"And instead of asking, what is it about our ideology that ruled the country for eight years, that drove people away from us into Donald Trump's arms, they instead decided they were going to blame everybody else. The Democrats simply replaced Trump with the same ideology they governed with for 8 years under Obama that caused people to run away from them as fast as they could. And now that people are doing that again, instead of asking ‘why is that happening’ they're getting poised to blame the electorate for being stupid -- for thinking the economy's bad when it's actually good."
Said Glenn Greenwald, quoted at Real Clear Politics.
I remember when the incumbent President lost to a Democrat who said "It's the economy, stupid."
Now, apparently, the message is: If you think it's the economy, you're stupid.
By the way, who was getting called stupid in the 1992 Clinton slogan "It's the economy, stupid"?
It is often quoted from a televised quip by [Bill Clinton's strategist James] Carville as "It’s the economy, stupid."... His phrase was directed at the campaign's workers and intended as one of three messages for them to focus on. The others were "Change vs. more of the same" and "Don't forget health care."
Was he calling the campaign workers "stupid"? It seems as though he was compelling them to focus on the economy by internalizing the taunt "Stupid!" — to be triggered if they ever stray into any other topic. It might have been heard as an insult to the President George H.W. Bush. He's so out of touch, he doesn't know the people are hurting. He's stupid. It can't be that they were calling us, the People, stupid. That wouldn't work.
Anyway, right now, the Democrats aren't blatantly labeling us stupid. That's Greenwald's rhetoric. He's saying the Democrats are telling the People they are stupid if they think the economy is bad. So, I would add, that means the Democrats are taking the George H.W. Bush position and are vulnerable to the attack that brought down Bush: "It's the economy, stupid."
***
In giving this post my "stupid" tag, I see an old tag I'd forgotten about: "the stupid party." I need to publish this post so I can click on it to refresh my memory of what that was about. I think it has to do with the way each party characterizes the other as the "stupid" one. Or maybe it was about how the 2 parties vie for the honor of being the "stupid" one.
Posts
88 comments:
They aren't call us "stupid." They are calling us "racist," "hateful," and "morally corrupt."
The Biden presidency is the worst since James Buchanan. The shocker - at least to me - is that is no desire to fix the economy.. The Green Zealots are in charge of energy policy and it is hurting Americans. It’s about time the GOP called out the fact that CAGW is the biggest scam in the history of the world.
You have to be stupid to support THIS Democrat party.
Anyway, the Democrats aren't blatantly labeling us stupid. That's Greenwald's rhetoric. He's saying the Democrats are telling the People they are stupid if they think the economy is bad.
Democrats by their rhetoric, are treating their voters as stupid. All the lies, require an audience so lacking in intellect, the only explanation is the Democrats know their voters are too stupid to know the repeated talking points, constructed around lies, just can't figure out they are being lied to. How many times has Biden repeated the lie about citizens not being allowed to buy a cannon? How many times do Democrats falsely claim a component rifle with plastic stock, is an assault weapon? The lies are non-stop because the Democrats know there voter will never figure out the lies.
Calling the voters stupid?
Treating them that way, because they are stupid?
"It's the economy, stupid".
Polling would suggest it is the American public uttering the phrase and stupid is you know who.*
In anticipation of Biden's meeting with the fed chair today, Dow futures are down 200+ and crude is up 3%.
* Excludes the 34% who think President Mensa is doing a great job.
The Republican response to all this shit? Let's negotiate on gun control. Circular firing squad
"stupid"
Stupid is as stupid does. Carville's point was that if you weren't hammering on the economy, then that defined you as the stupid one.
"The stupid party" originated with John Stuart Mill describing the old English Conservative party as such.
In defense of that description he wrote
It may be said that if stupidity has a tendency to Conservatism, sciolism, or half-knowledge, has a tendency to Liberalism. Something might be said for that, but it is not at all so clear as the other. There is an uncertainty about sciolists; we cannot count upon them; and therefore they are a less dangerous class. But there is so much dense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power.
