Anyone have a link to good data on the degree to which past underperformance is indicative of future underperformance? Surely Nate silver has written something about this.
Charleston is a really nice place to visit. It is also way smaller than quite a few places that lock things up. And South Carolina as a whole has significantly worse violent crime rates compared to, say, New York and New Jersey.
Id be really happy if blue states and cities did more to make them more livable. I also dont know we should draw too many conclusions from a rather touristy, vacationy downtown
That is great and interesting. But Dallas has a considerably higher crime rate than NYC, and is better but not much better than SF. Maybe petty theft is a bigger problem in SF and NYC than Dallas? But, especially compared to NYC, it isnt safer.
Also Dallas has awful weather and terrible traffic. How can a place get both ice winter storms and be dangerously hot in the summer? Excellent airport tho, one of my favorites.
JVP Action informs me through the Jewish Currents News Desk that they have candidates competing and winning that would have been impossible in the recent past. However what can happen in a deep-blue House district is different from what can happen in a presidential election and I would need proof that normie Democratic voters would not try to stop a sufficiently far-left person who has had success in a few primaries.
My opinions have merit, but yours does not because you refused to examine the root cause of neoliberalism from the past. Americans like you don't read history, and history is repeating itself. I have studied how centrist Democrats pivot right wing talking points to tell American voters to accept precarious working conditions without job security and benefits. It has been documented in several empirical studies. Here is the link: https://cepr.net/.
I am in the pocket of "Anyone but Newsom" as I think I said at least among people who can plausibly get the nomination but agreed on the other counts. The left of the party owes its popularity to expert use of social media and passionate conviction and ability to go out and say they are fighting for the working class every day. The center needs to get these things.
This is probably a post better saved for tonight's chat, and maybe I will repost it.
It looks like the first state to fall into failed state status is going to be Lebanon not Iran. Way to go Trump/Netanyahu, you've managed to bring pain and suffering to the country that was the least threat to the US, and probably to Israel.
My main takeaway after reading this piece is that Matt disagrees with the semantics of “the problem” when there are several problems dogging Dems ahead of 2028. But if, “Newsome isn’t the answer, either” is the best defense he can muster on AOC’s behalf, then let Otterbein’s message carry the day. There is no need for a false binary, Newsome and AOC can both be problems.
Yes, establishment, mainstream Dems seem to disagree with that ubiquitous idiom about the definition of insanity. But from my vantage point, it’s hard not to see AOC as the mirror image of the worst actors on the political right. She is totally uncompromising in her politics when compromise is essential to the art of politics. Which is just one way of saying she’s bad at her job.
The biggest unforced error in recent US politics is without a doubt characterizing the modernization of US energy infrastructure as central to the environmental agenda for combating climate change. And nobody bears more responsibility for that error than AOC, given her role in championing the Green New Deal resolution.
As I see it, it is either the case that A) she knew such positioning would doom any chance the underlying investments would garner the support needed to turn them into reality, but nevertheless pushed forward. In which case she’s a cynic who cares more about how progressive overreach and virtue-signaling impact her political brand than she does about actually improving living standards in America. Or B) she didn’t know, in which case she’s so out of touch with average Americans that she can’t be trusted to govern outside of her highly defensible blue echo chamber.
In either case, she absolutely needs to be stopped. She cannot be trusted with leadership above and beyond a highly defensible senate seat. And it's even the case that her rhetoric from that safe seat makes winning seats elsewhere more difficult. Why does Matt go to such lengths to defend AOC when she is clearly a major facet of the problem?
Correction: Matthew, you are informed about moderate Democrats pivoting to the left because they have not cut financial ties from wall street and corporate donors. By the way, Medicare for All, tuition, debt free public higher education and vocational training, paid vacation, and other policies are popular among American voters, according to Data for Progress. These ideas are not radical at all. What is radical is maintaining a completely broken system with incremental changes. Incremental changes never worked back then, and they will never work today. They don't address the root cause of a radical problem going back to at least four decades. You are part of the problem going back to Bill Clinton's neoliberal days of outsourcing good paying jobs with decent benefits to Canada, Mexico, and China. Shame on you for being biased in your reporting.
Matthew, you are informed about moderate Democrats pivoting to the left because they have not cut financial ties from wall street and corporate donors. By the way, Medicare for All, tuition, debt free public higher education and vocational training, paid vacation, and other policies are popular among American voters, according to Data for Progress. These ideas are not radical at all. What is radical is maintaining a completely broken system with incremental changes. Incremental changes never worked back then, and they will never work today. They don't address the root cause of a radical problem going back to at least four decades. You are part of the problem going back to Bill Clinton's neoliberal days of outsourcing good paying jobs with decent benefits to Canada, Mexico, and China. Shame on you for being bias in your reporting.
