Ceiling Cat bless the bald pate of James Carville and the gray matter it conceals! One thing you can count on with Carville is that he doesn’t mince words, and while you may not agree with him, you always know where he stands. In this new Vox interview, cited in Bari Weiss’s column I posted about earlier, Carville is worried about the Democratic Party and its message. If you say, as interviewer Sean Illing does, “Well, we won the Senate, the White House, and Congress, didn’t we?”, Carville will reply like this:
James Carville
We won the White House against a world-historical buffoon. And we came within 42,000 votes of losing. We lost congressional seats. We didn’t pick up state legislatures. So let’s not have an argument about whether or not we’re off-key in our messaging. We are. And we’re off because there’s too much jargon and there’s too much esoterica and it turns people off.
Click on the screenshot to read:
Carville is high on Biden and what he’s done, but he thinks that wokeness and academic-style jargon is turning off parts of the electorate that the Democrats need. A few of his examples:
Sean Illing
Part of the issue is that Republicans are going to paint the Dems as cop-hating, fetus-destroying Stalinists no matter what they say or do. So, yeah, I agree that Democrats should be smart and not say dumb, alienating things, but I’m also not sure how much control they have over how they’re perceived by half the country, especially when that half lives in an alternate media reality.
James Carville
Right, but we can’t say, “Republicans are going to call us socialists no matter what, so let’s just run as out-and-out socialists.” That’s not the smartest thing to do. And maybe tweeting that we should abolish the police isn’t the smartest thing to do because almost fucking no one wants to do that.
Here’s the deal: No matter how you look at the map, the only way Democrats can hold power is to build on their coalition, and that will have to include more rural white voters from across the country. Democrats are never going to win a majority of these voters. That’s the reality. But the difference between getting beat 80 to 20 and 72 to 28 is all the difference in the world.
So they just have to lose by less — that’s all.
Note that the tweet about abolishing the cops comes from the odious and anti-Semitic Rashida Tlaib:
It wasn't an accident. Policing in our country is inherently & intentionally racist.
Daunte Wright was met with aggression & violence. I am done with those who condone government funded murder.
No more policing, incarceration, and militarization. It can't be reformed.
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) April 12, 2021
I don’t get the “lose by less” trope, for the Electoral College is basically an all-or-none affair, so if Democrats loss by less in Republican states (all but two states have a winner-take-all system), it makes no difference for the Presidency. Someone can enlighten me here.
More:
James Carville
Honestly, if we’re just talking about Biden, it’s very difficult to find something to complain about. And to me his biggest attribute is that he’s not into “faculty lounge” politics.
Sean Illing
“Faculty lounge” politics?
James Carville
You ever get the sense that people in faculty lounges in fancy colleges use a different language than ordinary people? They come up with a word like “Latinx” that no one else uses. Or they use a phrase like “communities of color.” I don’t know anyone who speaks like that. I don’t know anyone who lives in a “community of color.” I know lots of white and Black and brown people and they all live in … neighborhoods.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with these phrases. But this is not how people talk. This is not how voters talk. And doing it anyway is a signal that you’re talking one language and the people you want to vote for you are speaking another language. This stuff is harmless in one sense, but in another sense it’s not.
There’s more, but you should read it for yourself. As for what Carville suggests, well, he’s mainly trying to raise the problem rather than solve it, but he does suggest some approaches. One involves livening up discourse about climate change: fewer boring stats and more slogans. And hit Republican miscreants as hard as they hit the Democrats (his example is to pay more attention to the Right storming the Capitol). As he says (my emphasis):
Sean Illing
There’s a philosophy on the left right now, which says the Democrats should pass everything they possibly can, no matter the costs, and trust that the voters will reward them on the back end.
Where do you land on that?
James Carville
First of all, the Democratic Party can’t be more liberal than Sen. Joe Manchin. That’s the fact. We don’t have the votes. But I’ll say this, two of the most consequential political events in recent memory happened on the same day in January: the insurrection at the US Capitol and the Democrats winning those two seats in Georgia. Can’t overstate that.
But the Democrats can’t fuck it up. They have to make the Republicans own that insurrection every day. They have to pound it. They have to call bookers on cable news shows. They have to get people towrite op-eds. There will be all kinds of investigations and stories dripping out for god knows how long, and the Democrats should spend every day tying all of it to the Republican Party. They can’t sit back and wait for it to happen.
