He does have a way of putting things, but I wouldn’t necessarily pin everything he talks about automatically on Democrats, who are not the same as liberal activists. He does say exactly what I’ve been thinking all along about seeing vs. not seeing skin color.
SomervilleTomsays
Here’s my take, after my prior diary got ZERO attention at all.
2008: A black man wins election after unprecedented turnout of black voters across America — especially in the urban centers of MI, WI, and PA. He defeats a white woman in so doing.
2012: A black president wins re-election after black voters again turn out in droves to vote for him.
2016: A white racist pig wins an electoral college victory (and loses the popular vote by about three million votes) after black voters in the urban centers of MI, WI, and PA stay home rather than vote for the same white woman they rejected in 2008.
February 2020: A field of Democratic candidates is winnowed down to a handful by a primary electoral process that excludes black voters until several weeks into primary season. The overwhelming front-runner among black voters is nearly eliminated as a result.
March 2020: That same overwhelming front-runner among black voters SWEEPS the primaries in states where black voters matters. The (white) mainstream media characterizes this as a “historic” and “surprising” “comeback” for that white front-runner — completely ignoring the fact that Joe Biden was ALWAYS the overwhelming front-runner. There was no comeback. Instead, a microphone was belatedly turned on.
November 2020: The Democratic nominee wins election by the same electoral vote margin as the winner of the 2016 election — and wins by a popular vote margin of more than five million votes. The black vote in urban centers nationwide, and especially in MI, WI, and PA exceeds their turnout in 2008 and 2012.
In the context of this history, a white talk-show host tells us that we Democrats did not get the Senate and House results that we want because we’re too “woke”. Bzzt — no cigar, thanks for playing.
America IS racist. America IS sexist. Seventy-one million Americans voted FOR Donald Trump’s lies, racism, sexism, and brazen corruption. Americans put Q-Anon supporters into Congress. Americans are dying in record numbers in a pandemic while believing that wearing a mask infringes their freedom.
Mr. Maher is pandering to that America just as brazenly as any Republican. He’s using the same dog-whistles and the same lies — not to mention the same token blacks and women.
“Democrats were supposed to flip the Senate, and didn’t” — not in the 2020 campaign season that I followed. Some polls suggested that near the end of the campaign, most did not. Democrats HOPED to flip the Senate. Democrats WANTED to flip the Senate. Neither happened.
“[Democrats] lost seats in the House” — yes indeed. Democrats told the truth, and paid a price for doing so.
“The message to Democrats from so much of the country seems to be ‘we don’t like Trump but we still can’t bring ourselves to vote for you’.” — again, yes indeed. The pithy CrackerJack’s bit that follows exemplifies the failure of pieces like this. Mr. Maher thinks “the popcorn” ought to ask why. That’s pretty much the epitome of blaming the victim. If a consumer chooses dog excrement over popcorn, the CONSUMER is the issue — not the popcorn.
Want an example of the dog-whistle I mean? Look at the quote of PA Democrat Conor Lamb: “Democratic rhetoric … needs to be dialed back. It needs to be rooted in common sense”. That’s certainly true for white men talking to other white men. That is most certainly NOT “common sense” for black men and women. That quote — and the smattering of applause that follows — is TEXTBOOK white privilege. It is canonical “white-splaining”.
Of COURSE Q-Anon believers don’t think that Democrats have “common sense”, that’s not a laugh-line. Americans don’t believe that Democrats have “common sense” BECAUSE Americans are racist, sexist, and xenophobic.
Why is Woody Allen on the list of people who are being ostracized for “ridiculous” things? I’m sorry, but I am not “ridiculous” because I am appalled by what he did to his adopted daughter.
What Brett Kavanaugh “did in High School” SHOULD have barred him from the Senate. If America had listened to what Anita Hill was trying to tell us about Clarence Thomas, we would have been spared enormous grief.
“Let’s not see color” is shouted the loudest when people of color are within reach of finally taking their proportionate share of jobs, leadership, power, and money.
How many people of color participate here at BMG?
It appears to me that own community here at BMG is loathe to accept, acknowledge, or celebrate the role that black Americans played in saving our posteriors in this election.
I don’t like this piece. At. All. I strongly disagree that “Bill Maher is right”.
jconwaysays
The back of our democracy depended on black turnout and so does the GA senate race. It’s why Joe Biden was the only candidate capable of winning this election since he was the only candidate who did not talk down to black voters by checking all the identity politics boxes and instead just appealed directly to their hopes and by clearly protecting them from their fears. Centering his narrative in Charlottesville made sense since that was the common sense definition of racism to most Americans and trump still couldn’t see which side to be on. Same with George Floyd where Biden spent time with the family and Trump could not bring himself to condemn the police officer who murdered him.
