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4 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

All the people are ultimately responsible for this mess. Either they are uninformed, or not enough people are able to, or willing to, perform enough civic actions to push back against bad policies. 

Disinformation has seriously exacerbated the problem.

Congress from both parties have done little to nothing and are also culpable. 

The Democratic Party in general has been terrible communicators for a long time now, and this has exacerbated the problem. 

These are the facts and they are indisputable.

we got out-socialed and lost 77-0 in the disinformation department

/end bitching about dems

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1 minute ago, Hank Kingsley said:

With Trump, "we" failed to have a spine and a brain and to give a shit about each other. 

But that was a slow drip result of the people in power failing us for decades. Blame the powerful first.

the game was winnable

even with the current low information landscape

the midterms are winnable - if we get elections

it's gonna take people willing to risk their lives and their livelihoods

it needs to be 25-40 attractive well spoken people from the largest minority in their district at every level running against turnip

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2 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

The Democratic Party in general has been terrible communicators for a long time now, and this has exacerbated the problem. 

This is just such an oft-repeated undefined criticism. Obama was pretty prominent last campaign. That guy is a bad communicator? Was Walz? Compared to last year's rambling, people leaving early Trump rallies?

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1 hour ago, immamac said:

Democratic Presidents also consolidated power and governed by EO.

This is a well studied problem and I've posted it several times before. 

See Congress polarize over the past 60 years, in one beautiful chart | Vox

journal.pone.0123507.g002.0.0.1498584007

I'm not seeing any dramatic split with a Democratic President in office until Clinton, which was...right around the time of Gingrich's Contract on America.  Sure, there was polarization taking place through the 80's but there was still some compromise and collaboration happening.

To me this diagram doesn't really address increasing EO usage and executive consolidation of power so much as the movement towards the margins largely starting in Reagan's second term but only becoming a clear rift by the time Clinton came into office...when Gingrich put out the Contract on America.

Edited by DDD Dad
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Nah, this shit has been in the works for decades. Reagan's "trickle down" kicked off the wealth hoarding, the revocation of the Fairness Doctrine ushered in the current state of Fox News and the likes of Rush Limbaugh, then Citizens United wrapped it all up for the billionaires to eventually seize power which we are seeing now. That's in addition to the influence of the Federalists Society reshaping the judiciary to make a lot of this possible.

This while the Democrats tried to play by the rules and sit on the sidelines with their dick in their hands while all this unfolded. 

 

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Just now, Hmbre97 said:

Nah, this shit has been in the works for decades. Reagan's "trickle down" kicked off the wealth hoarding, the revocation of the Fairness Doctrine ushered in the current state of Fox News and the likes of Rush Limbaugh, then Citizens United wrapped it all up for the billionaires to eventually seize power which we are seeing now. That's in addition to the influence of the Federalists Society reshaping the judiciary to make a lot of this possible.

This while the Democrats tried to play by the rules and sit on the sidelines with their dick in their hands while all this unfolded. 

 

Good post. And Reagan was the one that really sowed the seeds of people distrusting the government. And his War on Drugs filled the prisons and devastated communities. 

 

 

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I'm not seeing any dramatic split with a Democratic President in office until Clinton, which was...right around the time of Gingrich's Contract on America.  Sure, there was polarization taking place through the 80's but there was still some compromise and collaboration happening.
To me this diagram doesn't really address increasing EO usage and executive consolidation of power so much as the movement towards the margins largely starting in Reagan's second term but only becoming a clear rift by the time Clinton came into office...when Gingrich put out the Contract on America.

Don’t forget gerrymandering going haywire.
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1 hour ago, hornmpa96 said:

You know what I want the Democratic congress critters to do - Win more elections. 
 

They need to do a better job of crafting their message, getting out the vote and gerrymandering House seats in Blue states.

You Play to Win the Game! 

That’s true but with the caveat that the “messaging” is not the problem. The incoherence and irrelevance of the messaging is the symptom of a broken institution. Saying the Democrats have a messaging problem is like saying Alvin Ord’s needs to go back to the original bread. 

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1 minute ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

This is just such an oft-repeated undefined criticism. Obama was pretty prominent last campaign. That guy is a bad communicator? Was Walz? Compared to last year's rambling, people leaving early Trump rallies?

