[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2022-July-28, 18:36, said:

Sure, but that's not what I am talking about
Or, rather, people do make up their own minds but I am not so sure this bombarding stuff works so well.

It’s all about how it is presented, the framing. People are defensive about their choices, so attacking those choices is a loosing proposition. Better to present factual information that opposes those ideas that Trump glommed onto pretending to be a populist: explaining why the US needs immigrants, the true numbers of criminal and gang affiliates that try to cross the southern border, how tariffs increase consumer prices and on and on. You don’t attack the person or who he/she voted for-you simply let him or her see that they were misled. That’s really all you can do. An exercise in creating the discomfort of cognitive dissonance.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2022-July-28, 19:33, said:

It's all about how it is presented, the framing. People are defensive about their choices, so attacking those choices is a losing proposition. Better to present factual information that opposes those ideas that Trump glommed onto pretending to be a populist: explaining why the US needs immigrants, the true numbers of criminal and gang affiliates that try to cross the southern border, how tariffs increase consumer prices and on and on. You don't attack the person or who he/she voted for-you simply let him or her see that they were misled. That's really all you can do. An exercise in creating the discomfort of cognitive dissonance.

I believe that this is not all that can be done. Once upon a time those wishing to win an election listened to the concerns of voters, took these concerns seriously, and attempted to create a platform that would address those concerns. Of course sometimes hypocrisy was part of this, but also sometimes there was an honest attempt to listen and respond. That appears to have withered a bit. More than a bit.

Edit: I was going to just leave it at that but it's really the core of my argument so I will expand. Let's take a recent hullabaloo, requiring 12-year-old students to read (and presumably appreciate) Beloved. I will speak of my childhood. Much will be a repetition of previous comments, I have been on this thread for a long time.

My birthday is Jan 1 and at the time this meant I could and did start Kindergarten when I was 4. My classmate Sally's birthday was a little later so I was only the second youngest, not the youngest. I grew slowly. There were three boys in my class smaller than I was. I coped, sort of.
Moving forward to when I was 13 I was still small.
I saw Moulin Rouge, a movie about the Toulousse-Lautrec. He fell down the stairs when he was young, genetic disorders caused his legs not to grow properly, and he had a difficult and tragic life. This seriously upset me, lasting at least for weeks, maybe for months.
The same year I read a book from the school library about Greek mythology. A hunter came across the nude goddess Diana while she was bathing in a stream. The way I remember it, she turned him to stone. But there are variants, for example she might have turned him into wild game so that his dogs ate him. This also upset me greatly.
Now move forward to my Sophomore year, I am 14 and about to turn 15. I have gone through a growth spurt, I am 5-10, I have been lifting weights. In some ridiculous game, something the gym teacher had us play while he was off doing whatever, a kid almost blinded me. He grabbed me from behind by the head with his fingers deep in my eyesockets, twirled about, and flung me. I was no longer so small so I went for him. I still recall sitting on his chest, his arms pinned by my legs, my forearm across his windpipe. I got a hold of myself and let him up.

The point? If some mother says she would rather not have her son read a book about a heroic mother killing her son, I can see her point. At least with Moulin Rouge and with Greek Mythology, they were my choice, they were not required. My thoughts about them were my business. And I did get up off that kid in the gym "game".

I would be fine with having 12-year-olds read about experiences others have faced. I read A Choice of Weapons as a young adult and it would be a fine book for a 12-year-old. I think the best would be to offer a list of books about experiences of other cultures and other races, and require that a student choose one, or two, of those books and read them and give their thoughts on them. That is, they are told to read and to think, but they are not told what to think. I can well imagine that a 12-year-old boy might think that a mother killing her son is not a particularly good idea. He should be free to say so.

Anyway, this is a sample of how I think about these matters, and I think that the Dems, if they wish to win more elections, might want to consider that I very much doubt that my views and experiences are unique to me.

[barmar]

pilowsky, on 2022-July-28, 19:14, said:

The problem is not necessarily the way that "the American people" think.
72% of Americans think that gun violence is a very big (48%) or moderately big (24%) problem (Pew Research).
Americans also think something should be done about it and they even agree on some of the things that ought to be done.

