"If the Republicans are offering right-wing populism, the Democrats can’t just continue to offer grievance agendas, especially since most of those grievances have been dramatically meliorated. The dirty little secret of Diversity, Equity and Identity (DEI) programs is that they’re indicative of past-thinking, not the future. Indeed, when someone like former Harvard President Claudine Gay—a product of the DEI-industrial complex—blames her firing on racism, not lunkheaded Congressional testimony and plagiarism, the traditional Democrat identity-rhetoric begins to seem laughable.... At this point, the Dems need to offer an anti-identity agenda, an American unity agenda...."
Writes Joe Klein, in
"It's Not Just Biden/The Democrats are Senescent, too" (Substack).
But Klein is 77 (the same age as Trump) so he says it's not for him to say what belongs in the Democrats' future-looking agenda. He wants "some fresh young genius" to tell us what to do, someone who understands... what? Video games and A.I.!
Posts
46 comments:
'He wants "some fresh young genius" to tell us what to do...'
This is all Democrats have these days and all they seem to wish for; control over the great unwashed.
From what car to drive to what kind of stove you can use, it's all pontification from DC.
The words 'Freedom' and 'Choice' don't exist in any real sense. The latter being used to justify the deaths of millions of babies, mostly black ones at that.
How can they offer a non-grievance agenda when for almost their entire senescent cohort it was the grievance agenda that catapulted them into power in the first place?
They used Fake-O smiley-glad-hands unity, feminist, and organized labor bullshit to get their unearned jobs and multi-million-dollar-insider-trading graft starting in the 60s and working their way forward.
My mommy and daddy and gammy and granpy might have bought it hook-line-and-sinker and voted this garbage in but myself and future cohorts are going to vote the garbage out, kicking and screaming and hollering muh racism if we have to.
Paleothink, Prothink... How about Realthink? Inflation is real. 35 trillion bucks in sovereign debt is real. Crime is real, Illegal immigration is real. A world war is more likely now than in the last thirty years. The barbarian wastelands are real and spreading. Real problems call for present-reality thinking.
Klein's essay makes a good bit of sense. But he can't find a solution to the problem.
Reminds me of my law school days more than 50 years ago when I was embarrassed in an estate tax class. Another student in the class had suggested an answer to a hypothetical question. The professor asked what others in the class thought. I raised my hand and said that my fellow student's answer was wrong. The professor agreed, and then asked me, "What would you do?" I didn't have an answer. Hilarity ensued among my fellow students when the professor supplied an answer, "You'd call a lawyer". It was a tough crowd.
Well Mr. Klein needs to call someone--he just doesn't know who.
Dems' campaign.
1. Not Trump.
2. Abortion.
Ignore everything else.
"Biden has nothing to say about the future."
Unfair. When Biden talks about chocolate chip ice cream he's talking about his next cone of the same, not the one he licked two hours ago and has already forgotten.
At this point, the Dems need to offer an anti-identity agenda, an American unity agenda.
Difficult to do when your identify is based on being the "cool" people who look down on those not in the inner circle.
You're now going have a club anyone can join?
Grievance is the glue that holds the Dems together. They can't let it go. I'll vote for a better economy, no more foreign wars and a throttling back of govt overreach.
Dems' campaign.
1. Not Trump.
2. Abortion.
Dems' real campaign: Abort Trump.
As in, don't let him become a viable candidate for your vote.
The whole problem is that Kamala Harris is a disaster, and identity politics makes it impossible to toss her aside
Joe Klein is the guy what wrote that book about Bill Clinton unapologetically sexing up volunteers all along the campaign trail, yes? I remember 'cause the middle age leftie women around town were kinda wishing it had been them...
...'77' is a lazy attempt to make up for getting it all wrong for thirty decades, innt? Hint Joe: You're not to old for sepukku with a fresh Blackwing from your stash...
...I mean, what hav3n't you assholes destroyed- and you're STILL not happy...unity my ass.
That’s the problem for the Democrats at least. The problem for the United States is that we clearly have a political class that runs things, and doesn’t think we actually need a president. They don’t like the guy? They out his private communications. They like him? They’ll run the country for him while he meander around on stage.
...fresh young genius? I didn't know they were still making them...
