Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

[barbos]

I was not talking about her specifically. I was talking about democratic socialism she is supposedly part of. She needs to drift out of it to be closer to Bernie Sanders.

I still disagree.

I still cringe

 

[Arctish]

I was not talking about her specifically. I was talking about democratic socialism she is supposedly part of. She needs to drift out of it to be closer to Bernie Sanders.

I still disagree.

I still cringe

Glad to hear it.

 

[lpetrich]

She's being attacked the same way Hillary Clinton was during the Clinton Administration - relentlessly, mercilessly, and for the most part, ridiculously.

"Impeach Clinton. And her husband" is a bumper sticker that I saw back then. I remember this joke: "Hillary fried chicken: two fat thighs, two left wings, and $3.99 plus tax plus tax plus tax." I also remember someone online signing his posts with "Does the Abominable Bubba bounce?"

I also remember the extremes that the Right would go to have something to hate about the Clintons. They'd trample on their most cherished values if doing so gave them something to hate about him. Dumping chicken waste in the Arkansas River. They turned into greenies about tha one. The firing of the White House travel agents? They forgot about their belief in the absolute sovereignty of employers over their workspaces and their opposition to wasteful government spending. Wanting 100,000 more cops? They turned anti-cop. The siege of the Branch Davidians of Waco? They forgot all about being for law and order. Whitewater? They turned anti-capitalist. Paula Jones? They became born-again feminists. Clinton's wars? They took positions that they normally oppose as dangerous naivete or even outright treason. I never in my life thought that I'd see right-wingers becoming pacifists.

Likewise about Barack Obama. The Right went to extremes in hating him also. There also, they were willing to deny their most cherished values. Like when Michelle Obama took on school lunches, they defended junk food.

I don't recall the Left hating George Bush I with that sort of intensity, even though he was a good analogy for that side.

She's popular with the up-and-coming demographic that will be voting for the first or second time in 2020. She can communicate clearly and effectively on social media, knows the memes and the lingo, and is very much in touch with the issues that resonate with Progressives.

The Old Guard can't afford to ignore her but desperately wish they could.

Her defeat of John Crowley may have made it especially personal for them.

 

[poster]

Democrats would do well to quit the complaints of "hate" from Republicans. It makes Democrats sound whiney. What Republicans do is "roast" Democrats, similar to how comedians roast one another competitively. That is the reason Republicans can brush aside the morality criticisms.

There's an episode from a series on HBO called Crashing that represents this very well. I wonder if it's on youtube. I'll go check.

This is the best I can come up with. For anyone who has HBO, it's the season two finale.

 

[Worldtraveller]

Back then there were so many loopholes it looked like Swiss cheese. Most people didn't actually pay those high rates. (But we will never know the true data as most of the issue was dodges that kept it from being reported as income in the first place, thus there's nothing in the IRS records to use to figure it out.)

The very rich didn't pay those high rates because, instead of paying that rate, they put their money back into their businesses or paid their employees more. That's why back then, CEOs made only thirty times what the worker under them made. Today, CEOs make 1000 times more and many times even more than that. Low tax rates on the 1% equals fuck over the worker.

Wishful thinking.

1) The issue was making things look like corporate expenses rather than personal income. That's not actually putting money into the business.

2) CEOs make more compared to workers now because companies are bigger now. CEO pay vs worker pay is mostly a function of company size.

Do you have any data to back up either of these assertions?

 

[Opoponax]

Democrats would do well to quit the complaints of "hate" from Republicans.

What does this even mean?

It makes Democrats sound whiney. What Republicans do is "roast" Democrats, similar to how comedians roast one another competitively. That is the reason Republicans can brush aside the morality criticisms.

What? Explain all three of the above sentences. None of them make any sense.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Democrats would do well to quit the complaints of "hate" from Republicans. It makes Democrats sound whiney. What Republicans do is "roast" Democrats, similar to how comedians roast one another competitively. That is the reason Republicans can brush aside the morality criticisms.

There's an episode from a series on HBO called Crashing that represents this very well. I wonder if it's on youtube. I'll go check.

This is the best I can come up with. For anyone who has HBO, it's the season two finale.

Conservative humor is based on hate and fear. It is terrible and only works for deplorables. This is why so many conservative comedians fail.

 

[poster]

Democrats would do well to quit the complaints of "hate" from Republicans.

What does this even mean?

It makes Democrats sound whiney. What Republicans do is "roast" Democrats, similar to how comedians roast one another competitively. That is the reason Republicans can brush aside the morality criticisms.

What? Explain all three of the above sentences. None of them make any sense.

Either you don't read or you don't read well.