070629 iphone released

080710 facebook released for iphone

081104 obama elected

110101 pinterest was at 40k users but doubling monthly

110101 twitter was ubiquitous but zero discussion about disinformation on social platforms

121106 obama re-elected

130415 boston marathon bombing is the catalyst for social-gone-wild which led to this study:

https://www.science.org/content/article/fake-news-spreads-faster-true-news-twitter-thanks-people-not-bots

all of this is separate from fox news which poisoned that end of the maga spectrum - they were already infested with brainworms before the 16 election

the social bubonic plague was unleashed in the run-up to the 16 election

and although there is no direct tie-in to the timeline it feels appropriate to post this because 2007 was the start of it all

imma, your avatar is to blame

you should feel bad

 

image.jpeg.3df57ce59aea5cb3f1f1e8da8447648d.jpeg

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1 hour ago, David Dennison said:

I voted for Harris.

I'm not to blame for shit.

This. Fuck taking any responsibility for this shit show. Only thing I could’ve done differently is take the place of the shooter, because I wouldn’t have missed.

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12 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

and although there is no direct tie-in to the timeline it feels appropriate to post this because 2007 was the start of it all

I feel it was started a lot earlier than that. Late 80s early 90s saw the proliferation of "news talk" radio popular amongst Working Joes and the 1996 Telecommunications Act signed by Clinton essentially paid for by Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) solidified corporate monopoly messaging and the freedom to hear Feel Like Making Love a brazilian times. 

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2 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

Wrong. We're to blame. We became fat, and lazy, and indifferent and/or ignroant to the concept of it being a civic duty to be informed, to strive to be educated on topics, and to be grateful for having the right to vote, and to exercise it. Instead, we couldn't be bothered to watch the news, becuase it's sooo depressing/boring/who cares, and we couldn't follow politics for the same reason. We took everything we had for granted, and we turned into the fat fucks on the ship in Wall-E, simply eeeking along and becoming only concerned with things that are right in front of our face, or effect us directly. During that time, we escheweed morality, we allowed power hungry self-interested people to be elected (becuase good people didn't want to be politicians, we could make more money elsewhere), we allowed corporations to take over our politics monetarily, and we didn't punish people at the ballot box becuase politics became a team sport. We let for profit news, in all of it's obvious contradictions, take root and flourish. 

Trump. Congress. Politicians, all of it. They're all us. This is on us. You can call it as a species, or Americans as a country, but it's on us. This is who we have become. Pointing at Congress, Trump, the Supreme Court, it's all the same picture, and that picture is us. 

This

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7 minutes ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

I feel it was started a lot earlier than that. Late 80s early 90s saw the proliferation of "news talk" radio popular amongst Working Joes and the 1996 Telecommunications Act signed by Clinton essentially paid for by Fairness And Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) solidified corporate monopoly messaging and the freedom to hear Feel Like Making Love a brazilian times. 

my parents never thought the 40 acres was a bastion of evil until fox news started in '96 - by 9/11 they were fully programmed even though they were apolitical for the first 50+ years of their lives

the turn of the century or 9/11, either fits the bill

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6 minutes ago, Hagbard Celine said:

my parents never thought the 40 acres was a bastion of evil until fox news started in '96 - by 9/11 they were fully programmed even though they were apolitical for the first 50+ years of their lives

the turn of the century or 9/11, either fits the bill

I get that. I just see that more of an inflection point than "the start of it all".

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4 minutes ago, Gatorubet said:

I will give a whack at disputing it.  

When Gingrich became speaker, he told told every republican congressman not to argue policy with their Democratic opponents, but to demonize their opponent as bad people: enemies of the country who wanted to hurt the country with their policies - that they were socialist communist liberals who were against God and American values.

That was a very effective strategy for the next 30 years.   Because dems telling Bubba that they are NOT a godless atheist socialist will not win the day.  It’s like the LBJ story about how he told his political advisor to spread the story that his opponent was having sex with barnyard animals.  When they told LBJ that it wasn’t true, LBJ said “Who cares? let’s get the son of a bitch to deny it!”  So debate content was no longer about issues so much as it was about God and country and “family values”

And people like Karl Rove perfected the art by having wedge issues like burning the American flag become pivotal in an election.   The Republican senators and congressman knew that the first amendment gave you that right, exactly the same right as standing on a soapbox and saying, “ I disagree with my countries long-standing racism”, or “ this country sucks because our foreign policy is literally killing people who are innocent.”    Republicans back then knew that the liberal position was true, but they also knew it was not politically effective to agree with supporting the constitution when Bubba wants to beat up the guy who would burn the flag.     It was brilliant, because taking the mature responsible position on preserving our constitutional liberties will get your ass defeated in an election.

The second thing that the Democrats were not responsible for is Rush Limbaugh and the advent of conservative drive time talk radio, and Fox News becoming what it is.     You are blaming the Democrats for not being effective communicators when the other half of the country are sworn to not listen to Democrats or any news that Democrats might be on, because it is “fake news”.     The active communication you blame democrats for failing requires two parties, one of whom agrees to listen to the other person communicating an idea.  They don’t do that.  In fact, listening to the other side or reading something from the other side’s news source is an act of treason that is against your team.   