So what stops "the American people" from taking action to implement change about policy issues they are concerned about?

Not being American I can't say for sure but from the outside it seems that there are ingrained, bred in the bone sentiments that prevent change: even when a small sacrifice will improve the lot of everyone.

There seems to be a:
lack of trust in government.
belief in the paramount rights of the individual.
sense that if 'I' can get it and you can't then 'I' deserve to have it and you don't.

When only the 'I's' have it, caring for others by not always having what you want is a difficult concept to grasp.

It isn't just America obviously. Conservatives in Australia (and other countries) have also embraced the cult of what is euphemistically termed "personal responsibility".

This is indeed the problem with America. There's widespread agreement that gun control is needed, even among gun owners. But if you ask any of them if they're willing to give up their guns, they'll probably mostly say no.

"I'm not the problem, they are. And I need to keep my guns to protect myself and my family from them."

And it doesn't take a genius to guess what color skin "they" have.

[Winstonm]

kenberg, on 2022-July-29, 06:43, said:

I believe that this is not all that can be done. Once upon a time those wishing to win an election listened to the concerns of voters, took these concerns seriously, and attempted to create a platform that would address those concerns. Of course sometimes hypocrisy was part of this, but also sometimes there was an honest attempt to listen and respond. That appears to have withered a bit. More than a bit.

Edit: I was going to just leave it at that but it's really the core of my argument so I will expand. Let's take a recent hullabaloo, requiring 12-year-old students to read (and presumably appreciate) Beloved. I will speak of my childhood. Much will be a repetition of previous comments, I have been on this thread for a long time.

My birthday is Jan 1 and at the time this meant I could and did start Kindergarten when I was 4. My classmate Sally's birthday was a little later so I was only the second youngest, not the youngest. I grew slowly. There were three boys in my class smaller than I was. I coped, sort of.
Moving forward to when I was 13 I was still small.
I saw Moulin Rouge, a movie about the Toulousse-Lautrec. He fell down the stairs when he was young, genetic disorders caused his legs not to grow properly, and he had a difficult and tragic life. This seriously upset me, lasting at least for weeks, maybe for months.
The same year I read a book from the school library about Greek mythology. A hunter came across the nude goddess Diana while she was bathing in a stream. The way I remember it, she turned him to stone. But there are variants, for example she might have turned him into wild game so that his dogs ate him. This also upset me greatly.
Now move forward to my Sophomore year, I am 14 and about to turn 15. I have gone through a growth spurt, I am 5-10, I have been lifting weights. In some ridiculous game, something the gym teacher had us play while he was off doing whatever, a kid almost blinded me. He grabbed me from behind by the head with his fingers deep in my eyesockets, twirled about, and flung me. I was no longer so small so I went for him. I still recall sitting on his chest, his arms pinned by my legs, my forearm across his windpipe. I got a hold of myself and let him up.

The point? If some mother says she would rather not have her son read a book about a heroic mother killing her son, I can see her point. At least with Moulin Rouge and with Greek Mythology, they were my choice, they were not required. My thoughts about them were my business. And I did get up off that kid in the gym "game".

I would be fine with having 12-year-olds read about experiences others have faced. I read A Choice of Weapons as a young adult and it would be a fine book for a 12-year-old. I think the best would be to offer a list of books about experiences of other cultures and other races, and require that a student choose one, or two, of those books and read them and give their thoughts on them. That is, they are told to read and to think, but they are not told what to think. I can well imagine that a 12-year-old boy might think that a mother killing her son is not a particularly good idea. He should be free to say so.

Anyway, this is a sample of how I think about these matters, and I think that the Dems, if they wish to win more elections, might want to consider that I very much doubt that my views and experiences are unique to me.

Shall I address Ken or Dr. Berg? One is a neat guy; the other is my educational better by far. Irrelevant, I guess.

I am quite confused, either from what I understand or about where you get your understandings. Where exactly do you think it is a problem that Democrats are trying to force children to read and think as they do? I don't see that from Democrats, seriously. If you do, show me where, please.