I believe that the phrase "the stupid party" originated with John Stuart Mill:
"Mill was not, however, all pure reason and moral elevation. In reply to an attack made upon him by Sir John Pakington for calling the Conservative party “the stupid party,” Mill, admitting the phrase to occur in his Representative Government, went on to say, “I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it. Suppose any party, in addition to whatever share it may possess of the ability of the community, has nearly the whole of its stupidity, that party must, by the law of its constitution, be the stupidest party; and I do not see why honorable gentlemen should see that position at all offensive to them, for it ensures their being always an extremely powerful party. I know that I am liable to a retort, and an obvious one enough; and as I do not wish to allow any honorable gentleman the credit of making it, I make it myself. It may be said that if stupidity has a tendency to Conservatism, sciolism, or half-knowledge, has a tendency to Liberalism. Something might be said for that, but it is not at all so clear as the other. There is an uncertainty about sciolists; we cannot count upon them; and therefore they are a less dangerous class. But there is so much dense, solid force in sheer stupidity, that any body of able men with that force pressing behind them may ensure victory in many a struggle, and many a victory the Conservative party has gained through that power” [xxxiii/xxxiv].
Bibliography
Mill, John Stuart. The Philosophy of John Stuart Mill: Ethical, Political and Religious. Marshall Cohen, ed. New York: Modern Library, 1961.
I believe the Carville quote was a variation on the old concept of "KISS", Keep It Simple, Stupid. He knew that had the winning message on the economy and if the focused on it, they would win. They did.
"And instead of asking, what is it about our ideology that ruled the country for eight years, that drove people away from us into Donald Trump's arms, they instead decided they were going to blame everybody else."
The Clinton campaign enlisted its media allies to "elevate" Trump to the status of a credible candidate in order to sow chaos in the Republican primaries. The DNC was copied on the memo. An open investigation of the causes of the Democratic loss in 2016 would have pointed toward the entire Democratic power structure as the cause of the loss. Thus, the investigation couldn't happen.
So many areas related to the economy and government simply don't work the way they are supposed to. Those nominally in charge either don't have a clue on what to do, or, worse, are OK with the direction we're headed.
wait a minute! According to Jo Biden, THIS is the best recovery in a hundred and fifty years!
He (like O'Bama) is 'fundamentally transforming' our old economy into something new, and GREAT!
No more cars No more oil No more houses, jobs or food! From Now On, we can concentrate on what's Important
https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-lauds-strongest-first-year-economic-track-record-of-any-president-in-50-years-in-bizarre-tweet-despite-economic-crises
As opposed to The Dangerous Party. That’s the seemingly eternal binary here: The Stupid Party vs The Dangerous Party. Joe mumble-shuffling us into WWWIII and continuing the disastrous Quantitative Easing until the Fed had doubled the money supply shows just how dangerous Democrats can be. But as long as those mortgage-backed securities the Fed is holding keep their value we will be fine, right? “Danger? What? Me worry,” slurs Joe.
The Dems are completely out of touch, (most of them), with the citizens they allegedly serve. This is why Hillary Clinton lost to Trump, and it is why Biden (or whoever the Dems'next candidate will be) will lose to the next Republican candidate, (and, yes, that could be Trump).
The candidate, Bill Clinton, was the person intended to get that message from Carville. It was Bill that Carville was calling stupid. Carville must have overheard Hillary speak to Bill often enough to be familiar with how to get his attention.
Carville is a smart person and it probably helped that he was married to Mary Matalin, so he had close contact with another smart person who disagreed with him. I don't know exactly who he was calling "stupid", but I imagine it was political strategists on his own side who weren't focusing on the things were actually high priorities for the electorate.
1. The Democrats and their media counterparts spent every waking second trying to understand Trump voters. From Hillbilly Elegy turning Vance into a superstar to countless "at this Ohio diner" type interviews. The success of the populist turn on the left is in large part because of this.
2. The same ideology as Obama? Was Greenwald awake for the Build Back Better saga?
Honestly that guy just flails around insanely. He's got another dozen wild swings in his yet, so don't fall too much in love with him.
