US politics: Everything in moderation, including moderation

[Larry of the Lawn]

13 minutes ago, DMC said:

I don't like this counterfactual because it basically demands you assume there was no covid.  And with no covid, who knows what happens to the economy and subsequently how much the electorate blames Trump for it if it stagnates - which he basically got a pass on due to covid.  Too many unknowns.

Anyway, while it's a banal point to say national support is "immaterial," national support is an indicator regarding the three states that are in reference to 2020 - Arizona, Georgia, and Wisconsin.  Those states are gonna be correlated to national trends more than most others, plus of course Biden would only have to win one of them.

Not at all- just that you assume they don't totally fuck up the response.  But it's not even necessary view it is a counterfactual--to put it another way, even after completely fucking up the pandemic, it was still that close.  

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 minutes ago, Kaligator said:

As long as Republicans control the Texas state that is a pipe dream. 

I never said it would happen tomorrow, but it's still a worthwhile investment and once it happens, you can unclench your cheeks. 

Quote

Yeah, corporations which benefitted most from tax breaks and from being all over the world are going to...save voting. Good luck with that.

Tax breaks aside, have you missed how liberalism has come to dominate modern corporate culture? We won that battle, even if those at the top still don't love it. And they'll die sooner or later though and be replaced by better people. 

Again, play the long game.

[DMC]

8 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

Not at all- just that you assume they don't totally fuck up the response.  But it's not even necessary view it is a counterfactual--to put it another way, even after completely fucking up the pandemic, it was still that close. 

Trump obviously had a golden opportunity to bank reelection if he responded to covid competently.  I don't think it comes as a surprise to anyone reading this that he was incapable of doing so.  In that vein, I don't view the counterfactual of the public approving of his response to the pandemic as a valid premise.  So, all that's left is that the pandemic never happened.

[Centrist Simon Steele]

3 hours ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

False. Americans are exceedingly moderate when it comes to dealing with the consequences of our own history.  Total slow roll in things like dealing with racism or removing the institutions of said system born of racism...

And if someone says, "Defund the Police," white people throw hissy fits. Whenever I hear those, "oh, what a terrible slogan" arguments, I think of this video:

How Can We Win Kimberly Jones Video Full Length David Jones Media Clean Edit #BLM 2020 What Can I Do - YouTube

[TheLastWolf]

Thanks for all those who enlightened me on the Obama NBA thing (good news) and protrump organisms 

[mormont]

7 hours ago, Kaligator said:

He lost POTUS in a weird year by something like 47k total votes across 3 states. The notion that Trump got crushed - or that anyone should care about the popular vote - is meaningless. 

But that was when Trump was the incumbent. Checking into this, not since Grover Cleveland has a defeated President won a subsequent election. Without incumbency, is there really any solid reason to presume that Trump can repeat, let alone improve on (however marginally), his 2020 performance? Voter suppression, OK, but that was an issue in 2020 too. Trump isn't any more popular now than he was in November, poll-wise. Nothing can be ruled out, of course, but the pessimism here seems premature.

[DMC]

25 minutes ago, mormont said:

But that was when Trump was the incumbent. Checking into this, not since Grover Cleveland has a defeated President won a subsequent election. Without incumbency, is there really any solid reason to presume that Trump can repeat, let alone improve on (however marginally), his 2020 performance? Voter suppression, OK, but that was an issue in 2020 too. Trump isn't any more popular now than he was in November, poll-wise. Nothing can be ruled out, of course, but the pessimism here seems premature.

Well, I'm not sure how much it matters, but thinking about the Cleveland example, you also have Williams Jennings Bryan, who lost three times over four cycles.  Then Thomas Dewey and Adlai Stevenson who lost twice in a row..in a row.  So yeah, being on the ticket three times in a row does not seem to be a promising prospect historically.

It's fair to say that Trump may have a unique chance at doing so.  He's very likely to get the nomination if he decides to run (albeit I don't think as likely as others assume), and it's quite possible Biden/Harris will simply be unpopular in 2-3 years.  But it's much more likely that even if Biden or Harris is unpopular, Trump is still more unpopular in 2024.  We're talking about, literally, the most hated person in US politics.  That's not going away. 

Now, could Trump make up the slight margins in the three states mentioned and pull off a victory?  Yeah.  But is he going to do so without garnering more support in the national popular vote, which seems to be the point of contention?  No, that is incredibly unlikely.  Very incredibly unlikely.  And the idea that he'd lose by millions of more votes nationally than he did in 2020 and still somehow win the EC is laughably absurd.  Attempts at "voter suppression" can't do that.  The only thing that can do that is taking the decision out of voters and legitimate election officials' hands.  Which, granted, is a huge ass concern.

