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Posted (edited)

Slotkin seems like she sucks the two times I have heard of her: her weak sauce Reagan dick riding official response to Trump's speech and some shitty bill she proposed in the Senate that I forget the details of.

So not a great first impression.

And how about you come out with an effective message to lead the way instead of lecture on what not to do?

But hey she has a warplan. Hopefully there is more to it than "I love Ronald Reagan"

Edited by Valmy77
Posted
3 hours ago, Valmy77 said:

And how about you come out with an effective message to lead the way instead of lecture on what not to do?

How about this: “Republicans are destroying your country and making you poor. vote for us if you want more and safe streets”

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Posted
Just now, Bozo_Casanova said:

How about this: “Republicans are destroying your country and making you poor. vote for us if you want more and safe streets”

That works.

Posted (edited)
5 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Yup. I hate that branding, “moderate”. As if what we needed was compromise between competing elite factions instead of smashing them.
It stinks like fear and pee. 
And while I like a lot about that book and what him and Derek Thompson are doing, San Francisco is just a terrible example, because it’s so sui generis. Every other big city with the same problems looks like it has shit together when you compare it to San Francisco- hell Ezra Klein praises Austin on housing, which is utter nonsense until the last 2 years. He’s just looking at MSA data, and what that is really telling him is not that Austin is doing a great job, but that it has sprawling suburbs in places where San Francisco has seawater. 

San Francisco is basically the same as LA and NYC in terms of housing and development, save for one regulatory quirk that allows it to claim the title NIMBY king. I think the main issue with Thompson and Klein’s writing over the past few years is that it is very relevant to the insular political discourse in those Blue coastal cities among your Blue coastal elites, but it’s not clear how their arguments apply to national politics.

They don’t seem to realize it, but the “Abundance” agenda is basically how growing Blue cities in flyover country have generally always operated (on a podcast with Matt Yglesias they used Houston as a red foil to San Francisco, which I found quite amusing). That’s great in one respect - I tell people all the time that San Francisco should be run like Houston. I loved Bill White! But that dude and everyone in his path continue to fail to win statewide office. I’m not really sure how their book will lead to any real impact.  
 

Edited by We’reTexas
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Posted
4 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

How about this: “Republicans are destroying your country and making you poor. vote for us if you want more and safe streets”

or just keep repeating pete’s dream for america and make the opposition argue against it.

any dem who is shitting on pete after that podcast hated him before (likely for stupid/petty reasons) or didn’t listen, or both.

any non-dem shitting on pete is scared shitless now that he has a beard.  

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Posted
On 4/24/2025 at 4:50 PM, Bozo_Casanova said:

And while I like a lot about that book and what him and Derek Thompson are doing, San Francisco is just a terrible example, because it’s so sui generis.

 

On 4/24/2025 at 8:45 PM, We’reTexas said:

They don’t seem to realize it, but the “Abundance” agenda is basically how growing Blue cities in flyover country have generally always operated

 

I'd bet Thompson and Klein have confided in each other that their book would have played a lot better in 2022.  I'm sure it's agonizing to hatch that baby and realize the conversation for the next four years is only going to be about Trump. 

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Posted
1 minute ago, LCHorn said:

 

 

I'd bet Thompson and Klein have confided in each other that their book would have played a lot better in 2022.  I'm sure it's agonizing to hatch that baby and realize the conversation for the next four years is only going to be about Trump. 

The interesting thing is that it stirred up a hornet’s nest on the tankie left and (for different reasons) among nominally democrat voting neighborhood reactionaries, who increasingly are making common cause with suburban Republicans at the state level. The alliance of the Austin Neighborhood Coalition with Bill Aleshire and Ken Paxton to stop zoning reform and transit planning being a local example. 

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Posted

I think this guy is correct in his diagnosis, but fully articulating the cure still eludes him. The first 2/3 of the essay hits its mark, though.