Honestly, I would not even attempt to get into the work of deciphering what a Democrat thinks. As a groupthink, they are so far gone down a path that deviated from reality a number of years ago, I feel like we're no longer even on the same planet, let alone speaking the same language.
Frankly, I don't understand how any breathing adult could pull the lever for a Democrat. Or as we do in today's elections, hand over your ballot to a party worker so they can fill out the ballot for you. My point is I don't know how anyone who pays attention to actions, words, and results could vote for a Democrat in this day and age.
Unless you look around you and think things are going swimmingly. And if that's the case, one of us is tragically wrong.
What's been shocking to me is how much the Biden admin can't form believable messaging. To use an example of the messaging arc of the last 16 months:
- There's no inflation
- There's limited transitory inflation due to supply chains
- There's some inflation but it's nothing to worry about and will iron out shortly
- High gas prices are due to Putin's invasion of Ukraine (8-12 months after gas prices started rising dramatically)
- Putin Price Hike
- Our energy policies aren't driving the fuel price crisis
- We couldn't have done anything about the newly emerged baby formula crisis; do you think we are mind readers? (4 months after the crisis began emerging)
.....
The funny thing is the Biden admin can credibly point out that these crises are hitting every country and can't be laid at Biden's feet (as Republicans are seeking to do). But their messaging is SO terrible and their efforts to mitigate are so feeble or missing that they are hurting themselves in the process.
In my personal life, "Republicans are stupid." was an oft-heard comment from Democrats. I heard it so many times during the Trump administration, I assumed it was part of the official DNC talking points. (Democrats are much better at staying on message than Republicans.) I personally think that if Hillary had never called voters "deplorable", she may have actually won so I was surprised to hear Democrats double down on insulting voters.
Most of my Democratic friends are Bernie supporters. I can't recall a single one supporting Biden in the Democratic primary, but they all jumped on board to support him in the general. So, until the Afghanistan disaster, I still heard the "stupid" comment often but I have heard it less and less over the last year. (PS, none of them want Biden to run for reelection, but a few still support Bernie. I have never heard Harris discussed for 2024.)
The Green Zealotry +== Revenge Politics
Bob_R is right. They aren't just calling us stupid. It's even more important to their world view that we are morally hopeless.
From the time Obama ran and throughout his Presidency, Dems convinced themselves and each other the only reason anyone could oppose Obama on anything was racism. In reality Obama was elected because America wasn't particularly racist anymore. Progress had been made. But the Dems could credit themselves with a much bigger accomplishment if they believed America was very racist.
Now they're hooked on feeling and trying to get another fix. Also, their chosen belief just happens to justify doing pretty much anything they want to win.
Ooga chaka ooga chaka
Ooga ooga ooga chaka
I can't stop this feeling
Deep inside of me
Deplorable, you just don't realize
What you do for me
When I hate you
And we Twitter-fight
It lets me know
That I'm good and right
Aaahh-ah ah-ah ahhh
I'm hooked on a feeling
I'm high on believing
Someone is less than me
Specifically to Carville, it was an indirect attack on GHWB who the Clintons had already slagged as “out of touch,” aided by the dishonest Big Media framing of his visit to a supermarket to see the upgraded code scanning technology. His polite and pleasant reaction to the executive pointing out how the new scanner could read bar codes from several angles and of many types (like the mini-codes on tiny fruit labels) was spun by the DNC-Media Complex as “Look how out of touch he is! He’s never seen a grocery scanner!”
All the same messaging. So what exactly is the Dangerous Party’s messaging now.
I don’t like the label stupid. And it may be because I’ve done stupid stuff and it’s jarring to connect it to somebody else, when I’ve done it myself. JP says don’t say things that make you weak.
@David "no desire to fix the economy". Well, they did fix it! It's doing great! Look, two years ago during lockdown the economy was __, and now it's so much higher.
I am no longer surprised that there are people stupid enough to think that the American public won't see through that.
The economy is strong in some sectors. However, the gap between the wealthy and the poor is ever-growing. The economy is awful in some sectors and corners. Glenn is not quite accurate here with his brush statement.