This runs both ways. Trump could broaden his appeal by dropping all the talk about how the Democrats have wronged him in the past and focusing instead on what he's going to do to make things better. The portion of the electorate that cares about settling scores is locked in; it's time to try to capture some of the middle.
Here's another Joe Klein column. While it is as interesting as anythihng Joe Klein writes, it is the sort that Althouse never blogs.
From the quoted article:
"The dirty little secret of Diversity, Equity and Identity (DEI) programs is that they’re indicative of past-thinking, not the future."
More dissembling. DEI is baked into the Long March because it's one of the foundational tenets of class struggle. And the Long March continues, unless its goals are revealed and enough people get around to objecting.
"He wants "some fresh young genius" to tell us what to do..."
Nothing reveals one to be a Democrat quite like saying you're waiting for a leader to tell you what to do.
JFK was considered young at 43 in 1960. I think it's safe to say he didn't have one fucking clue about what was coming in the 60s. Yes, he called the moon shot and it happened. But what about back on earth? Vietnam? The CIA becoming a more insidious force because of frustration at both Vietnam and the Bay of Pigs--both anticipated favorably in JFK's Inaugural Address? The idealistic young attacking the war and the draft? Riots, assassinations, substantial moves toward leaving major American cities to be dominated by the ghetto? The war on poverty amounting to very little in foreign countries, and at home a huge increase in the welfare state leading primarily to the middle class fighting over the spoils?
What worries me bigly about Biden is his concept of what is past, present and future is so scrambled that he might actually believe it when his CoS or some dipwad aide or Alex Soros tells him Trump is proven guilty of being an insurrectionist and that he, Biden, has the power to eliminate Trump, and then Biden actually picks up a phone and tries to do so all the while bearing in his dementia the unchallengeable mantle of government and democracy towards an end that justifies the means. Listen to that fool. We are perilously close to such a scenario.
Speaking of DEI, Jonathan Turley has a considerably less benign take on the recent matter of the mandatory anti-racism training at UW Law.
>Dave Begley said...
Dems' campaign.
1. Not Trump.
2. Abortion.
Ignore everything else.<
They need nothing else. You have well delineated the two very reasons why Trump/Repubs will lose in November. (I'm a fervent Trumpist, btw.)
The Dems have certain things in their platform that although unstated seem quite clear.
1. Divide and Pander - if you can't get votes from a group, subdivide the group and make promises until you get some traction with a faction.
2. Have an ENEMY - internal, external, doesn't much matter. You've got to have someone to be AGAINST. Could be whites, climate deniers, racists, gas stove owners, extremists, misogynists, billionaires - but the thing is to have someone to whip up anger against. Anger brings people together faster than anything else. Torches and pitchforks optional.
3. Always Be Condemning - if you're not whipping up some sort of frenzy, you're losing ground. You don't want people to have time to go "Uh, wait. WHAT?" Keep them in that 2-minute hate mode, never let them reconsider.
4. If you're not cheating, you're not trying. Have those suitcases with votes ready - you can't always have the time to go to dusty warehouses and get out ballot boxes that haven't been used in a decade or more to 'find' enough votes to get your candidate over the top. (Brother saw this happen in Washington state. He was a nominal D, this caused him to cut any support for the party.)
5. There's Elite, and there's Peasants. If you're not Elite, you're a Peasant. Elites get listened to, catered to, can make millions on a salary of $200k/year. Peasants are ignored, get bugs, and should damned well be grateful for them. You can change status from Peasant to Elite if you provide sufficient 'service' to the Elite, such as vociferous, whole-hearted support for ALL their policies, and sufficient donations - but one 'oopsie' wipes out a thousand 'attaboys' and you'll still be a Peasant.
6. There's Nothing More Important Than Right Now. The future can take care of itself - but we've got to act on the cause of the moment. We have 5 Years to save the planet, so let's throw billions at solutions that don't work well (or at all), and siphon off a bit here and there for our share. #MeToo was VITAL to our civilization's survival, until it became clear that there were bad folks on our side, at which point it got dropped. EVERYTHING is the MOST IMPORTANT THING EVARRR! until it isn't. Be ready to switch attitudes at the drop of a hat.
Think that about sums it up. Oh, and every R running for President is gonna be Hitler reincarnated.