A good example of what he talks about is easily observed in the LOL pic thread, where folks post "funny" memes. You go check the source for other content and see a bunch of right-wing crap intermixed with shitty jokes, making the statement "the right is getting better at comedy" bitterly ironic.

They're injecting "conservative" viewpoints into all their online content, no matter the subject matter. Basically, it's weaponized meme-ing, and it works, which certainly explains their obsession with memes. Of course, the author's point extends well beyond that one example.

Quote

 

If You’re a Voter Reading This, This Essay Is Not About You
By Rob Flaherty
Mr. Flaherty was a deputy campaign manager on Kamala Harris’s 2024 presidential campaign and served as assistant to the president and director of digital strategy in the Biden White House.

The conservative journalist Andrew Breitbart observed that politics is downstream from culture — that voters are more influenced by what they watch, listen to and like than by actual politicians. As a Democrat who works on presidential campaigns, I think Mr. Breitbart was spot-on, and I’d torture the metaphor further: Democrats today are rowing upstream against powerful new cultural currents, while Republicans are working relentlessly to dam the river itself. The G.O.P. is focused on achieving long-term cultural change. We’re focused on short-term political gain.

Today’s culture is no longer a creation of executives in New York City and Los Angeles. Thanks to algorithms and an endless set of media choices, what you see, read and hear is a personalized reflection of your own interests. It’s like a city with a lot of different neighborhoods. You might live in the personal fitness neighborhood or the parenting neighborhood, but you’ll never cross over into the equine science neighborhood or, say, the politics neighborhood. So if you don’t care about politics — or more precisely, don’t trust our politics — you don’t have to hear about it at all. A voter can turn on, tune in or opt out.

It was these voters — opt-out voters — who decided the 2024 election. It’s these same voters Democrats are struggling to reach today.

At their core, opt-out voters generally don’t trust politicians or the mainstream media. Many assume the system is rigged, the media is biased and neither party is actually fighting for them.

But opting out of politics doesn’t mean never hearing about it. Opt-out voters aren’t watching CNN or paying for news subscriptions, but they still get a lot of information from social media, friends and family. Politics, for them, tends to show up as cultural drift — bits of stories, values and secondhand outrage shared online by friends, influencers and nonpolitical creators. It’s ambient, not deliberate. It’s culture, not news. A young dad scrolling Instagram for parenting tips stumbles across a clip about “traditional family values.” A small-business owner watching finance videos gets fed posts about why “woke policies” are destroying the economy. A 25-year-old gym enthusiast on TikTok starts seeing content about masculinity, personal responsibility and — soon enough — right-wing politics.

This is the fundamental challenge for Democrats.

If you think the system is broken, we’ve been the ones defending it.

If you don’t trust the mainstream press, we’re not for you — because it’s the only way we know how to reach people.

If you’re looking for fast relief, we’ve got a white paper to explain our phased-in tax credit through the fiscal year 2030. Sorry, am I boring you?

Right now we win opt-in voters: people who read the mainstream press, who see themselves as part of the civic process, who believe the basic institutions of society still work — even if imperfectly. People who are likely well educated and well off, perhaps for whom inflation is less of a concern. People who show up for obscure, off-year elections in swing states. People who read, say, navel-gazing guest essays about the future of the Democratic Party in The New York Times. Hello there.

In style, substance and communication, Democrats have become an opt-in party in an opt-out country.

Now, at this point I should be clear: When I say “Democrats,” I mean me, too.

I was deputy campaign manager on Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign. I’ve come up through a party that clings to TV ads and news releases, holding onto a media environment that stopped existing a decade ago. A party that thought Barack Obama’s cultural cool would last forever, and that young voters were table stakes. A party fundamentally mismatched with the task at hand. While we prattle on, concerning ourselves with those who already agree with us, the right has built an information machine aimed squarely at opt-out voters — people sick of traditional politics.

Right-wing partisans, much like opt-out voters, don’t trust the mainstream media or Hollywood. They seek out alternatives. This helps generate demand. This demand is met with supply: a network of influencers, personalities, podcasters and TikTokers who both inflame their bases and push messages into nonpolitical subcultures. It’s sustainable and wide-reaching: It’s generally profitable to be conservative online.