I do see the Republicans attacking imaginary problems and it sounds to me as if that is where you are formulating these ideas - not that you watch FOX or Hannity or even read the WSJ opinion pages, but somewhere you have either seen, been told, read, or somehow gathered information of which I am totally unfamiliar.

If you could clarify, it would help. Thanks.

[Evies Dad]

I look forward to what I term your daily diatribe Winston.
I am starting to understand some of what you are discussing.
I suspect you and I would agree on a lot of things, so I ponder why I feel uncomfortable about the way you present it.

One thing I am sure about, you don't get people to change their minds by bombarding them and telling them they are wrong.
That is the challenge you face.

[Winstonm]

Evies Dad, on 2022-July-29, 14:39, said:

I look forward to what I term your daily diatribe Winston.
I am starting to understand some of what you are discussing.
I suspect you and I would agree on a lot of things, so I ponder why I feel uncomfortable about the way you present it.

One thing I am sure about, you don't get people to change their minds by bombarding them and telling them they are wrong.
That is the challenge you face.

See, this is what I am saying. What I say and how I say it are different on the WC to someone who I have been hired by the DNC to talk to. I would not blame them, put them down, but simply give them the factual information that shows that they were given bad information when that made their decisions.
The only way to break through lies is with facts. That is all I mean by bombard. You don’t argue you bombard, I.e. stick to a repetition of facts.

[pilowsky]

kenberg, on 2022-July-29, 06:43, said:

Once upon a time those wishing to win an election listened to the concerns of voters, took these concerns seriously, and attempted to create a platform that would address those concerns. Of course sometimes hypocrisy was part of this, but also sometimes there was an honest attempt to listen and respond.

When?
I think they made a documentary about the American political system called 'Game of Thrones'.

[kenberg]

pilowsky, on 2022-July-29, 16:16, said:

When?
I think they made a documentary about the American political system called 'Game of Thrones'.

Becky watched several seasons of GoT. I watched until they threw a kid off a cliff or some such. That's Entertainment? Not.
I can actually watch or read about or otherwise learn about gruesome matters but not for entertainment.
I just don't get it. Becky is a very gentle person.

[y66]

Jonathan Chait at NYMag said:

There is an odd little side story to the massive news in Congress about the Democrats’ domestic-policy agreement. Republicans are claiming to have been the victim of deception. “This betrayal is an absolute declaration of political warfare,” raged John Cornyn. Tom Cotton claimed Democrats “double-crossed” Republicans.

Republicans see the meaning of these complaints as obvious, even as they have had difficulty explaining them to the outside world. On the face of it, their complaints are baffling.

Here is what happened. Republicans adopted the position that if Democrats tried to pass a bill raising taxes on the rich to fund domestic needs, Republicans would retaliate by refusing to negotiate a bill to support the domestic semiconductor industry, even though Republicans depicted this bill as a crucial economic and national-security priority.

Democrats never agreed to a deal where they would drop their domestic agenda in return for passing the semiconductor bill. Or, at least, there is no public statement by any Democrats accepting such a trade nor any reporting to the effect that Democrats offered a private reassurance that they agreed. Indeed, Joe Manchin responded to the Republican threat of retaliation with a statement of public scorn.

However, negotiations did collapse to the point where everybody, including almost all the Democrats, believed the deal was dead. Democrats planned to scale back their plan to a smaller, health-care-related bill that — crucially — had no tax increases at all. At that point, satisfied that the bigger Democratic bill was dead, Republicans went ahead and voted for the semiconductor bill.

But as it turns out, Democrats salvaged their bill and are now moving ahead with the plan to tax corporations and pay for a mix of health care and energy programs.

So it is hard for outsiders to understand how Democrats “double-crossed” Republicans when they never agreed to the deal Republicans proposed in the first place. Indeed, it is hard to understand what principle Republicans are trying to follow at all.

The principle surely isn’t that it’s wrong for the majority party to pass a partisan fiscal policy bill. The last Republican-controlled Congress passed a regressive tax cut and nearly repealed Obamacare exactly this way, and Democrats did not refuse to support any bipartisan measures in retaliation.

