Brilliant. I so wish everyone in America was reading this. And that all Democrats , the media, and the country would be praising and supporting Biden for his focus and work. It's working. The Republicans focus on the 1 percent did not and is not. Thanks for putting this all together
Brilliant. I so wish everyone in America was reading this. And that all Democrats , the media, and the country would be praising and supporting Biden for his focus and work. It's working. The Republicans focus on the 1 percent did not and is not. Thanks for putting this all together
Hartmann's writing at the link plus Dr. Richardson's writing today should be mandatory reading for all Americans who can read.
Unfortunately, the number of Americans that can read, ever do read, or want to read?
Getting smaller by the day and not very large to begin with. It is so much easier to grab a beer and listen to Buck and Butt on AM radio or listen to Sean Hannity on AM radio or watch Fox News show some fake blonde leg.
But, reading is the path to understanding complex issues. Hartmann's letter and today's letter by HCR clarify Republican intent and reasons that EVERYONE should READ.
Another letter from Hartmann is just as eye opening.
"Hartmann's writing at the link plus Dr. Richardson's writing today should be mandatory reading for all Americans who can read."
And for those who have difficulty with Twitter, here is a "transcript":
Thom Hartmann Twitter – 02 July 2022
1/ Dear Republicans: We Tried Your Way and It Does Not Work (a thread):
11:15 PM · Jul 2, 2022
Thom Hartmann
Jul 2
2/ The 1970s were a pivotal decade, and not just because it saw the end of the Vietnam War, the resignation of Nixon, and the death of both the psychedelic hippie movement and the very political (and sometimes violent) SDS.
3/ Most consequentially, the 1970s were when the modern-day Republican Party was birthed.
4/ Prior to that, the nation had hummed along for 40 years on a top income tax bracket of 91% and a corporate income tax that topped out around 50%.
5/ Business leaders ran their companies, which were growing faster than at any time in the history of America and avoided participating in politics.
6/ Democrat Franklin Roosevelt and Republican Dwight Eisenhower renewed America with modern, state-of-the-art public labs, schools, and public hospitals across the nation; nearly free college, trade school, and research support; healthy small and family businesses;
7/ unions protecting a third of America’s workers so two-thirds had a living wage and benefits; and an interstate highway system, rail system, and network of new airports that transformed the nation’s commerce.
8/ When we handed America over to Ronald Reagan in 1981 it was a brand, gleaming new country with a prosperous and thriving middle class.
9/ The seeds of today’s American crisis were planted just ten years earlier, in 1971, when Lewis Powell, then a lawyer for the tobacco industry, wrote his infamous “Powell Memo.”
10/ It became a blueprint for the morbidly rich and big corporations to take over the weakened remnants of Nixon’s Republican Party and then America.
11/ They then moved on to infiltrate our universities, seize our media, pack our courts, integrate themselves into a large religious movement to add millions of votes, and turn upside down our tax, labor, and gun laws.
12/ That effort burst onto the American scene with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan.
13/ By 1982 America was agog at the “new ideas” this newly-invented GOP was putting forward.
14/ They included radical tax cuts, pollution deregulation, destroying unions, and slashing the support services the New Deal and Great Society once offered people (because, Republicans said, feeding, educating, or providing healthcare to people made them dependent).
15/ Their sales pitch was effective, and we’ve now had 42 years of the so-called Reagan Revolution.
16/ It’s time to simply say out loud that it hasn’t worked:
17/ Republicans told us if we just cut the top tax rate on the morbidly rich from the 74% it was at in 1980 down to 27% it would “trickle down” benefits to everybody else as, they said, the “job creators” would be unleashed on our economy.
18/ Instead of a more general prosperity, we’ve now ended up with the greatest wealth and income inequality in the world, as over $50 trillion was transferred over 40 years from the bottom 90% to the top 1%, where it remains to this day.
19/ The middle class has gone from over 60% of us to fewer than half of us. It now takes 2 full-time wage earners to sustain the same lifestyle one could in 1980.
20/ Republicans told us if we just deregulated guns and let anybody buy and carry as many as they wanted wherever they wanted it would clean up our crime problem and put the fear of God into our politicians.
21/ “An armed society is a polite society” was the bumper sticker back during Reagan’s time, the NRA relentlessly promoting the lie that the Founders and Framers put the 2nd Amendment into the Constitution so “patriots” could kill politicians.
22/ Five Republicans on the Supreme Court even got into the act by twisting the law and lying about history to make guns more widely available.
23/ Instead of a “polite” society or politicians who listened better to their constituents, we ended up with school shootings and a daily rate of gun carnage unmatched anywhere else in the developed world.
24/ Republicans told us that if we just ended sex education in our schools and outlawed abortion, we’d return to “the good old days” when, they argued, every child was wanted and every marriage was happy.
25/ Instead of helping young Americans, we’ve ended up with epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and — now that abortion is illegal in state after state — a return to deadly back-alley abortions.
26/ Republicans told us that if we just killed off Civics and History classes in our schools, we’d “liberate” our young people to focus instead on science and math.
27/ Instead, we’ve raised two generations of Americans that can’t even name the three branches of government, much less understand the meaning of the Constitution’s reference to the “General Welfare.”
28/ Republicans told us that if we cut state and federal aid to higher education — which in 1980 paid for about 80% of a student’s tuition — so that students would have what they told us was “skin in the game,”
29/ we’d see students take their studies more seriously and produce a new generation of engineers and scientists to prepare us for the 21st century.
30/ Instead of happy students, since we cut that 80% government support down to around 20% (with the 80% now covered by student’s tuition), our nation is groaning under a $2 trillion dollar student debt burden, preventing young people from buying homes, starting businesses,
30/ Instead of happy students, since we cut that 80% government support down to around 20% (with the 80% now covered by student’s tuition), our nation is groaning under a $2 trillion dollar student debt burden, preventing young people from buying homes, starting businesses,
31/ or beginning families. While students are underwater, banksters who donate to Republican politicians are making billions in profits every single week of the year from these bizarrely non-negotiable loans.
32/ Republicans told us that if we just stopped enforcing the anti-monopoly and anti-trust laws that had protected small businesses for nearly 100 years, there would be an explosion of innovation and opportunity as companies got bigger and better.
33/ Instead, we’ve seen every industry in America become so consolidated that competition is dead, price gouging and profiteering reign, and it’s impossible to start or find small family-owned businesses anymore in downtowns, malls, and the suburbs.
34/ It’s all giant chains, many now owed by hedge funds or private equity. Few family or local businesses can compete against such giants.
35/ Republicans told us that if we just changed the laws to let corporations pay their senior executives with stock (in addition to cash) they’d be “more invested” in the fate and future of the company and business would generally become healthier.
36/ Instead, nearly every time a corporation initiates a stock buyback program, millions and often billions of dollars flow directly into the pockets of the main shareholders and executives — while workers, the company, and society suffer the loss.
37/ Republicans told us that if we just let a handful of individual companies and billionaires buy most of our media, a thousand flowers would grow and we’d have the most diverse media landscape in the world.
38/ At first, as the internet was opening in the 90s, they even giddily claimed it was happening.