The middle class is being destroyed... on purpose. by the Soros-D-Elite.
Biden and his crew of fake green elites are targeting our natural resources for destruction so we are forced to buy energy mined from Russia and China.
David Begley said...
The shocker - at least to me - is that (there) is no desire to fix the economy..
David, *i* think you're looking at it wrong.. There is a STRONG Desire to fix* the economy
fix* To Castrate.. like you would a dog
---"And ultimately they'll just say they were ‘too racist’ to vote for Democrats." Greenwald predicted that the media will say "if you vote for Republicans it's because either you don't care about racism or you don't care about fascism." [GlennGreenwald]
The Masters of Projection. A perfect description of the Democratic Party itself, with its long history of racism and its recent history of anti-liberty fascism.
That second of which aspects goes back at least to the once-revered FDR, who never met a piece of U.S. history or the Constitution which he didn't think he was personally above and could disregard with relative impunity.
it was Carville's note to himself as campaign manager. he was reminding himself to keep the focus of the campaign on the economy. "stupid" referred to himself.
Greenwald is smart to live in Brazil. He could never a reservation at a top nyc or hampstons restaurant now..
$5.00 gasoline and labor shortages indicates not a strong economy but an overheated one that will soon go into recession and a correction. They should be worried.
Democrats are witless, thoughtless ninnies. They will ALWAYS place more value on good intentions than the shitty results of the actions taken to promote those intentions.
And today, the Biden Admin issues the Cure ALL! The Fix, for ALL THEIR PROBLEMS!!
$10,000 free money to people that earned $150,000 last year ($20,000 to couples that earned $300,000)
THIS will fix EVERYTHING!!
Every person in the United States (that is Rich, and owes school loans) will LOVE this plan!!
That is Literally THOUSANDS of people!! You Can't Go Wrong, with That kind of support
And it's NOT like GIVING MONEY TO THE RICH will alienate anyone... Will it?
Carville was calling fellow Dems and campaign strategists stupid. He knew how much they love to get off into their ideological yachts carrying their pet poodles out to sea. He was saying, “Voters care about one thing: their money.”
And he was right, of course. Money is the great metric. Money is the Virtue Decoder. Money is agnostic, amoral, and honest. Everything else. In the political sphere, is bullshit.
I dare say people have had quite enough, thank you, of President Sponge Brain Shits Pants.
David Begley @ 7:11: “… CAGW is the biggest scam in the history of the world.”
That statement is directionally correct but short by several orders of magnitude. “Biggest scam in the history of the entire universe since before the Cosmic Singularity” is a little closer to the mark.
"The Democrats simply replaced Trump with the same ideology they governed with for 8 years under Obama that caused people to run away from them as fast as they could."
As applied to 2016, this is false. People didn't run away from them. They ran away from Hillary and Trump barely won the EC.
"And now that people are doing that again, instead of asking ‘why is that happening’ they're getting poised to blame the electorate for being stupid"
What's new? The very premise of progressivism is that ordinary people are stupid and must be led by experts. Progs represent the direction of history, so any resistance stupidly delays the march of reason. Sure, they may lose occasional battles, but progs keep their eye on the prize, moving goal posts with every win. What prog gains ands reforms have been turned back by "conservatives"? Maybe Roe, next month.
"It's the economy, stupid." - James Carville
I'm reminded of something another Republican candidate said: "Are you better off today than you were 4 years ago?" That question was hammered into the public consciousness during the 1980 Presidential election.
That line was spoken by, of course, Ronald Reagan, and he was running against Jimmy Carter. And there were gas lines, an OPEC crisis, massive gas price increases along with massive inflation and people knew they weren't better off.
Just like people know right now they are not better off even 2 years later under Democrat Party rule.
The Republicans are going to wipe the Democrats off the electoral map in the mid-terms and Joe Biden will be a one-term president because people know they aren't better off now than they were when Trump was President.
The Democratic Party may be the first to loose power because of the lack of baby formula.