So maybe this is just rank hypocrisy — perhaps Republicans believe Republicans are allowed to pass party-line fiscal policy bills but Democrats aren’t? But no, it’s not that, either. Remember, Democrats were publicly planning to pass a smaller health-care bill on party lines, and Republicans were fine with it (or, at least, had dropped their plans for revenge). It was only when Democrats added back a tax increase on business and energy spending that Republicans claimed they had been betrayed.

In the absence of any explanation from the GOP for its motives, let me try to explain the thinking. The Republican Party elite harbors an intense hatred and fear of progressive taxation. This disdain has multiple dimensions — Republicans truly believe taxing the rich has horrendous economic effects, and they also believe it is fundamentally unfair. Progressive taxation, in their mind, is a kind of mob action under which the many gangs up on the few and confiscates income to which they are rightfully entitled.

Every so often, some Republican elite will compare a Democratic plan to slightly increase taxes on the wealthy to Nazism. This is an indication of how fervently they hold this view that redistributing resources from the wealthy to the non-rich is not merely bad economic policy but a vicious and immoral abuse of power. That belief goes a long way toward explaining why even conservatives who consider Donald Trump dangerous support him over the Democrats — whatever danger he poses, it can’t be as tyrannical as the Bolshevik policy of restoring Clinton-era tax rates.

I think this deeper belief also explains the GOP’s otherwise-bizarre behavior in recent weeks. It is why they would treat Democrats’ plans to pass a fiscal bill as an offense demanding retaliation — retaliation against a bill Republicans themselves have deemed vital to national security. And it explains why they would see the revival of this bill, after it appeared dead, as not merely a policy setback but some deeper betrayal of an agreement that existed only in their own minds.

[y66]

Jonathan Chait at NYMag said:

Larry Summers opposed the American Jobs Plan on the grounds that it would risk overheating the economy, stoking inflation, and potentially forcing the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates, triggering a recession. Many people, including me, disagreed with his analysis at the time.

To some of Summers’s critics, though, it was not merely undeniable that he was wrong, but he was so obviously wrong that he could only be acting out of some hidden motive. The New Republic ran a story headlined, “Washington’s Inflation Hysteria Is Fueled by Corporate Greed,” with the subhed, “With the help of Larry Summers and a battery of conservatives, the business lobby is disingenuously warning that Biden’s recovery plans will actually wreck the economy.”

Progressives suggested he was out for revenge for having been denied a powerful spot in Biden’s administration. “He’s trying to spook the markets and crash the economy to punish the administration for shutting him out,” tweeted the left-wing writer Alex Pareene. “It might be a silly plan but that’s what he’s going to do for four years.” Robert Kuttner wrote that Summers has “proven once again that he’s a vindictive SOB.” (Kuttner later made the same charge against Jason Furman, another liberal economist who predicted inflation might become a problem.)

Of course, most people now recognize Summers’s warnings about inflation were fairly prescient. But it was also relatively clear at the time that Summers, regardless of whether he was right or wrong, was not trying to sandbag the Biden administration. Even as he opposed Biden’s jobs plan, he argued in favor of his much larger (and, given its permanence, significant) social legislation. Summers supported the full-size version of Build Back Better. He privately lobbied Joe Manchin to revive negotiations on a shrunken version, and after Manchin made his deal, Summers appeared on television to argue the plan would reduce, rather than aggravate, inflation.

There are a few lessons here that everybody could take from this episode, but that apply with special force to the left:

(1) Intellectual humility can be a virtue. Some questions have fairly clear answers, but progressives have gotten overinvested in the notion that every political question has an undeniably correct answer. You saw this during the pandemic, when progressives began applying the label “deniers” not only to people who questioned the vaccine (which was kooky) but to people who questioned the cost-benefit value of any public-health intervention.

(2) Assumptions about motives are often wrong. Once you assume every position you hold is obviously correct and good, it is easy to believe that everybody who disagrees is evil or corrupt. Summers was not trying to sabotage Biden — he was trying to steer the administration away from what he genuinely believed was a risky policy choice.

