Interesting that support for gun control was higher when crime was higher -- implies that a common argument in favor of gun rights (they're for protection) doesn't actually work out that way in reality, and support for guns comes partly from the fact that they don't get used that much (outside maybe of hunting or hobbyists).
I generally agree with your points, but I think you ignore Clinton's political brilliance. I think he advanced the country's interests precisely because he understood how to persuade people, and was generally prepared to confine himself to issues that he had a chance of winning. It seems to me that most contemporary progressive pundits and politicians are either clueless about what is actually possible, or don't care.
The fact that support for environmentalism may have gone down as "basis of discussion has shifted away from clean water and air pollution and toward climate change" to me shows a real missed opportunity for the environmental movement. A lot of the same sources of emissions that cause global warming also harm local air quality, and Democrats could try going after sources of carbon emissions under the guise of cleaning up the air. That would at least present a more tangible tradeoff to voters rather than the more abstract problem of climate change.
I see this problem as being less about a "Sister Souljah" moment and more about Dems having split focus given the size of their current legislative drive. They're not cohesive on messaging, both because they're too busy for it right now, and because reaching a consensus on message would kick up more conflicts that would complicate an already fraught legislative process. Today is the wrong day for Biden and the party to have this fight, if they should even have it to begin with.
The commenters here complaining about how they, personally, have been ostracized or offended by progressive activists, and demanding that the President step in, are. . . a little much for me. I'm not a skinhead, so if a skinhead calls me a racist, I don't care. Likewise, I don't subscribe to Ibram Kendi's definitions of racism or white supremacy, so if Mr. Kendi, or someone who does subscribe to his views, calls me a racist or a white supremacist, I don't care.
One of the big problems this country has is the excessive nationalization of all political disputes. Fox News, and others, have fomented and profited off this trend, to our collective detriment. I'm not positive that Biden getting involved in every PTA screaming match is a solution to anything. I also think Biden learned something from the fallout of Obama's infamous "beer summit;" there, Obama intervened in a political conflict far below his station, didn't really solve anything, and made himself vulnerable to attack. Biden knows he's going to get tagged with progressive nonsense whether or not he responds to it, and thinks the smart thing is to keep his distance, focus on bread and butter issues, and wait for the news cycle to turn over. He might be right.
“ Likewise, I don't subscribe to Ibram Kendi's definitions of racism or white supremacy, so if Mr. Kendi, or someone who does subscribe to his views, calls me a racist or a white supremacist, I don't care.”
You’ll care if someone at work calls you Kendi’s definition of something. And you get put into a process.
What’s the expression, “If you have to explain yourself you’re losing?’”
Matt is a moderate and "left of center"; way I describe my own positions. As such, he, I am certain finds himself accused of being a fascist at least 1/2 the time.
This would be one of those occasions
As a social progressive, living in a well left of center city, Seattle, I can't emphasize how pained, non activist progressives are with "The Squad" wing of the Democratic Party.
As an example, the guy leading the recall movement against Kshama Sawant is a older, white progressive gay man and that guy is being tarred as "Trumpist". And by the way, Ms Sawant is really indistinguishable from MTG and her ilk
The open question is if we will be more successful in beating them back than the GOP was in the hijacking of their party by the kooks
What is absolutely needed is a reset.
I was a young FOB during the Sister Soujah moment and I can tell you that lilly white conservative suburban types (although I did not quite know this at that time) in Texas were impressed by it.
Another example, that my circle of mostly moderates talk about is this activist obsession with trans right.
Transgendered people represent about 0.7% of the population and that's whose rights the Democratic Party wants to focus on? If it does not resonate with moderates in large urban areas, how does that sit with midwestern suburban types?
Seems like the democratic party is living up to it's reputation of seizing abject defeat from the jaws of victory.
As we saw in VA, a moderate GOP candidate with a fresh face and eschewing the kooks will sweep to victory. The question is if they can do it at a national level
"The No. 1 issue for women right now is the economy, and the No. 1 issue for Black voters is the economy, and the No. 1 issue for Latino voters is the economy. I’m not advocating for us ignoring social issues, but when we think broadly about voters, they actually all want us talking about the economy and doing things to help them out economically."
Matt has had a number of columns recently where the answer to me seems clear. Politicians need to update their game and simply do politics better, meaning better read where the public is, better read where the public can be pushed, and better understand when the public might usefully be persuaded to move outside a comfort zone.
I don't understand this piece. I don't think anyone is arguing that the Democratic party ought to adopt the policies of Bill Clinton.
The Sista Souljah comparison is relevant because at that time, Bill Clinton understood that it was more important to speak to what was actually popular with the black community than it was to pander to Jesse Jackson and the other activists to get their endorsement. Jackson and the other activists were out of the African American mainstream and that is the reason why Clinton's Sista Soulja moment worked, even though it still seems to piss off some activists today.
So the reason that historical example is relevant is the same - the activist base has gotten way over its skis and is outside of the Democratic mainstream, to say nothing of the national mainstream. Politicians and the political class, therefore, ought to moderate their views, tone, and policy more toward the mainstream.
This is really about adopting the "popularism" stance that you've advocated for. It just so happens that is more "conservative" than where the activist left is currently.
It's also really politics 101 - you go where the people you want to support you actually are (or at least near there), you don't lecture and alienate potential supporters by clinging to narrow and unpopular ideas and telling people who don't support them that they are stupid or bad. Which is one thing too many on the activist left are very good at doing.
Whenever a more centrist pundit suggests adopting Clinton-like tactics, progressives like to turn the argument into a binary choice between full-on progressivism and full-on Clinton-ism as a way make their position seem more reasonable.
I think this piece is intending to put in perspective what exactly has changed and what hasn't since the days of Clinton.
Exactly this. Biden could have forcefully broken from the woke craziness. But he refused to do so.
Likewise in Virginia McAuliffe was continuing to suck up the the teachers unions and spouting nonsense about Parents shouldn't have a say in their education, when instead he should have been pushing back against the CRT and school closures.
Youngkin is a good comparison. He appealed to moderate normies without alienating the Trumpy base. He could give Trump the Heismann but not intentionally piss off Trump voters.
That really what Democrats should be doing as well if they want to do better in elections - they don't need to tell the DEI/CRT crazies to pound sand, but they shouldn't let them control the agenda. Instead, focus on normies and normie interests because that's where the votes are.
They should make every meaningless gesture possible to appeal to pro-life voters. Have candidates who say they are "personally pro-life" and oppose even good pro-abortion measures that don't stand a chance of passing. This may mean having D purple state governors who support bans on third term abortions and things like that. The salience of abortion as an issue is going to shoot way up once the court rules, and Democrats need to be smart about it and aware of where the public stands.
My nightmare: abortion is banned or nearly banned in 20 states and Democrats get maneuvered into making the national debate about whether the term "partial-birth abortion" is approved by experts. Is there a place for opponents of late-term abortion in the democratic party? Should an associate professor who voted for a state referendum against late-term abortion get tenure at a liberal arts college? etc. The supreme court is in a position to overturn Roe because Democrats have been treading water / losing the abortion debate for the past 30 years (the contrast with attitudes to homosexuality is really striking). I worry that instead of trying to win it they'll deny that there's a debate.