American independent voters are insane. When the Dems are in charge they realize how screwed up their priorities are and so they vote in a Republican. And then they are exposed to the almost monolithic attacks on the Republican administration and how they are evil, and Nazi and corrupt, and they forget why they voted the Dems out, and so they vote another Dem in, then the cycle repeats. I say independents because there are 35% Dems who are simply stupid and vote Dem every time, they support screwing up the nation. It's the mush middle that are insane.
Or maybe the analogy is that they are the battered spouse. They get abused for 4-8 years, kick the abuser out of the house, get sweet-talked by the abuser and let them come back home. Some day they are going to have get counseling and cut their ties permanently, but the press, their supposedly trusted confidant keeps whispering in their ear: "give them another chance, they've changed this time, really. THIS time they will be better."
So, I would add, that means the Democrats are taking the George H.W. Bush position and are vulnerable to the attack that brought down Bush: "It's the economy, stupid."
==========
GHWBush took advised to APPROVE raise taxes to steer course with the ECONOMY
D's forgot that advice to actually raise taxes should only be given to R Presidents
Blogger Daniel12 said...
1. The Democrats and their media counterparts spent every waking second trying to understand Trump voters. From Hillbilly Elegy turning Vance into a superstar to countless "at this Ohio diner" type interviews. The success of the populist turn on the left is in large part because of this.
2. The same ideology as Obama? Was Greenwald awake for the Build Back Better saga?
Honestly that guy just flails around insanely. He's got another dozen wild swings in his yet, so don't fall too much in love with him.
Just like all other democrats, your self awareness is zero.
Democrats made no effort to understand us. All you have done is lash out violently and rhetorically. You call us racists and insurrectionists and have been moving from lie to hoax to lie for the last 7 years.
Democrats have implemented policies that anyone with a room temperature IQ could tell you would drive inflation higher.
You are a gullible fool who likes being lied to and is driven by hatred.
About this: The Democrats and their media counterparts spent every waking second trying to understand Trump voters.
WTF. The DNC-Media used their energy to smear Trump voters, create fake allegations against Trump, call Trump voters racist Nazi Ulf members. All the same things lefties here say all the time. One reporter, Salina Zeto, wrote articles like Daniel describes and like clockwork the hive mind turned on her smearing her intentions and saying she made up the quotes from middle America. One of the running themes on this blog is that “lean left” people spend zero time trying to understand conservative arguments by cutting off every debate with ad hominem attacks. Meanwhile us “lean right” and even centrists absorb a wide variety of progressive takes from all corners of the culture and are statistically likely to be able to accurately describe progressive initiatives.
Democrats spent “every waking second” spreading disinformation, a subject that recently has bubbled into the national consciousness as we learn just how much gaslighting this admin has planned. Rethink your premise.
The price increases in the past two months are breathtaking. Milk prices have always fluctuated, but the prices of eggs, flour, sugar, and chicken have jumped. We gave up bacon months ago, ground beef is becoming a luxury and now even bone in chicken thighs and legs are showing price increases.
Yes, it's the economy, stupid.
The administration has the cartoonish incompetence of a character in Atlas Shrugged.
Stupid is as stupid does. Carville's point was that if you weren't hammering on the economy, then that defined you as the stupid one.
========
I am easily confused : Don't R always hammer on the economy? WHY do they get called ESTUPITODO
Followed the stupid party tag back to Low Information Voters. Looks as if we have circled back. It's the economy stupid is very strong because that is information that voters actually do have. They read it at the pump, at the grocery store, and on the closed signs placed on boarded up buildings that were formerly local restaurants.
The asset class is fine. Inflation is their friend.
At this point, every declarative sentence directed at Joe Biden ends with the unvoiced "stupid".
Stuck on Stupid. This is one of the things I remember from the Hurriane Katrina coverage, the Army General, Russel Honore, saying that but I don't remember what the context was.
Those were the days, weren't they? When we could all be appalled at how incompetent the Bush administration was or was perceived to be, either way. It ruined his presidency, IMO, more than Iraq, the Katrina coverage did him in.