39/ Now a small group of often-rightwing companies own our major media/internet companies, radio and TV stations, as well as local newspapers across the country. In such a landscape, progressive voices, as you can imagine, are generally absent.
40/ Republicans told us we should hand all our healthcare decisions not to our doctors but to bureaucratic insurance industry middlemen who would decide which of our doctor’s suggestions they’d approve and which they’d reject.
41/ They said this will “lower costs and increase choice.”
42/ In all of the entire developed world — all the OECD countries on 4 continents — there are only 500,000 medical bankruptcies a year. Every single one of them is here in America.
43/ Republicans told us if we just got rid of our unions, then our bosses and the companies that employ them would give us better pay, more benefits, and real job security.
44/ As everybody can see, they lied. And are working as hard as they can to prevent America from returning to the levels of unionization we had before Reagan’s Great Republican Experiment.
45/ Republicans told us if we went with the trade agreement the GHW Bush administration had negotiated — NAFTA — and then signed off on the WTO, that we’d see an explosion of jobs.
Now, I feel personal gratitude to the super rich who have made something that benefits me. Like the Wal Mart gang. They are welcome to the money. Just like the guy who goes to the stadium to watch professional football and pay handsomely for doing it. Those athletes are, to him, worth their huge salaries because they provide him enjoyment.
Yes, McConnell is the cynical power grabber in so many ways. I loathe that man almost as much as I do death star donny. Nearly every day i see some post that blames Biden for gas prices and all things economic. I see less of it now from the far left here in Salem because they are now concentrating on the reversal of Roe and other such issues. When I posted Heather's letter to Facebook, I ended with the reminder to vote D. I also post as many items that I see about the good things Biden is doing.
Unfortunately we also need to be aware of the media's dislike of all things Biden. Here is the lead story in the New York Times today. It is a devastating look at Biden.
Barbara, Unfortunately, I can understand why Americans have turned on Biden.
1. AM radio, which, nobody takes seriously, reaches a very wide audience from coast to coast and has a variety of all day long nuts ranting against Biden. These stations really matter.
2. Fox News. Same bunch of nuts ranting on TV.
3. Gas prices. Although Biden can do nothing but watch the price of gas move wherever, the price of gas is wholly out of his control and even influence, Americans like I was at age 18 are ignorant enough to believe all the ranting on AM radio about how Biden is at fault.
4. Lastly, and even a concern of mine, Biden is 79 years old. I have yet to meet a 79 year old in my lifetime that I felt would be an optimal, highly effective President. In fact, I heard Pete Buttigiege on some platform my wife showed me yesterday and he was masterful talking with Fox news about protesters outside Kavanaugh's home. I believe that 79 is too old.
I also believe that Pete Buttigeige does not have a snowballs chance in hell of winning a nationwide election for President.
So, I don't know what to do. Kamala Harris cannot win either.
I've never liked polls, whose results depend on the way questions are formulated in order to obtain answers the pollsters want to get. It's similar to questioners on "60 Minutes" asking, "You didn't like that very much, did you?" and the person responding, "I didn't like that very much."
Instead of following "The White House has tried to trumpet strong job growth, including on Friday when Mr. Biden declared that he had overseen 'the fastest and strongest jobs recovery in American history' with a statement that the Times/Siena poll showed a vast disconnect between those boasts, and the strength of some economic indicators, and the financial reality that most Americans feel they are confronting," The New York Times should simply have written "The White House trumpets strong job growth and the fastest and strongest jobs recovery in American history," and left that paragraph at that, instead of immediately countering with "...a vast disconnect..." Our mainstream media should look for and trumpet all the good the president has done, and emphasize that many of the things he has proposed, as with Obama, have been blocked by McConnell and the Radical Regressives' filibuster.
There are good polls and bad polls, including dishonest polls. The results certainly depend on how the questions are posed, but it is certainly not true that all poll questions are designed to get a desired result. Even a well-designed, carefully administered poll only gives the result from a statistical sample that is chosen "at random" (which has a technical definition) and which attempts to give an accurate picture of the population at large. Results are reported with "margins of error" to gauge the uncertainty in the results. Usually polls are designed to give results at the 95% confidence level, another technical term, which means, roughly, that 95% of all possible random samples will give a result within the stated margin of error. That means that 5% of samples will give a "bad" result, i.e., not within the margin of error. One does not know whether the particular sample that shows up in the poll is one of the 95% "good" samples or one of the 5% "bad" samples. That's just a fact of life. Statistical arguments are not strict mathematical proofs; they are empirical observations, which can be wrong. A bit like news reports.
When the Maddow blog was still in operation, there was a lovely poster under the name Carolina Lady With Fan. (I do miss those folks) She had worked in polling for years and explained how it worked. After that I have paid no attention to them. The mainstream media loves bad news and clink bait.
Yes, this really irritates me which is why I only do the puzzles and science and food sections. I do read Bill Palmer (yes, I know the headlines are hyperbole) who takes on the media all the time.
Sorry I sent it to you. And yes ordinarily I watch what I read in MSM. I like the real estate section watching what people choose to live in, Metropolitan Diary, and Margaret Renkyl.
It's safe to speculate that decades hence, historians looking back at the shocking decline of America will center on McConnell as a linchpin. That is, if historians are still able to research and publish.
Keep in mind that capitalism is amoral and global. Capitalists do not care about the common good and they do not care about the well-being of the nations in which they operate. Capitalists are parasites by design, feeding off the host planet and its people.
My husband is a fan of Picketty (sp?) and is now reading his newest book on the history of equality. We do try to shop as much as we can locally and frequent our Saturday Market every weekend and then do our grocery shopping at our local natural food store. They do mark those items which are local. I do try to avoid brands that I know have been sold to big companies also. I buy a lot of my herbs and spices from a company that works with small farmers. No, they are not local, but I like their product and the fact that they support these farmers all over the world. I also have a garden and buy my plants from a local nursery and most of my seeds from one here in Oregon. I never order books from Amazon, but from Powell's, the wonderful book store in Portland. Since we seldom drive out of the city, our Prius is getting something like 560+ miles to the gallon. We have solar panels and just added more with storage batteries (not Tesla) in the garage. I know everyone cannot afford to do this, but I encourage people to do what they can and to support efforts for urban gardens in cities and other projects to help ordinary people.
I mean 560+. We rarely drive on anything but electric which is in town driving. It would less if we did lots of highway driving. Also the mileage is better in summer than in winter. We bought the car in January and it had a full tank of gas. We haven't been to the gas station yet and the tank is still pretty full.
I just shared this essay from Dr. Richardson with a number of my friends and family who have grown weary of the tumult and chaos. It is important that we work to inform instead of politicizing. I also frequently quote Dr. Richardson when countering misinformation. For many reasons this writing from Dr. Richardson was amazing. I studied Economics just enough to realize that is is a complex topic understood by few. So you are correct in stating that our task is to inform.
Thanks for that link--I just subscribed to the Hartmann Report.
Extremely interesting and informative backstory. After seeing what Burke's theories did to the lower and lower middle classes in Great Britain, how could ANYONE--even a conservative--think that it was good policy? Too sad that Thomas Paine's writings weren't more popular and more widely followed.
Wasn't the French Revolution enough of an object lesson in what happens when deliberately punitive financial policies on specific classes plus despair and grievance collide?