Matthew, you are uninformed about moderate Democrats pivoting to the left because they have not cut financial ties with wall street and corporate donors. By the way, Medicare for All, tuition, debt free public higher education and vocational training, paid vacation, and other polices are popular among American voters, according to Data for Progress. These ideas are not radical at all. What is radical is maintaining a completely broken system with incremental changes. Incremental changes never worked back then, and they will never work today. They don't address the root cause of a radical problem going back to at least four decades. You are part of the problem going back to Bill Clinton's neoliberal days of outsourcing good paying jobs with decent benefits to Canada, Mexico, and China. Shame on you for being bias in your reporting.
It's counter productive to try and pick a winner way before the race gets started. We should be going into the primary season with open minds and listen to the candidates. Nobody picked Obama before the 2008 primaries yet the democratic party used every trick in the book to force their candidate Clinton to the nomination. Clinton was a terrible candidate in 2016. Biden 2/Harris were bad candidates in 2024. Both of them, picked by the DNC, not primary voters. If the democrats want president JD Vance in 2028, all they need to do it is back their bad candidate so the voters, once again, must hold their noses and vote for the least bad option.
I dunno why Matt seems so afraid of Newsom. Let's have a primary with debates and interviews and so on. His competition will dig up the muck and we'll see if it sticks. Maybe he wins, maybe he doesn't.
Has anything in Trump's history proved a liability for him? Absolutely not.
Matt's actual fear is Gavin is the most rightward candidate that can win substantive support in a primary so his actual goal is to weaken Gavin so the option is AOC vs. Shapiro, not AOC vs Newsom.
I agree with you but I hope Matt considers others beyond Shapiro soon! I don't want the 2028 election to feature Shapiro attacking Rubio for being too soft on Iran.
Im decidedly an Obama moderate who finds myself liking Zohran and AOC - the latter not as a '28 nominee, but as a politician. She has a clear set of beliefs, is willing to adapt and change, and wanta Americans everywhere to have a better life. She is willing to compromise to get thinga done. She has been protested by the Twitter socialists, and stood her ground on her positions.
In short, they are both authentic and genuine in trying to make the lives of their constituents better. Maybe theyre wrong. But that authenticity is something Newsome doesn't have, Hilary didnt have, and sadly while i liked Kamala it is something that she was able to show in spurts but overall the narrative around her was as someone who would say anything to get elected. A swing state Dem certainly seems to have a leg up on authenticity, and I dont think JD Vance really comes across as anything other than a corrupt sellout.
unfortunately, the original commenter has blocked me so its really limiting my ability to say more here (very immature by that person). I suppose I disagree with you though, he only won 51% of the vote vs a sex pest and a republican and many of the people that I know that voted for him assumed that he was much more moderate than he will be revealed to be IMO, the response to this attempted bombing is just the start.
The problem with AOC is that she has a HIGH profile and is actively cultivating a higher one, with political views voters equate with people like Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani, among others. If she runs - and probably even if she doesn't - support for her (and possibly Mamdani because he's young, though not Sanders because he's a virtual non-entity at this point due to his age) support for her positions is apt to become a litmus test for other, more centrist candidates. Kathy Hochul would probably never have offered even tepid support for Mamdani had she been running nationally rather than in New York. The more visible AOC is - and running will make her very visible - the more other candidates will be called upon to endorse or renounce her views. And that's going to present those candidates with an uncomfortable choice. Don't forget the Bernie wars. While I consider Daily Kos a cesspool, it was a veritable war zone in 2016.
Furthermore, if she gains serious traction with a big enough share of the party, like Bernie did in 2016, but with no realistic chance in the general election (and I don't think she'd have a prayer in the general), she has the ability to blow up Dems' chances. I'm old enough to have witnessed what happened to George McGovern (whom I voted for, my first election; not sure what I was thinking) and Walter Mondale (whom I didn't vote for). And Mondale wasn't even that far left compared to McGovern or AOC. McGovern and Mondale lost in the biggest and third biggest electoral landslides in history. I'm a longtime conservative (though closer to centrist these days), never-Trumper, who currently can't envision voting for a Republican for president in 2028. That is, unless the candidate is AOC or someone like her. In sum, I think she presents every bit the danger many people perceive her to be.
Anyone have a link to good data on the degree to which past underperformance is indicative of future underperformance? Surely Nate silver has written something about this.
Charleston is a really nice place to visit. It is also way smaller than quite a few places that lock things up. And South Carolina as a whole has significantly worse violent crime rates compared to, say, New York and New Jersey.