Read the first sentence in Ipetrich's second paragraph. The use of the word "hate" in that type of context is common with Democrats. My point is that it sounds whiney.

 

[poster]

Democrats would do well to quit the complaints of "hate" from Republicans. It makes Democrats sound whiney. What Republicans do is "roast" Democrats, similar to how comedians roast one another competitively. That is the reason Republicans can brush aside the morality criticisms.

There's an episode from a series on HBO called Crashing that represents this very well. I wonder if it's on youtube. I'll go check.

This is the best I can come up with. For anyone who has HBO, it's the season two finale.

Conservative humor is based on hate and fear. It is terrible and only works for deplorables. This is why so many conservative comedians fail.

Lots of comedians of every stripe fail. If by fail, you mean they don't make it to the big time.

 

[Toni]

She's being attacked the same way Hillary Clinton was during the Clinton Administration - relentlessly, mercilessly, and for the most part, ridiculously.

"Impeach Clinton. And her husband" is a bumper sticker that I saw back then. I remember this joke: "Hillary fried chicken: two fat thighs, two left wings, and $3.99 plus tax plus tax plus tax." I also remember someone online signing his posts with "Does the Abominable Bubba bounce?"

I also remember the extremes that the Right would go to have something to hate about the Clintons. They'd trample on their most cherished values if doing so gave them something to hate about him. Dumping chicken waste in the Arkansas River. They turned into greenies about tha one. The firing of the White House travel agents? They forgot about their belief in the absolute sovereignty of employers over their workspaces and their opposition to wasteful government spending. Wanting 100,000 more cops? They turned anti-cop. The siege of the Branch Davidians of Waco? They forgot all about being for law and order. Whitewater? They turned anti-capitalist. Paula Jones? They became born-again feminists. Clinton's wars? They took positions that they normally oppose as dangerous naivete or even outright treason. I never in my life thought that I'd see right-wingers becoming pacifists.

Likewise about Barack Obama. The Right went to extremes in hating him also. There also, they were willing to deny their most cherished values. Like when Michelle Obama took on school lunches, they defended junk food.

I don't recall the Left hating George Bush I with that sort of intensity, even though he was a good analogy for that side.

She's popular with the up-and-coming demographic that will be voting for the first or second time in 2020. She can communicate clearly and effectively on social media, knows the memes and the lingo, and is very much in touch with the issues that resonate with Progressives.

The Old Guard can't afford to ignore her but desperately wish they could.

Her defeat of John Crowley may have made it especially personal for them.

Sometimes I really do worry that too many Democrats are really so anti-Trump that they latch onto ridiculous criticisms. There are plenty of extremely valid ones so there is zero need to latch onto his looks, the pee tapes, his wife (who I am convinced is his handler) and so on. Oh, it's fun to laugh at his personal foibles but honestly: who gives a fuck? I care a great deal more about his actual malfeasance and his actual incompetence and his actual declining mental acuity and mental health than I care about how many prostitutes he slept with or paid off (except for the under age ones. That's never going to be forgivable.)

I think he's an actual real life danger to the US and to the world. I think he's actually Putin's agent, albeit perhaps unwittingly so. I honestly don't think he can separate what he wants and thinks serves his needs from what is ethical or right. I don't think he gives a rats' ass about what is legal. And justice isn't even a concept to him. He is really very much like a young toddler who is only able to think about his own personal short term needs and wants and nothing else.

Any and all of these are enough to have him removed from office.

But that's only part of the problem--and I'm not even talking about Pence here or the constitutional crisis.

The other part of the problem is that we have a sizable portion of the nation who embrace him, who feel he speaks for them, despite quite a lot of evidence that he actively works against them.

That's the much bigger part of the problem. And it's much,much bigger than one little fat man with bad hair and no morals.

 

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Agreed, Toni. It's been a problem ever since I can remember. Republican voters--or, rather, a certain majority faction of them--always vote against their own best interests. It's literally as if they are brainwashed. I used to chalk it up to side effects of being in the Christian cult, but there seems to be something even more fundamental going on that eludes detection. Some sort of death wish I guess; or some variant of the single white female syndrome? They so desperately want to elevate in status that they look up to the absolute worst and somehow believe them to be the best?

Something like that. It's that "thank you sir, may I have another" mentality. They think they're in a club/fraternity or something and are therefore equals with their clear superiors. Maybe that's it? It's a simple as being beta dogs desperately wanting to be part of the pack and/or an alpha dog that they would gladly give up their own pathetic lives just to be looked on by an alpha? A

t least that seems to be the case for the males. Why any female is a Republican (or any non-caucasian is one) really just baffles me to my core. Especially today. Maybe, fifty years ago, you could cling to the idea that a Republican meant being fiscally responsible/conservative and teaching a person to fish so that they can feed themselves, kind of mentality, but now?