Tom Payne and Nicolas de Condorcet are still more alive and relevant than most commentators writing today... and all those dead-weight politicians -- not to mention the criminals on mission from Hell...
Matt Stoller, author of Goliath, is another voice in the case against concentrated power. He spoke at our library last night. A one-time White House insider and committed Democrat, he faults Obama for increasing that power concentration in response to the 2008 financial crisis. Populist Senator Wright Patman, is the hero of Stoller's history lesson, dedicated to dismantling monopolies, favoring small businesses.
Mike: Lace up and snug up your marathon 'shoes' ; there are far more 'band-aids' that need to be ripped off. The problem is words, narrative truths in evidence - in digestible forms, and numbers of folks singing by heart from exactly the same 'hymnal' - if you will, in numbers that cannot be ignored by our broadcast media problems - yet another huge, complex problem we share today; complex for a multiplicity of factors that again requires teasing apart. It can become dizzying; yet I've never seen problems that don't yield to factoring apart. I have a notion though that there are band-aids that even our good Dr. HRC cares to 'not' have ripped off quite yet. Patience and acceptance are difficult things. ~Cheers to all of good will !
In addition, empirical evidence for the failure of Republican economics can be found at "The Rise & Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism" by David Kotz. Evidence & arguments for Democratic political philosophy & economics can be found at "American Amnesia" by Jacob Hacker.
Other Democratic government seem not to have fallen prey to such a deep history of greed. At least others have put money into National Healthcare. How is it that our country puts such greed over the welfare of its people.
It should be lauded and applauded on every social media platform — and even posted on all bulletin boards at town halls as in “olden days.” Every single paragraph is worth soaking in and then relaying to our communities.
We keep saying that. We keep looking for the right slogans and sales pitches. But I think the messengers are the problem. I have enormous respect for what Biden, Schumer and Pelosi have accomplished and what they want to accomplish. But they are not inspiring speakers!
We need some new leaders with fire in their bellies - who are YOUNGER.
Newsom, Booker, Abrams, Pritzker, Schiff, Raskin, Swalwell.... we have a huge stable of talent. Time to let them take the reins.
We are not recognizing how humans need inspiring leadership. The GQP has that figured out with emotional rhetoric that riles up their rabble. We stare at our navels and/or flagellate ourselves because somehow we haven't delivered our message properly. If we could only find the right words..."they would understand". But I suggest it's not the message that's wrong. It's the lack of convincing charisma at the top.
Sorry Joe, Nancy and Chuck. I love you. But you are old like me. Time to pass the damned baton.
So spend a little time on social media amplifying all the Democrats you support. No one is going to do this for us. Don’t worry about how many followers you don’t have - the algorithms are always watching, and they promote material with more approvals and repeats.
For good messaging on Twitter, I follow @theDemocrats, @BidensWins. For a fiery speaker, check out @RepMcClinton, leader of PA House Dems.
yes, I saw this Sara and Pete hit three home runs and drove 10 runs in all in 5 minutes on the field. Awesome.
Sadly, a gay man just cannot win, I don't think, a Presidential election in the states especially with the new laws on the books on Red states enabling the legislatatures to swap out the electors to whatever they want.
Impressive performance. What's he actually doing to help deal with the airline mess?? He's smart and a quick study, yes. Doing his actual current job as Transportation Secretary? Not much. Extremely disappointed in him...
Come election time, Republicans will draw a straight line connecting Joe and these, and more, issues. A candidate not directly tied to today’s problem areas will stand a better chance of beating the Republican nominee. Someone bold. A dynamic speaker. Someone who can dish it out as good as they can take it.
Republicans never have a problem making up their version of things and spewing from Rupert’s propaganda machine. So true that lies can go around the world before truth can get it’s shoes on. This needs to change and the MSM has failed us, Dems, get on your high horse and stop letting the Trojan horses lead…
There’s always an attraction to the new (and untried). Particularly in the United States. The Great Man, or Great Woman who will rescue us. 25 years ago, I tried an age discrimination case in which I suggested to the jurors that the American taste for the new could be summed up this way:
Get a new car,
Get a new house.
Get a new boat.
Maybe get a new spouse.
In the same case , one of our clients told us, “They said they wanted fresh, new ideas. They were the same ideas we tried twenty years ago. They didn’t work then, and they weren’t going to work now.”
An interesting list. Some of these like "open borders" and "indecisive" are outright lies. Others ("gas prices") have nothing to do with who is on the Oval Office. Some ("bipartisan," for example) are actually virtues—or were before reason, intelligence, and education became vices.
And listing "Senator Joe" as an "issue" simply makes no sense whatsoever. Is that code of some sort?
What they have in common is that NONE of them are real issues. Anyone who thinks *any* other Democrat, regardless of age, will not have "a straight line" drawn between them and whatever fake outrage the right comes up with has simply not been paying attention. If you insist on playing by their rules, you will lose every time.
"Who" precisely is broadcasting (and repeatedly) said words / narratives (besides Faux); make lists, check it thrice, and broadcast repeatedly, decisively in all forms available to we peons, and without any shaming finger wagging in 'any' form is something I think can and must be done. Hopes, prayers, responsibility pass-off's, and speaking 'down' have not worked at all. Effective, verifiable information sharing has to be the goal / mantra. The last points can't be emphasized enough. My lifelong, ongoing education continues to humble me.
Couldn't agree more. The great tragedy is that those who believe the Big Lie and stormed the Capitol will remain utterly clueless of the truth that the professor, Hartmann, and others reveal.
MAGAs seek to destroy those in government whose policies would help them the most while revering those whose policies would harm them the most.
"Newsom, Booker, Abrams, Pritzker, Schiff, Raskin, Swalwell.... we have a huge stable of talent. Time to let them take the reins." Perfect and thank you Bill Alstrom.
Although I like both, I would not add them to the list. They both are too polarizing. We don't need more polarization, that's what lost us the 2016 election, too many voters going for a third candidate. We've seen that before in past elections. I don't believe either has a chance at beating a Republican for the presidency, much less a chance with many swing states having handed over designation of electors to Republican legislatures if said legislators don't like the voters' choice.
As for Newsom, I supported him for governor but question if he will appeal to a broad spectrum of American voters.
I agree. The older people you mentioned have been excellent at steering the Ship of State. It is in my memory that Pelosi was thinking of stepping down until trump came on the scene. And Biden came out of retirement because of Charlottesville.
The younger people you mention are stellar. Charles Booker is from my State of Kentucky. He burst on the scene in 2020 and is making waves.
Yes and no. Nancy Pelosi, in particular, has done a stellar job. And have you noticed that all the press about "too old" is always about Democrats, when it could as easily be applied to the other party? Let's keep our effective older leaders, and at the same time advance the younger ones.
Yes! For instance 'Snake-in-the-Grassley' at 88 yrs old, has been a Senator for over 40 years! He's been feeding at the public trough since 1959.
Right out of college, he was elected as a state level Representative from 1959 to 1974. From 1975 to 1981 he was a U.S. Representative for Iowa's 3rd District and since 1981 he has been in the Senate.
Iowa, isn't it time to elect someone a little less fossilized into office? Put Chuckie G. out to grass!