It's different now. Everyone in charge is stupid and/or incompetent and we accept it as normal, even desirable I guess. I'm not sure it's even the politicians so much as it's the unelected bureaucracy at all levels, those who answer to no one and (apparently) can't be fired or disciplined in any way. We need to get rid of the public sector unions, I think.
I agree with the sharpie above who said Carville was riffing on the KISS principle. It does have simple, universal and brevity in common.
It has nothing to do with how each party tries to position the other as stupid. I don’t believe I have heard conservative Republican people say they believe Democrat/Progressives who drive the Democrats’ policies are stupid. We believe them at their word that they want to fundamentally transform America. Dem politics look and sound incoherent when they attempt to justify them to Americans because they can’t tell us the truth about their intentions.
Biden Administration policies are not failing. They are executing their policies as intended. The American people are rejecting Dem policies now that they can see what they mean to their lives. There is no turnaround on this unless Progressives change their policies, which is not going to happen. This is causing a tectonic shift in the bases of each party with Democrats losing the working class which includes over half of Hispanics and blacks as well as whites while Republicans are trending populist. By the election of 2024 this will all be apparent when past voting trends are fundamentally changed and Trump wins in a landslide.
The Ds are elitists by nature. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with their objectives is ipso facto stupid. Or unpatriotic. Or evil. Or homophobic. Or Islamophobic. Et alia.
It's always been the women's vote and soap opera.
"And instead of asking, what is it about our ideology that ruled the country for eight years, that drove people away from us into Donald Trump's arms, they instead decided they were going to blame everybody else."
Well, it's not as if Obama "drove people" away from the Dems in great droves. It was a very close race, and Hillary Clinton actually won more popular votes than Trump...it just wasn't the electoral votes. I think there was disillusionment with Obama because he promised such great things and he ended up providing--for the most part--"more of the same"--and he did not produce the great "hope" and "change" he promised. The Dems are bold in their promises (sometimes), but--inevitably--marginal (if that) in their delivery on those promises.
The Wall Street Journal gave 40 column inches of space on its Op
Ed page today to one "Joseph R. Biden Jr." The title "My Plan For Fighting Inflation".
It's actually coherent in a sort of way, at least compared to Slow Joe's stumbles whilst reading a teleprompter, or God forbid, his extemporaneous riffs as he wanders in unscripted territory.
But it's not coherent if you have been observant as to what has actually happened under the Team Biden administration. As you sift through the rubric there's an occasional almost truth surrounded by bushels of pie in the sky malarkey.
It's always the economy.
A less partisan version of the "stupid" trope, from H.L. Mencken:
“No one in this world, so far as I know — and I have searched the records for years, and employed agents to help me — has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.”
And that's a pretty close cousin of the aphorism usually attributed (without evidence) to P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_minute
Or we could go back to Friedrich Engels' more elaborate theoretical conception of "false consciousness," outlined in an 1893 letter to one of his comrades.
And from there, it's just a hop, skip, and a jump to 2004 and Thomas Frank's "What's the Matter With Kansas?"
After losing the House to Republicans in 2010 and the Senate in 2014, the Democrats almost won the 2016 Presidential election that they could reasonably be expected to lose.
I do wish people would stop calling Trump "a reality show host", he was a real estate developer, casino owner, etc.
That said, I'm still more favorably disposed towards a "reality show host" being president than anyone holding a government position. . . .
Biden advisor: It's the economy, sir.
Biden: I can't find my slippers.
President Joe "Shit For His Brains" Biden is everything that should have been expected by anyone with an IQ above 90.
The only Democrat Party people who have a clue are the comedians and no one in power is listening to them.
As for "stupid"- Carville was referring to himself with that quip- to make sure he kept his staff on message in 1992.
The problem I have with the use of stupid in this case is that the only stupid people are the democrat voters.
The people running this regime know exactly what they are doing. The results of the policies they are implementing are easy to predict.
- Wages will go down for working class people,
- prices will go up and quality of life for the middle class will fall.
- A small technocrat class and the wealthy will benefit
- they will buy votes with the money they take from the middle/working class from a dependent class that they import and grow through transfer payments.