It gives them a huge advantage: They present right-wing cultural narratives on every issue set — and push messages into nonpolitical subcultures. They reach opt-out voters directly. They test messages, see what works, and then it all jumps from their online ecosystem into speeches from the president.

Meanwhile, the center-left’s attention and viewership is generally pointed squarely at the traditional press. Opt-in voters are more likely to trust mainstream institutions, after all. This leaves us relying on a news media industry that is neither a partisan ally nor reaches the voters we need. Our online ecosystem can’t sustainably thrive. So we’re stuck: We’ve got opt-in media for an opt-out electorate. At a time when many Americans don’t trust the mainstream press or Hollywood, the left owns where voters used to be. The right owns where voters are going. It leaves Democrats unable to influence the culture that really matters today, which leaves us unable to make our case to the voters we need.

Opt-out voters don’t buy what we’re selling — and even if they did, we’d have a hard time reaching them.

Part of that is, of course, infrastructure. We need to do the work the right has done to build our own ecosystem, but it won’t scale until it’s profitable. It won’t be profitable until the audience moves there, and that audience won’t move until they’ve got somewhere to go. The campaign donors who now flow money to TV ads and an army of press secretaries need to invest in getting this started, and they will need capital to keep it going. There’s plenty of smart creators in this swimming pool already, but they need resources to create, experiment and grow.

It’s also not enough to build our corner of the cultural honeycomb. We need to build pipelines to everyone else. The right has moved beyond the so-called manosphere. It’s targeting parents, runners and health influencers. If the left isn’t contesting these spaces with voices that resonate, we’ll never reach the people we need.

But we just can’t shake our brand problem: None of that infrastructure will matter if we don’t have anything to say when we get there.

Whether we’ll admit it or not, Democrats have mortgaged our support with opt-out America to win a greater share of opt-in America. We’ve got to flip this calculus: Opt-in Republicans who vote with us are with us for a reason. They’re making a nuanced calculation about the state of America’s politics and the protection of our institutions. They’re not with us because they believe everything we believe; they’re with us because Donald Trump was an existential threat to our democracy.

The good news? We have an opening. In this Trump era — where working people foot the bill for Elon Musk and Mr. Trump’s self-dealing while the government gets further into people’s bedrooms — we have a chance to offer something different. Not a return to normal, but a vision for a better future. A government that roots out corruption, checks runaway corporate power and works — for the love of god, works. A country where you don’t go broke when you get sick, where you’ll be left alone if you’re not hurting anyone. We should help people believe in better. If we’re not hope merchants, we’re nothing at all.

If there is any lesson I gleaned from the 2024 campaign, it’s that winning opt-in voters is about facts. (“Inflation is among the lowest in the world!”) Winning opt-out voters is about attention. (“I am taking a shift at McDonald’s because I understand you.”) Success in communicating online most often has less to do with social media trends and tactics and more to do with doing the right thing offline. We watched a few weeks ago as Senator Cory Booker reaped the benefits of this approach: He gave a big, bold 25-hour speech on the Senate floor that captured attention, gave people hope, drove conflict and generated the first bona fide social media moment of this iteration of the resistance.

The supporters of “fight, not flight” defy ideology: Bill Kristol, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, former Representative Conor Lamb, and Senator Bernie Sanders are all pushing for a more aggressive posture toward the administration. It’s a coalition that acknowledges that campaigning through culture is as much about style as it is substance. Mr. Sanders holds big rallies, but he also goes viral at Coachella. It is perhaps the case that leaders who don’t live in this media environment can’t possibly understand it, but it’s no excuse for denying what’s in front of us. One of the deeper political challenges with former President Joe Biden’s age was not the number; it was the fact that voters believed his age meant he couldn’t understand them. We are now seeing a generation of 70-year-olds who called for the departure of an 81-year-old fail to understand how anyone under 60 gets information about their world.