This is the moment when the lemmings reach the edge of the great sea, and there's no island ahead. This is when Wil-E-Coyote starts to look down.
No more bouncing off lumpen slack-jawed Republicans. No more effective attacks on Trump when Biden has a clear and weak track record.
This is when babies accept that they need to grow up, or when angry babies destroy the world.
"At this point, the Dems need to offer an anti-identity agenda, an American unity agenda...."
Not. Gonna. Happen. Identity politics and the divisiveness based thereon is central to the very DNA of the Democrat party. Just as soon expect a shark to sprout wings and fly. Not. Gonna. Happen.
I think the Democrats will continue to run on the same issue that has been delivering wins to their side since Roe v Wade was overturned. And then Republicans will scream fraud and Donald Trump can run again. Yea!!
I have to agree with Ice Nine. Perhaps it may not be enough to win to electoral college, but it is enough to win the popular vote within the Blue States where the message will resonate.
However, there is two counters that might change it; out of control crime and illegal immigration. Soros funded DAs can decide to be tough until November, but maybe the residents will realize who is actually harmed by the lack of prosecutions. Abbott and DeSantis can keep up the pressure on illegal immigration, because that is reality shock that Democrats are not handling well. Perhaps Madison, WI needs a bus load. Certainly, Johnson County, IA needs a bus.
"Biden has nothing to say about the future. The future is beyond his imagining...."
"If the Republicans are offering right-wing populism"
You mean, like, closing the border, stopping green insanity, reducing the debt?
"the Democrats can’t just continue to offer grievance agendas"
Why not? Grievance works. Trump is going to put y'all back in chains, and the GOP will make you have babies, and those transphobes will prevent your kids from cutting their genitals.
"especially since most of those grievances have been dramatically meliorated"
Joe, my man, stop it. This is systemic racism we're dealing with. And we haven't even started on reparations.
"The dirty little secret of Diversity, Equity and Identity (DEI) programs is that they’re indicative of past-thinking, not the future."
Why? they are completely institutionalized in many sectors, especially academia.
"the traditional Democrat identity-rhetoric begins to seem laughable"
It was from the outset.
"At this point, the Dems need to offer an anti-identity agenda, an American unity agenda...."
Why? A coalition of identity groups works fine for them. And who needs unity with racist sexist fundamentalist zionists?
Dave Begley said...
"Dems' campaign.
1. Not Trump.
2. Abortion.
Ignore everything else."
And they will lose.
RCP has Trump ahead by 3 1/2 points over Biden.
RCP betting has Trump ahead over 10 points.
I know it's early but those are not encouraging numbers for Democrats.
The vigorous persecution of Trump has simply made more Trump voters and exposed the Democrats as being fundamentally dishonest and unfair.
Abortion is a non issue compared with the economy, our southern boarder and a non existant foriegn policy strike that. A foriegn policy thet encourages conflict.
Klein drones about American Unity.
You can’t have American Unity with Open Borders.
Don’t need a young genius to pint that out.
The best part about Klein's article is that he claims Biden is doing great in foreign policy. Even his substack subscribers are roasting him over that.
Blogger Ice Nine said...
>Dave Begley said...
Dems' campaign.
1. Not Trump.
2. Abortion.
Ignore everything else.<
They need nothing else. You have well delineated the two very reasons why Trump/Repubs will lose in November. (I'm a fervent Trumpist, btw.)
Yes, I agree and suburban white women like Ann will hand it to the incompetent ruling class once again.
However, the Gods of the Copybook headings are coming. Weak men create hard times; hard times create strong men; strong men create good times; good times create weak men.
The future belongs to those that show up.
Although Eleanor’s original quote might better fit what Althouse wishes Democrats would do: “The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
Alas, Biden is talking about using F-16s again to quash any opposition. Hard to have a future with such a violent talking point.
Kamala Harris is a former prosecutor of San Francisco, widely regarded as ground zero of the Democrats' prosecutorial problems.
Did Democrats' open border rhetoric in 2020 create a false hope that wound up attracting hundreds of thousands towards America's borders? Probably not; the migrants would likely have come anyway. But the appearances are at best unfortunate.
As for contestable stances on gender identity, go listen to Nikki Haley hammer out “girls bathrooms for girls ... and boys' bathroom for boys" in her stump speeches. This is a woman who has been to a PTA meeting. One wonders where the Democrats have been?