What Biden did not do was say he would defund police, or say he would usher in socialism, or promise big structural changes most Americans are not ready for. He did not talk down to Latinos by correcting their pronouns or affixing gender neutral “X”‘s to their words. He condemned looting and rioting as strongly as he condemned police murder of unarmed black men. Both are bad, and the former cannot be allowed to justify the latter. Every Democrat from Bobby Kennedy to Obama to Biden followed that mantra, I’m worried my circles would reject that pluralism and call for unity as excusing racism or racists. AOC certainly feels that way.
We can condemn racist policing without defunding police departments. We can move money from police to social services without calling it abolishment or defunding. We can acknowledge non binary people without renaming Spanish words Anglophones cannot claim. We can recognize there’s a difference of degree between what Weinstein and what Al Franken did.
Maher was off the rails on Kavanaugh and some of the other stuff he critiques up here, but there is a growing disconnect between what the academy believes minorities and working class voters want and what they actually want.
My Latino students have no clue what Latinx means. They want to start businesses and become capitalists, even the wokest among them thinks socialism won’t work. Some of them fled it. They tend to support the police and question where BLM and other groups are coming from. My Muslim students want the refugee ban and the bigotry overturned, but what they care about most of all is rising college costs, rising housing costs, and the lack of good paying jobs. The same stuff my white students and their blue collar families care about. So I think we do a disservice by slicing and dicing the electorate and assuming demographics is destiny. Trump won far more black and Latino voters that he did four years ago, despite his appalling record and rhetoric. I wonder why, and I think we should find out before attacking the question.
SomervilleTomsays
… there is a growing disconnect between what the academy believes minorities and working class voters want and what they actually want.
Is “the academy” an auto-correct error or typoe? I don’t know what you’re referring to.
I need more data about the assertions that Donald Trump “won far more black and Latino voters than he four years ago”. I want to see the data, especially about black voters.
Joe Biden has always had an issue with Latino voters. There have always been strong tensions between the Latino and Black communities. Mr. Biden’s overwhelming support among black voters hurts him with Latino voters. Cuban exiles in Florida have been promoting wild and absurd stuff for generations, it doesn’t surprise that they embrace the lies of Donald Trump and the GOP.
“If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.” is as true today as it was in 1952. It worth noting that Adlai Stevenson (the source of the quip) lost the campaign from which that quip originated.
Ancestry and culture does not infer immunity to racism, sexism, xenophobia, nor appeals to venal greed.
Telling the truth is frequently a career-limiting move for a politician. That’s why it takes courage to do so. That’s why it is so rare.
That’s why we Democrats must continue to do it.
jconwaysays
Guardian and WSJ had pieces on these trends. Agreed more data is needed, but Dems did much worse downballot than they did 2 years ago. Also the Senate is increasingly out of reach if every Senate race mirrors the presidential results.
Our Catch-22 is the structural advantage rural white voters get in the Senate and the EC, and without a big shift to our favor in the Senate, it will be tough to change those rules.
SomervilleTomsays
I don’t challenge the data, I challenge the conclusion that it means that the campaign did something wrong. Mr. Maher’s pithy CrackerJack example is actually an excellent focus.
He focuses on the popcorn. I think the more constructive focus is on the person discarding the popcorn for the dog feces.
Not to belabor the example, but if consumers not only choose dog feces over popcorn, but also over peanuts and also over chocolate, then I’m left asking “what makes consumers love to eat dog feces”.
It is not writ in stone that rural white voters prefer dog feces over popcorn. That is learned behavior, and I think we have to ask WHERE those lessons are coming from.
I agree that we aren’t going to change the rules you mention any time soon. I think we need to change the culture.
I do wonder if our current political system is even workable with the extremes of 21st century America. Not just the obscene wealth concentration that we’ve talked about so much, but also the extremes of population density. A literal handful of counties contain nearly all the population of the US.
Just as an example, consider the population of the NYC metro area — about 21M people. It has the same population as the population of TEN western states COMBINED — Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
The NYC metro area would need TWENTY seats in the senate to have comparable representation. It has, at most, 4-6 (NY, NJ, perhaps CT).
One of these days I’ll put some of these layers on the interactive map I already host.
I am not sure I’m signed up for remaining in the same nation as at least some of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida immediately come to mind, as do Montana and the Dakotas).
I’m sorely tempted to suggest that the Biden administration exclude any state that refuses to mandate masking from ANY pandemic response.
Anybody who understands biology understands the law of natural selection. It is a fool’s errand to attempt to conduct public health policy in ways that require suspending that law. These Trumpists who so fervently assert that wearing a mask is an assault on their freedom might as well throw themselves off a high cliff and trust their God to save them.
scott12masssays
Gee if only we had a national government which really cared about conducting a national public health policy which mandated proper behavior with the best interests of all our citizens health in mind. If only they had outlawed smoking cigarettes years ago Tens of Millions of people would have been saved and the costs to our healthcare system would have been drastically lower. Oh but wait the government can TAX cigarettes and have a revenue stream. Both parties have said oh you shouldn’t smoke, but in the meantime if you do we can make a buck off you.
SomervilleTomsays
I’m having trouble connecting your comment to this discussion, can you help me out?