Id be really happy if blue states and cities did more to make them more livable. I also dont know we should draw too many conclusions from a rather touristy, vacationy downtown
Dallas also didn’t lock things up compared to urban northeast or SF.
That is great and interesting. But Dallas has a considerably higher crime rate than NYC, and is better but not much better than SF. Maybe petty theft is a bigger problem in SF and NYC than Dallas? But, especially compared to NYC, it isnt safer.
Also Dallas has awful weather and terrible traffic. How can a place get both ice winter storms and be dangerously hot in the summer? Excellent airport tho, one of my favorites.
I actually love winter weather. But somehow Dallas winter weather gives you the annoyances without giving you the fun of snow. Less shoveling tho.
JVP Action informs me through the Jewish Currents News Desk that they have candidates competing and winning that would have been impossible in the recent past. However what can happen in a deep-blue House district is different from what can happen in a presidential election and I would need proof that normie Democratic voters would not try to stop a sufficiently far-left person who has had success in a few primaries.
My opinions have merit, but yours does not because you refused to examine the root cause of neoliberalism from the past. Americans like you don't read history, and history is repeating itself. I have studied how centrist Democrats pivot right wing talking points to tell American voters to accept precarious working conditions without job security and benefits. It has been documented in several empirical studies. Here is the link: https://cepr.net/.
I am in the pocket of "Anyone but Newsom" as I think I said at least among people who can plausibly get the nomination but agreed on the other counts. The left of the party owes its popularity to expert use of social media and passionate conviction and ability to go out and say they are fighting for the working class every day. The center needs to get these things.
There will be some far-left person who is understandable only to the far-left who will crash and burn before there have been 4 primaries.
This is probably a post better saved for tonight's chat, and maybe I will repost it.
It looks like the first state to fall into failed state status is going to be Lebanon not Iran. Way to go Trump/Netanyahu, you've managed to bring pain and suffering to the country that was the least threat to the US, and probably to Israel.
My main takeaway after reading this piece is that Matt disagrees with the semantics of “the problem” when there are several problems dogging Dems ahead of 2028. But if, “Newsome isn’t the answer, either” is the best defense he can muster on AOC’s behalf, then let Otterbein’s message carry the day. There is no need for a false binary, Newsome and AOC can both be problems.
Yes, establishment, mainstream Dems seem to disagree with that ubiquitous idiom about the definition of insanity. But from my vantage point, it’s hard not to see AOC as the mirror image of the worst actors on the political right. She is totally uncompromising in her politics when compromise is essential to the art of politics. Which is just one way of saying she’s bad at her job.
The biggest unforced error in recent US politics is without a doubt characterizing the modernization of US energy infrastructure as central to the environmental agenda for combating climate change. And nobody bears more responsibility for that error than AOC, given her role in championing the Green New Deal resolution.
As I see it, it is either the case that A) she knew such positioning would doom any chance the underlying investments would garner the support needed to turn them into reality, but nevertheless pushed forward. In which case she’s a cynic who cares more about how progressive overreach and virtue-signaling impact her political brand than she does about actually improving living standards in America. Or B) she didn’t know, in which case she’s so out of touch with average Americans that she can’t be trusted to govern outside of her highly defensible blue echo chamber.
In either case, she absolutely needs to be stopped. She cannot be trusted with leadership above and beyond a highly defensible senate seat. And it's even the case that her rhetoric from that safe seat makes winning seats elsewhere more difficult. Why does Matt go to such lengths to defend AOC when she is clearly a major facet of the problem?
Correction: Matthew, you are informed about moderate Democrats pivoting to the left because they have not cut financial ties from wall street and corporate donors. By the way, Medicare for All, tuition, debt free public higher education and vocational training, paid vacation, and other policies are popular among American voters, according to Data for Progress. These ideas are not radical at all. What is radical is maintaining a completely broken system with incremental changes. Incremental changes never worked back then, and they will never work today. They don't address the root cause of a radical problem going back to at least four decades. You are part of the problem going back to Bill Clinton's neoliberal days of outsourcing good paying jobs with decent benefits to Canada, Mexico, and China. Shame on you for being biased in your reporting.
Matthew, you are informed about moderate Democrats pivoting to the left because they have not cut financial ties from wall street and corporate donors. By the way, Medicare for All, tuition, debt free public higher education and vocational training, paid vacation, and other policies are popular among American voters, according to Data for Progress. These ideas are not radical at all. What is radical is maintaining a completely broken system with incremental changes. Incremental changes never worked back then, and they will never work today. They don't address the root cause of a radical problem going back to at least four decades. You are part of the problem going back to Bill Clinton's neoliberal days of outsourcing good paying jobs with decent benefits to Canada, Mexico, and China. Shame on you for being bias in your reporting.
