22 Comments

It's crazy... Banging our heads against the wall and thinking something will change!

After decades of this same game, Left still hasn't figured out the rules: soundbite tribalism.

"Popularity polls" have meant nothing for decades (guns, abortion, healthcare..), yet that's all we can use to define and defend our position.

How about recognizing, saying its name, and amplifying the obvious "Class Warfare" conflict that the Right is so good at?

They've been winning because they have "coherent" soundbites that elicit the tribalism of today's successful political strategy. That works people!

Arguing facts, reason, and polls has been a losing strategy. Say its name: CLASS WARFARE,

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Judd, this is off topic, but are you following Kavanaugh’s debt payoffs? This would support the corruption/power/money/influence argument.

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Sadly, I think that this legislation is dead in the water. Senators Manchin and Sinema are in the bag for business interests and won't go for it. In an equally divided Senate, that's enough to doom the reconciliation bill.

And, if you think that it's bad now, just wait until the Republicans retake the House and Senate in 2022. I hate to be the voice of doom and gloom but there is so much bad news (and virtually no good news) out of the political world these days that it's hard to feel anything other than overwhelming pessimism about the direction of the country.

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I think it's dead in the water. The Dems don't have the organization, tough leadership needed. We have to have fighters with big picture thinking.

But it is likely too late. The GOP has been planning this coup for years thru the likes of the Koch's, Steve Bannon, etc al and people, they are not going to give up or play nicely. If the past five years have taught me anything, politics is now a brawl in America. The other side has us on the ropes. We just don't have the leaders nor the wealthy backing to battle it.

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Chris - I love your description of 'Class Warfare' and used it in this power map that tracks the money from corporate lobbyists to the politicians blocking the bill. https://embed.kumu.io/b939ac38fc6f814bc5d9ede5790b1457

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Thank you Judd & co. As Ian points out it’s hard to be optimistic at this point about the Rec bill - but the research & drafting are done, with probable influence on public & even corporate policy as our aging nation slogs forward in search of whatever light is yet to be found in this world.

Aside from PI, other items that hit my inbox today are NYT stories about taking 23 life forms, now presumed extinct, off the US Endangered list (a helpful, if depressing, article that explains how the list/delisting work); and about YouTube’s announcement that at long last it will begin filtering out COVID misinformation. Almost unbelievable to see the latter classified as “breaking news” - perhaps because it signals a slight and very welcome strengthening of the distinction between “info(rmation)” and “(enter)tainment”. All us citizen journalists can now feel free to let YouTube know if we continue to see anti science “freedom” cr*p on their platform…and hope for the best. —what’s your take on this, Judd? Can we take any hope that Alphabet/Google will start using their immense power (if not eventually their PAC money) more wisely?

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