We’re talking about a piece by Bill Maher linked in the thread-starter. So far as I’m aware, your comment is the first mention of tobacco regulation (leaving aside the various red herrings that you toss on the table).
What does your comment have to do with this discussion?
scott12masssays
“I am not sure I’m signed up for remaining in the same nation as at least some of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida immediately come to mind, as do Montana and the Dakotas).
I’m sorely tempted to suggest that the Biden administration exclude any state that refuses to mandate masking from ANY pandemic response.”
So you want the national govt to mandate people wear masks, for their own good, or Biden shouldn’t help them.
Why not mandate people can’t smoke, for their own good, and save millions of lives. Wait can’t lose the revenue.
They can outlaw lawn darts but not cigarettes? People distrust the government. I hope the country does split, maybe it’s about time.
SomervilleTomsays
So you want the national govt to mandate people wear masks, for their own good, or Biden shouldn’t help them.
Why not mandate people can’t smoke, for their own good, and save millions of lives. Wait can’t lose the revenue.
When people choose to smoke, they primarily harm themselves. When people refuse to wear a mask, they primarily harm the people around them. I want masking to be mandated for the same reason that I want people who drive while drunk to be removed from the road — because they are danger to others.
FWIW, government mandates to reduce smoking actually cost public money. People who smoke cigarettes tend to die early and quickly, and therefore tend to have lower lifetime costs for medical care. A decade or two of end-of-life care is FAR more expensive than a few months of hospice.
When an entire region chooses to flatly deny the reality of the pandemic impact in that region, then I want the national government to respect that choice and direct its limited resources to help regions who did all in their power to get through this nightmare.
Christophersays
Um, I’m pretty sure a key reason that smoking is a public health issue is the second hand smoke. I’d much rather be within 6 feet of someone without a mask (even if I knew for sure they had COVID) than someone puffing a cigarette. I would in fact ban smoking in a heartbeat if it weren’t for the stellar “success” Prohibition was.
SomervilleTomsays
I’d much rather be within 6 feet of someone without a mask (even if I knew for sure they had COVID) than someone puffing a cigarette.
Another example of your propensity to minimize the risk of COVID — in this case combining it with your own personal aversion to cigarette smoke. Actual data — from the CDC, for example (https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/health_effects/index.htm) — does not support your bias.
A different report of the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm#death) attributes “more than 480,000 deaths annually” to tobacco use. Of that. the CDC estimates that about 41,000 adults per year die of second-hand smoke in the US. If you’re willing admit that people dying from a legal product is a “public health issue”, then your posture ignores more than ten times as many victims as your pet peeve.
As of today, there have been 245,777 deaths attributed to COVID. We’re in mid-November, and the pandemic began just eight months ago. So COVID has already killed six times as many Americans as second-hand smoke kills in year.
There were 1,210 deaths attributed to COVID yesterday. That’s about ten times the daily death rate from second-hand smoke (about 112).
You are at FAR greater risk sitting near a maskless COVID sufferer than sitting near a smoker.
scott12masssays
covid < 1 yr old, vaccine on the way
smoking > 30 yrs no end in sight (but still a great revenue stream)
SomervilleTomsays
What? This comment doesn’t make any sense, especially in the context of this discussion.
We are talking about a piece by Bill Maher about the outcome of the 2020 elections.
covid < 1 yr old, vaccine on the way
I’ve already posted the data showing that COVID is more than ten times as deadly. You’re objecting to the only strategy that has any positive effect at all. The fact that a vaccine is on the way makes a mandate even more compelling, because it means that said mandate will not last long.
smoking > 30 yrs no end in sight (but still a great revenue stream)
Yeah, sure. Whatever. No relationship to the question at hand and not worth a response.
I hope the country does split, maybe it’s about time.
I agree with you about this. I’m done trying to be reasonable with ignorant, irrational racists, misogynist, xenophobic and utterly corrupt bullies. I’m happy to put a wall around the red states and be done with it — I just want to make sure we reclaim the nukes first.
scott12masssays
A wall around Texas..mmm
SomervilleTomsays
A wall around Texas..mmm
Sadly, it’s much more than just Texas.
If we see a repeat of the last time this happened, I’m inclined to think the appropriate response is “Good bye, Good luck, don’t let the door hit your backside on the way out.”
Just get the nukes first.
SomervilleTomsays
A wall around Texas..mmm
Of course, we have to do something about IL, MI, WI, and MN. Maybe put the division down the middle of the Mississippi river — everything to the west is theirs, everything to the east is ours. Make a new country called “Northern US”.
Looks like four new countries to me: “Western US” (HI, CA+OR+WA with NV optional), “Northern US” (as above) and “Eastern US” (ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI, NY, NJ, DE, MD, VA).
The rest of the states go in the “Flyover Republic”.
Christophersays
It’s more than a preference. After all, why do think smoking has been banned in almost all indoor public venues these days? I’m virtually guaranteed to cough up a storm if I’m in proximity to cigarettes for any length of time. OTOH not everyone exposed to a disease contracts it and yes, I’m much more willing to take my chances.