Fuck no. Now it's just white trash detritus.

Thank the IPU it's their death rattle we're experiencing now.

 

[Toni]

Agreed, Toni. It's been a problem ever since I can remember. Republican voters--or, rather, a certain majority faction of them--always vote against their own best interests. It's literally as if they are brainwashed. I used to chalk it up to side effects of being in the Christian cult, but there seems to be something even more fundamental going on that eludes detection. Some sort of death wish I guess; or some variant of the single white female syndrome? They so desperately want to elevate in status that they look up to the absolute worst and somehow believe them to be the best?

Something like that. It's that "thank you sir, may I have another" mentality. They think they're in a club/fraternity or something and are therefore equals with their clear superiors. Maybe that's it? It's a simple as being beta dogs desperately wanting to be part of the pack and/or an alpha dog that they would gladly give up their own pathetic lives just to be looked on by an alpha? A

t least that seems to be the case for the males. Why any female is a Republican (or any non-caucasian is one) really just baffles me to my core. Especially today. Maybe, fifty years ago, you could cling to the idea that a Republican meant being fiscally responsible/conservative and teaching a person to fish so that they can feed themselves, kind of mentality, but now?

Fuck no. Now it's just white trash detritus.

Thank the IPU it's their death rattle we're experiencing now.

I understand that for many Republicans, they believe the GOP stands for individual rights, and against government tyranny. They believe that the GOP stands for Christian (and sometimes Jewish--so long as they don't have to....live next door to one or their kids don't marry any) values and a strong nuclear family and strong moral values. They think that the GOP stands for self reliance and determination and the little guy and the rule of law. They think that the GOP stands for small government and a small tax bill for them.

I cannot figure out how any of that translates into the current head of the GOP.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Agreed, Toni. It's been a problem ever since I can remember. Republican voters--or, rather, a certain majority faction of them--always vote against their own best interests. It's literally as if they are brainwashed. I used to chalk it up to side effects of being in the Christian cult, but there seems to be something even more fundamental going on that eludes detection. Some sort of death wish I guess; or some variant of the single white female syndrome? They so desperately want to elevate in status that they look up to the absolute worst and somehow believe them to be the best?

Something like that. It's that "thank you sir, may I have another" mentality. They think they're in a club/fraternity or something and are therefore equals with their clear superiors. Maybe that's it? It's a simple as being beta dogs desperately wanting to be part of the pack and/or an alpha dog that they would gladly give up their own pathetic lives just to be looked on by an alpha? A

t least that seems to be the case for the males. Why any female is a Republican (or any non-caucasian is one) really just baffles me to my core. Especially today. Maybe, fifty years ago, you could cling to the idea that a Republican meant being fiscally responsible/conservative and teaching a person to fish so that they can feed themselves, kind of mentality, but now?

Fuck no. Now it's just white trash detritus.

Thank the IPU it's their death rattle we're experiencing now.

I understand that for many Republicans, they believe the GOP stands for individual rights, and against government tyranny. They believe that the GOP stands for Christian (and sometimes Jewish--so long as they don't have to....live next door to one or their kids don't marry any) values and a strong nuclear family and strong moral values. They think that the GOP stands for self reliance and determination and the little guy and the rule of law. They think that the GOP stands for small government and a small tax bill for them.

I cannot figure out how any of that translates into the current head of the GOP.

I live in Pennsyltucky. Trump supporters here are all those things. Maybe it's a fear thing but they are also adamant about not empowering people who don't deserve to be empowered, specifically those lazy blacks and illegals that do nothing but collect from our welfare system and make babies. It's probably what psychologists already know, that they don't want to be perceived as the bottom class. They fervently need to have someone else down there. They also seem to thrive on having enemies and reacting emotionally to most everything.

 

[steve_bank]

Well, it is not what she wants the question is how it will will be paid for and the consequences. Same for Bernie.

The French socialism has never worked and alswys seems on the verge of a breakdowm

The worse case modern example is Venezuela. Revenue from resources was squander with abandon on massive social programs that worked for a while, and finally economic collapse. The last series of leaders have been ideologues with no experience.

Congress is one of most important jobs in the country yet it requires no relevant experience. One only needs to appeal to enough voters.

 

[Toni]

Agreed, Toni. It's been a problem ever since I can remember. Republican voters--or, rather, a certain majority faction of them--always vote against their own best interests. It's literally as if they are brainwashed. I used to chalk it up to side effects of being in the Christian cult, but there seems to be something even more fundamental going on that eludes detection. Some sort of death wish I guess; or some variant of the single white female syndrome? They so desperately want to elevate in status that they look up to the absolute worst and somehow believe them to be the best?