Hell, just imagine if it was a bunch of nonwhite people who stormed the Capitol. Imagine how Republicans would exploit that and make every news cycle about how the Dems are responsible for it. Every political debate would be about that. The Republicans would bludgeon the Democrats with it forever.
So whatever you think Republicans would do to us in that scenario, that’s exactly what the hell we need to do them.
Now I suspect a lot of readers will disagree about Carville’s diagnosis. The part about wokeness, though, resonates with me. The fact is that the vaunted “Blue Wave” just didn’t appear in the last elections, and the midterms in two years historically represent a loss of power for the ruling party. We do have cause to worry and we should, as Carville notes, be speaking Yiddish rather than Hebrew.
I believe that what Carville is saying about “losing by a smaller margin” is that if Democrats can manage to lose some *specific demographic groups* (rural whites) by a large but not *quite* so overwhelming margin, they can carry the entire state. Case in point, my own home state of Georgia: IF Democrats win African-Americans by huge margins (and also *turn out* the African-American vote), and IF they also turn out younger voters–actually get them to show up and vote–*and* IF they lose older rural white voters by large margins, but not quite as bad as it could be (72%-28% instead of 80%-20%), then Democrats demonstrably can win statewide elections here.
All of those “IFs” are tricky, and some may be like a seesaw–do better with this group, and you’ll almost certainly do worse with this other group. But I think Carville is probably right–he certainly knows more about practical politics than *I* do!
I also think he meant this. Many districts are mixed and loosing among “rural white voters” by a smaller margin can mean a win in the district.
I agree. We need to get a larger fraction of the white vote in order to win more elections. And he’s right: We lost congressional seats, we should have won several of the close senate seats during the regular elections, and we otherwise lost ground in down-ballet races.
All of this with a buffoon at the top of the ticket. We need to win a larger fraction of white votes!
“They have to make the Republicans own that insurrection every day. They have to pound it.”
That is weak. All we (antiDems) have to do is point out the ongoing insurrection in Democratic Blue cities, which even the Dem mayors are screaming about.
Plus, it was not an “insurrection.” It was an over-rage by a few idiots who actually won the high ground, but sat around in chairs not knowing what to do. There was no plan, no Occupy manifesto, no leadership, no insurrection. The Marxist armies of Antifa and BLM know what to do when they seize territory, as in Portland: you fight hard to keep it, you continue to riot and burn, you coopt the media to ignore or condone it, and you get your legions of lemmings to savor the year-long victory ‘celebration.’ That is an insurrection.
I am not at all defending the actions that you are referring to in Portland; however, it seems extremely farfetched to cast what happened in Portland as more serious than what happened in DC. Just comparing the facilities affected by the given events flies in the face of your characterization.
“facilities.”
“The United States” is not a facility/building. It is not the government. It is the people, their sovereignty, their private property, their right to their life. A government building is not the nation.
With no plan, no Occupy manifesto, no leadership, what happened in that building was nothing more than a spurt of rage. It was wrong in itself.
Meanwhile, the planned, permanent chaos and anarchy in the Real America — cities and people — by a Marxist army incited on by a plan, an Occupy manifesto, and trained Marxist leadership, not to mention massively funded and enabled by media, academia, big-banking … that is a powerful insurrection bent on overthrowing the culture and eventually finishing the job of overthrowing the foundation/Constitution.
The WokeBlue project is much more of a danger to the nation than the efforts of the USSR to execute the same agenda in the middle of the 20th Century.
No real plan. Just kill a bunch of politicians they don’t like and hope that motivates the rest to fudge the vote count so that their guy wins the US presidency.
Your comments are laughable. You have let the woke stuff cement your brain from reality. By the way, what happens in Portland, stays in Portland. Great place from which to take over the country.
Left moderates pretend Woke is just a stupid little thing. Annoying. “This is not the Marxism you seek.” Just wayward youth, they’ll grow out of it. America is fine with a mild progressive attitude, just like in the old days.
That is denial.
You won’t be laughing when they come for you. Whoops, they already are coming for the liberal Dems.
John, it’s not “seek”, it’s “looking for”.
“These are not the droids you’re looking for.”
Know your memes, dude.