[Ormond]

15 hours ago, DMC said:

17 Republicans voted with all 50 Dems to advance the bipartisan infrastructure deal.  Importantly, final details are still being worked out.  McConnell was one of the 17, but not John Thune (his whip), which is kinda surprising considering the latter has been like Portman's cheerleader on the deal.

Seems interesting that both of the Senators from Idaho and North Dakota voted to advance. Are there some particularly big infrastructure projects for those two states in this bill? 

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

liberalism has come to dominate modern corporate culture

How?  Corporate culture is still vastly dominated by rich white male culture. Even unions are so dominated.

[Mindwalker]

12 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Tax breaks aside, have you missed how liberalism has come to dominate modern corporate culture? We won that battle, even if those at the top still don't love it. And they'll die sooner or later though and be replaced by better people. 

Again, play the long game.

The same corporations that stop donating to the worst GOP politicians when caught doing so, then resume after a couple of months?

Imho, corporations are socially liberal*, but economically conservative or rather, libertarian. And those interests will usually win out.

 

*On principle, not necessarily in practice

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, Centrist Simon Steele said:

And if someone says, "Defund the Police," white people throw hissy fits. Whenever I hear those, "oh, what a terrible slogan" arguments, I think of this video:

How Can We Win Kimberly Jones Video Full Length David Jones Media Clean Edit #BLM 2020 What Can I Do - YouTube

It's partly about refusing to understand requests to 'defund the police' means "a completely logical proposal that, in most cases, is not about abolition of the police force but the reallocation of funds from the police to social services. But there is no use or need."

‘The Lost Cause’ Is Back' by Charles Blow

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/28/opinion/republicans-race-debate.html?

Quote

 

We are in the midst of another Lost Cause moment. Conservatives in this country lost a battle in the racial war after the publication of The 1619 Project by The Times and after the historic protests that engulfed the country and the world in the wake of the murder of George Floyd.

I’m not sure that I would call it a racial reckoning, but it was definitely a racial rousing.

America seemed willing to at least adjust the narrative about the country, how it was born and how it grew, who belongs and to whom a debt is due. But to many, this was the greatest of threats.

The ability and authority to create narrative — or to challenge or change it — is an awesome power. Some may call it a soft power, but I say soft like the cloud that unleashes the tornado.

Stories have the power to profoundly move people, to create societal frameworks and the pretext for war and peace. The world’s greatest religions follow books that are essentially collections of stories. . . . 

. . . . The American narrative that we have built is mostly about the valor, brilliance and determination of white people. Largely absent from it is all of the pain, oppression and death that are woven into that story.

Absent is the enslavement, the massacres and lynchings. Absent are the broken treaties, the internment camps and racial exclusion laws. Absent are the Black Codes, Jim Crow and mass incarceration.

But many Americans like the sanitized version of their history — color-corrected and Photoshopped — and always have.

Altering that narrative, correcting it, filling it out with the uncomfortable bits, with the truth, is an affront to the very idea of America as they have come to conceive it. In their view, including America’s horrors defiles America’s heroes.

So Republicans are on a political crusade to protect lore and lies. They know that many Americans, many of them their voters, will take a lie over guilt and atonement, every day of the week. Many are lost causes in the morass of political tribalism, which makes them all the more open to Lost Cause propaganda.

 

 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Seems interesting that both of the Senators from Idaho and North Dakota voted to advance. Are there some particularly big infrastructure projects for those two states in this bill? 

If you read the ND papers They are slavering over how to divvy and spend the booty.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

How?  Corporate culture is still vastly dominated by rich white male culture. Even unions are so dominated.

At the top yes, but that will change over time. Meanwhile just look at diversity training for example, which is common across the corporate world. Every one I've been to is straight out of a liberal talking points playbook. 

[Larry of the Lawn]

24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

At the top yes, but that will change over time. Meanwhile just look at diversity training for example, which is common across the corporate world. Every one I've been to is straight out of a liberal talking points playbook. 

Lol corporate culture has moved to increasing most of the wealth to the top, keeping employee wages as low as possible, fighting unions every step of the way, fighting environmental regulations every step of the way, dumping money into feel-good surface solutions.  Anything else is an outlier.  

But yay, diversity training.  Doing the bare minimum to cover your ass in case of a lawsuit is just that- the bare minimum.  

[Kalbear]

15 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

I never said it would happen tomorrow, but it's still a worthwhile investment and once it happens, you can unclench your cheeks. 

Betting on Texas to do anything good is a losing prop. If you're hoping that Texas is going to be the savior of US democracy, well, you're already quite fucked. 