Something like that. It's that "thank you sir, may I have another" mentality. They think they're in a club/fraternity or something and are therefore equals with their clear superiors. Maybe that's it? It's a simple as being beta dogs desperately wanting to be part of the pack and/or an alpha dog that they would gladly give up their own pathetic lives just to be looked on by an alpha? A

t least that seems to be the case for the males. Why any female is a Republican (or any non-caucasian is one) really just baffles me to my core. Especially today. Maybe, fifty years ago, you could cling to the idea that a Republican meant being fiscally responsible/conservative and teaching a person to fish so that they can feed themselves, kind of mentality, but now?

Fuck no. Now it's just white trash detritus.

Thank the IPU it's their death rattle we're experiencing now.

I understand that for many Republicans, they believe the GOP stands for individual rights, and against government tyranny. They believe that the GOP stands for Christian (and sometimes Jewish--so long as they don't have to....live next door to one or their kids don't marry any) values and a strong nuclear family and strong moral values. They think that the GOP stands for self reliance and determination and the little guy and the rule of law. They think that the GOP stands for small government and a small tax bill for them.

I cannot figure out how any of that translates into the current head of the GOP.

I live in Pennsyltucky. Trump supporters here are all those things. Maybe it's a fear thing but they are also adamant about not empowering people who don't deserve to be empowered, specifically those lazy blacks and illegals that do nothing but collect from our welfare system and make babies. It's probably what psychologists already know, that they don't want to be perceived as the bottom class. They fervently need to have someone else down there. They also seem to thrive on having enemies and reacting emotionally to most everything.

There's that, for sure. For many years, that's how I viewed it: people near the bottom need to see someone else, some 'other' as beneath them or else their own insecurities are just too overwhelming.

But my, perhaps more sympathetic take at this juncture of my life is that for people like my father who was born in the Great Depression and grew up extremely poor, and whose family only survived by brutally hard, backbreaking work: That's the only way they knew to survive during tough times. It was important to their survival not only that they work as hard as possible, to keep to a very straight and very narrow path that allowed for zero mistakes but also that they believe that hard work would be their salvation, and would allow them to achieve a better life. To even consider that working hard might not be enough: that was too terrifying a thought. If someone didn't succeed, it must be that they didn't work hard enough, that they strayed from the path.

 

[Canard DuJour]

Well, it is not what she wants the question is how it will will be paid for and the consequences. Same for Bernie.

The same way federal govt spending is already paid for : the central bank credits recipients' banks' reserve accounts, and the recipients' banks credit the recipients' accounts. All electronically with keystrokes.

In the case of deficit spending (i.e. in excess of current tax receipts), treasury is legally obligated to issue bonds. The central bank uses these to target interest rates, not to fund deficits.

This might or might not cause inflation, depending on macroeconomic conditions and the availability of real resources.

The French socialism has never worked and alswys seems on the verge of a breakdowm.

If it always seems on the verge of breakdown, yet never breaks down, "seems" is probably the operative word. The current discontents, as with most of the OECD, came with neoliberalism - and, in the case of Eurozone countries, the ECB's Monetarist policies.

As Joseph Stiglitz says, the problem with Europe is the euro.

 

[poster]

I think the majority opinion was that AOC would turn out to be a person who snuck in through the back door and that spotlighting her would reveal this, that she would be uncovered to be the Democrats' Sarah Palin. The reality has turned out to be no such thing. Firstly, Palin set the bar so low that there isn't any room whatsoever to squeez under it, but more than this, by miles, is that AOC is actually well informed in some areas and quite capable of articulating & handeling herself in the twittersphere as well as through other medium.

Hopefully more of her kind will run now that she's broken through. Maybe more of these freshmen will show moxie as AOC has.

 

[Toni]

I think the majority opinion was that AOC would turn out to be a person who snuck in through the back door and that spotlighting her would reveal this, that she would be uncovered to be the Democrats' Sarah Palin. The reality has turned out to be no such thing. Firstly, Palin set the bar so low that there isn't any room whatsoever to squeez under it, but more than this, by miles, is that AOC is actually well informed in some areas and quite capable of articulating & handeling herself in the twittersphere as well as through other medium.

Hopefully more of her kind will run now that she's broken through. Maybe more of these freshmen will show moxie as AOC has.

I dunno about there being absolutely no room to squeeze under the low bar that Palin set. I think that Steve King is doing an absolutely bang up job as a freshman. Ted Cruz ain't doing so bad himself, albeit he's really long in the tooth.