I deployed poetic license to change the phrase. The phrase fits, however, regardless of the formulation. Wave a DemJedi hand and poof! Liberal Dems cannot see a virulent Marxist army with stupendous funding, intellectual backing, and a clear agenda to overthrow the core values of the nation.
response to Donahue: Portland riots were despicable, violent and indefensible. Much as I despise wokeness and IP, antifa and BLM do not represent any militia, marxist or otherwise, nor does their funding or the apologies of the press indicate that they are
anywhere near a majority or becoming one. It is their use of race and white guilt that has hypnotized the mass media, and it is retarded rioting college students that promote them. Were it not for abject liberals they would not have made such headway. Things will get worse but ultimately they will get better. Resistance from black intellectuals and defenders of our Constitutional rights is growing fast and will prevail. In the meantime let’s not give them more credit or more size than they actually have. They are a small minority and their influence will fade. We just have to hold our ground and count on the public’s distaste for violence to overcome this seditious divisiveness.
Lorna, thank you for the considered comment. Frankly, I hope you are correct. However, I think you are wrong.
I used the word “army” once-removed: I meant an intellectual/cultural/political army of aggressive agitation. This is mightier than shotguns and bombs.
I will politely turn aside your suggestion to ‘not give them more credit or size,’ in light of what I perceive is a vast fog they have sent out ahead which is resulting in blindness and hesitation. The threat needs to be ‘right-sized,’ and that is not a mild job.
During the early 20th century, the top Communist intellectuals faced up: they could not explain why the predicted revolutions Marx declared as inevitable were not fermenting. They figured it out: economic and political struggle was not enough for the proletariat to throw off the chains, since they liked the results of capitalism too much. The decision was made proactively and stridently to turn to Cultural Marxism. Education was one of the five main conduits. What you see now is the result: an ‘army’ of Marxist soldiers streaming out of University, taking no quarter, attacking with emotional violence at even a whiff of the enemy. They are no less dangerous than Mao’s Red Guard. And they have billions in the pockets of their elite converts.
Lorna, note: you used the past tense. “…riots were” despicable. Yet … they continue to this day, with adjuncts in Brooklyn in hot pursuit of the spotlight. The mayor of Portland, Ted Wheeler, this week screamed in pain about it.
Please do not insult other readers by saying their comments are laughable, etc.. You can object to their arguments, but what you offer here is insults, which is a Roolz violation. Please do not do this again.
Do not try to make this vague. We were talking about specific events in Portland and Washington DC, but when I pressed you on it, you shifted to talking about the country as a whole.
I presume most of the readership of this website is against woke ideology, myself included. However, the way to prevent it from spreading isn’t to speak in hyperbole about woke ideology while downplaying malfeasance from the right. Your position seems to be purely motivated by partisanship.
You’d like my message to be “motivated by partisanship” so the HateTrumpNoMatterWhat meme will kick in and replace the need to face the facts about Woke.
You didn’t “press me” about anything. I responded fully and directly to your post. Your post was about the difference in facilities in DC and Portland, and I addressed that directly.
You did not. You said the “facilities” were the United States. That is being evasive because we know it involved a federal courthouse in Portland and the Capitol in DC. I am done responding because you are not being realistic.
You just constructed that the only upset in Portland was to the federal courthouse. Everyone in the room please raise your hand if you agree that all is well in Portland, NYC, Seattle, Chicago, and many other cities … during a full year of ongoing rioting by Antifa/BLM … except one incident at a courthouse in Portland.
I will repeat my claim: a facility is not the United States. Any and all government agencies are not the United States. They are only the places where the USA is protected. The United States is the entirety of sovereign individuals living here.
How the other superpower – the Chinese – react to the neutering of America by the FSU and their Republican allies and paid agents is the question that the rest of the world have to cope with.
If I liked the stuff, I’d get popcorn.
You’re spouting utter nonsense and paranoia. How the hell do you know there was no plan(s)? What, are you in the FBI or something? This is a massive and complicated investigation consisting of hundreds of people and mountains of data. Think of all the emails, videos, and other surveillance methods the FBI and other agencies have to sift through. The idiot who sat in Pelosi’s chair will spend serious time in jail. That’s just one. You know why? Because he had a plan and a message. You ever hear of the Anti-fascists calling for members of Congress or the Vice President to be assassinated? Didn’t think so. You’re also misinformed at a lot of the violence that has been perpetrated by right-wing factions like the Proud Boys and made to look like BLM protests and such. Fear drives the GOP and its messaging- sounds like you’re caught up in it.
