Friday’s Forum
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FILED UNDER: Open Forum
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So Trump recommendsa punitive tariff on a specific manufacturer.
Leads to two obvious questions:
To whom (or who) is this recommendation directed? Why isn’t it an order?
Second, have US tariffs ever been imposed on a specific manufacturer- particularly a US manufacturer?
@Bobert: Feels like he’s opening himself up to a direct lawsuit and challenge to the whole tariff regime. If Apple did that, I would buy an iPhone.
Dollar having a bad day –
https://www.tradingview.com/symbols/TVC-DXY/
Trump said this morning that the prisoner swap between Russia and Ukraine “could lead to something big,”
I think this is a fitting anthem for today’s world. It was popular in 1968 (another very bad year) and I recently happened on it while searching for something else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIOIxht3giY
Like trying to prevent Harvard from enrolling any foreign students.
It’s like he has a beef against higher education. Multiple points of view. Higher education requires critical thought. Critical thought might lead to dissent. Dissent might lead to active protest. Active protest is terrorism (if it’s against our current policy).
I once had a job interview at our Student Center. Concurrently the activists at my school were having a “die in” in front of said building. (“Die ins” were a thing back then. Meant to be disruptive and prevent use of that space passively.)
I just carefully stepped over the protesters – I had places to go. It was a fairly small school, like 4000 students. I knew most by name or by sight. I was “Sorry!” and “hey, Michelle! How’s it going?”, “Hi, Karl.” I flirted!
Frats and the all male jock dorm were much more disruptive than anti-nuclear weapons protesters on my campus. You can ignore a poorly thought-through opinion piece in the campus newspaper. You can’t ignore an impromptu sofa bonfire drunken bacchanalia at 3am.
@de stijl:
Harvard is suing the Trump administration over this.
@de stijl: 50 bucks says it’s because Barron couldn’t get into an ivy and had to “settle” for NYU.
Finally someone stands up for DEI policies… and it’s a Reagan-appointed Federal judge:
JUDGE REBRANDS ANTI-DEI AS… HIE? The Trump administration’s crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion stumped a Reagan-appointed federal judge in Boston today, Gerstein and Cheney write in. “I say this with respect: What does DEI grant — what does that mean?” U.S. District Judge WILLIAM YOUNG said during a hearing on one of two lawsuits he’s handling involving NIH grants terminated by Trump officials.
Young called diversity, equity and inclusion “the defining elements of the American experience” and insisted he was “not making a policy statement.” But he said he was baffled by suggestions that diversity, equity and inclusion were now somehow dirty words.
“Just as a thought exercise, if putting these three words together, DEI, somehow is offensive or no longer the policy of the United States of America, does that mean our policy is homogeneity, inequity and exclusion?” the judge asked a Justice Department lawyer. The lawyer said he was not prepared to make such a pronouncement, to which Young replied: “It would be a breathtaking assertion if you did.”
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook-remaking-government/2025/05/22/musk-puts-his-ceo-cap-on-00366406
@wr:
You need to put a “trigger warning” on comments like these, as they are deeply offensive to some of our absolutely-not-an-emotional-snowflake readers.
@de stijl:
I’ve been rereading How Democracies Die. Books like this worry me. For you or me they’re a warning. For the Project 2025 crowd, they’re a guidebook. The path to autocracy is by now well trodden and well documented. Attacking the universities is a required move for a wannabe autocrat.
Authoritarians generally, and Republicans quite specifically, rely on creating an alternate universe. Universities are an anchor to reality and therefore a potentially fatal threat to autocracy.
I was actually a campus security guard at the time. Off duty.
Alcoholic ex-cops who got fired from actual cop jobs worked days. A perpetually drunk asshole was the boss. At night, you know when actual strange shit happens on a college campus, none of the seasoned pros were present at all, it was just us kids. Many of us were scholarship kids where having a campus job was required. Policing our friends and acquaintances.