Yes. The disadvantage we have is healthy internal disagreement.
But I am sure there could be a way to package a series of messages that tell the truth. Look how the Jan 6 Hearings are constructed. The DNC should hire that guy!
I've read that every day the GOP leadership in Congress sends out to its members specific, easy-to-understand talking points. They're also sent to right-wing media outlets. That's why you hear them repeated throughout any given day.
It's difficult to be good at messaging when so many people only get "news" from Fox, or worse sites. And the mainstream media also largely ignore anything that seems the least bit complicated and instead focus on polls of Biden being up or down or better or worse than previous presidents. They are still over-covering Trump and what he says and does, too.
Peter Burnett - "There's a confused, ignorant, ill-informed public out there, millions of them,"
I stopped reading the news. Is the problem me — or the product?
I cut out TV news altogether, because that’s just common sense, and I waited until late afternoon to read other news. By then, I figured, I could gut it out until dinner (and wine).
But the news crept into every crevice of life. I couldn’t avoid exposure — in my email inbox, on social media, in text messages from friends. I tried to toughen up. I gave myself stern lectures: “𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨! 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘤 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘎𝘰𝘥’𝘴 𝘴𝘢𝘬𝘦. 𝘗𝘭𝘶𝘴: 𝘙𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘮! 𝘈𝘭𝘴𝘰: 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦! 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯! 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥!”
And the latest MSM report is re a poll "showing" that 69 percent of Democrats want someone other than President Biden as their presidential candidate in 2024.
They are getting better. We can help by amplifying whatever is good. If on Twitter, follow @BidenWins and retweet all the good stuff. Did you see any of Pete Buttigieg on Fox Sunday?
Not only are the Dems rather disorganized and terrible at messaging...but the msm--driven by profit only--isn't one bit of help AT ALL.
I have a good deal of blame to heap on the media (particularly tv and print 'journalists' for their part in helping the orange mousse-olini (all air; little substance) win his 'election'.
While I agree with you that the press have been horrendous, the Democrats are getting better about messaging - just see Pete B on Fox this last Sunday, or PA House Dem Leader Joanna E. McClinton, WI Lt Gov and Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, Mallory McMorrow in the Michigan State Senate, or my favorite, " Politics Girl" Leigh McGowan, who has a great podcast and can also be found on YouTube and Twitter.
Clumsy messaging is not the problem. The problem is that Republicans need only repeat the dog whistle “woke” at every opportunity to remind the 90% of their voters who are white that they vote R because Republicans promise to do everything they can to preserve and expand systemic white advantages and Democrats don’t. No message based on policy nor even results can compete with “woke” for garnering white votes. If it could, Youngkin would not be a governor.
Agree. Bad news and crazy news sells papers and subscriptions. No one wants to read about Joe Biden;, with his quietly radical vision for America, sitting in his office or traveling across the globe doing his job! Yes, he makes mistakes, often bad ones; yes he's tongue-tied (he was a stutterer, for heaven's sake), yes, he speaks before he thinks. His refusal to abandon the bi-partisan fantasy is annoying. Take it all together it doesn't outweigh the list of his unprecedented accomplishments. I just don't have a firm grasp on how the Dems, with our lackadaisical approach to nearly everything, can counter that. The country has been pummeled for 6+ years by constant, daily loud noise and meaningless, often frightening spectacle. Like leaving a 4 hour rock concert, we can't hear.
And not to be ignored, the broadcast media, also - again, for a multiplicity of reasons / factors... [ 1) Intelligible communication of facts in evidence 2) Broadcast outreach of facts in evidence - repetitive if needed... are supposed to be the constitutionally protected necessity for a 'free' press, is it not ? To inform a community (writ large) of necessary, actionable facts in evidence, is it not ? ] *Has it become their purpose or part of it, to entertain, or to compete for eyeballs ?
Yes, I agree. The mainstream media do not give good coverage to President Biden and his many accomplishments. They tend to focus on his age and sometimes portray him as a doddering old man. They also need to cover the real radicalness of the Republican party. They call them" conservative" when they should be labeled "radical extremists". The media are still giving air time to Trump who, I am sure, is relishing this. Thank-you, Dr. Richardson, for another spot-on article. I too wish everyone could read what you have written today.
Brilliant. I so wish everyone in America was reading this. And that all Democrats , the media, and the country would be praising and supporting Biden for his focus and work. It's working. The Republicans focus on the 1 percent did not and is not. Thanks for putting this all together
Hartmann's summary is here: Coupled with Dr. Richardson's letter today they make a brilliant picture of what Republicans have done and are doing.
https://hartmannreport.com/p/why-the-reagan-revolution-scheme
Hartmann's writing at the link plus Dr. Richardson's writing today should be mandatory reading for all Americans who can read.
Unfortunately, the number of Americans that can read, ever do read, or want to read?
Getting smaller by the day and not very large to begin with. It is so much easier to grab a beer and listen to Buck and Butt on AM radio or listen to Sean Hannity on AM radio or watch Fox News show some fake blonde leg.
But, reading is the path to understanding complex issues. Hartmann's letter and today's letter by HCR clarify Republican intent and reasons that EVERYONE should READ.
Another letter from Hartmann is just as eye opening.
https://hartmannreport.com/p/why-the-reagan-revolution-scheme
All in all, for an America that sleeps, we should definitely be actively involved every day.
All of us.
"Hartmann's writing at the link plus Dr. Richardson's writing today should be mandatory reading for all Americans who can read."
And for those who have difficulty with Twitter, here is a "transcript":
Thom Hartmann Twitter – 02 July 2022
1/ Dear Republicans: We Tried Your Way and It Does Not Work (a thread):
11:15 PM · Jul 2, 2022
Thom Hartmann
Jul 2
2/ The 1970s were a pivotal decade, and not just because it saw the end of the Vietnam War, the resignation of Nixon, and the death of both the psychedelic hippie movement and the very political (and sometimes violent) SDS.
3/ Most consequentially, the 1970s were when the modern-day Republican Party was birthed.
4/ Prior to that, the nation had hummed along for 40 years on a top income tax bracket of 91% and a corporate income tax that topped out around 50%.
5/ Business leaders ran their companies, which were growing faster than at any time in the history of America and avoided participating in politics.
6/ Democrat Franklin Roosevelt and Republican Dwight Eisenhower renewed America with modern, state-of-the-art public labs, schools, and public hospitals across the nation; nearly free college, trade school, and research support; healthy small and family businesses;
7/ unions protecting a third of America’s workers so two-thirds had a living wage and benefits; and an interstate highway system, rail system, and network of new airports that transformed the nation’s commerce.
8/ When we handed America over to Ronald Reagan in 1981 it was a brand, gleaming new country with a prosperous and thriving middle class.
9/ The seeds of today’s American crisis were planted just ten years earlier, in 1971, when Lewis Powell, then a lawyer for the tobacco industry, wrote his infamous “Powell Memo.”
10/ It became a blueprint for the morbidly rich and big corporations to take over the weakened remnants of Nixon’s Republican Party and then America.
11/ They then moved on to infiltrate our universities, seize our media, pack our courts, integrate themselves into a large religious movement to add millions of votes, and turn upside down our tax, labor, and gun laws.