And for all the aggravating and terrible negotiating positions Manchin adopted at various points along the way, the fundamental frame through which the left presented him — as a coal baron seeking to protect his fortune — turned out to be incorrect. Indeed, if Manchin’s objective was always to sandbag any bill, then he would have simply declared from the beginning he would not negotiate a partisan bill. I had, and still have, many complaints with Manchin’s preferences, but it is easier to grasp these as a function of different preferences or perhaps a failure to understand the nuances of policy.

The months progressives spent persuading themselves that Manchin was simply out to protect his coal interests led them to advocate some truly stupid ideas: refuse to waste time negotiating with him, threaten him with a primary challenger, or throw him out of the party. Bad analysis led to bad strategy.

(3) Credibility matters. Suppose Summers had been a good team player and swallowed his fears that the American Jobs Plan would stoke inflation. He would have become a less persuasive advocate for Biden’s social policies. His willingness to openly admit the American Jobs Plan risked an inflationary spiral gave him more credibility to argue that Build Back Better — now the Inflation Reduction Act — would reduce inflation. Indeed, if not for that, he may well have failed to persuade Manchin, and the bill could have died.

The broader assumption among many progressives is that American politics is a contest of willpower, and the way their movement wins is to enforce the same ideological discipline that the right has long imposed. Left-wingers routinely blame moderate liberals for any project undertaken by the right — if only liberals had withheld criticism from the left, then the right would be unable to attack those targets. If moderate liberals are arguing that gender transition is sometimes implemented too hastily, they are obviously responsible for Republican laws that lurch to the opposite extreme, even if they also denounce those excesses.

So deep is this impulse that, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a handful of leftists bitterly blamed liberal media for publishing critiques of the left. “Good job by everyone getting their big pieces on cancel culture or the risks of trans care out there this week,” complained Tom Scocca.

There are many problems with a political culture that anathematizes criticism of extremists on one’s own side. The main one is that it shuts down the channel for identifying and correcting error, by stigmatizing any dissent as betrayal and evidence of personal guilt.

But another problem is that it ignores the role of credibility. There is a persuadable audience, and people who are willing to concede errors or excesses on one side can address that audience with more credibility. Applying more partisan will to every contest is not a superpower.

[pilowsky]

kenberg, on 2022-July-29, 17:25, said:

Becky watched several seasons of GoT. I watched until they threw a kid off a cliff or some such. That's Entertainment? Not.
I can actually watch or read about or otherwise learn about gruesome matters but not for entertainment.
I just don't get it. Becky is a very gentle person.

Interesting, I think it's starting to make sense.
So here, Becky represents the Democratic party and you represent the Republican party of old.
The kid represents "ordinary Americans" and the cliff is Highway 61.

[Winstonm]

pilowsky, on 2022-July-29, 16:16, said:

When?
I think they made a documentary about the American political system called 'Game of Thrones'.

I thought it was Breaking Bad.

[kenberg]

pilowsky, on 2022-July-29, 18:58, said:

Interesting, I think it's starting to make sense.
So here, Becky represents the Democratic party and you represent the Republican party of old.
The kid represents "ordinary Americans" and the cliff is Highway 61.

You might be pretty close to right on this, except I don't know anything about highway 61. But right only in some metaphorical way. Becky and I do not check out each other's political views in all that much detail but we are pretty much in tune.

I grew up not thinking of myself as a Democrat or as a Republican. I registered to vote in Minnesota in 1960 and I am pretty sure, not positive but pretty sure, I just registered to vote. It was when I came to Maryland in 1967 that I was expected to register as a Democrat or a Republican. Of course, I could choose Independent or I guess some other categories but I was expected to say something when registering in Maryland. In Minnesota, I just said I wanted to vote. Probably that's changed now, but I liked it. I just voted, I did not join a team.


I voted for Kennedy in 1960 but I cannot tell you who my wife (a different wife, before Becky) voted for nor can I tell you who any of my friends voted for nor who my parents voted for. Life was different. My wife was my wife, my friends were my friends, my parents were my parents, this had nothing to do with who we voted for. A simpler world.