This. A lot of what you see with more moderate Dems is they want to tell the DEI folks to pound sand. You think Dems have it tough now -- imagine if they split the black vote with Republicans.
But you can moderate without telling, arguably your most loyal base, that we don't think very highly of you. I think you simply focus on pushing justice for everyone, scientific and rigorous thinking, and lighweight fairness -- you move the needle toward the left. And then you paint the people who want to stop affirmitive action or think white males are the oppressed class as the crazies.
It's a really easy social message. The only problem with it is that it looks like it moves slowly. It looks like it isn't tackling the biggest problems of the day. But it is, but just in a way that people are ready to hear it.
Much less crazy. I don't question the existence and effects of institutional racism but affirmative action, while admirable in concept, has a strong tendency in practice to degenerate into BS and quotas in practice. people can see this so it doesn't help to call them crazy
I suspect you aren't in the Black community AT ALL. There are probably stupid and offensive ideas, but the core idea that diversity has value and black lives matter (not the org, but the concept) is one that is largely supported by Black people and voters.
Race based messaging doesn't work. Which is why I mentioned in my other post that you responded to that you don't need to do race based messaging. BUT messaging that tells them that diversity, equity and inclusion are stupid and you should pound sand will not be met with indifference.
The problem is that the core Democratic base is too small. Basically professionals plus left activists plus traditionally Democratic minorities. Not nearly enough normies in it to set the agenda. So Biden doesn't have the power to stop the crazies from controlling the agenda, even if he wants to.
Your comment makes me think that some enterprising soul (no pun intended) should do a “Sister Souljah moment that we remember” vs “what really happened” story.
That would be good! I'm too young to actually remember, but according to Wikipedia what she said (in the context of the Rodney King riots) was "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?" I'm sure she was just speaking in the heat of the moment, I don't think that represents her soberly formulated opinion about what we should do.
Anyway her name has because a byword for repudiating the fringe of your party, but it's not like she was expressing a policy view that some faction of Democrats espoused or something. But she was associated with Jesse Jackson in some way and Clinton was I guess criticizing him for breaking break with her. Although apparently Clinton and Jackson later patched it up.
Lots of potential ways to read this depending on the view you take!
To steal 538's "good use or bad use of polling" this is a good use of polling by MY. Since people have only the vaguest idea about the question being asked, polls are inherently flawed, but if they're to be used, it's much more important to focus on rates rather than levels. That is, I'm much more interested in people's vague opinions are changing over time than what the exact proportions are among the population today. Showing the 1996 to 2021 comparison that MY uses here shows us something real, I think, and much more so than simply saying that 50% of the population priorities the environment over economic growth (I have no idea what that would mean).
My wish for pollsters on issues questions is that they would always include an intensity factor, with people being asked to rate issues in terms of importance to them, allowing us to also see trends in intensity of concern over time.
One thing these charts really strike home for me is just how fast public opinion shifted on marriage equality. I remember being really depressed in 2004 at seeing Oregon pass a same-sex marriage ban.
You should look into the unprecedented surge in California tax revenue and the completely unexpected window it may provide into a long standing issue of interest for you: the administrative competency of well-resourced blue states
Everything in this piece after the first paragraph is good, but the premise of it seems to be operating off of a pretty idiosyncratic definition (or perhaps lack thereof) of "Sister Souljah." Pulling a "Sister Souljah" just means publicly criticizing the extremists in your coalition. (The real Sister Souljah, for the zoomers out there, was a rapper with some extremist views who had gotten into the news in the early days of the 1992 presidential campaign.) This is a pretty standard move in politics. Bush did it a bit in 2000. Even Trump kinda-sorta did it in his peculiar coalition-scrambling way in 2016.
Obviously what qualifies as "extremist" will vary with changes in public opinion over time. But the principle is sound and has pretty universal application. What makes Democratic versions of "Sister Souljah" a bit more fraught than Republican versions is that right-wing extremists generally understand what Republican politicians are trying to do and don't get as upset about it. Left-wing extremists tend to get more upset. But that's no reason not to publicly criticize them since (a) as Matt has written many times, they don't represent very many Americans, plus they mostly live in deep-blue districts and don't vote anyway, so you lose nothing, (b) swing voters dislike left-wing extremists regardless of faction (intersectional, socialist, anarchist) so them being angry at you is probably politically beneficial.
If Bret Stephens or anyone else out there is using "Sister Souljah" to refer more broadly to Bill Clinton's political tactics writ large, then they're using the term in a weird way. Yes, obviously Democrats should not do exactly what Bill Clinton did on everything, as the times and circumstances have changed.
Sister Souljah seems to have different meanings for everyone. To wonks it was a preemptive tactical move against Al Sharpton. To centrists it was pushback against extremists. And, I think, to people like Brett Stevens it is code for pushback specifically against the left wing of the party.
In that context, I think "Sister Souljah" means rhetorically kneecapping the left wing of the party by forcing them to defend some of their crazier positions publicly. Like, some of the stuff "the squad" says is really is batshit crazy and it's too easy for Republicans to hang their comments (and votes) around Biden. Presidents used to say and act like "I am president of all Americans, not just the ones who voted for me." Trump famously and repeatedly said and did the exact opposite, which is now the default assumption, so Biden needs to find a way to restore that axiom.
I see Trump maybe a bit differently here. He did attack a few default GOP positions and they haven't really recovered. Instinctually dovish. Probably best described as "anti-globalist". He took entitlement spending off the table.
I think it is a fool's errand to find any consistency in Trump's policy positions and those adopted downstream by the GOP. His whole presidency was a feedback loop with his most loyal adherents. He would literally get up in front of a crowd at rallies and test lines. The ones that got the most applause turned into positions, which the political apparatus then tried to turn into policy. Eventually, the feedback loop got so tight that the litmus test became "whatever makes the libs angry" because that is what got the biggest applause. The GOP just gave up entirely at one point and had a single plank in their platform: Wut Trump sed.
Exactly. MY often credits Trump for being smart to toss Republican orthodoxy on cutting entitlements to the side. I think it's more that he just didn't give a damn about those boring issues. He just wanted to stoke ethnic hatred and pump up his own magnificence. He didn't care about anything else. Still doesn't.
"He just wanted to stoke ethnic hatred and pump up his own magnificence."
You give him to much credit/blame. Don't think he cares about ethnic hatred - it was ALL about pumping up his own magnificence. He used whatever was available to do that, including the ethnic/race issues.
I'd describe Trump as "instinctually isolationist," not "instinctually dovish." There was no evidence he actually thought the US military should be downsized or limited in its potential scope of operations. It just appeared that he thought various recent uses of it weren't in the national interest, which he defined pretty much exclusively in terms of US territorial integrity.
You're giving too much credit to Trump's "thinking" here. He saw all foreign policy issues in terms of "does this make the US (or me!) *look* like a winner or a loser?" and "are they treating the US (or me!) as a chump?"
Oh, and "I have a real soft spot in my heart for brutish foreign leaders because they look like winners and tough guys."
He wouldn't know a "national interest" if it caused bone spurs in his heel.