The Republicans very well may lose 2024, but the many inadequacies of the Democrats as a party and Biden as a standard bearer probably mean that the Democrats are not going to win.
Klein hits the nail on the head. The 1960s-1990s Democrats have won, but it's ashes in their mouths because they ran out of actual ideas 30 years ago. Their skill set is centered upon keeping all of their constituencies paid off, and when the economy and society go down the tubes, the Dem-controlled media basically either deny reality, or blame the reality on the boogeymen wreckers, hoarders, kulaks, and white supremacists.
The things that could save the Dems are the American instincts for practicality and decency, the extraordinary productive richness of our landmass, the American work ethic, and the comparative idiocy and bad luck of the world's other nations, which are hurtling toward economic and demographic collapse at an even faster rate than we are.
Four years ago I kept saying Joe Biden was in the early stages of some oform of dementia. He'll be dead in about four more years from it, plus or minus 2 depending what kind it is.
SMOD help us all.
Did Democrats' open border rhetoric in 2020 create a false hope that wound up attracting hundreds of thousands towards America's borders? Probably not; the migrants would likely have come anyway. But the appearances are at best unfortunate.
Millions, it seems.
And there's also the question of how many "migrants" or "undocumented immigrants" or "asylum seekers" or "economic refugees" or whatever ended up in the US, thanks to the Biden administration's reversal of the Trump administration's "remain in Mexico" policy. I guess they've tried to reinstitute it in some degree, as those unfortunate appearances have gotten worse, but the horse is pretty well out of the barn.
The appearances are indeed unfortunate, but the facts are worse, it seems to me.
I feel sympathy for the innocent people who have come to the border with the expectation that on the US side lies a relative paradise of requirement- and consequence-free social welfare - I think most of them really are hoping for a life of better opportunities than they had at home and take the prospect of a significant bunch of freebies as a bonus rather than their primary goal. But - great as the US obviously is (or we wouldn't be the immigration objective of so many), we can't save everybody and we do have a right, and a responsibility to our own citizens, to decide who enters.
'Kamala Harris is a former prosecutor of San Francisco, widely regarded as ground zero of the Democrats' prosecutorial problems.'
And she put lots of black folks in jail for smoking weed when she wasn't entertaining Willie Brown...
"And she put lots of black folks in jail for smoking weed when she wasn't entertaining Willie Brown..."
Perhaps if those black folks had made an effort to entertain Wille too, they could have stayed out of jail. Sadly, we'll never know...
If Klein thinks the Democrat identity-rhetoric is just now starting to be laughable, he might not have ever seen any Twitter memes.
"Did Democrats' open border rhetoric in 2020 create a false hope that wound up attracting hundreds of thousands towards America's borders? Probably not; the migrants would likely have come anyway. But the appearances are at best unfortunate."
Why do people assume foreigners don't own cell phones?
They imagine these guys don't follow the news, or hear from others....gee, why did they decide to wear Biden t-shirts that one time?
joe biden invited illegal border crossers to use asylum system during debate prior to 2020 election.
Biden is part of the same mob cabal who killed JFK.
"He wants "some fresh young genius" to tell us what to do..."
Barack Hussein Obama MMMMM. MMMM. MMMMM.
Young fresh genius guunna heeeel us, Young fresh genius guuuna take our pain away. Keep looking for Young fresh Jesus, democrats. Because you will never be happy with the Jesus you have.
2020 - Biden wants a surge at the border and urges the use of the Asylum system to do it.
(which is an abuse of the asylum system.) The entire invasion was planned.
Watch for yourself - Right here.
Most loyal democrats know nothing about the true definition of asylum. why democrat like to stay ignorant.
Facts.
Klein actually says "His (Biden's) excellent foreign policy has been too subtle to be appreciated."
Yow: war in Ukraine; war in Gaza, piracy in the Red Sea, commercial shipping curtailed through the Suez Canal, Afghanistan falls to the Taliban with US troops slaughtered during a botched withdrawal, US troops suffering traumatic brain damage from Iranian proxy rocket attacks on US bases, Houthis shooting Ballistic missiles and cruise missiles at US warships.
He's right. Such excellence in foreign policy is way too subtle to be appreciated.
What a maroon...
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