15 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Tax breaks aside, have you missed how liberalism has come to dominate modern corporate culture? We won that battle, even if those at the top still don't love it. And they'll die sooner or later though and be replaced by better people. 

Sorry, is Zuckerberg a better person? Not sure if serious here, but the 'better people' thing doesn't appear to be the big win that you think it is, either. 

As to liberalism saving the day - corporations basically went back and paid both sides the same way they always do as soon as people stopped paying attention. Corps have to play both sides. If the US goes autocratic, do you know what will happen? Those corps are going to have more influence, not less. They care about potentially some semblance of liberal social policies, but only to a point, and none of those policies involve actual rights to vote or multiparty states. Those same corporations are happily selling their souls to China and using Uighur camp labor to make iphones and clothing. 

46 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

At the top yes, but that will change over time. Meanwhile just look at diversity training for example, which is common across the corporate world. Every one I've been to is straight out of a liberal talking points playbook. 

That's great! How many of them care about voting or mention that at all beyond thoughts and prayers?

[Kalbear]

11 hours ago, DMC said:

It's fair to say that Trump may have a unique chance at doing so.  He's very likely to get the nomination if he decides to run (albeit I don't think as likely as others assume), and it's quite possible Biden/Harris will simply be unpopular in 2-3 years.  But it's much more likely that even if Biden or Harris is unpopular, Trump is still more unpopular in 2024.  We're talking about, literally, the most hated person in US politics.  That's not going away. 

He's popular where it matters, and apparently with the biggest polling miss in the last 40 years that unpopularity might be just a smidgen overstated.

I guess that's what I don't get. These arguments were made in 2020 to show how Biden had it in the bag and was going to crush, and he barely won, and ALL the polls were off in exactly the same direction. Having any faith that the polls that exist now are going to be better than they were then seems like an obvious failure.

11 hours ago, DMC said:

Now, could Trump make up the slight margins in the three states mentioned and pull off a victory?  Yeah.  But is he going to do so without garnering more support in the national popular vote, which seems to be the point of contention?  No, that is incredibly unlikely.  Very incredibly unlikely. 

He doesn't have to get more support. He simply has to reduce Biden's support. That's the point. 

In fact, the most likely scenario is that the states that have dem governments and expanded voting will have larger turnout and Biden will carry those places by even larger margins, and the places with GOP government and voter suppression will have less turnout as a whole and also even less support for Biden, meaning that the next election will have in general less overall turnout and the percentage gap of popular vote differential will likely be greater. 

11 hours ago, DMC said:

And the idea that he'd lose by millions of more votes nationally than he did in 2020 and still somehow win the EC is laughably absurd. 

I don't see why given population trends in states. That said, I would say that the overall amount of people voting in 2024 will be less than 2020, but the margin will be greater.

11 hours ago, DMC said:

Attempts at "voter suppression" can't do that.  The only thing that can do that is taking the decision out of voters and legitimate election officials' hands.  Which, granted, is a huge ass concern.

Yeah, well, there's also that fun bit that I didn't get into at all. 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

At the top yes, but that will change over time. Meanwhile just look at diversity training for example, which is common across the corporate world. Every one I've been to is straight out of a liberal talking points playbook.

I doubt the first, because history teaches us otherwise, almost always in all times and places, when it comes to the higher levels of power.

As for the second, you might like to read The Other Black Girl by Zakiya Dalila Harris (2021) as to how it plays out with these corps and diversity, no matter what They say.  

[Mindwalker]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

At the top yes, but that will change over time. Meanwhile just look at diversity training for example, which is common across the corporate world. Every one I've been to is straight out of a liberal talking points playbook. 

You know, I can't find them right now, but a couple of weeks ago, I read a few articles about diversity training. TL;dr: They don't change anything, including the attitudes of the participants. They are basically a fig leaf for corporations so they don't have to really change anything. I think I bookmarked them, so I'll post the links when I find them.

[Varysblackfyre321]

I really do hope Newsom hangs until a democrat could replace him.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gavin-newsom-has-reason-to-worry/
 

[IheartIheartTesla]

Corporations aren't a monolith (full disclosure, I work for one). Some are better than others. Don't know about diversity training per se, but coincidentally I just finished unconscious bias training including the IAT tests for gender and race. At least in R&D I can confidently state some good faith efforts are being made to increase the diversity of hires, and make the culture more inclusive to others.

As to the rest, I wouldnt count on corporations for much else because that isnt their purpose, which includes answering to stakeholders, making products, and having a happy workforce. Taking political positions where about half of your employees think the other way isn't a great recipe for success, for starters.