Day shift was pros, well ex-pros who were so bad at their job they got fired from a cop shop in the 80s. You have to fuck up really, really bad to get fired as a cop in the 80s. Especially in the Twin Cities.
Night shift was exclusively part-time college kids. Literally. There was no, none, zero adult supervision. At night on a college campus, you know, when the weird shit actually happens. They thought they only needed door checkers and walking patrols at night. They were so wrong.
We sort of self-organized. I might have been the instigator (I was.) Never put yourself in danger. Patrol in pairs, always. If people are just being drunk or high fools and acting up, interact low key, but ignore the foolishness unless it’s hurting people or damaging property. Most drunken foolishness is harmless. Encourage them to go home. If it’s actually a big deal, radio base and have them call the actual St. Paul cops. We are minimum wage door pullers. We are those drunk and/or high idiots on our off nights, but hopefully less disruptive. If in doubt call in actual cops.
A lot of people are really sorry, apologetic, embarrassed that they got caught doing naughty stuff. It’s weird. Why did you think that acting like that was okay? And only back off back away from that behavior if someone with a tiny smidgen of “authoritay” catches you doing it? I don’t get some people.
A lot of the job was escorting really fucked up people back to their dorms. Some people say extremely fucked up shit when they’re intoxicated.
I learned that not being an asshole is the best path. I knew that already, but working security underlined it in red ink.
This is interesting.
https://www.wired.com/story/christians-silicon-valley-religion-venture-capital/
Peter Thiel is a fan. That’s not comforting.
@wr:
The court filing is educational and sobering.
It gives a good explanation of NIH, how grant proposals are reviewed, how funding decisions are made, how funds are distributed, etc.
And it details the harms that are being inflicted across the various states and institutions (starting at the bottom of page 44).
This is my professional world, and it is indeed being wrecked.
Given all the other stuff that’s happening (waves hand around), it feels self-indulgent to complain. But complain I will… but not only.
I abmit this made me laugh out loud on first read.
https://www.reuters.com/world/future-queen-belgium-caught-up-harvard-foreign-student-ban-2025-05-23/
Knowing how trump envies all the titles and trappings of actual royals, I wonder how that plays out.
@becca: I suspect you personally know this, but Acts 17 is the chapter of the Bible that describes, among other things, Paul’s mission to Athens, the intellectual center of the Mediterranean world of the time.
They see themselves as evangelizing Silicon Valley, and their name declares it.
It would be nice if more folks at Silicon Valley thought about advancing humanity while making money. I think it’s possible.
And yet there’s this saying about rich people, camels and needles…
Perhaps the single biggest mistake for any autocrat is looking politically impotent. Trump is flailing, ranting out orders to the whole world demanding: respect mah authoritah. And not just being disrespected and disregarded but scorned and ridiculed. The whole world is laughing at the President of the United States. Each time he issues an order that goes nowhere but to court, every time he is defied internationally, he gets smaller.
I’m melting. . . I’m melting. . . save me, flying MAGA monkeys!
If he were smart he’d STFU and focus on taking bribes and robbing the MAGAts. He’s good at grifting. He’ll make billions as POTUS. But beyond that he’s just a walking humiliation, an unteachable ignoramus, a buffoon, a featherweight.
We need to pivot hard to economic fairness, get the college crowd to STFU for a while, and let the acid of ridicule take effect, as it has on Elon. There may come a time, and maybe not that far off, when we want Trump in office. He’ll have done his damage, and we’ll have three years for even some MAGAts to start laughing him off as what he has always been: a buffoon.
@wr:
“does that mean our policy is homogeneity, inequity and exclusion”?
Umm, yes, for MAGAs.
@Mimai:
‘Cmon Mimai. Don’t you understand that DEI is morally abhorant to the American ethos of “equality and meritocracy”? Clearly you must understand that the harm to America is far greater than any possible harm that comes from the cancellation of these programs. That’s the only correct viewpoint.
Further, how dare you suggest that those who advocate for the elimination of DEI programs are in any way responsible for the harms that result from the cancellation of DEI programs?