The so-called anti-fascists call for something much worse than assassinations. You call my claims paranoid, yet you toss out a baseless claim that the Blue Riots are perpetrated by ProudBoys etc. Then you cite fear. Fear is the theme song of Woke.
Cite your claims. What is “much worse than assassinations” anyway? I didn’t say Proud Boys are perpetrating Blue riots, I said they took advantage of the situation that BLM protests instigated. BLM protests were by and large peaceful…they tend to get violent when the police escalate the situation with anti-first-amendment tactics like gas and pepper spray and flash grenades. Fear is your song sir. This type of rant just proves my point.
Seriously. You are not embarrassed to lem the phrase “mostly peaceful?” Really?
Sorry but it was an insurrection. They went there specifically to break up and stop the vote procedure in the congress. And that is exactly what happened. People were killed and many injured during the process. The only reason it did not go further is, they accomplished what they came for and then went home. No one in the insurrection was even arrested at the time. If this had been BLM instead of a bunch of white nationalist Trump people there would have been military all around the place and lots of dead rioters. None would have gotten in.
I think that you’re absolutely right, Randall. The contrast between the policing of the BLM march in DC and that of the January 6 insurrection speaks volumes.
As many volumes as the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry report, or fewer? Which I note, hasn’t done a lot to de-racist our police.
Looking on from the UK it’s hard to call a protest aimed at disrupting government business temporarily an ‘insurrection’. People died, but only one died at the hands of another, and that was one of the protestors. And as long as Democrats make a ‘big thing’ of the Capitol riot then the Republicans can make a ‘bigger thing’ of the ongoing riots in Democratic Blue Cities.
Is this a hill you choose to die on (no pun intended)?
From the UK there, you just don’t know what you are talking about. A protest? When hundreds of white nationalist go to the U.S. Capital building, take on the capital police and smash their way in to disrupt the electoral vote procedures that determine who won the election. You have no idea how silly protest sounds. Whatever is going on in “other” cities has nothing to do with Jan. 6. Eventually there will be hundreds going to prison for long periods for this little protest. Maybe you got no video from your part of the earth but you need to review.
It is pathetic. James Carville is that all you’ve got?
Maybe to put this in language which means something to you?
Imagine Bloody Sunday, but with the Paras not being there in adequate numbers to kill innocent protestors, and it happening on Parliament Green, not in some disposable corner of the country. Is that more in line with the American sensation of shock about this?
I note that the echoes from Bloody Sunday may be quieter today – prosecutions haven’t stopped – but the peace treaty is by no means stable yet.
Nope, not working, too disimilar. I certainly understand that the riot at the Capitol was shameful and shocking to many Americans, but what have the alleged ‘insurrectionists’ actually been charged with? Not ‘treason’, ‘insurrection’ or similar, but lesser charges like possessing guns and ammo on federal land.
President Joe Biden called the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot “the worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” during his speech to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Really? Worse than Presidential assassinations? The Capitol rioters *did* break into the U.S. Capitol and vandalize it, stealing Nancy Pelosi’s rostrum. However, they did not kill anyone or stop the certification of the Electoral College vote in the 2020 presidential election.
There’s a lot of hyperbole being brandished, and I wonder if any of the accused lawyers are going to argue that this will adversely affect the fairness of their clients’ trials.
My understanding is that charges like insurrection (treason is for war so probably doesn’t strictly apply) are the hardest to make and the last to be made. It may well be that investigators never find enough evidence to charge insurrection but it seems clear that most in the crowd intended insurrection. They thought that their vote had been ignored and that the “wrong” president was about to be installed. They sought to change that by intimidating politicians and perhaps killing a few.
Much has been made by the Trumpists of the fact that the only person killed was a woman on their side. The crowd probably avoided killing the Capitol officers out of respect for law enforcement. The violence against them was to simply get them to stand aside and let the insurrectionists through. It is unlikely they would have shown such restraint if they had gotten to the politicians. It was clearly an attempted insurrection that failed mainly because they didn’t want to kill the police, it was poorly organized, and the police officers made a valiant and successful effort to stop them. None of those are sufficient excuse to dodge the charge.
I suppose concepts like “unimaginable” depend on how high you think standards are, or were. I see we have another bout of sleaze filtering through Downing Street – to absolutely nobody’s surprise.