The other problem is that there are numerous studies showing that people on the right embrace black-and-white simplistic ideology.   They have no time to learn why the Middle East is not all Arabs, but also Persians.  They have no interest in learning about Sunni and Shia and Wahabism - they are much more receptive to “bomb the desert into glass”, and “ make Gaza a beachside resort”.    

The short way to put it is that nuance and complexity is not something they have an interest in.   That is why “drain the swamp” has such an appeal. that is the only thing they need to learn to say. They don’t even have to know how to explain it to someone. 

There are other tangential issues like diminishing education, a total lack of emphasis on critical thinking and the liberal arts (the biggest sin being the word “liberal”, which does not mean what Cletus thinks it means).

The other thing is the rise of the toxic fundamentalist evangelical Christian community, and their desire to push theology over secular debate on issues.    If the magic sky fairy du jour tells you what rules to put on in vitro fertilization legislation, who are mere mortal democrats to oppose that?

The more the GOP took the low road the more successful they were.  I do not know when it happened, but we reached a tipping point.  We should’ve seen snowbilly Palin‘s popularity as the canery in the coal mine.  But alas, what she was selling is exactly what the voting population wanted. If the economic crisis of 2008 had not happened, McCain would’ve likely won.   

Finally, I’m not saying Democrats don’t have a lot of old and new feet wounds from their shooting.   But I disagree that they could overcome those other factors.  and I did not even go on a tirade against social media, another huge promoter of tribe thinking.

TL;DR

Apparently, we get the country we deserve.

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, except for the fact that you just demonstrated my whole point. The Republicans figured out a way to communicate that was effective: demonizing, etc. and the Democrats have not. 

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2 hours ago, hornmpa96 said:

They need to do a better job of crafting their message, getting out the vote and gerrymandering House seats in Blue states.

You Play to Win the Game! 

this is interesting. you're not kidding...the relative shape of districts in CO compared to TX is something!

image.thumb.jpeg.ccd7b1b868f177ed4875d680d7c95c3c.jpeg

image.thumb.jpeg.52249471f29bb0c7b6d831c42b7ab234.jpeg

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Trump is a symptom, not a disease. Always has been. We voted for this.

Beyond that most direct explanation, American Christianity and oligarchs have cooperated on the basis of their shared interest in subjugating the broader nation at multiple points throughout American history, we're just living in the modern adaptation of that.

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Trump showed how much of our system of government relies on following established norms and decorum and how much that grey area can be exploited with the other branches and the courts too inept to stop it. 

Sadly, he's exposed those things far more rapidly than we can possibly do anything about them. 

So it's Trump.

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32 minutes ago, Dbeasy said:

I don’t disagree with anything you’ve said, except for the fact that you just demonstrated my whole point. The Republicans figured out a way to communicate that was effective: demonizing, etc. and the Democrats have not. 

Yeah, but the R mode of communication is increasingly dependent not merely on gross oversimplification, and appeal to base instinct, but actual lies.

When countering lies with truth fails, you're in a communication tough-spot.

 

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10 minutes ago, aggie08 said:

Trump showed how much of our system of government relies on following established norms and decorum and how much that grey area can be exploited with the other branches and the courts too inept to stop it. 

Sadly, he's exposed those things far more rapidly than we can possibly do anything about them. 

So it's Trump.

Yeah, I went along with Congress being a huge part of the problem, but Trump is the most immoral, self-interested person to hold the presidency in the history of this nation.  And we have had a shit ton of immoral, self-interested politicians in this country, particularly in the last 75 years or so.  He takes the cake, by a huge margin.

He mostly unwittingly exploited the other frailties noted here to blow everything up.

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6 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, but the R mode of communication is increasingly dependent not merely on gross oversimplification, and appeal to base instinct, but actual lies.

When countering lies with truth fails, you're in a communication tough-spot.

 

Trump is also master at exactly one thing: flooding the zone. When everything he does seems to be important, then nothing is important. And people understandably tune out. It's impossible to lock him down on any one thing; he and his cohorts are already on to the next lie or corruption. 

He was constructed in a lab to be the perfect instrument of the right wing info-sphere.

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3 hours ago, Hagbard Celine said:

dude

try 1980

Naw buddy. This was all set in motion in 1964. As soon as the coloreds began receiving equal rights we were always going to be here. Politicians correctly identified they could rob the population blind as long as they promised to do something about those damned colored folk. Every R pres and even a couple D's have ran that playbook and here we are. Still at it.