Conflict drives attention. Attention drives reach. Reach drives votes. Call out the corruption, the hypocrisy, the fraud. Take big, countervailing stands. Make it visceral. Make it personal. Make it fun — the kind of thing people want to be a part of. We are just coming off a campaign cycle where failing to do this cost us: On our worst issue — inflation — Democrats from the White House on down never convincingly named a villain. Republicans and then voters happily made the villain us.

The fight shows we care. It shows that maybe, just maybe, we might even deliver on what we say. If we can’t show people we believe in something enough to fight for it, we shouldn’t be surprised when they stop believing in us. It’s the authenticity, stupid.

A winning presidential coalition needs broad swaths of voters who have opted in — and opted out. Until we learn to wield attention and influence culture, we’ll be adrift. While we struggle, the right will be upstream, defeating us before we can even start.

 

 

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Posted (edited)
20 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Conflict drives attention. Attention drives reach. Reach drives votes. Call out the corruption, the hypocrisy, the fraud. Take big, countervailing stands. Make it visceral. Make it personal. Make it fun — the kind of thing people want to be a part of. We are just coming off a campaign cycle where failing to do this cost us: On our worst issue — inflation — Democrats from the White House on down never convincingly named a villain. Republicans and then voters happily made the villain us.

Also....and this is very, very, very, very, very important: become comfortable, and right quick, with LYING.  Lie big, lie little, lie everywhere in between.  Lies are rocket fuel for outrage and thus energy and engagement. 

"Donald Trump condemned puppies to die and laughed about it!"

"Trump is ending your Social Security!"

"Trump stole your retirement money and is building a secret island lair for pedophiles!"

Whatever.  Workshop 10,000 such lies, then go with the ones that raise the temperature the most.  Fight fire with fire.  The ecosystem and rules have been established.  For the love of God, stop pretending that ANY of the old rules still apply.  The reason that the Dems keep getting hoisted on the standards of the old rules is because the Dems are the only fucking idiots who keep insisting that the old rules still exist and apply.  The Dems are old aristocrat-built armies in fancy uniforms with feathered helmets marching in a straight line into machine gun fire.  Fucking stop.  The old way is over.  Rules and norms are over.  All that matters is winning, because unless you do that, you can't save a single fucking thing that matters.

Edited by Brisketexan
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Posted

So now Gerry Connelly is stepping down as ranking member of Oversight (that he beat out AOC for) and will not seek reelection?

 

Episode 12 What GIF by Law & Order

 

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Pancho said:

So now Gerry Connelly is stepping down as ranking member of Oversight (that he beat out AOC for) and will not seek reelection?

 

Episode 12 What GIF by Law & Order

 

He has cancer, which he know when he ran for the Ranking Member slot, but now he's citing as a reason to step down. 

I've said it once, and I will say it over and over and over:  The Democrats slavish allegiance to seniority in committee chairs and committee leadership slots is doing real damage to the party.  By blocking younger membes from achieving leadership positions, the party stagnates.  

The Republicans give their chairs and ranking members a combined 6 years, with a rare waiver for 2 more years.  Members who term limit out of committee leadership positions tend to retire rather than become back benchers. That allows younger local politicians to move up to the federal level.  Rising elected members can develop new fundraising and state wide profiles. Changes in leadership staff force turn over on K street.  

John Conyers was ranking member or chair of Judiciary from 1995 through 2017.  During that period of time, the GOP had FIVE different leaders. 

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Posted

Pritzker has no patience for centrist cowards:

Quote

Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois strode into a ballroom filled with top New Hampshire Democrats on Sunday and by the end of his nearly 30-minute speech had them ready to storm the political barricades against President Trump.

“It’s time to fight everywhere and all at once,” he told the group of Democratic activists, officials and donors, who jumped to their feet with hoots and applause. “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now. These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace.”

“The reckoning is finally here,” he declared.

...