As far as I know, the only person killed was The woman shot in the capitol. Others died of cardiovascular disease or in one case, acute amphetamine intoxication. Also, those who died were all Trump supporters, including the officer who died afterwards from the effects of strokes. They were certainly a bunch of idiots, but this appears to be an effort to magnify the seriousness of the event because of the perceived political views of the participants.
When a similar but left wing group of nuts assaulted and occupied the Wisconsin capitol, Pelosi saw it as “democracy in action”.
If all of those millions of Trump supporters, many of whom are veterans or retired police, and who have been hoarding guns for decades, attempted insurrection, they would not do it with a few cans of bear spray. Even that might not have happened as reported. At least two of the people originally charged with using bear spray there did not actually spray any of it.
As far as how those arrested have been treated, BLM and Antifa folks seem to be released almost immediately, and lightly charged if at all. Some of the folks arrested for the capitol riot have been in solitary confinement, even those not accused of any violence.
When leftists actually set off a bomb in the capitol in 1983, they ended up having their sentences commuted by President Clinton.
To repeat, those people were idiots. Some of them are demonstrably mentally ill. They trespassed, some even broke windows. There was assault on officers, although not on the scale of the May 2020 riots. They did not try to burn the building down or destroy the artworks. Quite a few of them walked in through the open and unguarded doors, strolled around taking incriminating selfies, then wandered away. I think that they each should be charged with whatever crimes it can be proven that they committed. Even the old lady walking around smiling with her little flag should be charged with trespassing, unless it can be shown that she did not know the building was off limits.
But calling it an insurrection, as if they were actually trying to take control of the government, seems to most people like like one of those “fouls” in pro basketball or soccer, mostly imaginary or performative. Calling it an armed insurrection when nobody was armed does not help. Conversely, it is hard to watch all the real violence going on, and pretend it is fiery but mostly peaceful.
We had a BLM protest in our nearest town. There were only about a dozen protesters, but one of them shot a guy in the head, because the shooter had heard a rumor that someone in a similarly colored truck had been aggressive towards the protesters earlier. I am supposed to go into the city soon and take delivery of some equipment. My two main considerations are the road conditions, and whether we can expect to encounter violent protests downtown. That is absurd. The optics of it are terrible. Most people are less concerned with political abstractions than they are about actual threats to their personal safety or livelihoods. I think Carville is right in that respect. Even if I start out thinking some group is really great, once they start beating up elderly folks because they see them leave a synagogue, they lost me.
Also, “Death to America” is not a slogan likely to attract most folks.
Breaking this Republic’s 224-year streak of peaceful transitions of power from a president to his successor is a big effin’ deal, however one choses to label it.
Donald Trump should have been impeached by the House (and eventually convicted in the Senate) immediately after he publicly refused to guarantee the peaceful transition of power if he lost the election. That question should have been a no-brainer; for any of Trump’s 44 predecessors, it would’ve been the equivalent of an uncontested layup.
That Donald Trump could not immediately and unequivocally answer it in the affirmative bespeaks his utter unfitness for office, his arrant cluelessness as to how democratic government functions.
Carville is correct the democrats are much too quiet. It is like they are always waiting for the justice department or judges to save the day. That is just not happening. The democrats should be hammering republicans everyday about Trump and the insurrection. We hear almost nothing. Tonight Biden is going to give a speech from the capital. What will he say about the insurrection? My guess not much. Why such a meek approach. Biden somehow thinks if he just plays the nice guy the voters will perform. It just does not work like that.
Today the justice department raided Rudy’s place. All I can say is – what took you so long? Where is the court case against Trump in Georgia? Where is the Manhattan office on Trump and all of that? Lots of the people that were arrested after the insurrection on now out of jail. They just let them out until trial time. Why did they do that?
Biden now says he is going to put the IRS back to work auditing the real tax cheats – rich people. So do it and advertise you are are doing it. We miss out on over a Trillion bucks a year because the rich do not get audited. And why I am asking questions, why isn’t that idiot that Trump put in the post office gone?
Carville is correct. The Dems policies are way more favorable to the rural white voters than the GOP’s but they get little credit for it. As Carville points out, it’s the ideal time for the Dems to take advantage of this disparity as the GOP is busy pushing its culture war issues while the Biden administration is offering real benefits.
