Wake up. You should learn from yesterday’s elections that there’s no wave pushing your agenda along — you have to work every day to drag our country out of the ugly theocratic trends that run counter to rationality and justice.
In Kentucky, Matt Bevin became governor. Bevin jumped on the Kim Davis bandwagon and exploited the homophobia of the Kentucky electorate to win a strong majority.
Houston had an equal rights amendment on the ballot that would have…
The ordinance bans discrimination based not just on gender identity and sexual orientation, but also 13 classes already protected under federal law: sex, race, color, ethnicity, national origin, age, religion, disability, pregnancy and genetic information, as well as family, marital or military status.
It failed hard. Why? Because opponents effectively squealed about a single detail that freaked out the electorate: it would allow men in women’s bathrooms. No, it would allow transgender women to use women’s bathrooms. They used an unlikely and rare possibility, that sexual predators would invade the women’s restroom (you know, that is already possible, and we have laws to prevent it) in order to deny rights to a larger number of people.
Here’s the deal: when our side, the side of goodness and light, wins a major victory, as we did with the supreme court decision on gay marriage, the other side, the side of darkness and ignorance, is motivated and driven to fight back. While we’re sitting back and smugly patting each other on the back, they’re holding rallies to get out the vote.
I’ve been saying this for years in the context of the court battles against creationism. We win them all, but court decisions settle nothing — it’s the people working on the ground, in the frontlines, setting examples and educating that make a long term difference. Nine people in black robes don’t define the social attitudes of the country, over 300 million people do.
There are a few hopeful signs, at least. Denver did the right thing.
In a striking upset, voters in suburban Denver on Tuesday recalled three conservative members of a school board who had worked to weaken the local teachers union while boosting funding for charter schools and pushing through other market-driven policy changes for public schools.
School boards can be more important than governors. That’s where we need to keep up the work.
History, like evolution, has no direction.
Speaking as someone who lives in the area, I’m stunned the school board recall is being characterized as a “stunning upset”. Locals far and wide rallied for the recall. Signs and protesters were everywhere. You could see this result coming from a mile away.
Alas, it’s not just the wingnut right who argue that transwomen shouldn’t be able to use female restrooms because of the risk of sexual predation. Several major feminist writers and (even prominent women within the sceptical community) have made precisely the same point, vociferously and frequently. If we haven’t even “won the battle” (so to speak) with people broadly on our own side of the political divide, what hope do we have with the Christian right?
Sorry, typo! “Trans women” not “transwomen”.
I agree 100% that the forces of good have more or less conceded the lowest levels of the government to the crazies. It’s partly due to thinking that electing the right president takes care of the problem, but more concerning, it’s also due to the massive sway rich assholes have on lower level elections.
There’s way too much publicity and general discussion of presidential elections to allow the Kochs to overwhelm airwaves. Clinton is a celebrity; she will always be in the news. But school boards and state Congresspeople and even gubernatorial races can be dominated by individual wealthy people pushing an agenda.
I mean, just check out the unrelenting clusterfuck that is Kansas. My parents live in a college town in Kansas. At a rally during a state house race, the Kochs blanketed this small-time election with pamphlets containing outrageous smears against the Democratic candidate. I mean, it was 1000% bullshit, but it made its way all over town, and there was no news station pointing out the nonsense. That level of money and focus is just impossible to combat.
I’m not feeling particularly sanguine about our future…
I wanted to add this as an example of the kind of issues that do not get media coverage in the USA
“Sanders perfectly draws link between the economy and rise in suicides among middle-age whites” http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/sanders-perfectly-draws-link-between-the-economy-and-rise-in-suicides-among-middle-age-whites/
The “dunkelmänner” (to use an expression by Marthin Luther) thrive in the absence of information , or in the flood of disinformation.
Reminder: that argument is bogus not because trans women will never be perpetrators of violence, but because a sexual predator who rapes people for power trips is not likely to surrender the systems of privilege that empower them by willingly associating with gender variance specifically to deflect a rape accusation.
