one cannot expect people who are 70+ to precisely share the priorities of people who are likely to be involved with pregnancy and related issues.
I'm not erasing the existence of people who have spent their entire lives focused on certain causes, and have not wavered a bit with age. I'm also not saying that people don't/can't care at all!
But, look, people who become wealthy eventually shed the anxiety of living paycheck to paycheck, and people who can't get pregnant aren't going to have quite the existential dread as people who are 25 now.
Great grandma and grandpa generally aren't completely in tune with the troubles facing The Kids Today even if they care about them. This shouldn't be controversial.
Yes, this applies to me, too, both as a man specifically and a man ageing out of being likely to be involved with a pregnancy.
Messaging
One doesn't have to believe (correctly or incorrectly) that there is a lot Biden can do to see that, "can't be too divisive, gotta respect our glorious Supreme Court" piles bad messaging onto ineffective policy.
Dems think voters should just understand how vital it is voters elect them, even as they're out there bragging about their love of Reagan quotes, wishing loudly for a strong Republican party, and not actually pointing out who the villains are. Let alone promising action.
There is no "Ultra-Maga" party. They are not on the ballot to vote against.
Grand Bargaining
One thing various commenters assured us for years was that a "bargain" existed on abortion, that liberals were the intransigent party refusing this bargain, and once a bargain could be agreed to we could put the issue to rest forever and reduce politics to talking about tax policy or whatever all the male big brains wanted.
Another claim made, though by fewer, was that getting rid of Roe and sending it back to the states would also somehow reduce the salience of abortion in politics (this was the key thing, THEY JUST WANTED PEOPLE TO STOP TALKING ABOUT IT). As if it wouldn't make it be the top issue 50 times over instead of "just" federally.
The reality is, as hopefully more people are becoming aware (though many are in denial, real or pretend), without "Roe" or similar, it's going to be all "we" are talking about until the end of time. Only "crazy" people correctly pointed out that they'd be restricting travel by pregnant women (which means all women) and worse.
Alito's going to kill a lot of women, and at least some of those will make the news. About 43,000 ectopic pregnancies per year, and as I keep saying, that's only the most obvious issue. In these states, lots of medical care for women will be on hold at least until the machine that goes PING stops pinging.
Progress
A bunch of weirdos will point out that Biden can't make this happen, which is true, like *every single other thing that happens in the legislative branch*, but we all understand the value of things like "White House spending proposals."Breaking: President Biden said he supports suspending the filibuster, if necessary, to codify Roe v. Wade into law https://t.co/fHDLbs6x2z
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) June 30, 2022
Signaling presidential priorities counts for something.
Also yelling at them helps.
Ultra-MAGA
I hope we can all agree that everyone involved in coming up with this messaging should have their office contents thrown out onto the White House lawn immediately and their badges revoked.
The endless quest find new ways to say, "THESE AREN'T YOUR PARENTS' REPUBLICANS, FOLKS," when they are, actually, the same Republicans (often literally!), is not useful.Folks, let's get one thing straight: The ultra-MAGA agenda has always been about taking away women’s rights, in every single state.
— President Biden (@POTUS) June 29, 2022
Defund "Democratic consultants."
Wednesday, June 29, 2022
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