I think it's a mistake to say anyone doesn't think about things. Trump's views were muddled on many issues, but his foreign policy/national security views were pretty well within the bounds of traditional American isolationism (raise trade barriers; raise immigration barriers; strong US military; no overseas operations except where they are specifically for the benefit of the US). The palling around with foreign strongmen thing is the only true exception I can think of. (Traditional isolationists would avoid that because of viewing such types as "unAmerican.") Trump didn't halt existing overseas military operations, but that seems to have been at least in part because he was conned by the foreign policy/national security establishment into continuing them.
The other thing to know about Sister Souljah is she was a Rutgers alum and went on to be a bestselling novelist. I remember her first novel getting positive reviews, although I've never read it. According to Wikipedia, her books have made the New York Times bestseller list three times.
Yeah, I've spent the last few years in a lot of center-left (but explicitly not far-left) spaces, and it's all kind of tedious at this point. Maybe I should start actually going out and doing things instead of bitching on the Internet.
I agree, even though I'm probably more on the side of the anti-woke stuff than even the norm here. We all get it. Slow Boring commenters are the choir. Stop preaching to us.
I don't think Biden taking a harder conservative position on one big issue will help (and "race baiting" certainly will not help him either...that being said Sister Souljah's comment was wrong, bad, and Clinton was right to condemn it).
That being said: I think Biden won because he openly shared his disagreements with progressive activists, and Biden should continue to ensure the public knows: he does not support "Defund the Police" nor does he support CRT/the 1619 Project in public schools. There should be daylight between Biden and Bernie Sanders.
I think Biden recalibrating on immigration would be great. Offer Mitch a trade: extra fencing/barriers (or a wall, if you insist) on parts of the border, radically change asylum laws, increase funding for judges/the border in exchange for increased legal immigration. Note: this is not a capitulation, it's a change in tactics. The trouble Biden is in now is the GOP has little incentive to settle with him (since they're so close to retaking Congress) and the hawks in the GOP are more hawkish than ever. The other problem is his own caucus is rather rancorous as well. This would be the time to end the filibuster and compromise on a bunch of issues. A few ideas:
1. Compromise with Romney on the child tax credit
2. Compromise with Hawley on the big tech companies
3. Compromise with Rubio et. al on immigration
4. Compromise with Toomey on gun control
5. Compromise with Portman on trade
There's a lot Biden can do with individual Republicans; there's not much he can do with them as a caucus.
"Offer Mitch a trade: extra fencing/barriers (or a wall, if you insist) on parts of the border, radically change asylum laws, increase funding for judges/the border in exchange for increased legal immigration."
I like that this is ~basically the Gang of 8 bipartisan immigration deal that passed the Senate in 2013 and then died in the Boehner/Tea Party House of Reps.
I do think a "Sister Souljah" moment would be great for Biden on the DEI industrial complex, in particular in schools.
If he went against the de-tracking and watering down standards in the name of "equity" that would make a lot of independent voters, in particular AAPI voters who see this "equity" work often used against them, happy.
I also think it would be good to do it with the uber woke DA's who are going light on crime for "equity" reasons.
These would be almost universally popular.
But as Biden stays quiet, it is easy for the right to associate him with Kendi/DiAngeloism.
The degree to which the Federal Government seems to have been filled up by DEI-loving progressives is disturbing to me. The tell-tale language (e.g. “harmful content”, “equity”) pops up not just in high-profile social policy areas but in some surprisingly minor places (look at the warning on the National Archives site proposing to de-platform “problematical” historical documents). Whether we can trust reliable Joe Biden not to buy into that stuff is kind of irrelevant, when the people who are the most visibly speaking and acting on his behalf are exactly what the Republicans say they are. It’s not just Fox News at work here.
I'd have to dig through the archives to find it, but when MattY first started analyzing the prevalence of troublesome DEI, he argued that it was a consequence of college-age activists. If you can convince an administrator that a policy discriminates against the poor, the administrator won't care. But if you argue that it's racist, they'll drop the policy to avoid lawsuits.
I think you're observing the same phenomenon. The government is free to discriminate against the poor (although we would rather it didn't), but it is unconstitutional for the government to generate racism. So DEI-based policy arguments are much more effective within the bureaucracy.
I would love to sink much of the DEI industrial complex. Let these hucksters get real jobs where they actually have to provide value for their pay instead of spouting off bullcrap that has no science or empirical evidence behind it and can not be questioned.
Stop forcing CVS workers to do privilege ladders or telling Fast Food workers that they have "privilege."
OMIGOD! This is the other thing my circle complains about.
I don't have kids and hence can't speak to it. Schools and teachers are remarkably unpopular with parents. This move away from standardized testing has people up in arms mostly because there are now no rules which will only hurt the most marginalized
I know multiple people who pulled their kids out of school, to home school them, and these are folks who would much rather have their kids at school.
The ones who could, went with private schools and those that could not afford that but could do home schooling went there. The others just bitterly complain
A Democratic candidate, somewhere, anywhere, who pulls a "Sister Soujah" movement against the "DEI industrial complex" will win a lot of moderate support.
Seems to me that the right place for such a move would be in a blue state since that's where the teacher's union types are ingrained
And the "Defense Attorneys pretending to be DA's" have had their movement. Chesa Boudin will be recalled and his "twin" in Seattle lost "bigly" in Seattle
Agree with this. The regular democratic party needs to start bashing some of the far left stuff on 'wokeism' and do it really aggressively or risk losing moderate middle class voters (both whites and minorities) for a generation. The public impression on this topic is a really big deal and small measures will not be enough to shift it at this point.
Not to mention the near term problems of a Republican takeover in 2022 and 2024 and the risk of the subsequent end of American democracy. No big deal there.
Nor will he, because this has been outsourced to progressive advocates with incoherent and unpopular policy ideas that pollute the whole discourse. They (we) are discovering that you can't legislate from the street.
Whether they pipe down or not is outside the control of the Democratic party. You just need to make it clear that the democratic party is adamantly opposed to the extreme version of that movement in the mind of the public. A mass protest movement that doesn't have the support of the majority of the voting public is nothing.
Poverty in the U.S. has dropped 45% or by 20M due to the pandemic aid. By far the largest drops are Hispanic and Black races. With hindsight, the ARR was poorly structured. No demand side fiscal stimulus in needed. But poverty is at record low levels.
Here might be an even better story on the direct impact of the CTC expansion ... 40% drop in child poverty from June to July 2021. This is how you breakdown structural racism.
Well, since all future legislation will require 60 votes in the Senate, I'd say no changes and no new laws.
Since the entire goal here is to win elections, then he should do what he can or more precisely sit back and hope for economic and pandemic improvement that will make people feel better, and use his bully pulpit judiciously to define the Democratic party in voters' eyes, and not let it be defined by the most woke.
Great example. There was a coordinated national push planned on this (obviously) with a strategy years in the making led by Obama and Brittany Packnett. Signed up Oprah, Ariana Grande, etc. They hit go on it after George Floyd was murdered, and the whole thing was trashed by the ‘Defund’ folks, called everyone sellouts, spouting off about the evils of incrementalism, etc. Everything swung to defund instead, where we got nothing and also provoked a backlash. Squandered the best chance in a generation for police reform and also did damage in other areas.