SomervilleTomsays
Which side are you supporting? That is indeed why smoking has been banned in almost all indoor public venues (and many private venues if you include rented properties). The ban on indoor smoking is widespread and largely successful. Are you arguing against it?
The fact that the onset of COVID is less dramatic than your reaction to smoking does not make it less real or less dangerous.
The evidence and data supporting mandatory masking is even more persuasive than the evidence supporting the smoking bans.
You’re being inconsistent to support one and oppose the other.
Christophersays
I hope you don’t mean your penultimate paragraph as that sounds rather Trumpian. As for representation we need to at least enact the Wyoming Rule.
SomervilleTomsays
Was it “Trumpian” for the federal government to demand that any state that wants to receive federal highway funding raise the drinking age to 21 or impose mandatory seatbelt laws?
The essence of Trumpism is an abject and explicit refusal to face facts, science and logic. The motivation for mandatory facemasking is in fact the inverse of Trumpism.
There is nothing “liberal”, “Democratic”, or “leftist” about insisting that policy and law reflects our best understanding of science. The same is true for climate change policy as well, by the way.
Christophersays
I’m fine with legislative strings attached to funding, but Trump has dished out COVID relief on the basis of how much states bend to his will and it certainly sounded like you were advocating we do the same albeit in reverse. He’s also at least threatened to withhold funding from “Democrat cities” who don’t handle immigration or law enforcement the way he would like. I do not want to play that game.
SomervilleTomsays
There is zero evidence to couple federal funding of cities to their adherence to Mr. Trump’s pronouncements about immigration or law enforcement. That’s one of the reasons why Mr. Trump’s attempts to withhold funding from “Democrat cities” have fared so poorly in the courts.
I want “the game” to be based on evidence and data. States that deny the evidence, call the data “fake news”, and refuse to comply with federal mandates should not receive federal help in managing their resulting catastrophic infection rates.
Actions have consequences. The federal government should not be in the game of enabling entire regions that steadfastly refuse to pay attention to fact, reason, science, and data.
Christophersays
You understand that some of these cities which have declared themselves sanctuaries stand accused of “refusing to comply with federal mandates” regarding immigration, right?
SomervilleTomsays
@Christopher: Of course I do. And I also understand that attempts to enforce those same mandates are failing in federal courts because the government is unable to offer evidence that the mandates do any good.
Masking is mandated because it is the best intervention available to us right now. There is a world of difference between mandate issued on the basis of pure prejudice and a superficially similar mandate based in solid science.
The courts recognize that difference and so should we.
doublemansays
Weird that we’re not talking about why Biden really won. It was COVID!
His carefully structured message? His policies? His amazing on the ground machine? It was all about being a well-liked guy during a raging pandemic and the worst possible response from the President.
Why did Dems not do as well overall?
Was it “defund the police” and talking about pronouns or was it things like giving more money to Amy McGrath to light on fire than to ALL activity focused on state legislatures? What about not having a consistent message of what Dems would do if they won?
Organizing:
We saw incredible organizing in certain areas – GA (years of work to flip the state despite little help from the national party), MI (record turnout made for a race that looked close but really wasn’t), Minneapolis (absurd turnout hitting nearly 90% helped run up the score in a state people thought might be purple) . These activities weren’t because of the Democratic party, they were largely in spite of it. And it’s sad that people want to blame activists for things when those activists were the ones organizing to make things happen.
But blaming left activists is what happens literally every time. Moderates punch left like they always do. ALWAYS.
And where was the money going? Not just this year, but for years prior? It was flowing to high-profile races (Dems love to think about individual heroes rather than the hard work of movements). It was not going to real party-building in states and areas that need it. That’s why Dems are caught flatfooted every time in states and then see new districts formed that hurt their power and we see more and more impediments to voting. But sure, let’s blame “wokeness.”
Messaging:
Do you remember how many Democrats ran on “defund the police”? It was zero.
James Clyburn claims that when “defund the police” gained national prominence that is what caused Jamie Harrison to plateau in SC. But “defund the police” peaked in the summer and Harrison was closing the gap into October. Maybe what happened is what we should have expected – Republicans were always going to come home to Graham. Having a situation in which the Presidential race seemed clearer and a closing pitch that showed Graham as a reasonable-looking guy being literally embraced by Democrats in the Barrett hearings likely helped quite a bit. Harrison lost by 10. It wasn’t close. Similar situation in Maine. A person well-liked for decades in the state gets a situation where they can demonstrate their moderation and independence with a No vote on Barrett and voters don’t feel compelled to go for a counterbalance to Trump because it looks clear Trump is going to lose. Another not close Senate race.
What % of incumbent House members who support Medicare for All won re-election? 100%. And not all are in blue districts.
Did the Democrats provide a coherent, simple vision for what Democratic leadership would bring? Not in the slightest. To the extent that “defund the police” or using an X could take hold as a perceived party platform it is because the Democrats weren’t offering anything else.