12/ That effort burst onto the American scene with the 1980 election of Ronald Reagan.
13/ By 1982 America was agog at the “new ideas” this newly-invented GOP was putting forward.
14/ They included radical tax cuts, pollution deregulation, destroying unions, and slashing the support services the New Deal and Great Society once offered people (because, Republicans said, feeding, educating, or providing healthcare to people made them dependent).
15/ Their sales pitch was effective, and we’ve now had 42 years of the so-called Reagan Revolution.
16/ It’s time to simply say out loud that it hasn’t worked:
17/ Republicans told us if we just cut the top tax rate on the morbidly rich from the 74% it was at in 1980 down to 27% it would “trickle down” benefits to everybody else as, they said, the “job creators” would be unleashed on our economy.
18/ Instead of a more general prosperity, we’ve now ended up with the greatest wealth and income inequality in the world, as over $50 trillion was transferred over 40 years from the bottom 90% to the top 1%, where it remains to this day.
19/ The middle class has gone from over 60% of us to fewer than half of us. It now takes 2 full-time wage earners to sustain the same lifestyle one could in 1980.
20/ Republicans told us if we just deregulated guns and let anybody buy and carry as many as they wanted wherever they wanted it would clean up our crime problem and put the fear of God into our politicians.
21/ “An armed society is a polite society” was the bumper sticker back during Reagan’s time, the NRA relentlessly promoting the lie that the Founders and Framers put the 2nd Amendment into the Constitution so “patriots” could kill politicians.
22/ Five Republicans on the Supreme Court even got into the act by twisting the law and lying about history to make guns more widely available.
23/ Instead of a “polite” society or politicians who listened better to their constituents, we ended up with school shootings and a daily rate of gun carnage unmatched anywhere else in the developed world.
24/ Republicans told us that if we just ended sex education in our schools and outlawed abortion, we’d return to “the good old days” when, they argued, every child was wanted and every marriage was happy.
25/ Instead of helping young Americans, we’ve ended up with epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, and — now that abortion is illegal in state after state — a return to deadly back-alley abortions.
26/ Republicans told us that if we just killed off Civics and History classes in our schools, we’d “liberate” our young people to focus instead on science and math.
27/ Instead, we’ve raised two generations of Americans that can’t even name the three branches of government, much less understand the meaning of the Constitution’s reference to the “General Welfare.”
28/ Republicans told us that if we cut state and federal aid to higher education — which in 1980 paid for about 80% of a student’s tuition — so that students would have what they told us was “skin in the game,”
29/ we’d see students take their studies more seriously and produce a new generation of engineers and scientists to prepare us for the 21st century.
30/ Instead of happy students, since we cut that 80% government support down to around 20% (with the 80% now covered by student’s tuition), our nation is groaning under a $2 trillion dollar student debt burden, preventing young people from buying homes, starting businesses,
30/ Instead of happy students, since we cut that 80% government support down to around 20% (with the 80% now covered by student’s tuition), our nation is groaning under a $2 trillion dollar student debt burden, preventing young people from buying homes, starting businesses,
31/ or beginning families. While students are underwater, banksters who donate to Republican politicians are making billions in profits every single week of the year from these bizarrely non-negotiable loans.
32/ Republicans told us that if we just stopped enforcing the anti-monopoly and anti-trust laws that had protected small businesses for nearly 100 years, there would be an explosion of innovation and opportunity as companies got bigger and better.
33/ Instead, we’ve seen every industry in America become so consolidated that competition is dead, price gouging and profiteering reign, and it’s impossible to start or find small family-owned businesses anymore in downtowns, malls, and the suburbs.
34/ It’s all giant chains, many now owed by hedge funds or private equity. Few family or local businesses can compete against such giants.
35/ Republicans told us that if we just changed the laws to let corporations pay their senior executives with stock (in addition to cash) they’d be “more invested” in the fate and future of the company and business would generally become healthier.
36/ Instead, nearly every time a corporation initiates a stock buyback program, millions and often billions of dollars flow directly into the pockets of the main shareholders and executives — while workers, the company, and society suffer the loss.
37/ Republicans told us that if we just let a handful of individual companies and billionaires buy most of our media, a thousand flowers would grow and we’d have the most diverse media landscape in the world.
38/ At first, as the internet was opening in the 90s, they even giddily claimed it was happening.
39/ Now a small group of often-rightwing companies own our major media/internet companies, radio and TV stations, as well as local newspapers across the country. In such a landscape, progressive voices, as you can imagine, are generally absent.
40/ Republicans told us we should hand all our healthcare decisions not to our doctors but to bureaucratic insurance industry middlemen who would decide which of our doctor’s suggestions they’d approve and which they’d reject.
41/ They said this will “lower costs and increase choice.”
42/ In all of the entire developed world — all the OECD countries on 4 continents — there are only 500,000 medical bankruptcies a year. Every single one of them is here in America.
43/ Republicans told us if we just got rid of our unions, then our bosses and the companies that employ them would give us better pay, more benefits, and real job security.
44/ As everybody can see, they lied. And are working as hard as they can to prevent America from returning to the levels of unionization we had before Reagan’s Great Republican Experiment.
45/ Republicans told us if we went with the trade agreement the GHW Bush administration had negotiated — NAFTA — and then signed off on the WTO, that we’d see an explosion of jobs.
Hartmann's Substack letter is terrific. He is currently publishing, one chapter at a time on Sundays, his book "Unequal Protection".
Or without Twitter:
https://hartmannreport.com/p/dear-republicans-we-tried-your-way
The Hartmann Report
DAILY TAKE
Dear Republicans: We Tried Your Way and It Does Not Work
Now, I feel personal gratitude to the super rich who have made something that benefits me. Like the Wal Mart gang. They are welcome to the money. Just like the guy who goes to the stadium to watch professional football and pay handsomely for doing it. Those athletes are, to him, worth their huge salaries because they provide him enjoyment.
Thanks Ron.
dam' straight
A nation of blind kittens?
At all events, much licking of eyeballs needed.
And then, too many like McConnell for whom a good licking would be less than what the bandits deserve.
Yes, McConnell is the cynical power grabber in so many ways. I loathe that man almost as much as I do death star donny. Nearly every day i see some post that blames Biden for gas prices and all things economic. I see less of it now from the far left here in Salem because they are now concentrating on the reversal of Roe and other such issues. When I posted Heather's letter to Facebook, I ended with the reminder to vote D. I also post as many items that I see about the good things Biden is doing.
Unfortunately we also need to be aware of the media's dislike of all things Biden. Here is the lead story in the New York Times today. It is a devastating look at Biden.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/us/politics/biden-approval-polling-2024.html#:~:text=Most%20Democrats%20Don%E2%80%99t%20Want%20Biden%20in%202024%2C%20New%20Poll%20Shows
Barbara, Unfortunately, I can understand why Americans have turned on Biden.
1. AM radio, which, nobody takes seriously, reaches a very wide audience from coast to coast and has a variety of all day long nuts ranting against Biden. These stations really matter.
2. Fox News. Same bunch of nuts ranting on TV.
3. Gas prices. Although Biden can do nothing but watch the price of gas move wherever, the price of gas is wholly out of his control and even influence, Americans like I was at age 18 are ignorant enough to believe all the ranting on AM radio about how Biden is at fault.