I’ve been confidently assured your type of thinking is deeply disingenuous. Oh, and that talking about it hurts your side.
@becca: Interesting that random international students criticizing Israel are negatively affecting our foreign policy and must be bounced, but bouncing the heir apparent of an ally for exactly no reason is our actual foreign policy.
I am guessing that the future queen of Belgium is not the only international VIP caught up in this.
@Mimai:
In all seriousness, my heart goes out to you. We are just beginning to feel the impact of these deeply shortsighted decisions.
@wr: A motte-and-bailey argument switches between a controversial opinion (the bailey) and a less controversial opinion (the motte). In this case, Judge Young is taking the controversial position that HHS doesn’t have the authority to cancel grants and arguing the uncontroversial position that diversity has benefits. It’s a form of a false choice fallacy.
@gVOR10: Have you read The Closing of the American Mind? It argues against the ide of the modern university as a place of critical thought.
@Fortune:
What are Bloom’s arguments?
@de stijl: Sorry, crushed by deadlines today.
@Fortune:
Lose the “e”, it’s “the *id* of the modern university”.
Innate, instinctive impulses.
“Crushed by deadlines” lol. I am incapable. My dog ate my homework.
There is a song called “Crushed” by a band named Deadlands. Crushed by Deadlands.
I see it as a sarcastic parody of death metal, but ymmv. I listen to some weird shit.
@de stijl: I read “idea” misspelled. Your interpretation is more clever. Maybe Freudian, even. Good catch!
Meritocracy works when everyone has access to and is given the same curriculum, education, and the competency level of teachers. Then, natural savants will rise in their respective fields and endeavors. iPad kids today are fucking doomed.
“Meritocracy” favors the wealthy. They have access to education.
Are we approaching the Idiocracy threshold? Unschooled iPad kids spawning unschooled future-tech iPad kids? Who invents new tech in a stupid dystopia?
Per the NYT, Federal judge Allison Burroughs has sided with Harvard, blocking Trump’s effort to ban foreign students from attending the university.
Here’s a use case for AI we didn’t see: convincing people that they are enlightened spiritual masters.
https://youtu.be/-E77Rmjw-Cc?si=uy2jXLuLAhXgVl7i
@Matt Bernius: How dare I suggest?! No sir, how dare you suggest that I suggested anything. I state outright: The people who impose these policies are directly responsible for the harms.
@Matt Bernius: Thanks, I appreciate it. Let me tell you about one of the harms.
I have a PhD student who received a very prestigious NIH training fellowship (F31) to fund her studies and her research. One goal of such fellowships is to make it easier for talented trainees from underrepresented backgrounds to pursue graduate work in biomedical and health sciences.
My student qualified (see more below) based on her ethnicity, rural background, family financial situation (let’s call it, um, very poor), and family educational situation (she’s first gen college student).
Why make it easier for such folks? Well, the short answer is: there’s a leaky pipeline, the leaks are not evenly distributed, and this has negative downstream effects for a whole lot of US life. Fellowships like this help plug the leaks, diversify the biomedical workforce, and enhance the nation’s health.
Anyway, my student is wicked talented. Her research combines genetics, twin studies, sophisticated computational modeling, and more… all focused on a really important clinical condition.
She recently spent a few weeks at the Karolinska Institutet getting some hands-on training with colleagues there. She returned buzzing with excitement and new ideas.
A few days later, we were notified that her fellowship was cancelled. Effective immediately. Why? To ask is to answer.
To be sure, I’ll be able to keep her funded by other means, and she’ll make it through the program and graduate with a PhD. Will she stay in the field? TBD, but I’m not confident. It would be a terrible loss to lose her.
Multiply this one account by thousands to grasp its generational impact. Then raise it to the nth power to see how that harm compounds across future generations. That’s the scale of what’s being inflicted.
I’ve got more stories, but I’ll stop for now.
Mathematics in education. Everyone is for basic addition, subtraction, division, basic geometry.