Moreover, it is extremely telling that when trans advocates defend the use of a particular washroom, that somehow gets conflated as a defence for rape.
We just want to pee, for fuck sake.
I am so disappointed in Houston not passing the HERO act. Despite what people think, Houston has a long history of supporting equality for both different races and the LGBTQ community. I remember in 82 when Louis Welch lost himself the election with his “Shoot the Queers” comment. And I am happy with the performance of Anise Parker who is one of the first openly gay mayors in the country.
The fact that my city has embraced bigotry because of a ridiculous schoolyard trick is both deeply embarrassing and will have repercussions for years to come. Oh well, 3 steps forward, 2 steps back.
One quibble, I never like the idea that one party is entirely right and the other entirely wrong. I don’t like it when conservatives do it and I like it even less when liberals, who are supposed to be the smarter of the two, do it.
Well Eric, sorry to have to break the news to you, but right now it is objectively true that most Republican politicians are completely wrong about everything. Can you name one single idea currently being widely promoted by Republicans that is better than the standard Democratic alternative? I’m listening.
Gaining the control of the local governments and school boards is a long established strategy of the theocrat Dominionists and Reconstructionnist.
It aims at controlling the culture war.
@eric, to clarify the Houston City Council passed the ordinance and the voters repealed it.
What I found tragically hilarious about the HERO debate was the large number of people who love the talking point that criminals don’t obey gun laws asserting that bathroom policies would deter rapists.
Cervantes @#9 I think you misunderstand my position. Politics is complicated as is government. Both sides bring something to the table. The Republicans are not all bigoted know nothings and the Democrats are not all Jedi Knights. I do agree that the Republicans have heavily favored identity politics and religious fundamentalism. And I know that I haven’t been able to vote for a Republican for 20 years because of many of their ideas. I am simply saying that is counterproductive to assume that one side is 100% right and the other side is 100% wrong.
With fear of provoking Mr. Godwin, Adolf Hitler launched some of the first anti-smoking campaigns in Europe. The fact that he was a psychotic monster doesn’t mean that he wasn’t right about that one.
Why, when the evidence is very compelling?
I certainly couldn’t agree with the proposition that the Dems are 100% right… There’s plenty of issues on which both parties are wrong.
What’s the big deal? Most of the civilised world has unisex bathrooms anyway. US Americans must be really backward and ignorant.
think we’re on the leading edge?
of course we are, the OP presents clear evidence we’re on the leading edge … of a cliff
The Rethugs and Evangs keep pushing us closer, wanting to be closer, and closer, and,
3 … 2 … 1 … ~….
Eric: “I am simply saying that is counterproductive to assume that one side is 100% right and the other side is 100% wrong.”
But my point is I’m not assuming it. I’m observing it. And you don’t seem to disagree with the observation. It might change in the future, but that’s how it is now.
@12:
agreed, it is a mistake to declare the other side 100% wrong regardless of their actual position.
You’re mistake is to assert that us calling Republicans 100% wrong necessarily implies we say Dems are 100% right.
What I see is the exact opposite. Dems often yell at leading Dems for being wrong on particular issues, while Repubs seem to declare everything Repubs have done, to be absolutely correct, and that the Dems are always wrong. *boom*.
What is even the issue? I mean, obviously unisex bathrooms are the proper way to go, but there’s nothing stopping dudes like me from entering restrooms with the apron-wearing stick person on it. We’ve all done it on occasion if the “men’s” bathroom is out of commission/full.
The idea that there’s some kind of special predation risk is laughable.
Here’s a bit of good election news from se habla espol:
http://www.sltrib.com/news/3133614-155/election-night-results-biskupski-bests-becker
In my conservative community there were no Democratic candidates listed for most of the lower level elections. There was no one to vote for.
Cervantes @#17 I would encourage you to look into the performance and policy positions of all of your elected representatives. You may find that there is some things you disagree with on the democratic side and some things you agree with on the Republican side.