There is soooooo much apathy about Democrats. We’re not going to do well in places when we’ve slept on organizing and we don’t have a coherent message. But in the big race, Trump did everything possible to lose badly.
Christophersays
The 2020 campaign I followed definitely did have us flipping the NC and ME Senate seats.
SomervilleTomsays
Of course the campaign wanted that. I don’t remember seeing very many credible polls or analysists who thought it would happen.
I saw some polls that suggested it was a possibility — nothing more than that.
He does have a way of putting things, but I wouldn’t necessarily pin everything he talks about automatically on Democrats, who are not the same as liberal activists. He does say exactly what I’ve been thinking all along about seeing vs. not seeing skin color.
Here’s my take, after my prior diary got ZERO attention at all.
2008: A black man wins election after unprecedented turnout of black voters across America — especially in the urban centers of MI, WI, and PA. He defeats a white woman in so doing.
2012: A black president wins re-election after black voters again turn out in droves to vote for him.
2016: A white racist pig wins an electoral college victory (and loses the popular vote by about three million votes) after black voters in the urban centers of MI, WI, and PA stay home rather than vote for the same white woman they rejected in 2008.
February 2020: A field of Democratic candidates is winnowed down to a handful by a primary electoral process that excludes black voters until several weeks into primary season. The overwhelming front-runner among black voters is nearly eliminated as a result.
March 2020: That same overwhelming front-runner among black voters SWEEPS the primaries in states where black voters matters. The (white) mainstream media characterizes this as a “historic” and “surprising” “comeback” for that white front-runner — completely ignoring the fact that Joe Biden was ALWAYS the overwhelming front-runner. There was no comeback. Instead, a microphone was belatedly turned on.
November 2020: The Democratic nominee wins election by the same electoral vote margin as the winner of the 2016 election — and wins by a popular vote margin of more than five million votes. The black vote in urban centers nationwide, and especially in MI, WI, and PA exceeds their turnout in 2008 and 2012.
In the context of this history, a white talk-show host tells us that we Democrats did not get the Senate and House results that we want because we’re too “woke”. Bzzt — no cigar, thanks for playing.
America IS racist. America IS sexist. Seventy-one million Americans voted FOR Donald Trump’s lies, racism, sexism, and brazen corruption. Americans put Q-Anon supporters into Congress. Americans are dying in record numbers in a pandemic while believing that wearing a mask infringes their freedom.
Mr. Maher is pandering to that America just as brazenly as any Republican. He’s using the same dog-whistles and the same lies — not to mention the same token blacks and women.
“Democrats were supposed to flip the Senate, and didn’t” — not in the 2020 campaign season that I followed. Some polls suggested that near the end of the campaign, most did not. Democrats HOPED to flip the Senate. Democrats WANTED to flip the Senate. Neither happened.
“[Democrats] lost seats in the House” — yes indeed. Democrats told the truth, and paid a price for doing so.
“The message to Democrats from so much of the country seems to be ‘we don’t like Trump but we still can’t bring ourselves to vote for you’.” — again, yes indeed. The pithy CrackerJack’s bit that follows exemplifies the failure of pieces like this. Mr. Maher thinks “the popcorn” ought to ask why. That’s pretty much the epitome of blaming the victim. If a consumer chooses dog excrement over popcorn, the CONSUMER is the issue — not the popcorn.
Want an example of the dog-whistle I mean? Look at the quote of PA Democrat Conor Lamb: “Democratic rhetoric … needs to be dialed back. It needs to be rooted in common sense”. That’s certainly true for white men talking to other white men. That is most certainly NOT “common sense” for black men and women. That quote — and the smattering of applause that follows — is TEXTBOOK white privilege. It is canonical “white-splaining”.
Of COURSE Q-Anon believers don’t think that Democrats have “common sense”, that’s not a laugh-line. Americans don’t believe that Democrats have “common sense” BECAUSE Americans are racist, sexist, and xenophobic.
Why is Woody Allen on the list of people who are being ostracized for “ridiculous” things? I’m sorry, but I am not “ridiculous” because I am appalled by what he did to his adopted daughter.
What Brett Kavanaugh “did in High School” SHOULD have barred him from the Senate. If America had listened to what Anita Hill was trying to tell us about Clarence Thomas, we would have been spared enormous grief.
“Let’s not see color” is shouted the loudest when people of color are within reach of finally taking their proportionate share of jobs, leadership, power, and money.
How many people of color participate here at BMG?
It appears to me that own community here at BMG is loathe to accept, acknowledge, or celebrate the role that black Americans played in saving our posteriors in this election.
I don’t like this piece. At. All. I strongly disagree that “Bill Maher is right”.
The back of our democracy depended on black turnout and so does the GA senate race. It’s why Joe Biden was the only candidate capable of winning this election since he was the only candidate who did not talk down to black voters by checking all the identity politics boxes and instead just appealed directly to their hopes and by clearly protecting them from their fears. Centering his narrative in Charlottesville made sense since that was the common sense definition of racism to most Americans and trump still couldn’t see which side to be on. Same with George Floyd where Biden spent time with the family and Trump could not bring himself to condemn the police officer who murdered him.