Outside of specialized job fields, anything above basic algebra is essentially wasted effort and time on the vast majority of the students, and make them dislike the system and the subject.
Yes, if you want to be an engineer, physicist, whatever, then by all means provide it. Just don’t make differential calculations part of a standard high school curriculum. Opt-in above algebra.
It’s not useless, but it is essentially unuseful for 98% of us. The hardest thing I’ve done in my professional life was calculating a weighted average. I had to look it up; I’d entirely forgotten. The only truly useful to me advanced math class I ever took was statistics.
Advanced math has way too much weight in HS curriculum. It should be opt-in AP.
They used to tell us we wouldn’t have calculators all the time, so we had to know this by heart. They were so wrong!
We used to have to choose between shop or home-ec. I chose shop. Should of chosen home-ec. I cook way more often than construct a birdhouse. I cook three or four times a day. I made a birdhouse once when I was 16 for a school assignment.
It was gender determined. Shop = boys. Home ec = girls. Boys don’t cook, and girls don’t make things with tools. I was a fool and should have bucked the trend, the underlying ideology that imposed such a false dichotomy. I should have gone home-ec.
I spend roughly about 10% of my waking time cooking, or related. Everyday.
A reminder that there is a very big difference between, ‘morally right’ and ‘politically helpful.’ Some of our overly emotional snowflakes don’t seem able to grasp that fact. To better understand the concept see: the election that just killed DEI.
In a conversation about age limits in political office someone suggested judges could work longer so they probably would need limits or they needn’t be as strict. So I looked it up and the very large majority of federal judges leave their jobs by dying. Roughly 1900 have left office and 600 by retiring or resigning. Only 8 have ever been impeached. It’s impossible that all of those 1900 were mentally competent and functional until they died.
https://www.fjc.gov/history/exhibits/graphs-and-maps/age-and-experience-judges
Steve
I used to work in a shop where my next-door cube mate neighbor was a PHD statistician.
I came to feel really badly for him. He was doing good, hard work, but he was just really badly placed organizationally. He should have reported directly to the CFO and given directed tasks by a competent manager. Or maybe in marketing.
No. Jeff was a vanity hire by a new manager with a newly minted MBA who thought he was hot shit. Thankfully, I did not report to that butt-stain.
The stuff he was analyzing wasn’t relevant to growth or sustainability or revenue. And he presented his findings to a tier of management below any capability of acting on it meaningfully. No one could act on it.
He was MBA dude’s pet toy.
A wasted wage and a wasted opportunity. It was a good idea from a bad person who hired a good person that was poorly placed, organizationally.
Jeff was a good dude, though. A solid cube neighbor. I hope he found a more meaningful job later.
@Michael Reynolds:
How, exactly do we “get the college crowd to STFU for a while”?
By what means? Under what pretense? For what reason?
It’s like you resent them. Like they’re staining the brand.
@wr: This is brilliant branding. I would tweek it to be: Division, Iniquity, and Exclusion–DIE. The middle term being something that cuts Evangelicals
@Michael Reynolds:
JFC, how can we off-load these coalition partners who aren’t helping us win? I don’t care about goals, or morals, or helping my compatriots, I just want to win and humiliate the folks I hate.
Why doesn’t everyone else see my clear vision towards total victory? The Left can win if we abandon our principles.
@Fortune: do you pay attention to a damn thing your side actually put out into the eather? The benefits of diversity have been constantly mocked by the right since I was a kid and I am damn near 50. Disingenuous is a stinky cologne and you wear so much I can smell you through through the Internet.
@Mimai: seems like Hong Kong university will have her with open arms.
@Thomm:
He can’t respond. He’s apparently being crushed by deadlines today.
(I am going to use that forever!)
@Fortune: Hey look everyone! The hit dog holler’d! ARRFFFFFFFF!
Works every time—LOL
I dunno@de stijl: Well, let me push back on the math thing.
Case 1: I took calculus in college. I was a math major. I learned multi-variable calculus. Since graduating from college, I don’t think I have calculated a single integral or derivative in job-related work.