4. Lastly, and even a concern of mine, Biden is 79 years old. I have yet to meet a 79 year old in my lifetime that I felt would be an optimal, highly effective President. In fact, I heard Pete Buttigiege on some platform my wife showed me yesterday and he was masterful talking with Fox news about protesters outside Kavanaugh's home. I believe that 79 is too old.
I also believe that Pete Buttigeige does not have a snowballs chance in hell of winning a nationwide election for President.
So, I don't know what to do. Kamala Harris cannot win either.
All in all, it looks bad Barbara.
Yes it does. I am hoping for some miracle silent majority of Democratic voters.
I've never liked polls, whose results depend on the way questions are formulated in order to obtain answers the pollsters want to get. It's similar to questioners on "60 Minutes" asking, "You didn't like that very much, did you?" and the person responding, "I didn't like that very much."
Instead of following "The White House has tried to trumpet strong job growth, including on Friday when Mr. Biden declared that he had overseen 'the fastest and strongest jobs recovery in American history' with a statement that the Times/Siena poll showed a vast disconnect between those boasts, and the strength of some economic indicators, and the financial reality that most Americans feel they are confronting," The New York Times should simply have written "The White House trumpets strong job growth and the fastest and strongest jobs recovery in American history," and left that paragraph at that, instead of immediately countering with "...a vast disconnect..." Our mainstream media should look for and trumpet all the good the president has done, and emphasize that many of the things he has proposed, as with Obama, have been blocked by McConnell and the Radical Regressives' filibuster.
Agree. The problem is that this was the lead headline in NYT today. The media dislikes Biden and that is a huge negative.
There are good polls and bad polls, including dishonest polls. The results certainly depend on how the questions are posed, but it is certainly not true that all poll questions are designed to get a desired result. Even a well-designed, carefully administered poll only gives the result from a statistical sample that is chosen "at random" (which has a technical definition) and which attempts to give an accurate picture of the population at large. Results are reported with "margins of error" to gauge the uncertainty in the results. Usually polls are designed to give results at the 95% confidence level, another technical term, which means, roughly, that 95% of all possible random samples will give a result within the stated margin of error. That means that 5% of samples will give a "bad" result, i.e., not within the margin of error. One does not know whether the particular sample that shows up in the poll is one of the 95% "good" samples or one of the 5% "bad" samples. That's just a fact of life. Statistical arguments are not strict mathematical proofs; they are empirical observations, which can be wrong. A bit like news reports.
When the Maddow blog was still in operation, there was a lovely poster under the name Carolina Lady With Fan. (I do miss those folks) She had worked in polling for years and explained how it worked. After that I have paid no attention to them. The mainstream media loves bad news and clink bait.
Yes, this really irritates me which is why I only do the puzzles and science and food sections. I do read Bill Palmer (yes, I know the headlines are hyperbole) who takes on the media all the time.
Sorry I sent it to you. And yes ordinarily I watch what I read in MSM. I like the real estate section watching what people choose to live in, Metropolitan Diary, and Margaret Renkyl.
As a cat mama, I agree
🐾❤️🐾
It's safe to speculate that decades hence, historians looking back at the shocking decline of America will center on McConnell as a linchpin. That is, if historians are still able to research and publish.
Yes, and it might be a big if....not only fascism, but also degradation of the planet.
Unless it’s at the woodshed. With a big can of whoop-ass opened.
Salud, Peter. 🗽
lol ~
Whenever I see China mentioned in any way regarding legislation, I KNOW the turtle will scuttle it. Need I say more?
Keep in mind that capitalism is amoral and global. Capitalists do not care about the common good and they do not care about the well-being of the nations in which they operate. Capitalists are parasites by design, feeding off the host planet and its people.
My husband is a fan of Picketty (sp?) and is now reading his newest book on the history of equality. We do try to shop as much as we can locally and frequent our Saturday Market every weekend and then do our grocery shopping at our local natural food store. They do mark those items which are local. I do try to avoid brands that I know have been sold to big companies also. I buy a lot of my herbs and spices from a company that works with small farmers. No, they are not local, but I like their product and the fact that they support these farmers all over the world. I also have a garden and buy my plants from a local nursery and most of my seeds from one here in Oregon. I never order books from Amazon, but from Powell's, the wonderful book store in Portland. Since we seldom drive out of the city, our Prius is getting something like 560+ miles to the gallon. We have solar panels and just added more with storage batteries (not Tesla) in the garage. I know everyone cannot afford to do this, but I encourage people to do what they can and to support efforts for urban gardens in cities and other projects to help ordinary people.
Did you mean 560+ or 56+ mpg? The latter is what my best friend in coastal Connecticut has reported to me for her Prius.
I mean 560+. We rarely drive on anything but electric which is in town driving. It would less if we did lots of highway driving. Also the mileage is better in summer than in winter. We bought the car in January and it had a full tank of gas. We haven't been to the gas station yet and the tank is still pretty full.
Greg,
Agree but, in America Capitalism, Church, Grandma, Baseball and Apple Pie are all holy are they not? Propaganda really works well.
I just shared this essay from Dr. Richardson with a number of my friends and family who have grown weary of the tumult and chaos. It is important that we work to inform instead of politicizing. I also frequently quote Dr. Richardson when countering misinformation. For many reasons this writing from Dr. Richardson was amazing. I studied Economics just enough to realize that is is a complex topic understood by few. So you are correct in stating that our task is to inform.
I gave up with my family in Texas. They believe what they are told in church, and, that's it.
My family are liberal Democrats. They have checked out of politics though.
Thanks for that link--I just subscribed to the Hartmann Report.
Extremely interesting and informative backstory. After seeing what Burke's theories did to the lower and lower middle classes in Great Britain, how could ANYONE--even a conservative--think that it was good policy? Too sad that Thomas Paine's writings weren't more popular and more widely followed.
Wasn't the French Revolution enough of an object lesson in what happens when deliberately punitive financial policies on specific classes plus despair and grievance collide?
Tom Payne and Nicolas de Condorcet are still more alive and relevant than most commentators writing today... and all those dead-weight politicians -- not to mention the criminals on mission from Hell...
Yes, one does think of the guillotine at times. I would settle for some of these insurrectionists going to jail.
No, we definitely do not want to see a replay of the "Reign of Terror" here!
If nothing else, we want no martyrs created for the red anarchist wing of the radical RepubliQans to venerate or worship as heroes of their cause.
No, we don't. And absolutely no martyrs.
My first read by Hartmann as well. I signed up too.
This is tremendously informative and important. Thank you, Mike, I am sending on to others.
Well, Dr. Richardson pointed me to Hartmann so really, I thank her for you.
:-)
Mike
Matt Stoller, author of Goliath, is another voice in the case against concentrated power. He spoke at our library last night. A one-time White House insider and committed Democrat, he faults Obama for increasing that power concentration in response to the 2008 financial crisis. Populist Senator Wright Patman, is the hero of Stoller's history lesson, dedicated to dismantling monopolies, favoring small businesses.