[pilowsky]

The American Nobel prize winner Dylan R.

Quote

God said to Abraham, "Kill me a son"
Abe say, "Man, you must be puttin' me on"
God say, "No, " Abe say, "What?"
God say, "You can do what you want Abe, but
Next time you see me comin', you better run"
Abe said, "Where do you want this killin' done?"
God said, "Out on Highway 61"

[Winstonm]

Two things turn my stomach every time they invade my thoughts:
I live with 74.2 million people who voted to have Trump repeat as president.
Trump will be in the history books as an American president.

I feel like a citizen of Rome watching the collapse.

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2022-July-29, 14:04, said:

Shall I address Ken or Dr. Berg? One is a neat guy; the other is my educational better by far. Irrelevant, I guess.

I am quite confused, either from what I understand or about where you get your understandings. Where exactly do you think it is a problem that Democrats are trying to force children to read and think as they do? I don't see that from Democrats, seriously. If you do, show me where, please.

I do see the Republicans attacking imaginary problems and it sounds to me as if that is where you are formulating these ideas - not that you watch FOX or Hannity or even read the WSJ opinion pages, but somewhere you have either seen, been told, read, or somehow gathered information of which I am totally unfamiliar.

If you could clarify, it would help. Thanks.

The first part is easy. If you take a math class from me I am Dr. Berg or Prof Berg, otherwise Ken. I think professional titles apply when engaging in the profession. Just about all Ph.D. I know agree with this. As to education, I insist there is no false modesty involved in my claiming of ignorance, I think it applies to us all. In a post just a bit up from this I note " I don't know anything about highway 61". Pilowski explains it is from "The American Nobel prize winner Dylan R.". Hmm. So I looked it up and Dylan R is Bob Dylan. I think I knew he got a Nobel Prize but I had forgotten. The University of Minnesota had a radio station in the 60s and I first hear his music there, probably before most knew of his existence but I did not take to it at first. Later I revised my opinion. Becky is still a holdout and my older daughter likes Lay Lady Lay but nothing else of his. My ignorance is vast but at times I go on binges, sometimes with less than good results. My undergrad degree was from the Engineering School of the University of Minnesota and like most engineering schools the curriculum is preset with technical courses and they discourage liberal arts courses other than what the university requires. But I went on a binge and in the winter of my sophomore year I was taking 20+ credits. Halfway through the quarter I had a tobogganing accident, I was out of school for a week or so and on crutches for a while after that. My grades were not real good. But it suited me.


Anyway, to the main issue. The Dems have certainly become associated with a number of issues that do not do them any good at election time. I might or might not find time to get to just who said what about what when. I doubt Joe Biden ever expressed an opinion on Beloved but I think I could find others who did. Of course that is just one example, not, by itself, a big deal. But there are many modern demands on education that I believe are by people who have forgotten what it was like to be young, and who have unrealistic ideas about what teachers can accomplish. Often the teachers I liked best were those who let their own thoughts on matters come out. Sometimes this was weird, for example my Spanish teacher liked to speak of her experiences in Paris, and these experiences were not at the Louvre, but it was interesting.

[Winstonm]

Let me hone in on one part of your response.

Quote

The Dems have certainly become associated with a number of issues that do not do them any good at election time.

I don't mean to whip this pony forever, but this is the essence of what I am after. I must not express myself well. How and why do you think this statement of your is accurate?

My take: it may be accurate but only because it is being reported on by the media. And why is the media reporting it that way? Because that is what the Republicans are claiming. So, the media is reporting on He Said, and we hear He said, but we don't hear the facts. The next thing we know there has been an albatross created, invisible mind you, but it has been hung around the Democrats' necks, and the closest the Democrats ever got to that particular albatross is when they supported free flight for all birds.

I have not heard any Democrat stand up in Congress, sit on Face the Nation, be quoted in a newspaper, or have a video on CNN where they claim to support the things being claimed ABOUT them by the Republicans. There is no Critical Race Theory being taught in schools. There is no move to outlaw guns entirely.