Do I regret studying this? Do I think it was wrong? No. I don’t. I think that it transformed the way I understand the world. It has allowed me to understand so much science, and scientific argument. It literally changed how I conceive of the world, and in a very good way. So I think that applies to Geometry and probably Advanced Algebra. A lot of what is done in classes like that is known as “overtraining”. They teach you all kinds of stuff in order to make the basics stick with you and become second nature.
Case 2: I taught a class for CS majors on Finite Automata and Theory of Computation. I love that stuff. It’s so beautiful to me. Students were bewildered as to why they had to learn it though. Until they got jobs and realized that FSMs were everywhere. But even if they weren’t, I had to note that football players are famous for running through tires, even though there are no tires on a football field during a game. They do lots of pushups, too. And yet nobody does a pushup or a bench press during a game.
I am very open to ideas about how to make math more interesting and relatable. Looking at other cultures, it clearly can be done. We do a terrible job of this in the US, though.
@de stijl: In my day–my brother and I sat up one night when Sputnik was said to be in our night sky*– the reason for all that math to be added to the curriculum was specifically identify all the potential engineers in schools across the fruited plain. I agree with the spirit of your argument, but we have to keep making justifications for aligning wages with specific skill sets. Math is good for that sort of economic sorting, too.
*How many years did anyone keep track of that information after 1957, hmmm?
@de stijl:
In my first job on Korea, my school liked my skill sets, but I wasn’t a good match for their students, so the asked the agent they’d used to find me to help me find another job.* At one hagwon (private for-profit school) for pre-K – about age 10, the agent was explaining my degrees and certifications when the owner interrupted.
She explained that she already had 2 MAs in English and one PhD, so she didn’t need my skill set at this time. She did suggest that if I was looking for a job in 4 or 5 months, one of those teachers would have resigned and a spot might be available.
Hiring people with special skills/education that you really don’t need (and can’t actually benefit much from) is pretty common. And there’s the additional factor of people who study fields, even to advanced degree level, and decide they don’t like the work. I worked with a warehouseman years ago who had been a PhD clinical psychologist before he realized he didn’t like the work and quit.
*Eventually, the schools owner reached out to someone she knew in higher education, and the rest is history.
@de stijl: I wonder if the time constraints today are related to the time he spent extensively
arguingquarrelling with people earlier this week? Hmmm…@de stijl: I’m glad your job doesn’t get busy before three-day weekends. Weird thing to gloat about, but whatever. I was trying to be polite and tell you I didn’t have time for a deep dive into Bloom today. The fact you knew Bloom wrote the book tells me you probably know his arguments anyway. Maybe you could have posted them.
@de stijl:
That’s a face-saving way of saying “I don’t know.”
@Jay L Gischer:
Flying Spaghetti Monsters everywhere, flinging sauce with their noodles appendages.
If the Dems win back the House in 26 and regain control of the oversight committees, Tulsi would be well advised to resign as DNI. They are going to have a lot of fun with this.
Tulsi likes to pretend she is after the truth. Maybe she started out that way but Kissinger’s ultimate aphrodisiac has taken another soul.
” The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
@de stijl:
College students are like cats. You cannot control them, you just have to give them better ways of getting out their unfortunate behavior.
Scratching posts are likely not the right approach, but maybe a few politicians and other leaders that can actually speak to them, listen to them, and point them towards an injustice that the Democrats are at least close to being able to do something about so there’s some chance of progress. Actually engage with them, rather than treating them like something to be avoided until a few weeks before the election when the message becomes “vote for the lesser of two evils… me!”
I’m thinking Chuck Schumer can sit down with some kids in the lawn at Columbia, and they can workshop strongly written letters.
@de stijl:
I’d favor advanced math (analytic geometry and calculus) to be taught but not included in grades in high school.
Yes, it’s 100% superfluous if you’re not going into STEM, but it’s useful to learn it, or try to learn it, in order for students to determine what they’re good at, what their deficiencies are, etc, before choosing a career path.