For an interesting take on the same Carville interview, check out:
Memo to Dems: Call The GOP’s “Populist” Bluff
One party is passing legislation to help working-class voters. The other party is voting against it.
https://thebulwark.com/memo-to-dems-call-the-gops-populist-bluff/
What Carville is saying is a basic fact about politics: messaging counts. That is, the party that successfully gets their message out to the public increasing its chances of winning elections. The message needs to be consistent and repeated incessantly over and over again. The Republicans have been so much better than the Democrats in this regard. Fox news and conservative talk radio have enabled them to do this. It matters not that the message consists of lies, distortions, bigotry, and racism. It has been successful. This is why the Republicans are so set on shutting up the few dissenters such as Liz Cheney. They can’t tolerate any inconsistency in the message.
On the hand, Democrats issue mixed measures, ranging from extreme Wokeness to Joe Manchin. Carville points out that due to the diverse nature of the Democratic coalition that there is not too much that can be done about this. Of course, the Republicans will pounce upon the Woke messages. This gives them a distinct advantage in elections. Since it is unlikely that the Woke will temper their message, Carville’s suggestion that the Democrats must go on the offensive and continually and relentlessly attack the Republicans for such things as their increasingly more lukewarm criticism of the insurrection is a necessary strategy.
Politics is not an ivory tower colloquium. Mainstream Democrats need to come up with a message that relentlessly attacks Republicans while as much as possible deflecting the cultural demands of the Woke. In addition, the message should include economic proposals that at one time were considered too far on the left, but are now gaining public approval (such as the expansion of Obamacare and a massive infrastructure program). Biden seems headed in that direction
“Of course, the Republicans will pounce upon the Woke messages. This gives them a distinct advantage in elections.”
Not really. What gives Republicans a distinct advantage in elections is both “baked into the cake” like the Electoral College and Senate representation, and manufactured like gerrymandering, restrictive voting laws, packing the judiciary with partisan hacks and perpetuating the powerful propaganda machine that is FOX news and hate radio. Sure, the Woke messaging can turn off voters (most of whom are on the right), but Woke messaging is negligible (at least right now) when it comes to the real reason Republicans win elections.
I do think the woke messaging gives the GOP voters an excuse for hating Dems. Still, if there was no woke messaging, they’d probably find some other excuse.
Hating Dems is all the GOP has right now…that and endorsing “white supremacy” which is synonymous with the GOP at this time. When was the last time they cared about passing any legislation the majority of Americans want (for any race or creed including their own. Supporting the 1% does not a democracy make)? When the MSM does their “both sides” bit, or “balanced coverage”, they’re completely fooled into thinking that the GOP is even a legitimate political party that needs air-time and discussion as an “alternative view”. There is no GOP conservative alternate view nowadays, that boat has left the dock after Trump. FOX needs to be left alone on that dock as well as Trump and all his toxic dreams of MAGA. Alas, his cult survives in dreams of grandeur and true justice will be construed by the GOP as Deep State conspiracy bullshit.
I particularly liked Carville’s comment on “faculty lounge” language. As to where the weird vogue-word “Latinx” came from, it was invented to mollify the LGBTQX “community” by avoiding the use of gender-specific endings characteristic of Spanish (and many other languages). So it is another new ritual
affectation, like the fashionable insistence on new personal pronouns. Permit me to suggest that we refer to individuals who use language of this sort as the “faculty loungex community”. Oh, wait, doing that would open us to the charge of “microaggression”, by members of the perpetually micro-offendedx community.
At bottom, “Trumpism” is fueled by resentment and fear by certain whites of what they perceive as kowtowing to racial and ethnic minorities, which they perceive the Democrats as doing. That resentment will not go away even if Trump were to disappear tomorrow. This resentment is fueled further by the inanities of the Woke which seem to get worse every day. But Biden owes his presidency to black turnout in the swing states so he needs to be careful how he goes about countering this resentment. Probably what he is doing—large spending programs favoring lower income whites and minorities—is the best way to go. I hope the Dems stay away from the excessive racial politics of the Woke. If not, their tenure in power may be short.
There’s another recent interview of Carville by Bill Kristol: https://conversationswithbillkristol.org/video/james-carville/
Much more interesting, from this side of the Pond, is the news just breaking that Michael Collins – the “man in the can” on the Apollo 11 mission – has just (last few hours?) died.
