Well said. When the Trump/MAGA era ends, which unfortunately could be a long time from now, I think historians will conclude that Trump rose and succeeded because both major parties were consumed with institutional rot. Trump has already swept away the old Republican Party, replacing it with Christian Nationalists and toadies. The Democratic Party reckoning has not happened yet. I expect new Democratic leaders will arise from blue dots in red states rather than from the politically inbred blue enclaves on either coast. (AOC being an exception.)
Trump didn't do anything to substantially change the Republican party. The ONLY thing he did was give them permission to say the quiet part out loud. Policy and ideology wise, they haven't changed at all. They just have more power now.
What Trump changed was sidelining a lot of politicians who were largely empty suits. For example, the other Republicans running for president in 2016. Jeb Bush and Rick Perry have disappeared. Others who are still around like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are completely neutered. Policy wise, it’s the quiet part out loud, but the Republican equivalents of Chuck Schumer have been swept away.
I still don't understand exactly how they are so, so, so wrong despite all my reading in exactly why Schumer, et. al. are considered so spineless. I mean, they weren't exactly wrong about the perils of a shutdown. There were no good options. There was not a clear way to win this thing, which is exactly what Republicans maneuvered the Dems into. A true rock and a hard place situation.
I understand the need to forcefully push back in all ways but ultimately, I feel like I have to agree in some ways that a shutdown would have absolutely resulted in extreme pain and punitive punishment for federal workers and agencies. It sounds to me like everyone is so much more concerned with "having a spine" that no one is examining how bad a shutdown would have been. The argument sounds rational to me.
All this opposition to Schumer does is create infighting and distrust of all but a few performative Dems like AOC. Ultimately, and I'm about to get shouty myself, WE HOLD NO CARDS EITHER WAY AND WE DO NOT HAVE THE LEADERSHIP WE NEED.
It wasn't Schumer before, he's a shitty, ineffectual "leader" in name only and would still be even if he voted NO. Jeffries, Sanders, AOC, Merkley, Wyden, none of them are the cult of personality that the GOP has. It's ugly, it's bad, we are rudderless. Tell me who really CAN lead this party? There is no one.
That's the entire problem; the Biden power vacuum. Also, I agree with the people asking where Hollywood and all of our musical entertainers at. Dead silence, no protests, no opposition from them whatsoever. We are dead in the fucking water. No one wants to unite or lead us and no one CAN.
Stop falling for these strawman arguments about how Dems are failing us. Biden left a hole that we simply cannot fill and that is truly why we're so fucked.
The only hope we have is people's like you, Noah, and Meidas Touch and The Contrarian and Popular Information and Public Notice and ProPublican and The Guardian and Indivisible and 50501, pulling back the curtain and pushing us to unite under some kind of banner of pushback. These are my only sources of hope and much of it is just reporting the fuckery and leaderless, disorganized protesting. We need hope and you're the only ones we're getting it from. Keep doing what you can, though, it matters. Me and the whole world are watching, listening and fighting back the best we can. We're also terrified and rightly so.
I think that demanding more of elected officials is really important.
also, fwiw, Schumer and senate Ds threw away their leverage for the rest of the year (and maybe for longer than that.) they can do nothing now. seems like as good a time as any to demand better leadership so the next time they have leverage they don't just throw it away without even trying to get concessions.
We don't need a cult of personality. We need leadership that actually stands the fuck up and does it's job instead of capitulating without a fight.
The performance is important in times like this. We need to see that party leadership that's visibly and CONSISTENTLY standing up and fighting. Even the CR would have passed anyway, forcing it to be a party line vote would have shown that the Democratic party would be willing to dig their feet in and stick to their stated principles.
Giving up without a fight and refusing to use what little leverage they had is intensely demoralizing to the people Republicans are targeting. Combine that with their infuriating insistence on courting imaginary "moderate voters" (read: half-assedly jogging to the right to try and peel off Republican voters that they'll never get) and they're suppressing their own votes before the midterm campaigns even start.
Nicely parsed!