What really needs to be drilled into all students is percentages and probability.
Well now.
President Trump announces 50% tariffs will be imposed on EU goods from June 1.
The EU is not going to respond like Xi, by public escalation, before anything is actually done.
(This was just a bit of cheap-talk, not an actual eceutive order)
But if Trump does follow through, the EU will respond in kind.
“We are maintaining the same line: de-escalation, but we are ready to respond,”
Combine this with Trumps stiffing the Europeans on a response to Russia failing to be serious about a ceasefire in Ukraine, and it seems Trump is quite detemined to break the Atlantic Alliance.
Though he’s perhaps too stupid to see that’s the outcome of his policies.
If the term “policy” can applied to what seems to be pure petulance.
If only Europe were a collection of corrupt autocracies that would offer him a gold-plated Airbus.
But there we are.
We must play the cards we have been dealt, with the partners we have.
Though the US might not enjoy the final round of this particular bridge tournament.
@Jay L Gischer:
I have never been particularly competent at mathematics.
(Though I’m amazed to find my ability actually comes at above average, according to tests. wtf?)
I can work through problems, with considerable hand-holding, and have experienced considerable pleasure at working out stats problems, or fractal calculations for making pretty pictures in Pascal.
But it simply is not in my capacity to learn and remember the methodology.
A few months later, its just gone.
As re that (really quite clever, according to our applications specialist 😉 ) multi-dimensional array in Excel VBA to sort and send reports on book orders by librarians according to purchase fund codes and publisher, etc.
Couldn’t recall the details of how I did it now if you tortured me, lol.
Whereas, spatial patterns, historical narratives, and verbal reasoning: they stick.
@de stijl:
@Kathy:
I think of the old European Mediaeval education curriculum:
The trivium, that is, grammar, logic/dialectic), and rhetoric for teenage students, iirc.
The quadrivium for more advanced students: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. (Both astronomy, which was more or less Ptolemaic astrology, and music = harmony, were both considered branches of mathematics at the time)
The latter could be combined with bachelor or doctoral studies in law or medicine at university level.
My personal inclination is that arts/humanities students should be obliged to take courses in the history of science, and formal logic.
While STEM stundents should be required to learn, at least the basics, of comparative history, history of art, and political philosophy.
Over specialisation is a problem for the generalised cultural comprehension a modern society could sorely use, imho.
@Gustopher: When I highlight “fsm” with my phone, I only get “food safety management.” I wonder why?
@Michael Reynolds:
Does this cohort include the fragile men who voted to cut their healthcare because a liberal wrote a mean tweet?
Hype.
Some liberals may be ready to respond to a 1.47% election by cutting off their balls, in self-flagellating penance to rightwing psy ops. But they — descendants of the Vichy moderates MLK warned us about in his Birmingham Jail Letter –should not assume all Americans will castrate ourselves to placate podcast bros with mommy and daddy issues.
There will be no white flag above our doors. The Nazis need a House majority way larger than three seats to inspire trembling.
@just nutha:
FSM = Finite state machine.
@CSK: Yes, my computer found that one, but not before it found “flying spaghetti monster.” Hmmm, again…
ETA: Additionally, I deduced the finite state part from Jay’s original comment. I’m ignint, not brain dead. 🙁
@DK:
Oh, you brave revolutionary, you. Cue the trumpet fanfare.
DEI is dead. Stop fantasizing. Everyone but Costco rolled over, and they did it eagerly because they never believed in to begin with. Take that in: no one is fighting for it because they all believed it was bullshit and were just giving lip service.
You want it back? Me too. So our side needs to learn some basic political skills. Learn how to make a case that voters can understand. Learn how to craft a message. Learn how to not make unnecessary enemies. Stop the self-righteous posturing. You cannot on the one hand deride a three vote margin while simultaneously talking about the edge of destruction. Which is it? Are we safe because they only have a three vote margin? Or are we at the edge of a precipice?