So that leaves Buzz, Borman, Anders, McDivitt, Lovell, Stafford, Scott, Schweickart, Cunningham, Schmitt, Duke, Haise, and Mattingly from the original groups of astronauts, back when America cared about such things. I don’t think I missed anyone but double check me. Gemini, Mercury Seven, Apollo…so inspiring but I suppose mostly forgotten these days. Do kids even look up from their devices anymore, or go out at night to gaze up at the stars they probably can’t see through the light pollution?
Well, the Sky at Night is continuing it’s regular production run approximately bi-monthly at the moment, making it a 63 year run to-date. They’re getting high enough ratings that I haven’t heard of a significant threat to the programme continuing, They introduced a segment (and regular presenter) for observational astronomy about 10 years ago, as the production team were trying ideas to cope with the anticipated death of the original presenter.
There is a non-trivial niche for observational astronomy programmes on phones, tablets, the like, which use the phone’s orientation, location and time equipment to display a “finder chart” for the particular piece of sky which the device is being pointed at. Most (not all) of these applications include a “red” display mode, intended to preserve the user’s night vision. (I suspect those applications which don’t include such a mode are being produced as technology demonstrators by computing students, rather than as astronomical tools.)
It’s a genuine concern, but I think the community is well aware of it and active about it.
One of my sisters runs a B&B on the border of one of the country’s designated “dark sky” areas, and makes use of that in her business theming and advertising. Well, she did. Not this year.
I always have to wonder, when I see these calls for Democrats to move even further to the right in order to appease Republican voters, why I never see Republicans telling each other to move further left to appeal to Democrat voters
What makes you think Carville is calling Dems to move further to the right? Seemed to me it was more about convincing as many rural whites as possible that Dem policies were more in their favor than GOP ones. In other words, tell the story better or louder rather than change the story.
The Republicans do seem to have abandoned the middle, which opens an opportunity for the Dems to gain those votes rather than moving further left. As the Repugs shrink their tent, let the Dems expand theirs. I think it is possible to promote a liberal agenda without turning away centrists.
If we enlightenment liberals had any sense we’d turn the Jan 6th insurrection into our “Benghazi”. Or our Monicagate, Whitewater. etc.
Never shut up about it – I’d like big expensive congressional expeditions with serious faces and AOC all made up, flashy propaganda, endless column and articles, hats, stained glass windows damnit. Make that face painted antlered fool the most famous MAGA-a-hole in America.
“Trump lied, people died” bumper stickers. Let Republicans get away with NOTHING. No prisoners, no quarter for our Party of God.
D.A.
NYC
Well said, DA
“Imagine how Republicans would exploit that and make every news cycle about how the Dems are responsible for it.”
This is patently absurd. He’s talking like Republicans have the ability to define the news cycle. That’s just not the reality. Even on Fox, it’s the left-wing corporatist agenda that dominates the news segments (not including the prime time political commentators like Hannity and Tucker Carlson, but even though they dominate the ratings in their time slots, they don’t define the news cycle).
If the Republicans had the power Carville suggests, the news cycle would have been dominated by Hunter Biden’s laptop, Clinton’s trips to Epstein’s island, the vacuousness of the Russia collusion conspiracy, stories about illegal immigrants committing violent crimes, and on and on and on. But that never happened, because the Republicans simply don’t have the ability he ascribes to them.
He’s either deliberately gaslighting or he still thinks it’s 1996, when reporters were still willing to do stories that could potentially harm Democrats.
The reason these stories don’t get on the “liberal media” is not because they are biased against so-called conservatives but because the stories themselves are basically bullshit. I don’t really give a fig about Hunter’s lap top because he’s not a government official and no government official has been shown to be involved in anything. He’s being investigated. What they do or don’t find doesn’t mean a damn thing to the country.
I don’t care what Clinton did with Epstein. If he’s found guilty of something, then he can go to jail. But unless he holds some political power, how is it affecting me or the country? Bill Clinton is not the greatest human being. But Trump hung out with Epstein too so I presume you are outraged there as well.
Based on available statistics, crime would go down if we let the immigrants in and kicked the citizens out since we commit crimes at a higher rate than the immigrants do. How’s that for a solution?
But you go ahead back to OANN and Newsmax where they cover that kind of thing 24/7 if it makes you feel better. That’s your right as an American. Enjoy life.