I think this puts Paid on Schumer, in all senses.
We can only hope.
Well said. When the Trump/MAGA era ends, which unfortunately could be a long time from now, I think historians will conclude that Trump rose and succeeded because both major parties were consumed with institutional rot. Trump has already swept away the old Republican Party, replacing it with Christian Nationalists and toadies. The Democratic Party reckoning has not happened yet. I expect new Democratic leaders will arise from blue dots in red states rather than from the politically inbred blue enclaves on either coast. (AOC being an exception.)
Trump didn't do anything to substantially change the Republican party. The ONLY thing he did was give them permission to say the quiet part out loud. Policy and ideology wise, they haven't changed at all. They just have more power now.
What Trump changed was sidelining a lot of politicians who were largely empty suits. For example, the other Republicans running for president in 2016. Jeb Bush and Rick Perry have disappeared. Others who are still around like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are completely neutered. Policy wise, it’s the quiet part out loud, but the Republican equivalents of Chuck Schumer have been swept away.
I still don't understand exactly how they are so, so, so wrong despite all my reading in exactly why Schumer, et. al. are considered so spineless. I mean, they weren't exactly wrong about the perils of a shutdown. There were no good options. There was not a clear way to win this thing, which is exactly what Republicans maneuvered the Dems into. A true rock and a hard place situation.
I understand the need to forcefully push back in all ways but ultimately, I feel like I have to agree in some ways that a shutdown would have absolutely resulted in extreme pain and punitive punishment for federal workers and agencies. It sounds to me like everyone is so much more concerned with "having a spine" that no one is examining how bad a shutdown would have been. The argument sounds rational to me.
All this opposition to Schumer does is create infighting and distrust of all but a few performative Dems like AOC. Ultimately, and I'm about to get shouty myself, WE HOLD NO CARDS EITHER WAY AND WE DO NOT HAVE THE LEADERSHIP WE NEED.
It wasn't Schumer before, he's a shitty, ineffectual "leader" in name only and would still be even if he voted NO. Jeffries, Sanders, AOC, Merkley, Wyden, none of them are the cult of personality that the GOP has. It's ugly, it's bad, we are rudderless. Tell me who really CAN lead this party? There is no one.
That's the entire problem; the Biden power vacuum. Also, I agree with the people asking where Hollywood and all of our musical entertainers at. Dead silence, no protests, no opposition from them whatsoever. We are dead in the fucking water. No one wants to unite or lead us and no one CAN.
Stop falling for these strawman arguments about how Dems are failing us. Biden left a hole that we simply cannot fill and that is truly why we're so fucked.
The only hope we have is people's like you, Noah, and Meidas Touch and The Contrarian and Popular Information and Public Notice and ProPublican and The Guardian and Indivisible and 50501, pulling back the curtain and pushing us to unite under some kind of banner of pushback. These are my only sources of hope and much of it is just reporting the fuckery and leaderless, disorganized protesting. We need hope and you're the only ones we're getting it from. Keep doing what you can, though, it matters. Me and the whole world are watching, listening and fighting back the best we can. We're also terrified and rightly so.
I think that demanding more of elected officials is really important.
also, fwiw, Schumer and senate Ds threw away their leverage for the rest of the year (and maybe for longer than that.) they can do nothing now. seems like as good a time as any to demand better leadership so the next time they have leverage they don't just throw it away without even trying to get concessions.
We don't need a cult of personality. We need leadership that actually stands the fuck up and does it's job instead of capitulating without a fight.
The performance is important in times like this. We need to see that party leadership that's visibly and CONSISTENTLY standing up and fighting. Even the CR would have passed anyway, forcing it to be a party line vote would have shown that the Democratic party would be willing to dig their feet in and stick to their stated principles.
Giving up without a fight and refusing to use what little leverage they had is intensely demoralizing to the people Republicans are targeting. Combine that with their infuriating insistence on courting imaginary "moderate voters" (read: half-assedly jogging to the right to try and peel off Republican voters that they'll never get) and they're suppressing their own votes before the midterm campaigns even start.