What Biden did not do was say he would defund police, or say he would usher in socialism, or promise big structural changes most Americans are not ready for. He did not talk down to Latinos by correcting their pronouns or affixing gender neutral “X”‘s to their words. He condemned looting and rioting as strongly as he condemned police murder of unarmed black men. Both are bad, and the former cannot be allowed to justify the latter. Every Democrat from Bobby Kennedy to Obama to Biden followed that mantra, I’m worried my circles would reject that pluralism and call for unity as excusing racism or racists. AOC certainly feels that way.
We can condemn racist policing without defunding police departments. We can move money from police to social services without calling it abolishment or defunding. We can acknowledge non binary people without renaming Spanish words Anglophones cannot claim. We can recognize there’s a difference of degree between what Weinstein and what Al Franken did.
Maher was off the rails on Kavanaugh and some of the other stuff he critiques up here, but there is a growing disconnect between what the academy believes minorities and working class voters want and what they actually want.
My Latino students have no clue what Latinx means. They want to start businesses and become capitalists, even the wokest among them thinks socialism won’t work. Some of them fled it. They tend to support the police and question where BLM and other groups are coming from. My Muslim students want the refugee ban and the bigotry overturned, but what they care about most of all is rising college costs, rising housing costs, and the lack of good paying jobs. The same stuff my white students and their blue collar families care about. So I think we do a disservice by slicing and dicing the electorate and assuming demographics is destiny. Trump won far more black and Latino voters that he did four years ago, despite his appalling record and rhetoric. I wonder why, and I think we should find out before attacking the question.
Is “the academy” an auto-correct error or typoe? I don’t know what you’re referring to.
I need more data about the assertions that Donald Trump “won far more black and Latino voters than he four years ago”. I want to see the data, especially about black voters.
Joe Biden has always had an issue with Latino voters. There have always been strong tensions between the Latino and Black communities. Mr. Biden’s overwhelming support among black voters hurts him with Latino voters. Cuban exiles in Florida have been promoting wild and absurd stuff for generations, it doesn’t surprise that they embrace the lies of Donald Trump and the GOP.
“If the Republicans will stop telling lies about the Democrats, we will stop telling the truth about them.” is as true today as it was in 1952. It worth noting that Adlai Stevenson (the source of the quip) lost the campaign from which that quip originated.
Ancestry and culture does not infer immunity to racism, sexism, xenophobia, nor appeals to venal greed.
Telling the truth is frequently a career-limiting move for a politician. That’s why it takes courage to do so. That’s why it is so rare.
That’s why we Democrats must continue to do it.
Guardian and WSJ had pieces on these trends. Agreed more data is needed, but Dems did much worse downballot than they did 2 years ago. Also the Senate is increasingly out of reach if every Senate race mirrors the presidential results.
Our Catch-22 is the structural advantage rural white voters get in the Senate and the EC, and without a big shift to our favor in the Senate, it will be tough to change those rules.
I don’t challenge the data, I challenge the conclusion that it means that the campaign did something wrong. Mr. Maher’s pithy CrackerJack example is actually an excellent focus.
He focuses on the popcorn. I think the more constructive focus is on the person discarding the popcorn for the dog feces.
Not to belabor the example, but if consumers not only choose dog feces over popcorn, but also over peanuts and also over chocolate, then I’m left asking “what makes consumers love to eat dog feces”.
It is not writ in stone that rural white voters prefer dog feces over popcorn. That is learned behavior, and I think we have to ask WHERE those lessons are coming from.
I agree that we aren’t going to change the rules you mention any time soon. I think we need to change the culture.
I do wonder if our current political system is even workable with the extremes of 21st century America. Not just the obscene wealth concentration that we’ve talked about so much, but also the extremes of population density. A literal handful of counties contain nearly all the population of the US.
Just as an example, consider the population of the NYC metro area — about 21M people. It has the same population as the population of TEN western states COMBINED — Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Utah, and Wyoming.
The NYC metro area would need TWENTY seats in the senate to have comparable representation. It has, at most, 4-6 (NY, NJ, perhaps CT).
One of these days I’ll put some of these layers on the interactive map I already host.
I am not sure I’m signed up for remaining in the same nation as at least some of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida immediately come to mind, as do Montana and the Dakotas).
I’m sorely tempted to suggest that the Biden administration exclude any state that refuses to mandate masking from ANY pandemic response.
Anybody who understands biology understands the law of natural selection. It is a fool’s errand to attempt to conduct public health policy in ways that require suspending that law. These Trumpists who so fervently assert that wearing a mask is an assault on their freedom might as well throw themselves off a high cliff and trust their God to save them.