A lot of politics come down to local issues. The parties love to play up big issues because it swings the vote in their favor overall. But, on the local level, it is often a different story.
If you want to dismiss the entire Republican side of the spectrum, that’s your choice. But just don’t give the Democrats a free pass.
I don’t see anyone giving the Democrats a free pass. But if you can think of some good Republican policy positions, please, inform us because I am drawing a blank.
EVERY election matters. If you are one of those smug jerks who brag about refusing to vote because neither choice is good enough for your oh so carefully constructed morals, I say you are WORSE than the bigots and the protectors of billionaires.
Actually no: this varies considerably depending what you mean by “wrong.”
A Republican is much more likely than a democrat to be drummed out of office if he turns out to be a philanderer, or a sexual harasser, or say a drunkard who left his mistress to die in his submerged automobile while he himself swam to safety.
A Democrat is more likely to than a Republican to be taken out to the woodshed if he espouses the wrong position on universal healthcare, or the minimum wage, or gay marriage.
Neither one will suffer any material consequences for murdering brownish foreigners by the bushel with missiles fired from airborne death robots, because if we do anything serious about ongoing mass murder, why, the OTHER party might end up in the White House! Granted, the Republican promises to commit mass murder on the campaign trail, and the Democrat promises NOT to; but once in office, they both can and do murder dusky furriners with impunity. (Ironically, the Democrat greatly escalated the drone warfare, AND promulgated the doctrine that the President can kill anyone, anywhere, on his say-so alone. The Republican didn’t dare, for fear he’d be lynched.)
Eric, we’re asking for specifics, stop with the generalities and theorizing. Here’s the way I’d put it:
Can you name a single position on which the Democrats and Republicans are diametrrically opposed, where a room full of the best subject matter experts we could assemble would side with the GOP? If you can’t, then stop implying that people are making unjustified presumptions. It’s a conclusion fgor me, because I can’t think of a single example.
The argument that Republicans had some good ideas has been much more difficult to make since they’ve abandoned all of these “good ideas” over the last decade.
The individual mandate for health care (only a “good idea” in relation to the status quo; much worse than single payer) was a Heritage Foundation concept gobbled up by Bob Dole and Mitt Romney. According to Republicans now its an example of HilterStalin Communism.
Cap and Trade was a Republican proposal. Now it’s seen as evidence of a vast, international communist conspiracy.
We currently have a president whose policies are best described as follows (borrowed from Brad DeLong):
George H.W. Bush’s tax policy.
Mitt Romney’s health-care policy.
John McCain’s climate-change policy.
George H.W. Bush’s foreign policy.
Bill Clinton’s spending policy.
Dwight Eisenhower’s Federal Reserve policy.
George W. Bush’s education policy.
This person is described by Republicans as some sort of Saul Alinsky acolyte prepared to overthrow capitalism. He has explicitly endorsed and promoted and passed ideas that were Republican in origin.
So, why should I credit Republicans with good ideas when Republicans think Republican ideas are Doomsday bad?
And I echo everyone else who has charged you with introducing and idea from the contemporary conservative movement that makes even a modicum of sense (and don’t cop out with something like legalizing drugs which (1) was started by progressives and adopted by some libertarians and (2) is widely panned by Republicans).
Knight in Sour Armor @ 19:
There shouldn’t be an issue, and I agree, unisex is the way to go, but the States will probably have to be threatened with nukes before we get there. Puritanical paranoia lives happily here, and while normally, people in general aren’t terribly concerned about rape, rape culture, or rape victims, preferring to believe the onus of rape lies with the victim, this all changes when it comes to bathrooms – “oh, a disguised penis loose in the women’s room, no, no, no!” and so on. The fact that no one would ever know that a trans women used the lav just doesn’t matter. And no one is terribly concerned about trans men using the men’s lav, but they don’t want to talk about that.
I’ve used a men’s room more than once, often when it’s been full of men because had to piss, really, really, and no one was upset, and nothing happened (except I got to piss). FFS, people should seriously be better than this.