On the one hand you ridicule them for obsessing over nonsense like trans athletes, and on the other it’s this do or die issue. Which is it? Vitally important, or not? Are we dying on this hill, or is it not even a hill?
We got our asses kicked by a fucking rapist. It’s like being beaten up by a three year-old. There is no excuse for this loss. It never should have happened. And it is absurd to pretend that we made no mistakes and are right about everything and yet we somehow lost. Denial and more denial is not the path to victory. We fucking lost and the losing army does not get to pretend it made no mistakes.
@DK:
And BTW, your analysis has been that we lost because we ran a capable Black woman instead of a senile White guy. And you’re the defender of DEI? You’re a good rhetorician, DK, a good writer, and you’re on the side of righteousness, but you have zero political instincts. I am sick to death of righteous losers. I have skin in this game and I want to win, and what I see is too many people who don’t know how to gouge an eye or rip out a throat. An effete corps of impudent snobs, if I may grab a phrase out of history.
And before some ninny says, ‘are you aware you’re quoting Spiro Agnew who was a corrupt Nixon henchman? Huh? Huh? Are you?’ Yes, I am. In fact I played a very small role in forcing him out of office. He was a crook, but he had a way with words.
The answer is: Lawyers, teachers and engineers. The question is: name three professional groups which dominate Democratic politics and are incapable of communicating with actual humans of voting age.
@Michael Reynolds:
Empirically false. Again, 87% of companies are either maintaining or increasing their DEI budgets. 65% of companies surveyed said will keep their DEI budget the same and 22% plan to increase their budget.”
We won’t be bullied by fake news. We also can’t take seriously phony lectures about self-righteous posturing from book banning potty police, or their enablers.
Destruction? I’ve said many times abyss America faces is permanent mediocrity. And few believe 10 NCAA trans athletes is a do or die issue, not even the pretenders faking outrage because Dems have the same milquetoast trans rights beliefs that the right praised Trump for in 2016.
Admonishment is intended for Americans who voted or nonvoted to strip themselves of the Medicaid and Medicare, no?
Because the party’s loyal black base locked hands with Bernie and AOC (signs and wonders, never see that again) last summer to warn Dems that Fuck Joe Biden was a fatal display of weakness. Just like we’re warning now that white flags, self-castration, and sucking up to Jake Fucking Tapper looks weak and pathetic.
Republicans understand voters reward consistency and strength even if they dislike you on the merits; that’s why Republicans responded to Trump’s post-J6 nadir by tripling down, successfully so. Maybe it’s because I used to be Republican that I get male voters are actually not impressed by liberals’ weepy sackcloth-and-ashes act?
Our mistake, as always, is taking the field with wobbly, self-flagellating weaklings when we need General Sherman.
Re. winning in politics:
It might be worth looking at how parties in other countries have won.
You minimise the downsides, and fight hard, and if need be, fight dirty.
It doesn’t mean the far right vanishes in a puff of smoke, but they can be beaten.
Now, is the outcome sometimes sub-optimal?
Yes.
But is a sub-optimal Labour or CDU (who are, in fact, conservatives, but sane ones) or PO or etc better than government by far-right lunatics?
Yes, imho.
In the US, it seems to me there is a massive oportunity next year for a Democrat victory in the House; it would be a mistake to throw away that opportunity to rev up a base that is likely to vote Dem anyway.
As someone once said: “It’s the economy, stupid”
But you can lose, even if the economy issues seem to run in your favour: see Corbyn, Jeremy.
Most elections are won by a careful calculation between what can bring out supporters, win (or at least not antagonise) “floaters”, and avoid enthusing opponents.
@Michael Reynolds:
Amusing. Y’all insisted, over the objection of black voters (and, surprisingly, progressive politicians + Fetterman), that we had to get rid of Joe Biden, knowing the only replacement was his black woman VP. Y’all got your way. The black voters who were clear-eyed about this radicalized electorate’s current racism/sexism lost the argument. And she slipped with male voters and lost, as black voters feared.