The regime is printing money and giving it to their cronies and they are using that money to buy real estate and buy into the crypto-currency system.
There are things that are going on under the surface that are very scary and are leading to a single digital currency for the entire world. The movements are clear and fit this hypothesis very well. There will be other currencies, but they will be back by US Paper/Treasuries.
Everything else is being destroyed systematically right now. The Dollar will pass the Euro this summer. The Euro is committing sure suicide. India/Russia/China are being driven together by the pressure that is being placed on them.
The people running this regime know they are on a short time table. There will be food riots this summer that make the current food riots look tame.
I wonder if they would characterize Mark Cuban as a "reality show star"? (10+ years on shark tank)
Our president emeritus was star of one of TVs most popular shows, true. But he also started over 100 businesses with a 95% success rate. Even in the 4 bankruptcies all creditors came out whole.
Normal business failure rate is 50-75%. Silicone Valley venture capitalist are ecstatic if 3 out of 20 ventures make any money at all.
Yet nobody ever gives him credit for this. It is this executive experience that made him a great candidate. He had pretty high name recognition without it, though the show did help.
On similar lines, he has a 94%success rate in primary endorsements so far 100 wins, 6 losses but all we hear about is the 6 losses.
How is Biden doing? How did Obama do?
Fuck the m5m.
John ULTRA-MAGA to my bones Henry
Not to forget LGKTQ, of course
The biggest failure in this is how our institutions and education system in particular have turned generations of people into hateful unthinking drones.
It takes someone who cannot think past their own hate of the other to be stupid enough to vote for a democrat like Joe Biden.
As for the state of the economy and how voters feel about it, you don't have to guess- just look at the consumer sentiment indicators that are released every single month by The Conference Board and the University of Michigan.
Additionally, you can look at this long term chart about employment in the US. It shows that employment never really recovered from the 2008-2009 financial crisis, even though the unemployment rate hit long term lows in 2018 and again this year.
My entire political outlook is based on the premise that, while Republicans are stupid, Democrats are evil. I'll vote for stupid over evil any day. Stupid people will at least occasionally do the right thing by accident.
The Democrats and their media counterparts spent every waking second trying to understand Trump voters. From Hillbilly Elegy turning Vance into a superstar to countless "at this Ohio diner" type interviews. The success of the populist turn on the left is in large part because of this.
The American Left are cargo cultists. A Republican candidate would go to a diner to talk with her electorate because that's where some of her electorate eat, work, and do business, whereas Democrats seem to think that there's something magical about a diner.
Gas is almost $7/gallon where I live.
I expect to see it at $8 or more by the end of summer, with diesel being $10.
It is killing the economy and it will kill the Ds chances in November.
That's the only silver lining...
Carville hated upper-middle-class Northern liberals and progressives, who he called "liblabs," so it's not implausible that he was rebuking staffers and supporters who wanted make an appeal based social and cultural issues rather than the economy, or even instructing Bill Clinton himself.
I accepted that rationale at the time, but people I knew assumed his comment was directed at Bush. The perception that Bush wasn't the clearest of thinkers naturally made people think the comment referred to him. In retrospect Carville's comment looks like "dog whistle" language intended to wound Bush as well as give marching orders to the troops. There was much clever verbal economy involved in combining an admonition to supporters with a powerful jab at the opposition that could easily be disavowed.
In 2020 Democrats found they could win (if they did win) by appealing to the NeverTrumper upper middle (and upper) classes, so they didn't have to rethink anything. They could simply make Trump the issue. Without changing anything they could also count on some backsliding among White working class voters who couldn't stand Hillary but weren't committed to Trump, though the upscale anti-Trumpers were more important.
Conservatives call the GOP the stupid party because of how often it misses opportunities, shoots itself in the foot, and accomplishes so little even when given so much. There's a bit of envy at how ruthlessly Democratic politicians fight for the priorities of their left-wing supporters while the best Republican voters can hope for is not being outright betrayed.
I've always interpreted the "stupid" in "It's the Economy, Stupid" to be a humorous, self-deprecating admonition aimed at Clinton spokes people to help them stay on message. The stupid person is the person who forgets it.