So, I see folks in this thread calling it hippie bashing and maybe it is. But I care a lot about getting this stuff done so I am angry and if I feel folks are being destructive I’m going to say so.
I see similar dynamics unfolding on homelessness and drug addiction right now, and also on education. The most likely outcome is that a lot of good ideas are set back by another 20 years. It’s frustrating!
That may be the publicity story of 8CW, but it's not the policy story. The policy story is that Cory Booker and Karen Bass worked hard with Tim Scott on legislation that would've addressed many of the 8CW priorities, at least the ones the federal government has the power to address. But talks fell apart on the GOP side, in part because the National Association of Sheriffs, by far the Trumpiest of the law enforcement unions, opposed the compromises, even where other unions didn't. So if 8CW's nonprofit efforts were scuttled by progressive pushback, the genuine policy reforms were killed by conservatives. Which is a more substantial loss?
But how do you get there? I believe you get there by changing public opinion enough that the NaS has to back down or that the incentives are for Republicans to ignore their objections. We have moved farther away from that political climate, not closer. There’s a reason there’s also been very little action at the state or local levels, and that’s because it’s being
If your question is, shouldn’t my bigger beef be with Republicans, then yeah, sure, 100%, which is why I’m a Democrat.
Thanks. As FrigidWind says, 8CW seems like more of a state level issue.
I'm surprised you didn't mention anything about police accountability and breaking the grip of police unions. For me, they're really at the center of the policy brutality issue, especially the way they prevent holding bad officers accountable. Also, I think qualified immunity reform is low hanging fruit that doesn't get as much attention as it should.
Here is how weird things have been since the murder of George Floyd.
George Floyd was murdered by police, therefore we must remove gifted programs from schools and tell teachers that even the idea of tests is "white supremacy culture."
George Floyd was murdered by police, therefore we must adopt the ever-changing orthodoxy of the Genderqueer theory and treat it like it is unquestioned divine truth. We must do this in schools, work, and culture.
George Floyd was murdered by police, therefore we must accept thousands of extra black deaths a year and cities become war zones where kids are shot. We must minimize any talk of this.
George Floyd was murdered by police, therefore we liberals must turn our messaging over to complete frauds and grifters in the DEI industrial complex and hand over power to Republicans because they turn everyone off including black voters.
George Floyd was murdered by police, so we must embrace absolute pseudo-history like much of the 1619 Project. We must say patently absurd things like the idea of police comes from slave patrols even though there were police forces in Europe long before there were any in America. Nobody must ever even think to correct this, because you are not "centering marginalized voices of color."
George Floyd was murdered by police, so we must embrace nonsense like the idea that everyone white, black, Asian, Hispanic, who has a Thanksgiving dinner must be lectured to that they are celebrating genocide.
None of this logically followed, but it is what happened.
Did it happen, though? I don't have any social media accounts, I get my news from CNN, NYT, and local affiliates, and I get my commentary from Slate, The Atlantic, Vox, and this Substack. I have seen some express some of the opinions you find so objectionable. I have seen just as many disagree. To the extent that institutions have pursued any of this, it's primarily private institutions, and it's their right to waste their time how they want. Rumors of the revolution are greatly exaggerated, and most of what you seem to be complaining about amount to little more than press releases.
I agree that many of the supposed shifts listed above have mostly been talk in elite-level circles instead of substantive change, but I think it's important to recognize that injecting too many radical ideas into the discourse at once can scare people and generate a backlash. Also, many of the elite-level conversations trickle down to average people who may not fully understand the issue and get a wrong or misleading impression. The people who control the "discourse" have more cultural power than they realize, and they need to use it wisely. I know one of the core tenets of liberal democracy is "open debate", but unfortunately, in politics sometimes just introducing a new idea for consideration can scare people and generate a backlash even if that idea has no chance of actually getting implemented.
I'm white, and I really don't like speculating about what Black voters want to hear, but I don't think it's calling people who marched in protest of a murder "spouting off" and telling them to "wind it down" after achieving zero policy wins. I didn't protest, but if I heard Biden say that about protesters I'd be reluctant to vote for him again. A man died, a lot of people died, and to call justified anger and calls to action "spouting off" is just really gross.
As I replied to Brklyngrl, viable police reform was scuttled by the GOP. 8CW got some bad press from their left, but as far as I can tell is still an active project.
Really. They don’t support talking about Black inventors or working to create more fairness in punishment of black students? I find that hard to believe. What area is this?
If we were simply talking about bringing in more history about black Americans or books by authors we would be fine.
If we wanted fair discipline that would be fine.
But that is not where the DEI industrial complex is. It is basically turning schools into absolute chaotic places where there is no discipline. The curriculum gets watered down more and more due to "equity." Higher tracks are gotten rid of. School becomes a place to heal "trauma" instead of a place of learning and socialization.
That's how DEI is painted by the conservative media, but not what is happening in most places. For example, in Southlake there was NEVER a call to reduce discipline. Quite the opposite, the call was to INCREASE discipline. But the response was to not apply discipline in the cases that were brought to the school. How does this suddenly get misconstrued as "no discipline". In general DEI doesn't ask to reduce discipline, but to apply it fairly.
DEI is mostly about taking a step back from saying, "the core goal is to make sure these students feel comfortable" and saying "let;s make all students feel comfortable". Which is hard to do when society is centered around straight white males. If you're straight or white or male (or some combination) you'll feel like you have to make space on the couch (weren't they comfortable enough sitting on the floor?). DEI doesn't want to kick straight white males off the couch, but as of yet, they really don't want to give up too much room on the couch either.
"And yes it is racist to say things like the 'written word' is white supremacist. Children of all types need discipline and structure in schools. You are not helping the most marginalized groups, by turning schools into chaos."
Interesting that support for gun control was higher when crime was higher -- implies that a common argument in favor of gun rights (they're for protection) doesn't actually work out that way in reality, and support for guns comes partly from the fact that they don't get used that much (outside maybe of hunting or hobbyists).
I generally agree with your points, but I think you ignore Clinton's political brilliance. I think he advanced the country's interests precisely because he understood how to persuade people, and was generally prepared to confine himself to issues that he had a chance of winning. It seems to me that most contemporary progressive pundits and politicians are either clueless about what is actually possible, or don't care.
The fact that support for environmentalism may have gone down as "basis of discussion has shifted away from clean water and air pollution and toward climate change" to me shows a real missed opportunity for the environmental movement. A lot of the same sources of emissions that cause global warming also harm local air quality, and Democrats could try going after sources of carbon emissions under the guise of cleaning up the air. That would at least present a more tangible tradeoff to voters rather than the more abstract problem of climate change.
I see this problem as being less about a "Sister Souljah" moment and more about Dems having split focus given the size of their current legislative drive. They're not cohesive on messaging, both because they're too busy for it right now, and because reaching a consensus on message would kick up more conflicts that would complicate an already fraught legislative process. Today is the wrong day for Biden and the party to have this fight, if they should even have it to begin with.