What I am saying is that for people who half-pay attention these are not problems for Democrats; it is not the Democrats who need to change, it is the way the messages are being broadcast that must change. I'm not sure how to do that when both-sides-now-without-challenge is the accepted format for news shows, when Chuck Todd with straight face asks Lindsey Graham a question that Lindsey Graham doesn't answer but instead promotes a Republican talking point that is a lie, and Chuck Todd does nothing. And the only reason Chuck Todd does nothing is that he is hired by the producers who don't care about content but care about ratings share and advertising dollars, so Chuck Todd only cares about ratings share and advertising dollars, and that means access to people like Lindsey Graham, so don't make him mad.

I am truly fearful that the answer all along of where we were headed was not 1984 but Brave New World, where all that matters is entertainment and even a distinguish professor of mathematics when he dons his civvies can be misled by the sideshows.

If I am wrong, which I may be, I don't know how else you formulated your beliefs about the Democrats other than from people like Chuck Todd, albeit 3rd, 4th, or 400th hand. Media filters into all areas of our lives, and propaganda (as the word is meant literarily, not derogatory) is an essential part of our society's mores.
Out media is failing miserably is their part at this time.

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2022-July-29, 18:58, said:

I thought it was Breaking Bad.

I thought it was House of Cards.

[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2022-July-30, 12:31, said:

I thought it was House of Cards.

I think for Trump’s inner circle it’s time they Better Call Saul.😏

[kenberg]

Winstonm, on 2022-July-30, 11:31, said:

Let me hone in on one part of your response.


I don't mean to whip this pony forever, but this is the essence of what I am after. I must not express myself well. How and why do you think this statement of your is accurate?

My take: it may be accurate but only because it is being reported on by the media. And why is the media reporting it that way? Because that is what the Republicans are claiming. So, the media is reporting on He Said, and we hear He said, but we don't hear the facts. The next thing we know there has been an albatross created, invisible mind you, but it has been hung around the Democrats' necks, and the closest the Democrats ever got to that particular albatross is when they supported free flight for all birds.

I have not heard any Democrat stand up in Congress, sit on Face the Nation, be quoted in a newspaper, or have a video on CNN where they claim to support the things being claimed ABOUT them by the Republicans. There is no Critical Race Theory being taught in schools. There is no move to outlaw guns entirely.

What I am saying is that for people who half-pay attention these are not problems for Democrats; it is not the Democrats who need to change, it is the way the messages are being broadcast that must change. I'm not sure how to do that when both-sides-now-without-challenge is the accepted format for news shows, when Chuck Todd with straight face asks Lindsey Graham a question that Lindsey Graham doesn't answer but instead promotes a Republican talking point that is a lie, and Chuck Todd does nothing. And the only reason Chuck Todd does nothing is that he is hired by the producers who don't care about content but care about ratings share and advertising dollars, so Chuck Todd only cares about ratings share and advertising dollars, and that means access to people like Lindsey Graham, so don't make him mad.

I am truly fearful that the answer all along of where we were headed was not 1984 but Brave New World, where all that matters is entertainment and even a distinguish professor of mathematics when he dons his civvies can be misled by the sideshows.

If I am wrong, which I may be, I don't know how else you formulated your beliefs about the Democrats other than from people like Chuck Todd, albeit 3rd, 4th, or 400th hand. Media filters into all areas of our lives, and propaganda (as the word is meant literarily, not derogatory) is an essential part of our society's mores.
Out media is failing miserably is their part at this time.

Since I don't know who Chuck Todd is, it would have to be at least second hand.

Fair or not, I will focus on one sentence "What I am saying is that for people who half-pay attention these are not problems for Democrats; it is not the Democrats who need to change, it is the way the messages are being broadcast that must change. " I think that in just about any endeavor, this approach leads to disaster. Briefly it reads "We did everything right, the world is cruel". If the world is too cruel to cope with today, it will be too cruel to cope with tomorrow. So a person, or a political party, can look for ways to cope with a cruel world, or they can decide nothing can be done and await the end.
Of course this applies to me too.