Matthew, you are uninformed about moderate Democrats pivoting to the left because they have not cut financial ties with wall street and corporate donors. By the way, Medicare for All, tuition, debt free public higher education and vocational training, paid vacation, and other polices are popular among American voters, according to Data for Progress. These ideas are not radical at all. What is radical is maintaining a completely broken system with incremental changes. Incremental changes never worked back then, and they will never work today. They don't address the root cause of a radical problem going back to at least four decades. You are part of the problem going back to Bill Clinton's neoliberal days of outsourcing good paying jobs with decent benefits to Canada, Mexico, and China. Shame on you for being bias in your reporting.
It's counter productive to try and pick a winner way before the race gets started. We should be going into the primary season with open minds and listen to the candidates. Nobody picked Obama before the 2008 primaries yet the democratic party used every trick in the book to force their candidate Clinton to the nomination. Clinton was a terrible candidate in 2016. Biden 2/Harris were bad candidates in 2024. Both of them, picked by the DNC, not primary voters. If the democrats want president JD Vance in 2028, all they need to do it is back their bad candidate so the voters, once again, must hold their noses and vote for the least bad option.
The boomers like Gavin's memes
I dunno why Matt seems so afraid of Newsom. Let's have a primary with debates and interviews and so on. His competition will dig up the muck and we'll see if it sticks. Maybe he wins, maybe he doesn't.
Has anything in Trump's history proved a liability for him? Absolutely not.
I second a vote for a messy primary. The whole centrist democrats trying to coalesce around a candidate three years out is a bad strategy.
Matt's actual fear is Gavin is the most rightward candidate that can win substantive support in a primary so his actual goal is to weaken Gavin so the option is AOC vs. Shapiro, not AOC vs Newsom.
I agree with you but I hope Matt considers others beyond Shapiro soon! I don't want the 2028 election to feature Shapiro attacking Rubio for being too soft on Iran.
Im decidedly an Obama moderate who finds myself liking Zohran and AOC - the latter not as a '28 nominee, but as a politician. She has a clear set of beliefs, is willing to adapt and change, and wanta Americans everywhere to have a better life. She is willing to compromise to get thinga done. She has been protested by the Twitter socialists, and stood her ground on her positions.
In short, they are both authentic and genuine in trying to make the lives of their constituents better. Maybe theyre wrong. But that authenticity is something Newsome doesn't have, Hilary didnt have, and sadly while i liked Kamala it is something that she was able to show in spurts but overall the narrative around her was as someone who would say anything to get elected. A swing state Dem certainly seems to have a leg up on authenticity, and I dont think JD Vance really comes across as anything other than a corrupt sellout.
unfortunately, the original commenter has blocked me so its really limiting my ability to say more here (very immature by that person). I suppose I disagree with you though, he only won 51% of the vote vs a sex pest and a republican and many of the people that I know that voted for him assumed that he was much more moderate than he will be revealed to be IMO, the response to this attempted bombing is just the start.
The problem with AOC is that she has a HIGH profile and is actively cultivating a higher one, with political views voters equate with people like Bernie Sanders and Zohran Mamdani, among others. If she runs - and probably even if she doesn't - support for her (and possibly Mamdani because he's young, though not Sanders because he's a virtual non-entity at this point due to his age) support for her positions is apt to become a litmus test for other, more centrist candidates. Kathy Hochul would probably never have offered even tepid support for Mamdani had she been running nationally rather than in New York. The more visible AOC is - and running will make her very visible - the more other candidates will be called upon to endorse or renounce her views. And that's going to present those candidates with an uncomfortable choice. Don't forget the Bernie wars. While I consider Daily Kos a cesspool, it was a veritable war zone in 2016.
Furthermore, if she gains serious traction with a big enough share of the party, like Bernie did in 2016, but with no realistic chance in the general election (and I don't think she'd have a prayer in the general), she has the ability to blow up Dems' chances. I'm old enough to have witnessed what happened to George McGovern (whom I voted for, my first election; not sure what I was thinking) and Walter Mondale (whom I didn't vote for). And Mondale wasn't even that far left compared to McGovern or AOC. McGovern and Mondale lost in the biggest and third biggest electoral landslides in history. I'm a longtime conservative (though closer to centrist these days), never-Trumper, who currently can't envision voting for a Republican for president in 2028. That is, unless the candidate is AOC or someone like her. In sum, I think she presents every bit the danger many people perceive her to be.
I mean, moderates could try to to become popular and get out there by doing this that actual Democratic voters like and support.