The commenters here complaining about how they, personally, have been ostracized or offended by progressive activists, and demanding that the President step in, are. . . a little much for me. I'm not a skinhead, so if a skinhead calls me a racist, I don't care. Likewise, I don't subscribe to Ibram Kendi's definitions of racism or white supremacy, so if Mr. Kendi, or someone who does subscribe to his views, calls me a racist or a white supremacist, I don't care.
One of the big problems this country has is the excessive nationalization of all political disputes. Fox News, and others, have fomented and profited off this trend, to our collective detriment. I'm not positive that Biden getting involved in every PTA screaming match is a solution to anything. I also think Biden learned something from the fallout of Obama's infamous "beer summit;" there, Obama intervened in a political conflict far below his station, didn't really solve anything, and made himself vulnerable to attack. Biden knows he's going to get tagged with progressive nonsense whether or not he responds to it, and thinks the smart thing is to keep his distance, focus on bread and butter issues, and wait for the news cycle to turn over. He might be right.
“ Likewise, I don't subscribe to Ibram Kendi's definitions of racism or white supremacy, so if Mr. Kendi, or someone who does subscribe to his views, calls me a racist or a white supremacist, I don't care.”
You’ll care if someone at work calls you Kendi’s definition of something. And you get put into a process.
What’s the expression, “If you have to explain yourself you’re losing?’”
I think my job and workplace are very, very different than yours. Assuming the "example" you've offered is based on your lived experience.
Matt is a moderate and "left of center"; way I describe my own positions. As such, he, I am certain finds himself accused of being a fascist at least 1/2 the time.
This would be one of those occasions
As a social progressive, living in a well left of center city, Seattle, I can't emphasize how pained, non activist progressives are with "The Squad" wing of the Democratic Party.
As an example, the guy leading the recall movement against Kshama Sawant is a older, white progressive gay man and that guy is being tarred as "Trumpist". And by the way, Ms Sawant is really indistinguishable from MTG and her ilk
The open question is if we will be more successful in beating them back than the GOP was in the hijacking of their party by the kooks
What is absolutely needed is a reset.
I was a young FOB during the Sister Soujah moment and I can tell you that lilly white conservative suburban types (although I did not quite know this at that time) in Texas were impressed by it.
Another example, that my circle of mostly moderates talk about is this activist obsession with trans right.
Transgendered people represent about 0.7% of the population and that's whose rights the Democratic Party wants to focus on? If it does not resonate with moderates in large urban areas, how does that sit with midwestern suburban types?
Seems like the democratic party is living up to it's reputation of seizing abject defeat from the jaws of victory.
As we saw in VA, a moderate GOP candidate with a fresh face and eschewing the kooks will sweep to victory. The question is if they can do it at a national level
From today's NYT, lessons from Virginia:
"The No. 1 issue for women right now is the economy, and the No. 1 issue for Black voters is the economy, and the No. 1 issue for Latino voters is the economy. I’m not advocating for us ignoring social issues, but when we think broadly about voters, they actually all want us talking about the economy and doing things to help them out economically."
Sounds like "It's the economy, stupid."
I'd say the lesson from Clinton is pretty simple.
Matt has had a number of columns recently where the answer to me seems clear. Politicians need to update their game and simply do politics better, meaning better read where the public is, better read where the public can be pushed, and better understand when the public might usefully be persuaded to move outside a comfort zone.
I don't understand this piece. I don't think anyone is arguing that the Democratic party ought to adopt the policies of Bill Clinton.
The Sista Souljah comparison is relevant because at that time, Bill Clinton understood that it was more important to speak to what was actually popular with the black community than it was to pander to Jesse Jackson and the other activists to get their endorsement. Jackson and the other activists were out of the African American mainstream and that is the reason why Clinton's Sista Soulja moment worked, even though it still seems to piss off some activists today.
So the reason that historical example is relevant is the same - the activist base has gotten way over its skis and is outside of the Democratic mainstream, to say nothing of the national mainstream. Politicians and the political class, therefore, ought to moderate their views, tone, and policy more toward the mainstream.
This is really about adopting the "popularism" stance that you've advocated for. It just so happens that is more "conservative" than where the activist left is currently.
It's also really politics 101 - you go where the people you want to support you actually are (or at least near there), you don't lecture and alienate potential supporters by clinging to narrow and unpopular ideas and telling people who don't support them that they are stupid or bad. Which is one thing too many on the activist left are very good at doing.
Whenever a more centrist pundit suggests adopting Clinton-like tactics, progressives like to turn the argument into a binary choice between full-on progressivism and full-on Clinton-ism as a way make their position seem more reasonable.
I think this piece is intending to put in perspective what exactly has changed and what hasn't since the days of Clinton.
Exactly this. Biden could have forcefully broken from the woke craziness. But he refused to do so.
Likewise in Virginia McAuliffe was continuing to suck up the the teachers unions and spouting nonsense about Parents shouldn't have a say in their education, when instead he should have been pushing back against the CRT and school closures.
Youngkin is a good comparison. He appealed to moderate normies without alienating the Trumpy base. He could give Trump the Heismann but not intentionally piss off Trump voters.
That really what Democrats should be doing as well if they want to do better in elections - they don't need to tell the DEI/CRT crazies to pound sand, but they shouldn't let them control the agenda. Instead, focus on normies and normie interests because that's where the votes are.
They should make every meaningless gesture possible to appeal to pro-life voters. Have candidates who say they are "personally pro-life" and oppose even good pro-abortion measures that don't stand a chance of passing. This may mean having D purple state governors who support bans on third term abortions and things like that. The salience of abortion as an issue is going to shoot way up once the court rules, and Democrats need to be smart about it and aware of where the public stands.
My nightmare: abortion is banned or nearly banned in 20 states and Democrats get maneuvered into making the national debate about whether the term "partial-birth abortion" is approved by experts. Is there a place for opponents of late-term abortion in the democratic party? Should an associate professor who voted for a state referendum against late-term abortion get tenure at a liberal arts college? etc. The supreme court is in a position to overturn Roe because Democrats have been treading water / losing the abortion debate for the past 30 years (the contrast with attitudes to homosexuality is really striking). I worry that instead of trying to win it they'll deny that there's a debate.
This. A lot of what you see with more moderate Dems is they want to tell the DEI folks to pound sand. You think Dems have it tough now -- imagine if they split the black vote with Republicans.
But you can moderate without telling, arguably your most loyal base, that we don't think very highly of you. I think you simply focus on pushing justice for everyone, scientific and rigorous thinking, and lighweight fairness -- you move the needle toward the left. And then you paint the people who want to stop affirmitive action or think white males are the oppressed class as the crazies.
It's a really easy social message. The only problem with it is that it looks like it moves slowly. It looks like it isn't tackling the biggest problems of the day. But it is, but just in a way that people are ready to hear it.
"white males are the oppressed class"
Definitely crazy
"stop affirmitive [sic] action"
Much less crazy. I don't question the existence and effects of institutional racism but affirmative action, while admirable in concept, has a strong tendency in practice to degenerate into BS and quotas in practice. people can see this so it doesn't help to call them crazy
I suspect you aren't in the Black community AT ALL. There are probably stupid and offensive ideas, but the core idea that diversity has value and black lives matter (not the org, but the concept) is one that is largely supported by Black people and voters.