While other governors have made ham-handed attempts at reconciliation with Mr. Trump, Mr. Pritzker has turned his state into a bulwark of opposition to the administration’s crackdown on immigration, cuts to the federal government and tariffs on other countries.

He has done so as some congressional Democrats, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, have urged their party to be selective with their attacks against the president to avoid alienating independent voters who supported him. Mr. Pritzker, by contrast, wants his party to adopt a posture of zero accommodation.

“The main divide within the Democratic Party is not between left and right — it’s whether you think this is a constitutional crisis or this is politics as usual,” said Ezra Levin, a co-founder of the progressive activist group Indivisible. “Pritzker is really demonstrating what it looks like to lead an opposition party against the overreaching authority of the federal government.”

In recent months, Mr. Pritzker has preached a gospel of staunch resistance to some of the most engaged Democratic activists across the country, delivering the keynote speech at party fund-raisers in Illinois and Austin, Texas, and at an annual gala for the Human Rights Campaign in Los Angeles. Next month, he is set to speak at a fund-raising dinner in Detroit for the Michigan Democratic Party.

In his speech in New Hampshire, he criticized Democrats who have admonished the party for its perceived overreach as “timid, not bold.”

“Fellow Democrats, for far too long we’ve been guilty of listening to a bunch of do-nothing political types who would tell us that America’s house is not on fire, even as the flames are licking their faces,” he said. “Today, as the blaze reaches the rafters, the pundits and politicians — whose simpering timidity served as kindle for the arsonists — urge us now not to reach for a hose.”

While his targets went unnamed, there were obvious candidates: Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, the host of a podcast that has featured stars of the MAGA movement, and the Democratic strategist James Carville, who has argued for “a strategic political retreat” until Mr. Trump’s approval ratings fall.

“Those same do-nothing Democrats want to blame our losses on our defense of Black people and trans kids and immigrants,” Mr. Pritzker said, “instead of their own lack of guts and gumption.”

His comments reflected how, for now, Democrats are chiefly divided not over health care or other policy issues, but over the extent to which they should oppose Mr. Trump and his agenda.

While some party donors and consultants have urged moderation, Mr. Pritzker is tapping into the Democratic base’s visceral desire for a fight — and for a leader.

“Voters didn’t turn out for Democrats last November — not because they don’t want us to fight for our values, but because they think we don’t want to fight for our values,” he said in his speech. “We need to knock off the rust of poll-tested language, decades of stale decorum. It’s obscured our better instincts.”

We have no choice but to stan the Great Khan.

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Posted

Being a good and aggressive politician who can lead the Democrats to victory really has nothing to do with where you are ideologically. The country is so far right at this point that even a conservative Democrat could probably get on board with most needed reforms. Though many of the "centrists" aren't really political centrists. They are just sell out lazy politicians who use the term "centrist" to justify doing nothing.

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Posted
7 hours ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

Protect Our X

Save Our X

 

 

JD Vance Fucks Couches

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

Also....and this is very, very, very, very, very important: become comfortable, and right quick, with LYING.  Lie big, lie little, lie everywhere in between.  Lies are rocket fuel for outrage and thus energy and engagement. 

"Donald Trump condemned puppies to die and laughed about it!"

"Trump is ending your Social Security!"

"Trump stole your retirement money and is building a secret island lair for pedophiles!"

Whatever.  Workshop 10,000 such lies, then go with the ones that raise the temperature the most.  Fight fire with fire.  The ecosystem and rules have been established.  For the love of God, stop pretending that ANY of the old rules still apply.  The reason that the Dems keep getting hoisted on the standards of the old rules is because the Dems are the only fucking idiots who keep insisting that the old rules still exist and apply.  The Dems are old aristocrat-built armies in fancy uniforms with feathered helmets marching in a straight line into machine gun fire.  Fucking stop.  The old way is over.  Rules and norms are over.  All that matters is winning, because unless you do that, you can't save a single fucking thing that matters.

Donald Trump is an idiot. 



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