Gee if only we had a national government which really cared about conducting a national public health policy which mandated proper behavior with the best interests of all our citizens health in mind. If only they had outlawed smoking cigarettes years ago Tens of Millions of people would have been saved and the costs to our healthcare system would have been drastically lower. Oh but wait the government can TAX cigarettes and have a revenue stream. Both parties have said oh you shouldn’t smoke, but in the meantime if you do we can make a buck off you.
I’m having trouble connecting your comment to this discussion, can you help me out?
We’re talking about a piece by Bill Maher linked in the thread-starter. So far as I’m aware, your comment is the first mention of tobacco regulation (leaving aside the various red herrings that you toss on the table).
What does your comment have to do with this discussion?
“I am not sure I’m signed up for remaining in the same nation as at least some of these states (Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida immediately come to mind, as do Montana and the Dakotas).
I’m sorely tempted to suggest that the Biden administration exclude any state that refuses to mandate masking from ANY pandemic response.”
So you want the national govt to mandate people wear masks, for their own good, or Biden shouldn’t help them.
Why not mandate people can’t smoke, for their own good, and save millions of lives. Wait can’t lose the revenue.
They can outlaw lawn darts but not cigarettes? People distrust the government. I hope the country does split, maybe it’s about time.
When people choose to smoke, they primarily harm themselves. When people refuse to wear a mask, they primarily harm the people around them. I want masking to be mandated for the same reason that I want people who drive while drunk to be removed from the road — because they are danger to others.
FWIW, government mandates to reduce smoking actually cost public money. People who smoke cigarettes tend to die early and quickly, and therefore tend to have lower lifetime costs for medical care. A decade or two of end-of-life care is FAR more expensive than a few months of hospice.
When an entire region chooses to flatly deny the reality of the pandemic impact in that region, then I want the national government to respect that choice and direct its limited resources to help regions who did all in their power to get through this nightmare.
Um, I’m pretty sure a key reason that smoking is a public health issue is the second hand smoke. I’d much rather be within 6 feet of someone without a mask (even if I knew for sure they had COVID) than someone puffing a cigarette. I would in fact ban smoking in a heartbeat if it weren’t for the stellar “success” Prohibition was.
Another example of your propensity to minimize the risk of COVID — in this case combining it with your own personal aversion to cigarette smoke. Actual data — from the CDC, for example (https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/basic_information/health_effects/index.htm) — does not support your bias.
A different report of the CDC (https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm#death) attributes “more than 480,000 deaths annually” to tobacco use. Of that. the CDC estimates that about 41,000 adults per year die of second-hand smoke in the US. If you’re willing admit that people dying from a legal product is a “public health issue”, then your posture ignores more than ten times as many victims as your pet peeve.
As of today, there have been 245,777 deaths attributed to COVID. We’re in mid-November, and the pandemic began just eight months ago. So COVID has already killed six times as many Americans as second-hand smoke kills in year.
There were 1,210 deaths attributed to COVID yesterday. That’s about ten times the daily death rate from second-hand smoke (about 112).
You are at FAR greater risk sitting near a maskless COVID sufferer than sitting near a smoker.
covid < 1 yr old, vaccine on the way
smoking > 30 yrs no end in sight (but still a great revenue stream)
What? This comment doesn’t make any sense, especially in the context of this discussion.
We are talking about a piece by Bill Maher about the outcome of the 2020 elections.
I’ve already posted the data showing that COVID is more than ten times as deadly. You’re objecting to the only strategy that has any positive effect at all. The fact that a vaccine is on the way makes a mandate even more compelling, because it means that said mandate will not last long.
Yeah, sure. Whatever. No relationship to the question at hand and not worth a response.
I agree with you about this. I’m done trying to be reasonable with ignorant, irrational racists, misogynist, xenophobic and utterly corrupt bullies. I’m happy to put a wall around the red states and be done with it — I just want to make sure we reclaim the nukes first.
A wall around Texas..mmm
Sadly, it’s much more than just Texas.
If we see a repeat of the last time this happened, I’m inclined to think the appropriate response is “Good bye, Good luck, don’t let the door hit your backside on the way out.”
Just get the nukes first.
Of course, we have to do something about IL, MI, WI, and MN. Maybe put the division down the middle of the Mississippi river — everything to the west is theirs, everything to the east is ours. Make a new country called “Northern US”.
Looks like four new countries to me: “Western US” (HI, CA+OR+WA with NV optional), “Northern US” (as above) and “Eastern US” (ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI, NY, NJ, DE, MD, VA).
The rest of the states go in the “Flyover Republic”.
It’s more than a preference. After all, why do think smoking has been banned in almost all indoor public venues these days? I’m virtually guaranteed to cough up a storm if I’m in proximity to cigarettes for any length of time. OTOH not everyone exposed to a disease contracts it and yes, I’m much more willing to take my chances.
Which side are you supporting? That is indeed why smoking has been banned in almost all indoor public venues (and many private venues if you include rented properties). The ban on indoor smoking is widespread and largely successful. Are you arguing against it?