Mike: Lace up and snug up your marathon 'shoes' ; there are far more 'band-aids' that need to be ripped off. The problem is words, narrative truths in evidence - in digestible forms, and numbers of folks singing by heart from exactly the same 'hymnal' - if you will, in numbers that cannot be ignored by our broadcast media problems - yet another huge, complex problem we share today; complex for a multiplicity of factors that again requires teasing apart. It can become dizzying; yet I've never seen problems that don't yield to factoring apart. I have a notion though that there are band-aids that even our good Dr. HRC cares to 'not' have ripped off quite yet. Patience and acceptance are difficult things. ~Cheers to all of good will !
In addition, empirical evidence for the failure of Republican economics can be found at "The Rise & Fall of Neoliberal Capitalism" by David Kotz. Evidence & arguments for Democratic political philosophy & economics can be found at "American Amnesia" by Jacob Hacker.
Other Democratic government seem not to have fallen prey to such a deep history of greed. At least others have put money into National Healthcare. How is it that our country puts such greed over the welfare of its people.
Agreed but so far money is talking so loud that democracy can’t be heard.
Great comment Robin. Thanks. I might use it sometime!
I'm putting it on LinkedIn and Twitter
I put on Facebook
Go Gailee!!
Did you win the brawl??
:-)
lol what brawl?
It should be lauded and applauded on every social media platform — and even posted on all bulletin boards at town halls as in “olden days.” Every single paragraph is worth soaking in and then relaying to our communities.
Yes, a huge THANK YOU, Heather, as always.
Absolutely!!!
I see more and more people posting it on Facebook and I also saw it mentioned on one of the progressive sites here in Salem.
That’s the problem, the Democrats and this administration are horrible at messaging.
We keep saying that. We keep looking for the right slogans and sales pitches. But I think the messengers are the problem. I have enormous respect for what Biden, Schumer and Pelosi have accomplished and what they want to accomplish. But they are not inspiring speakers!
We need some new leaders with fire in their bellies - who are YOUNGER.
Newsom, Booker, Abrams, Pritzker, Schiff, Raskin, Swalwell.... we have a huge stable of talent. Time to let them take the reins.
We are not recognizing how humans need inspiring leadership. The GQP has that figured out with emotional rhetoric that riles up their rabble. We stare at our navels and/or flagellate ourselves because somehow we haven't delivered our message properly. If we could only find the right words..."they would understand". But I suggest it's not the message that's wrong. It's the lack of convincing charisma at the top.
Sorry Joe, Nancy and Chuck. I love you. But you are old like me. Time to pass the damned baton.
So spend a little time on social media amplifying all the Democrats you support. No one is going to do this for us. Don’t worry about how many followers you don’t have - the algorithms are always watching, and they promote material with more approvals and repeats.
For good messaging on Twitter, I follow @theDemocrats, @BidensWins. For a fiery speaker, check out @RepMcClinton, leader of PA House Dems.
Bill, “Mayor Pete” needs to be in the forefront. Did you see this on Fox News?
https://youtu.be/SPbA0kTnL1s
Pete 10.
Fox. 0.
I just corrected the link. Sorry! The above link has Pete’s entire response.
Absolutely. Pete is brilliant at bridging the divide and a very quick study.
Diane, and his logic is impeccable!
yes, I saw this Sara and Pete hit three home runs and drove 10 runs in all in 5 minutes on the field. Awesome.
Sadly, a gay man just cannot win, I don't think, a Presidential election in the states especially with the new laws on the books on Red states enabling the legislatatures to swap out the electors to whatever they want.
Impressive performance. What's he actually doing to help deal with the airline mess?? He's smart and a quick study, yes. Doing his actual current job as Transportation Secretary? Not much. Extremely disappointed in him...
Senator Joe
Bipartisan Joe
Conservative Joe
Cautious and Careful Joe
Indecisive Joe
Open borders Joe
Inflation Joe
Gas price Joe
Come election time, Republicans will draw a straight line connecting Joe and these, and more, issues. A candidate not directly tied to today’s problem areas will stand a better chance of beating the Republican nominee. Someone bold. A dynamic speaker. Someone who can dish it out as good as they can take it.
Tumultuous times require dynamic leadership.
Republicans never have a problem making up their version of things and spewing from Rupert’s propaganda machine. So true that lies can go around the world before truth can get it’s shoes on. This needs to change and the MSM has failed us, Dems, get on your high horse and stop letting the Trojan horses lead…
#check mark \/
Lies vs. facts & truth is too much like the "rockets and feathers" analogy of crude oil prices versus gasoline prices.
There’s always an attraction to the new (and untried). Particularly in the United States. The Great Man, or Great Woman who will rescue us. 25 years ago, I tried an age discrimination case in which I suggested to the jurors that the American taste for the new could be summed up this way:
Get a new car,
Get a new house.
Get a new boat.
Maybe get a new spouse.
In the same case , one of our clients told us, “They said they wanted fresh, new ideas. They were the same ideas we tried twenty years ago. They didn’t work then, and they weren’t going to work now.”
An interesting list. Some of these like "open borders" and "indecisive" are outright lies. Others ("gas prices") have nothing to do with who is on the Oval Office. Some ("bipartisan," for example) are actually virtues—or were before reason, intelligence, and education became vices.
And listing "Senator Joe" as an "issue" simply makes no sense whatsoever. Is that code of some sort?
What they have in common is that NONE of them are real issues. Anyone who thinks *any* other Democrat, regardless of age, will not have "a straight line" drawn between them and whatever fake outrage the right comes up with has simply not been paying attention. If you insist on playing by their rules, you will lose every time.
"Who" precisely is broadcasting (and repeatedly) said words / narratives (besides Faux); make lists, check it thrice, and broadcast repeatedly, decisively in all forms available to we peons, and without any shaming finger wagging in 'any' form is something I think can and must be done. Hopes, prayers, responsibility pass-off's, and speaking 'down' have not worked at all. Effective, verifiable information sharing has to be the goal / mantra. The last points can't be emphasized enough. My lifelong, ongoing education continues to humble me.
Couldn't agree more. The great tragedy is that those who believe the Big Lie and stormed the Capitol will remain utterly clueless of the truth that the professor, Hartmann, and others reveal.
MAGAs seek to destroy those in government whose policies would help them the most while revering those whose policies would harm them the most.
"Newsom, Booker, Abrams, Pritzker, Schiff, Raskin, Swalwell.... we have a huge stable of talent. Time to let them take the reins." Perfect and thank you Bill Alstrom.
❤️👏👏 Absolutely. Add Feinstein. I appreciate her service but it’s time for the door.
I would add Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Both trying to reshape America into their personal image.
Although I like both, I would not add them to the list. They both are too polarizing. We don't need more polarization, that's what lost us the 2016 election, too many voters going for a third candidate. We've seen that before in past elections. I don't believe either has a chance at beating a Republican for the presidency, much less a chance with many swing states having handed over designation of electors to Republican legislatures if said legislators don't like the voters' choice.
As for Newsom, I supported him for governor but question if he will appeal to a broad spectrum of American voters.
I agree. The older people you mentioned have been excellent at steering the Ship of State. It is in my memory that Pelosi was thinking of stepping down until trump came on the scene. And Biden came out of retirement because of Charlottesville.
The younger people you mention are stellar. Charles Booker is from my State of Kentucky. He burst on the scene in 2020 and is making waves.