Race based messaging doesn't work. Which is why I mentioned in my other post that you responded to that you don't need to do race based messaging. BUT messaging that tells them that diversity, equity and inclusion are stupid and you should pound sand will not be met with indifference.
The problem is that the core Democratic base is too small. Basically professionals plus left activists plus traditionally Democratic minorities. Not nearly enough normies in it to set the agenda. So Biden doesn't have the power to stop the crazies from controlling the agenda, even if he wants to.
Your comment makes me think that some enterprising soul (no pun intended) should do a “Sister Souljah moment that we remember” vs “what really happened” story.
That would be good! I'm too young to actually remember, but according to Wikipedia what she said (in the context of the Rodney King riots) was "If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?" I'm sure she was just speaking in the heat of the moment, I don't think that represents her soberly formulated opinion about what we should do.
Anyway her name has because a byword for repudiating the fringe of your party, but it's not like she was expressing a policy view that some faction of Democrats espoused or something. But she was associated with Jesse Jackson in some way and Clinton was I guess criticizing him for breaking break with her. Although apparently Clinton and Jackson later patched it up.
Lots of potential ways to read this depending on the view you take!
To steal 538's "good use or bad use of polling" this is a good use of polling by MY. Since people have only the vaguest idea about the question being asked, polls are inherently flawed, but if they're to be used, it's much more important to focus on rates rather than levels. That is, I'm much more interested in people's vague opinions are changing over time than what the exact proportions are among the population today. Showing the 1996 to 2021 comparison that MY uses here shows us something real, I think, and much more so than simply saying that 50% of the population priorities the environment over economic growth (I have no idea what that would mean).
My wish for pollsters on issues questions is that they would always include an intensity factor, with people being asked to rate issues in terms of importance to them, allowing us to also see trends in intensity of concern over time.
One thing these charts really strike home for me is just how fast public opinion shifted on marriage equality. I remember being really depressed in 2004 at seeing Oregon pass a same-sex marriage ban.
Matt, control + F "mostly."
Matt,
You should look into the unprecedented surge in California tax revenue and the completely unexpected window it may provide into a long standing issue of interest for you: the administrative competency of well-resourced blue states
Everything in this piece after the first paragraph is good, but the premise of it seems to be operating off of a pretty idiosyncratic definition (or perhaps lack thereof) of "Sister Souljah." Pulling a "Sister Souljah" just means publicly criticizing the extremists in your coalition. (The real Sister Souljah, for the zoomers out there, was a rapper with some extremist views who had gotten into the news in the early days of the 1992 presidential campaign.) This is a pretty standard move in politics. Bush did it a bit in 2000. Even Trump kinda-sorta did it in his peculiar coalition-scrambling way in 2016.
Obviously what qualifies as "extremist" will vary with changes in public opinion over time. But the principle is sound and has pretty universal application. What makes Democratic versions of "Sister Souljah" a bit more fraught than Republican versions is that right-wing extremists generally understand what Republican politicians are trying to do and don't get as upset about it. Left-wing extremists tend to get more upset. But that's no reason not to publicly criticize them since (a) as Matt has written many times, they don't represent very many Americans, plus they mostly live in deep-blue districts and don't vote anyway, so you lose nothing, (b) swing voters dislike left-wing extremists regardless of faction (intersectional, socialist, anarchist) so them being angry at you is probably politically beneficial.
If Bret Stephens or anyone else out there is using "Sister Souljah" to refer more broadly to Bill Clinton's political tactics writ large, then they're using the term in a weird way. Yes, obviously Democrats should not do exactly what Bill Clinton did on everything, as the times and circumstances have changed.
Sister Souljah seems to have different meanings for everyone. To wonks it was a preemptive tactical move against Al Sharpton. To centrists it was pushback against extremists. And, I think, to people like Brett Stevens it is code for pushback specifically against the left wing of the party.
In that context, I think "Sister Souljah" means rhetorically kneecapping the left wing of the party by forcing them to defend some of their crazier positions publicly. Like, some of the stuff "the squad" says is really is batshit crazy and it's too easy for Republicans to hang their comments (and votes) around Biden. Presidents used to say and act like "I am president of all Americans, not just the ones who voted for me." Trump famously and repeatedly said and did the exact opposite, which is now the default assumption, so Biden needs to find a way to restore that axiom.
I see Trump maybe a bit differently here. He did attack a few default GOP positions and they haven't really recovered. Instinctually dovish. Probably best described as "anti-globalist". He took entitlement spending off the table.
I think it is a fool's errand to find any consistency in Trump's policy positions and those adopted downstream by the GOP. His whole presidency was a feedback loop with his most loyal adherents. He would literally get up in front of a crowd at rallies and test lines. The ones that got the most applause turned into positions, which the political apparatus then tried to turn into policy. Eventually, the feedback loop got so tight that the litmus test became "whatever makes the libs angry" because that is what got the biggest applause. The GOP just gave up entirely at one point and had a single plank in their platform: Wut Trump sed.
Exactly. MY often credits Trump for being smart to toss Republican orthodoxy on cutting entitlements to the side. I think it's more that he just didn't give a damn about those boring issues. He just wanted to stoke ethnic hatred and pump up his own magnificence. He didn't care about anything else. Still doesn't.
"He just wanted to stoke ethnic hatred and pump up his own magnificence."
You give him to much credit/blame. Don't think he cares about ethnic hatred - it was ALL about pumping up his own magnificence. He used whatever was available to do that, including the ethnic/race issues.
That's a deeply sobering thought, on several dimensions.
I'd describe Trump as "instinctually isolationist," not "instinctually dovish." There was no evidence he actually thought the US military should be downsized or limited in its potential scope of operations. It just appeared that he thought various recent uses of it weren't in the national interest, which he defined pretty much exclusively in terms of US territorial integrity.
You're giving too much credit to Trump's "thinking" here. He saw all foreign policy issues in terms of "does this make the US (or me!) *look* like a winner or a loser?" and "are they treating the US (or me!) as a chump?"
Oh, and "I have a real soft spot in my heart for brutish foreign leaders because they look like winners and tough guys."
He wouldn't know a "national interest" if it caused bone spurs in his heel.
I think it's a mistake to say anyone doesn't think about things. Trump's views were muddled on many issues, but his foreign policy/national security views were pretty well within the bounds of traditional American isolationism (raise trade barriers; raise immigration barriers; strong US military; no overseas operations except where they are specifically for the benefit of the US). The palling around with foreign strongmen thing is the only true exception I can think of. (Traditional isolationists would avoid that because of viewing such types as "unAmerican.") Trump didn't halt existing overseas military operations, but that seems to have been at least in part because he was conned by the foreign policy/national security establishment into continuing them.
That's probably fair. Still - I think either position would break with GOP orthodoxy.
The other thing to know about Sister Souljah is she was a Rutgers alum and went on to be a bestselling novelist. I remember her first novel getting positive reviews, although I've never read it. According to Wikipedia, her books have made the New York Times bestseller list three times.
love this argument, which so nicely clarifies the landscape. but, whew, the hippie bashing in these comment threads is getting so tedious.