Only the type of senile liberal who thinks forced tokenism is more DEI than actually caring what black voters want would look at the above and assume his review of anyone’s instincts is needed.
What y’all should be doing — but aren’t, too busy helping the oligarchy smear Biden — is holding your Trumper cousins accountable for their ruinous choices.
Because even if Biden had dropped out three weeks before, 70-90% of voters across lily white Europe would have gotten this election right, like 85% of black and LGBT voters in America did. Because Trump is obviously unqualified.
But we should genuflect before the instincts of those who cannot even convince their peers to stop voting to gut Medicaid and Medicare? Not bloody likely.
So we are telling each other again: self-flagellating weakness does not attract votes. Stop attacking Democrats and tearing down your allies, stay focused on Trump. Y’all are focused on the wrong enemy. Still and again. (And for God’s sake, nominate a str8 white guy in 2028.)
@CSK:
Flying spaghetti monster.
(It’s what chronically on-line obnoxious atheists in it for the “debate” use to mimic and mock the Christian God. FSM is the main deity in Pastafarianism. Usually depicted with noodley appendages and sometimes with a meatball at the center core. Not gluten free.)
Edit: Gustopher beat me to it hours ago.
@DK:
An odd thing from the UK perspective:
Our last Conservative PM (Rsishi Sunak) was a Hindu of Indian heritage; the current Conservative leader (Kemi Badenoch) is a black female.
One of her cloest opponents in the Conservative leadership contest was a black man (James Cleverly)
And nobody cares.
Just as nobody gave two hoots about Michael Howard or Nigel Lawson being Jewish.
People voted for or agin because they were Tories.
Doubtless some “Reform” voter had “ethnic” motivations; but fuck them.
All the indications are that’s of vanishingly insignificant effect in national voting.
Is the US really inherently more racist and sexist than Europe?
@de stijl:
Wretched heretical adherents of the Spaghetti Monster!
They must bow before the majesty of the Invisible Purple Unicorn!
Piece on NPR about the modifications needed to turn the rapist’s bribe plane into AF1.
First, I don’t buy the cost estimate of $1 billion. it’s too low.
Second, there’s this bit: “Both experts and members of Congress have expressed concern that Trump(sic) might decide to roll back current security requirements for Air Force One in order to get the plane ready faster.”
Figures.
But look at the layouts of the current VC25 and the bribe plane. No wonder he lusts for it.
Finally, it’s one thing to spend billions on a presidential plane that can meet all the security, communications, and executive workspace requirements, plus providing space for aides and the press, that will be used for decades. It’s a very different one to spend billions on one that will serve at best a couple of years and then be misused by the rapist.
@Kathy:
Can we haz optimised sig for missile lock?
Or at least, full redirect of all internal network comms?
Are such little things too much to ask for?
@JohnSF:
I worship derpy orange cats with one brain cell that refuse to be governed. Chaos, violence, silliness, then snuggle up to you while asleep because you are the warmest thing in the house currently. Purr and knead you to pretend they like you, and to keep you providing the expensive wet food.
Basically, they are low-key Loki.
Wadjet-bastet!
(Which in some English accents could have a rather different meaning, lol)
I recall being in Egypt and walking through a temple of the mummified cats.
Strange vibes.
My brother has two Norwegian Forest Cats, that are rather spooky, because they seem able to teleport themselves to the highest shelves in any room.
@JohnSF:
My idiot goes by Perry officially. That’s his government name. Aka Perry the Platypus, Agent P, Pee Diddy, dingledoofus, doofuldingus, etc. I make up songs with lyrics about who stupid he is. Agent P is studiously nonplussed by my attempt.
He is chaos incarnate, and also a good lil dude. I love him unconditionally.
@JohnSF: Consider what you just described. You said, “I’m not very good at maths” and then described some mathematical activity you do and how you test above average.
I think everyone is “not very good at maths”. It’s a very humbling subject. It does not admit to bullshitting. It is very easy to run into things one does not know how to do, and problems one cannot solve. But those markers do not mean one is not good at maths.