We older people can best serve by stepping aside.
Yes and no. Nancy Pelosi, in particular, has done a stellar job. And have you noticed that all the press about "too old" is always about Democrats, when it could as easily be applied to the other party? Let's keep our effective older leaders, and at the same time advance the younger ones.
Yes! For instance 'Snake-in-the-Grassley' at 88 yrs old, has been a Senator for over 40 years! He's been feeding at the public trough since 1959.
Right out of college, he was elected as a state level Representative from 1959 to 1974. From 1975 to 1981 he was a U.S. Representative for Iowa's 3rd District and since 1981 he has been in the Senate.
Iowa, isn't it time to elect someone a little less fossilized into office? Put Chuckie G. out to grass!
"We older people can best serve by stepping aside" and helping those younger people we carefully identify move into our places.
Unfortunately, the deck is stacked against many of these young candidates. We need campaign finance reform, and possibly term limits.
Bill,
What the Democrats need is what the Republicans have. A broad propaganda apparatus.
Trump was HORRIBLE at messaging but no matter what he put out, his vast right wing propaganda network would message it to sound great to the masses.
Yes. The disadvantage we have is healthy internal disagreement.
But I am sure there could be a way to package a series of messages that tell the truth. Look how the Jan 6 Hearings are constructed. The DNC should hire that guy!
I've read that every day the GOP leadership in Congress sends out to its members specific, easy-to-understand talking points. They're also sent to right-wing media outlets. That's why you hear them repeated throughout any given day.
It's difficult to be good at messaging when so many people only get "news" from Fox, or worse sites. And the mainstream media also largely ignore anything that seems the least bit complicated and instead focus on polls of Biden being up or down or better or worse than previous presidents. They are still over-covering Trump and what he says and does, too.
I began the day badly: with CNN's Meanwhile in America.
If I were their boss the so-called journalists in question would be out of a job. They should be sent back to school.
There's a confused, ignorant, ill-informed public out there, millions of them, and all CNN can do is add to the cowardice and confusion.
I may be mistaken, but I see more cause for concern in America than in Ukraine, Russia or anywhere else.
It is in America that the big showdown is taking place.
NOW.
Peter Burnett - "There's a confused, ignorant, ill-informed public out there, millions of them,"
I stopped reading the news. Is the problem me — or the product?
I cut out TV news altogether, because that’s just common sense, and I waited until late afternoon to read other news. By then, I figured, I could gut it out until dinner (and wine).
But the news crept into every crevice of life. I couldn’t avoid exposure — in my email inbox, on social media, in text messages from friends. I tried to toughen up. I gave myself stern lectures: “𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨! 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘢 𝘱𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘤 𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘎𝘰𝘥’𝘴 𝘴𝘢𝘬𝘦. 𝘗𝘭𝘶𝘴: 𝘙𝘢𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘮! 𝘈𝘭𝘴𝘰: 𝘊𝘭𝘪𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘤𝘩𝘢𝘯𝘨𝘦! 𝘈𝘯𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯! 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥!”
[Gift Link]
https://wapo.st/3uD10zc
Thanks for this. The essay's useful. At the same time, I don't think it succeeds in tackling sufficiently the "crying 'Wolf!' factor...
Now I'm concerned with how Americans are to find a practical 21st century version of Paul Revere's ride... and not sleep through... the Apocalypse?
News is addictive and I picked up a professional dependence early on. I'm more concerned with alarm systems now...
As for info accumulation, I'm old and...
"The grave's a fine and secret place
But none, I think, do there embrace."
Nor do they read, click or watch TV...
The situation for half of my long life, Bill Moyers tried to tell us…
And the latest MSM report is re a poll "showing" that 69 percent of Democrats want someone other than President Biden as their presidential candidate in 2024.
They are getting better. We can help by amplifying whatever is good. If on Twitter, follow @BidenWins and retweet all the good stuff. Did you see any of Pete Buttigieg on Fox Sunday?
We need more Pete Buttigieg on the airwaves! He can be a great spokesman for the administration.
Not only are the Dems rather disorganized and terrible at messaging...but the msm--driven by profit only--isn't one bit of help AT ALL.
I have a good deal of blame to heap on the media (particularly tv and print 'journalists' for their part in helping the orange mousse-olini (all air; little substance) win his 'election'.
While I agree with you that the press have been horrendous, the Democrats are getting better about messaging - just see Pete B on Fox this last Sunday, or PA House Dem Leader Joanna E. McClinton, WI Lt Gov and Senate candidate Mandela Barnes, Mallory McMorrow in the Michigan State Senate, or my favorite, " Politics Girl" Leigh McGowan, who has a great podcast and can also be found on YouTube and Twitter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbrXHzlFmu0
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/legis/home/member_information/house_bio.cfm?id=1734 https://mandelabarnes.com/
Three cheers here for Politics Girl.
Clumsy messaging is not the problem. The problem is that Republicans need only repeat the dog whistle “woke” at every opportunity to remind the 90% of their voters who are white that they vote R because Republicans promise to do everything they can to preserve and expand systemic white advantages and Democrats don’t. No message based on policy nor even results can compete with “woke” for garnering white votes. If it could, Youngkin would not be a governor.
Agree. Bad news and crazy news sells papers and subscriptions. No one wants to read about Joe Biden;, with his quietly radical vision for America, sitting in his office or traveling across the globe doing his job! Yes, he makes mistakes, often bad ones; yes he's tongue-tied (he was a stutterer, for heaven's sake), yes, he speaks before he thinks. His refusal to abandon the bi-partisan fantasy is annoying. Take it all together it doesn't outweigh the list of his unprecedented accomplishments. I just don't have a firm grasp on how the Dems, with our lackadaisical approach to nearly everything, can counter that. The country has been pummeled for 6+ years by constant, daily loud noise and meaningless, often frightening spectacle. Like leaving a 4 hour rock concert, we can't hear.
Yes. But, they don't have a Fox News to make themselves sound better like Trump. Trump sounded, on his own, MUCH worse than the current white house.
But, his spin doctors on AM radio on Fox News always told people what he meant to say.
And not to be ignored, the broadcast media, also - again, for a multiplicity of reasons / factors... [ 1) Intelligible communication of facts in evidence 2) Broadcast outreach of facts in evidence - repetitive if needed... are supposed to be the constitutionally protected necessity for a 'free' press, is it not ? To inform a community (writ large) of necessary, actionable facts in evidence, is it not ? ] *Has it become their purpose or part of it, to entertain, or to compete for eyeballs ?
At their peril, and America’s at this point.
Yes, I agree. The mainstream media do not give good coverage to President Biden and his many accomplishments. They tend to focus on his age and sometimes portray him as a doddering old man. They also need to cover the real radicalness of the Republican party. They call them" conservative" when they should be labeled "radical extremists". The media are still giving air time to Trump who, I am sure, is relishing this. Thank-you, Dr. Richardson, for another spot-on article. I too wish everyone could read what you have written today.
I encourage everyone to share the letter with all the people they can. Forward the letter electronically or print and mail to friends.
How truly arrogant and exasperating that McConnell with his Congress healthcare perk would stiff the rest of America!!!
Absolutely, our thoughts exactly!