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3 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

Naw buddy. This was all set in motion in 1964. As soon as the coloreds began receiving equal rights we were always going to be here. Politicians correctly identified they could rob the population blind as long as they promised to do something about those damned colored folk. Every R pres and even a couple D's have ran that playbook and here we are. Still at it.

LBJ called it.

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I don't know how you do it but at some point, you gotta get out of the race, religion, whatever arguments and get down to class.  You have to convince the white family in suburbia making 300K a year that they are a LOT closer to the Hispanic family living in the inner city getting by on 45K a year than they are to any of these people raking in millions and billions annually.  It's simple math but for some reason, it's not a message that lands.

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13 minutes ago, Surly Bevo said:

I don't know how you do it but at some point, you gotta get out of the race, religion, whatever arguments and get down to class.  You have to convince the white family in suburbia making 300K a year that they are a LOT closer to the Hispanic family living in the inner city getting by on 45K a year than they are to any of these people raking in millions and billions annually.  It's simple math but for some reason, it's not a message that lands.

Setting aside the difficulty of overcoming this nation's racial caste system, you'd have to somehow divorce class consciousness from Marxism before the class message lands with most Americans.

Edited by David Dennison
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3 hours ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

That’s true but with the caveat that the “messaging” is not the problem. The incoherence and irrelevance of the messaging is the symptom of a broken institution. Saying the Democrats have a messaging problem is like saying Alvin Ord’s needs to go back to the original bread. 

Pre-apologies if you did and I missed it, and maybe I've misremembered a bit, but I seem to recall someone asking you how you would "message" a Democratic campaign, and again, I could be mistaken, you said it would take you a while or something to that affect.

If you did and want to cut and paste, that would be great or if you wanna just whip something up, great as well. 

I got my right-leaning sister to post "Fuck Abbott" on Facebook, so there's one. Not sure what your conversion rate is, but I'm all ears and willing to pass along. 

 

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I haven't read all the posts but we've ended up here because of many steps along this path, including: 

- courts recognizing corporation rights to make political contributions. And thereby funding super PACs. Money is more important than voters. 

- the supremes allowing almost unchallengeable presidential immunity.

- congress rule changes, like super majority, that push more power to the fringe/extreme of each party and stopping historical central bias making it a polarized body. Leaving behind bipartisanship, coalitions, and compromise. 

- picking political candidates that are best at bullying and bad mouthing opponents (even within their own party).

- congress realizing that their main job is being reelected, maybe because it is much easier to front run investment decisions based on insider information.

I could go on, but already risk tl:dr status

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5 hours ago, immamac said:

this is fucking dumb, just quit it with the woe is me jesus fuck. the problem is Americans don't hold their elected representatives accountable and those representatives are no longer doing their fucking jobs. 

It's not the party, it's the people and the mechanisms that continue to allow partisan stupid shit games instead of actually governing our incredibly large and economically prosperous country.

Lock thread on this.

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3 hours ago, TwiceHorn said:

Yeah, but the R mode of communication is increasingly dependent not merely on gross oversimplification, and appeal to base instinct, but actual lies.

When countering lies with truth fails, you're in a communication tough-spot.

absolutely not

fight fire with fire

we need to start asking every traitor if they have stopped beating their wives, raping their dogs, and covering up their children's gender re-assignment

GO DOWN

/praise bob

/praise the laser projekt

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4 minutes ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Shut the fuck up, bitch.

Turn on FRIENDS and stare at Annistons nipples before we get clogged up with another “I’m not talking to my parents” angst teen bullshit

Edited by StassneyHorn
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1 hour ago, Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand said:

Pre-apologies if you did and I missed it, and maybe I've misremembered a bit, but I seem to recall someone asking you how you would "message" a Democratic campaign, and again, I could be mistaken, you said it would take you a while or something to that affect.

If you did and want to cut and paste, that would be great or if you wanna just whip something up, great as well. 

I got my right-leaning sister to post "Fuck Abbott" on Facebook, so there's one. Not sure what your conversion rate is, but I'm all ears and willing to pass along.

flood the zone with ad-hominem character attacks on social

sorted

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8 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I could see Cascadia eventually seceding and joining Canada

 

7 hours ago, High Plains Drifter said:

Why tf would Canada risk war with the US over Cascadia, half of which (the eastern half) is full on right wing nut job guns over everything crazy 

This right here. Are we talking about the Cascadia along the I5 corridor and west? Or the one east of the Cascades all the way through Idaho? 

(and really, that line could be drawn from Bellingham to San Diego) 

I've been noticing an interesting phenomenon over the past few weeks... Lotta flags coming down at my conservative/libertarian neighbors' houses and an equal number going up at my progressive friend's places. 

Same flag tho...

image.thumb.jpeg.d7da9cc4ab8bf5216a884931077ff8ae.jpeg

 

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