In both cases, "stupid" is directed at the speaker's own side (in Carville's phrase, the speaker could be talking about themselves).
Kellyanne Conway's book, which I read last week, has a few good insights. One was that in the 2020 election campaign, it was a mistake to focus so much on Biden's dementia and age. She thought that such a focus could alienate the elderly, who are a large voting block. She also has some things to say about professional consultants who always do well even if their candidates lose.
Vote fraud may have cancelled those factors out but they might have made a difference. Especially as the 2020 campaign had no plans for what to do to prevent cheating.
I liked President Reagan's question: "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" In this case, Republicans should ask is as "two years ago." For the lion's share of Americans, the answer in November will not just be "No," but "HELL NO!" And that's why there's going to be a red tsunami.
A daily accounting that not even braying broadcasters can overshadow.
My point is I don't know how anyone who pays attention to actions, words, and results could vote for a Democrat in this day and age.
You don't watch TV news.
It's like schizophrenia. The voices tell you what to think.
I'm solidly right by policy, but I feel like the right and left are both forgetting something important in the rush to defend/attack Biden and others.
Inflation WILL cure itself. Prices rise until people can no longer buy, and supply goes up the higher something can be priced. Oil is a fantastic example of this. There are vast supplies of Oil that don't make sense to extract at $50/barrel but DO make sense to extract at $100 a barrel.
If you are a pure 'market forces' person then you don't advocate for government intervention during periods of inflation. Because government intervention WILL have undesirable affects. If anything, market forces thinking advocates for eliminating government involvement. Stop subsidizing money, stop adding to the monetary supply.
The one thing government is good at is removing it's own barriers in times of crisis.
Mike Wolf .. that was my initial impression at the time. Stupid = people, probably campaign operatives, who want to complicate the message. Not directed at GHWB, Republicans, or the public at large.
I think Mills was getting at what people have more recently called, somewhat positively, the Hedgehog Concept ("The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.") Stick with what you know and avoid distractions. You may look dull-witted to the people who think themselves quicker and more clever but you will more than likely succeed.
@Bob Boyd: "In reality Obama was elected because America wasn't particularly racist anymore."
Obama won the Democratic nomination thanks to progressive white racists who voted for him because he is black. Obama went on to win the presidency because it was John McCain's "turn" to lose. The Democrats (especially Harry Reid, Tom Daschle and John Kerry) used Obama as cynically as George H. W. Bush used Clarence Thomas.
I was reading a reddit thread about some folks in Seattle pondering leaving the U.S. because it's 'sliding into fascism'. The general discussion was about immigrating to an E.U. country. I'm reading this thread thinking "didn't Europe basically invent fascism? How does moving to Europe keep one safe from fascists?"
"It's the economy, stupid".
What it meant / was saying was "it's the economy. Don't be stupid, don't be distracted, don't beat about all the other things we believe in that will drive away the voters. Focus: it's the economy"
It's like the KISS principle
ALP: That's typical American. Lets sit back and let the country get fucked up, then we'll run away to somewhere else. Its incredible how 'muricans will do ANYTHING to avoid getting politically active, organizing, and trying to change things.
Don't like your city - run away to the suburbs. Those get fucked up? Run away to the country. They've made the country terrible - just leave and go back to "The old country".
What a bunch of losers.
I've always read that the Republicans are the "stupid party" and the Democrats are the "evil party."
Bob,
I've always read that the Republicans are the "stupid party" and the Democrats are the "evil party."
Blair said something very similar above. I think it's basically correct. Republicans try to reason with Democrats, which is stupid. Democrats call Republicans racist, sexist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, &c., which is evil. (Republicans are in the main too polite to call Democrats evil, which in itself is also stupid, but the Republicans that attempt to make out the case for "Democrats are evil" are invariably the stupidest of the lot. Not sure where to go from here.)
I see people at the local markets doing the Costco Shuffle. You know what I mean, moving slightly away from the register, stopping, then slowly walking while checking their receipt wondering how they spent so much more than expected.
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