The fact that the onset of COVID is less dramatic than your reaction to smoking does not make it less real or less dangerous.
The evidence and data supporting mandatory masking is even more persuasive than the evidence supporting the smoking bans.
You’re being inconsistent to support one and oppose the other.
I hope you don’t mean your penultimate paragraph as that sounds rather Trumpian. As for representation we need to at least enact the Wyoming Rule.
Was it “Trumpian” for the federal government to demand that any state that wants to receive federal highway funding raise the drinking age to 21 or impose mandatory seatbelt laws?
The essence of Trumpism is an abject and explicit refusal to face facts, science and logic. The motivation for mandatory facemasking is in fact the inverse of Trumpism.
There is nothing “liberal”, “Democratic”, or “leftist” about insisting that policy and law reflects our best understanding of science. The same is true for climate change policy as well, by the way.
I’m fine with legislative strings attached to funding, but Trump has dished out COVID relief on the basis of how much states bend to his will and it certainly sounded like you were advocating we do the same albeit in reverse. He’s also at least threatened to withhold funding from “Democrat cities” who don’t handle immigration or law enforcement the way he would like. I do not want to play that game.
There is zero evidence to couple federal funding of cities to their adherence to Mr. Trump’s pronouncements about immigration or law enforcement. That’s one of the reasons why Mr. Trump’s attempts to withhold funding from “Democrat cities” have fared so poorly in the courts.
I want “the game” to be based on evidence and data. States that deny the evidence, call the data “fake news”, and refuse to comply with federal mandates should not receive federal help in managing their resulting catastrophic infection rates.
Actions have consequences. The federal government should not be in the game of enabling entire regions that steadfastly refuse to pay attention to fact, reason, science, and data.
You understand that some of these cities which have declared themselves sanctuaries stand accused of “refusing to comply with federal mandates” regarding immigration, right?
@Christopher: Of course I do. And I also understand that attempts to enforce those same mandates are failing in federal courts because the government is unable to offer evidence that the mandates do any good.
Masking is mandated because it is the best intervention available to us right now. There is a world of difference between mandate issued on the basis of pure prejudice and a superficially similar mandate based in solid science.
The courts recognize that difference and so should we.
Weird that we’re not talking about why Biden really won. It was COVID!
His carefully structured message? His policies? His amazing on the ground machine? It was all about being a well-liked guy during a raging pandemic and the worst possible response from the President.
Why did Dems not do as well overall?
Was it “defund the police” and talking about pronouns or was it things like giving more money to Amy McGrath to light on fire than to ALL activity focused on state legislatures? What about not having a consistent message of what Dems would do if they won?
Organizing:
We saw incredible organizing in certain areas – GA (years of work to flip the state despite little help from the national party), MI (record turnout made for a race that looked close but really wasn’t), Minneapolis (absurd turnout hitting nearly 90% helped run up the score in a state people thought might be purple) . These activities weren’t because of the Democratic party, they were largely in spite of it. And it’s sad that people want to blame activists for things when those activists were the ones organizing to make things happen.
But blaming left activists is what happens literally every time. Moderates punch left like they always do. ALWAYS.
And where was the money going? Not just this year, but for years prior? It was flowing to high-profile races (Dems love to think about individual heroes rather than the hard work of movements). It was not going to real party-building in states and areas that need it. That’s why Dems are caught flatfooted every time in states and then see new districts formed that hurt their power and we see more and more impediments to voting. But sure, let’s blame “wokeness.”
Messaging:
Do you remember how many Democrats ran on “defund the police”? It was zero.
James Clyburn claims that when “defund the police” gained national prominence that is what caused Jamie Harrison to plateau in SC. But “defund the police” peaked in the summer and Harrison was closing the gap into October. Maybe what happened is what we should have expected – Republicans were always going to come home to Graham. Having a situation in which the Presidential race seemed clearer and a closing pitch that showed Graham as a reasonable-looking guy being literally embraced by Democrats in the Barrett hearings likely helped quite a bit. Harrison lost by 10. It wasn’t close. Similar situation in Maine. A person well-liked for decades in the state gets a situation where they can demonstrate their moderation and independence with a No vote on Barrett and voters don’t feel compelled to go for a counterbalance to Trump because it looks clear Trump is going to lose. Another not close Senate race.
What % of incumbent House members who support Medicare for All won re-election? 100%. And not all are in blue districts.
Did the Democrats provide a coherent, simple vision for what Democratic leadership would bring? Not in the slightest. To the extent that “defund the police” or using an X could take hold as a perceived party platform it is because the Democrats weren’t offering anything else.
There is soooooo much apathy about Democrats. We’re not going to do well in places when we’ve slept on organizing and we don’t have a coherent message. But in the big race, Trump did everything possible to lose badly.
The 2020 campaign I followed definitely did have us flipping the NC and ME Senate seats.
Of course the campaign wanted that. I don’t remember seeing very many credible polls or analysists who thought it would happen.
I saw some polls that suggested it was a possibility — nothing more than that.