apple juice

Great title, scary article. Is this happening out there in the real world?

How to survive the broligarchy

Uff dah, as we say up here.

I’ve resisted posting anything about the election because I’m not sure I have organized my thoughts in any particular way that makes sense. I read and liked this piece though, and I hope to see more thinking, writing, planning, and action like this proposal from Matthew Yglesias.

I don’t know that I agree with all of it, but I want to amplify the point: The democrats need to rebuild the platform and also learn how to talk about it again.

A Common Sense Democrat manifesto – by Matthew Yglesias:

Nine principles for Common Sense Democrats

My goal here is to write these principles down at an adequate level of abstraction such that they don’t become a policy laundry list. They’re also not supposed to be a straitjacket. Different people have different views and different priorities, and principles need to be loose enough to accommodate some differences.

Anyway, it’s worth a read.

Letters from an American, January 19, 2024

Great post here. I recommend subscribing to this newsletter if you haven’t already.

I wonder if we’ll ever get a new political party out of all the current mess.

Fetterman is an interesting case:

Fetterman, Breaking With the Left on Israel, Rejects ‘Progressive’ Label

“Can’t it be possible that it’s really appropriate to stand for both?”

That quote is out out of context – but the sentiment is there… all of this stuff is more complex than most of our public discourse has time for.

Opinion | A Lost Manuscript Shows the Fire Barack Obama Couldn’t Reveal on the Campaign Trail – The New York Times:

That’s a shame, because reading “Transformative Politics” today is a bracing experience.

This is a great article – well worth reading.

Democrats,

Specifically, the ActionNetwork and NGP VAN people.

Do better.

Look, on one hand, I totally get it. You’ve built out advanced CRM systems for political campaigns in order to help democrats up and down the ballot target people more effectively, raise money, and hopefully win campaigns. Data and contact information help the campaigns spend their time and volunteer power to receive the greatest possible impact.

But there is **no way** that I signed for all of these emails.

I care, on one level, that a city council person in Dubuque, Iowa is running. Good for you. I didn’t sign up for your email list though. I’m not giving you money.

Slow clap for the person who’s running against the other person with a chance to flip the seat blue in November. I also didn’t sign up for your list either.

Congratulations person who has been endorsed by all the groups that I nominally support who is running against the other person whose views I disagree with. I didn’t sign up for that email list either. I’m not planning to give any money.

When I click unsubscribe. Yes, I do want to unsubscribe. Yes, from *all future mailings*.

In other words, when the next campaign creates a new mailing list (like, later that day), I do not want to be on that mailing list.

And in fact I do not want to be on that or any future mailing lists from any campaign using either of these companies software.

One reason this is problematic is that there is apparently no way to get off all of these lists. They claim there is no “master list” that I can be removed from.

So literally every day I’m unsubscribing from this junk so that it doesn’t clog my inbox.

I suppose I should create a filter and just be done with it…

This article leaves out the “debate” about net neutrality, but the core thesis applies. Republicans are not making policy for the good of the country, (not to mention the world at large). They are governing for the rich and lying to everyone else.

Quite simply, Republican politicians need campaign donations from oil companies and other big corporations to win elections. To maintain their power they must keep the cash flowing. That means keeping rich donors happy by cutting corporate taxes and obstructing climate policies. To achieve that, Republican politicians reject scientific evidence and expert opinion, lie to their voters, and rely on right-wing media echo chamber propaganda and tribalism to keep their supporters voting against their own best interests.

Source: The moral and intellectual bankruptcy of the Republican Party