Yeah, I've spent the last few years in a lot of center-left (but explicitly not far-left) spaces, and it's all kind of tedious at this point. Maybe I should start actually going out and doing things instead of bitching on the Internet.
I agree, even though I'm probably more on the side of the anti-woke stuff than even the norm here. We all get it. Slow Boring commenters are the choir. Stop preaching to us.
I don't think Biden taking a harder conservative position on one big issue will help (and "race baiting" certainly will not help him either...that being said Sister Souljah's comment was wrong, bad, and Clinton was right to condemn it).
That being said: I think Biden won because he openly shared his disagreements with progressive activists, and Biden should continue to ensure the public knows: he does not support "Defund the Police" nor does he support CRT/the 1619 Project in public schools. There should be daylight between Biden and Bernie Sanders.
I think Biden recalibrating on immigration would be great. Offer Mitch a trade: extra fencing/barriers (or a wall, if you insist) on parts of the border, radically change asylum laws, increase funding for judges/the border in exchange for increased legal immigration. Note: this is not a capitulation, it's a change in tactics. The trouble Biden is in now is the GOP has little incentive to settle with him (since they're so close to retaking Congress) and the hawks in the GOP are more hawkish than ever. The other problem is his own caucus is rather rancorous as well. This would be the time to end the filibuster and compromise on a bunch of issues. A few ideas:
1. Compromise with Romney on the child tax credit
2. Compromise with Hawley on the big tech companies
3. Compromise with Rubio et. al on immigration
4. Compromise with Toomey on gun control
5. Compromise with Portman on trade
There's a lot Biden can do with individual Republicans; there's not much he can do with them as a caucus.
"Offer Mitch a trade: extra fencing/barriers (or a wall, if you insist) on parts of the border, radically change asylum laws, increase funding for judges/the border in exchange for increased legal immigration."
I like that this is ~basically the Gang of 8 bipartisan immigration deal that passed the Senate in 2013 and then died in the Boehner/Tea Party House of Reps.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Security,_Economic_Opportunity,_and_Immigration_Modernization_Act_of_2013
Hence why I said they should get rid of it
I do think a "Sister Souljah" moment would be great for Biden on the DEI industrial complex, in particular in schools.
If he went against the de-tracking and watering down standards in the name of "equity" that would make a lot of independent voters, in particular AAPI voters who see this "equity" work often used against them, happy.
I also think it would be good to do it with the uber woke DA's who are going light on crime for "equity" reasons.
These would be almost universally popular.
But as Biden stays quiet, it is easy for the right to associate him with Kendi/DiAngeloism.
The degree to which the Federal Government seems to have been filled up by DEI-loving progressives is disturbing to me. The tell-tale language (e.g. “harmful content”, “equity”) pops up not just in high-profile social policy areas but in some surprisingly minor places (look at the warning on the National Archives site proposing to de-platform “problematical” historical documents). Whether we can trust reliable Joe Biden not to buy into that stuff is kind of irrelevant, when the people who are the most visibly speaking and acting on his behalf are exactly what the Republicans say they are. It’s not just Fox News at work here.
I'd have to dig through the archives to find it, but when MattY first started analyzing the prevalence of troublesome DEI, he argued that it was a consequence of college-age activists. If you can convince an administrator that a policy discriminates against the poor, the administrator won't care. But if you argue that it's racist, they'll drop the policy to avoid lawsuits.
I think you're observing the same phenomenon. The government is free to discriminate against the poor (although we would rather it didn't), but it is unconstitutional for the government to generate racism. So DEI-based policy arguments are much more effective within the bureaucracy.
This feels similar to Richard Hanania's conclusions about civil rights law and "woke institutions": https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights
I would love to sink much of the DEI industrial complex. Let these hucksters get real jobs where they actually have to provide value for their pay instead of spouting off bullcrap that has no science or empirical evidence behind it and can not be questioned.
Stop forcing CVS workers to do privilege ladders or telling Fast Food workers that they have "privilege."
OMIGOD! This is the other thing my circle complains about.
I don't have kids and hence can't speak to it. Schools and teachers are remarkably unpopular with parents. This move away from standardized testing has people up in arms mostly because there are now no rules which will only hurt the most marginalized
I know multiple people who pulled their kids out of school, to home school them, and these are folks who would much rather have their kids at school.
The ones who could, went with private schools and those that could not afford that but could do home schooling went there. The others just bitterly complain
A Democratic candidate, somewhere, anywhere, who pulls a "Sister Soujah" movement against the "DEI industrial complex" will win a lot of moderate support.
Seems to me that the right place for such a move would be in a blue state since that's where the teacher's union types are ingrained
And the "Defense Attorneys pretending to be DA's" have had their movement. Chesa Boudin will be recalled and his "twin" in Seattle lost "bigly" in Seattle
Agree with this. The regular democratic party needs to start bashing some of the far left stuff on 'wokeism' and do it really aggressively or risk losing moderate middle class voters (both whites and minorities) for a generation. The public impression on this topic is a really big deal and small measures will not be enough to shift it at this point.
Not to mention the near term problems of a Republican takeover in 2022 and 2024 and the risk of the subsequent end of American democracy. No big deal there.
Nor will he, because this has been outsourced to progressive advocates with incoherent and unpopular policy ideas that pollute the whole discourse. They (we) are discovering that you can't legislate from the street.
Whether they pipe down or not is outside the control of the Democratic party. You just need to make it clear that the democratic party is adamantly opposed to the extreme version of that movement in the mind of the public. A mass protest movement that doesn't have the support of the majority of the voting public is nothing.
+1. Please, Dems! This should be a no-brainer (as well as, obviously, the right thing to do on substance as well as politics).
Poverty in the U.S. has dropped 45% or by 20M due to the pandemic aid. By far the largest drops are Hispanic and Black races. With hindsight, the ARR was poorly structured. No demand side fiscal stimulus in needed. But poverty is at record low levels.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/us/politics/covid-poverty-aid-programs.html
Here might be an even better story on the direct impact of the CTC expansion ... 40% drop in child poverty from June to July 2021. This is how you breakdown structural racism.
https://www.povertycenter.columbia.edu/news-internal/monthly-poverty-july-2021
Full brief:
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5743308460b5e922a25a6dc7/t/612014f2e6deed08adb03e18/1629492468260/Monthly-Poverty-with-CTC-July-CPSP-2021.pdf
BTW -- Just using a Kendi anti-racism definition here. The ARR was likely *THE* most anti-racist policy ever implemented.
Double reply ... I don't know why ARP auto-corrected to ARR. I mean the American Rescue Plan. Ugh to lack of edit.
It was the Speak Like a Pirate Day version of the ARP.
What are the specific changes to the law or new programs you think he should get passed?
Well, since all future legislation will require 60 votes in the Senate, I'd say no changes and no new laws.
Since the entire goal here is to win elections, then he should do what he can or more precisely sit back and hope for economic and pandemic improvement that will make people feel better, and use his bully pulpit judiciously to define the Democratic party in voters' eyes, and not let it be defined by the most woke.
There could have been a police reform bill.
Not one with at least 10 Republican votes in the Senate.