Maybe that's not what you meant but frankly overt racism and treason are a pretty low bar......Palin was merely an ignorant bigot with a big ego. More photogenic, sure. But what comes our of my dog's ass on a bad day is more photogenic than Cruz and is much more pleasant than King or Cruz...

Still if you want to talk about low bars being set, one really needs look no further than Trump and Pence.

 

[poster]

I think the majority opinion was that AOC would turn out to be a person who snuck in through the back door and that spotlighting her would reveal this, that she would be uncovered to be the Democrats' Sarah Palin. The reality has turned out to be no such thing. Firstly, Palin set the bar so low that there isn't any room whatsoever to squeez under it, but more than this, by miles, is that AOC is actually well informed in some areas and quite capable of articulating & handeling herself in the twittersphere as well as through other medium.

Hopefully more of her kind will run now that she's broken through. Maybe more of these freshmen will show moxie as AOC has.

I dunno about there being absolutely no room to squeeze under the low bar that Palin set. I think that Steve King is doing an absolutely bang up job as a freshman. Ted Cruz ain't doing so bad himself, albeit he's really long in the tooth.

Maybe that's not what you meant but frankly overt racism and treason are a pretty low bar......Palin was merely an ignorant bigot with a big ego. More photogenic, sure. But what comes our of my dog's ass on a bad day is more photogenic than Cruz and is much more pleasant than King or Cruz...

Still if you want to talk about low bars being set, one really needs look no further than Trump and Pence.

I was referring to ignorance, not personality. AOC is very intelligent and articulate as it turns out, which is opposite of Palin.

Cruz graduated law school with honors. In fact, Alan Dershowitz said Cruz was "off the charts brilliant" as a student. That said, I personally disagree with Cruz's political positions and believe them to be toxic to the future of the US. I've stated here and elsewhere that a vote for Ted Cruz is a vote for Rafael Cruz, Ted's dad, who is a fundelmentalist nutcase and who has raised Ted to be one also. Ted lives for his dad's approval.

King is a neocon/neoliberal whom, it apears, like many politicians, had interest in college for military deferments only. He's clearly racist, he's closer to Palin than Cruz is in being a butt-head, that's for sure.

Trump and Pence? Well, we're learning about these two more each and every day, aren't we. It's too bad the Democrats alienated enough people in just the right states to put these two morons in office. It's also too bad Sanders turned down Stein's invitation to move to VP status to allow him to run for president as a Green Party candidate. Not that they would have won, but surely would have lent more ligitimacy to the party and pulled the democrats more to the left thereafter. Short of that pulling to the left, we're still screwed. It's just that warming will be delayed by a few hours with these dems as opposed to republicans.

But I digress.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

I live in Pennsyltucky. Trump supporters here are all those things. Maybe it's a fear thing but they are also adamant about not empowering people who don't deserve to be empowered, specifically those lazy blacks and illegals that do nothing but collect from our welfare system and make babies. It's probably what psychologists already know, that they don't want to be perceived as the bottom class. They fervently need to have someone else down there. They also seem to thrive on having enemies and reacting emotionally to most everything.

There's that, for sure. For many years, that's how I viewed it: people near the bottom need to see someone else, some 'other' as beneath them or else their own insecurities are just too overwhelming.

But my, perhaps more sympathetic take at this juncture of my life is that for people like my father who was born in the Great Depression and grew up extremely poor, and whose family only survived by brutally hard, backbreaking work: That's the only way they knew to survive during tough times. It was important to their survival not only that they work as hard as possible, to keep to a very straight and very narrow path that allowed for zero mistakes but also that they believe that hard work would be their salvation, and would allow them to achieve a better life. To even consider that working hard might not be enough: that was too terrifying a thought. If someone didn't succeed, it must be that they didn't work hard enough, that they strayed from the path.

It's more than that, something along the lines of not knowing what kind of world you want to try to build, not viewing past injustices, not having an appreciation for overt discrimination, not appreciating the plight of a fellow human being. They have this impression that there is something out there called minority privilege whenever they think politics and they see it as unfair. Perhaps it's simply an inability to see yourself as another person.

That said, I cannot stress enough their inability to remain unemotional when talking politics and their expressing a palpable fear that their status in society is being threatened and degraded with any liberal policy. They believe that democrats are KKK sympathizers. They believe that representative government is a conservative crowning jewel. They do not appreciate the white privilege they enjoy when it comes to finding a job.

My own parents endured the depression and for most of their lives were democrats. FDR was next to a god because FDR took care of them. But they abandoned FDR's legacy when they didn't need it anymore, when they were financially secure.