Great example. There was a coordinated national push planned on this (obviously) with a strategy years in the making led by Obama and Brittany Packnett. Signed up Oprah, Ariana Grande, etc. They hit go on it after George Floyd was murdered, and the whole thing was trashed by the ‘Defund’ folks, called everyone sellouts, spouting off about the evils of incrementalism, etc. Everything swung to defund instead, where we got nothing and also provoked a backlash. Squandered the best chance in a generation for police reform and also did damage in other areas.
So, I see folks in this thread calling it hippie bashing and maybe it is. But I care a lot about getting this stuff done so I am angry and if I feel folks are being destructive I’m going to say so.
I see similar dynamics unfolding on homelessness and drug addiction right now, and also on education. The most likely outcome is that a lot of good ideas are set back by another 20 years. It’s frustrating!
That may be the publicity story of 8CW, but it's not the policy story. The policy story is that Cory Booker and Karen Bass worked hard with Tim Scott on legislation that would've addressed many of the 8CW priorities, at least the ones the federal government has the power to address. But talks fell apart on the GOP side, in part because the National Association of Sheriffs, by far the Trumpiest of the law enforcement unions, opposed the compromises, even where other unions didn't. So if 8CW's nonprofit efforts were scuttled by progressive pushback, the genuine policy reforms were killed by conservatives. Which is a more substantial loss?
The policy is a more substantial loss.
But how do you get there? I believe you get there by changing public opinion enough that the NaS has to back down or that the incentives are for Republicans to ignore their objections. We have moved farther away from that political climate, not closer. There’s a reason there’s also been very little action at the state or local levels, and that’s because it’s being
If your question is, shouldn’t my bigger beef be with Republicans, then yeah, sure, 100%, which is why I’m a Democrat.
Thanks. As FrigidWind says, 8CW seems like more of a state level issue.
I'm surprised you didn't mention anything about police accountability and breaking the grip of police unions. For me, they're really at the center of the policy brutality issue, especially the way they prevent holding bad officers accountable. Also, I think qualified immunity reform is low hanging fruit that doesn't get as much attention as it should.
What about laws to address systemic racism?
Hey I just want to chime in here to say I don’t like to see threats to shoot people, even if meant in jest. Chill everyone.
Defund was a false flag operation from the Right!!! \s
I'm convinced Sunrise is one. That's the only way their inconsistent actions make any sense.
Here is how weird things have been since the murder of George Floyd.
George Floyd was murdered by police, therefore we must remove gifted programs from schools and tell teachers that even the idea of tests is "white supremacy culture."
George Floyd was murdered by police, therefore we must adopt the ever-changing orthodoxy of the Genderqueer theory and treat it like it is unquestioned divine truth. We must do this in schools, work, and culture.
George Floyd was murdered by police, therefore we must accept thousands of extra black deaths a year and cities become war zones where kids are shot. We must minimize any talk of this.
George Floyd was murdered by police, therefore we liberals must turn our messaging over to complete frauds and grifters in the DEI industrial complex and hand over power to Republicans because they turn everyone off including black voters.
George Floyd was murdered by police, so we must embrace absolute pseudo-history like much of the 1619 Project. We must say patently absurd things like the idea of police comes from slave patrols even though there were police forces in Europe long before there were any in America. Nobody must ever even think to correct this, because you are not "centering marginalized voices of color."
George Floyd was murdered by police, so we must embrace nonsense like the idea that everyone white, black, Asian, Hispanic, who has a Thanksgiving dinner must be lectured to that they are celebrating genocide.
None of this logically followed, but it is what happened.
Did it happen, though? I don't have any social media accounts, I get my news from CNN, NYT, and local affiliates, and I get my commentary from Slate, The Atlantic, Vox, and this Substack. I have seen some express some of the opinions you find so objectionable. I have seen just as many disagree. To the extent that institutions have pursued any of this, it's primarily private institutions, and it's their right to waste their time how they want. Rumors of the revolution are greatly exaggerated, and most of what you seem to be complaining about amount to little more than press releases.
I agree that many of the supposed shifts listed above have mostly been talk in elite-level circles instead of substantive change, but I think it's important to recognize that injecting too many radical ideas into the discourse at once can scare people and generate a backlash. Also, many of the elite-level conversations trickle down to average people who may not fully understand the issue and get a wrong or misleading impression. The people who control the "discourse" have more cultural power than they realize, and they need to use it wisely. I know one of the core tenets of liberal democracy is "open debate", but unfortunately, in politics sometimes just introducing a new idea for consideration can scare people and generate a backlash even if that idea has no chance of actually getting implemented.
Public schools have absolutely embraced this.
I'm white, and I really don't like speculating about what Black voters want to hear, but I don't think it's calling people who marched in protest of a murder "spouting off" and telling them to "wind it down" after achieving zero policy wins. I didn't protest, but if I heard Biden say that about protesters I'd be reluctant to vote for him again. A man died, a lot of people died, and to call justified anger and calls to action "spouting off" is just really gross.
I think the 2 of you are just talking far past each other and referencing different people receiving this hypothetical message from Biden.
FrigidWind is picturing activists on twitter. You're picturing Black people at BLM protests.
As I replied to Brklyngrl, viable police reform was scuttled by the GOP. 8CW got some bad press from their left, but as far as I can tell is still an active project.
I think you have a secret agenda to destroy Dems. :-)
Seriously though. I'm not sure how many moderates this gains, but loses a huge majority of Blacks I suspect.
Really. They don’t support talking about Black inventors or working to create more fairness in punishment of black students? I find that hard to believe. What area is this?
That is the strawman that is put out.
If we were simply talking about bringing in more history about black Americans or books by authors we would be fine.
If we wanted fair discipline that would be fine.
But that is not where the DEI industrial complex is. It is basically turning schools into absolute chaotic places where there is no discipline. The curriculum gets watered down more and more due to "equity." Higher tracks are gotten rid of. School becomes a place to heal "trauma" instead of a place of learning and socialization.
That's how DEI is painted by the conservative media, but not what is happening in most places. For example, in Southlake there was NEVER a call to reduce discipline. Quite the opposite, the call was to INCREASE discipline. But the response was to not apply discipline in the cases that were brought to the school. How does this suddenly get misconstrued as "no discipline". In general DEI doesn't ask to reduce discipline, but to apply it fairly.
DEI is mostly about taking a step back from saying, "the core goal is to make sure these students feel comfortable" and saying "let;s make all students feel comfortable". Which is hard to do when society is centered around straight white males. If you're straight or white or male (or some combination) you'll feel like you have to make space on the couch (weren't they comfortable enough sitting on the floor?). DEI doesn't want to kick straight white males off the couch, but as of yet, they really don't want to give up too much room on the couch either.
Eric Adams has complained about racism in policing.
Opposing wokeness doesn't mean denying racism, and Black voters certainly do not believe life is equal for Blacks and Whites in the US
"And yes it is racist to say things like the 'written word' is white supremacist. Children of all types need discipline and structure in schools. You are not helping the most marginalized groups, by turning schools into chaos."
As if nonwhite people didn't *invent* writing systems.
exactly.
I know that is the strangest thing about this type of DEI nonsense. There is no knowledge of history.
*hxrstory
Folx
I would dig it.
When has Fetterman said any of this?