It is maybe possible to find a small number of Republicans at the local level that do not share their party’s platform, and their politics reflect a more or less progressive worldview. Perhaps they– like doubting Christians– aren’t yet ready to come out of the closet for fear of rejection by their peers.
And there are certainly corporatists and cronies throughout the Democratic party, yes. It is a statement on our nation’s electoral process that huge sums of money are basically required to succeed in D.C.
But for the most part, policies and ideas put forth by either party are diametrically opposed along an axis of Good and Evil, Right or Wrong, or Science / Anti-Science (you take your pick).
Has anyone of you listened to any Republican politician over the last 20 years and even once nodded in agreement at anything they said? I can recall Eisenhower being a good president 70 years ago. That’s about it.
“You may find that there is some things you disagree with on the democratic side and some things you agree with on the Republican side.”
Nope.
Maybe a bit off topic, but the news is a bit better north of the border in Canada. Today Justin Trudeau was sworn in as Prime Minister, which is also the day he reveals his cabinet choices. The inclusiveness and diversity stands as a complete rebuke of Harper’s fearmongering of immigrants, as there are a number of Cabinet members who are themselves immigrants to Canada, including the Minister of Defense, which is a particular poke in the eye to the paranoids.
Canada’s Minister of Defense is a Sikh who wears a turban. There’s a Minister of environment AND CLIMATE CHANGE. There’s a Minister of sport and PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES. The Minister of Justice is an Aboriginal Woman from BC. Trudeau ensured there was gender parity in the cabinet – fifteen women and fifteen men.
It’s a pretty good day.
Your empiricism does not impede my irrational belief in the inevitable tide of humanism.
This tweet is from Republican strategist Rory Cooper.
“Under President Obama, Democrats have lost 900+ state legislature seats, 12 governors, 69 House seats, 13 Senate seats. That’s some legacy.”
I don’t think we get to blame President Obama, but the failure of the Democratic Party to get out the vote for state-level elections is undeniable. Hillary Clinton talked about this during her interview with Rachel Maddow, making the point that it is a major problem she intends to address.
For context, in yesterday’s elections, Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana are all dark red states. They have not backed Democratic candidates for decades. They did not back President Obama. Republicans have advantages there that are based on longterm cultural trends and on the Republican gerrymandering of voting districts. These were places that Republicans were sure to win.
More context (from Steve Benen of The Maddow Blog):
OK, I have one such issue where the GOP is right and the Dems are wrong, IMO: municipal use of eminent domain for economic development.
Here in Virginia, this made it to the ballot a few years back. As I read it, what was happening was that someone who wanted to build a shopping mall would cozy up with the local government, who would then issue a writ of eminent domain to grab the property that the developer wanted and turn it over the developer for a nice, affordable price. It was actually the Republicans who were defending the property owners here, and the Democrats who defended the government. This was also true in the relevant Supreme Court case Kelo vs. City of New London, where I thought the liberal judges got it wrong and the conservative judges got it right.
It’s the only case I can think of, and I was surprised as heck when it happened, but it is a reminder that there are a few things they stand for that aren’t completely morally bankrupt yet.
Brucegee1962 has found a needle in a haystack. Any others? I might be encouraged yet.
Yeah, that’s legit.
What’s weird about Kelo, though, is that it involved the government using eminent domain to take land from one private citizen and give it to another. The usual standard is “public use,” and Brucegee1962 is absolutely right that the liberal justices reasoned themselves to a pretty strange outcome.
That’s a pretty great example of government overreach, vs., you know, making sure women can access health care plans that cover birth control…
On the ballots in my town/city, no information was given about the political affiliation of school board members, assessors, treasurers, clerks, even the mayoral candidates. Unless you are researching this shit before you go to the polls, you are given virtually no information needed to actually make a decision involving municipal government positions, the level of voting at which your vote is most important. You could be voting straight Republican and have no idea. And they certainly don’t advertise their political affiliation often with their signs. With all the “Vote X for Mayor” signs or whatever, not one mentioned political party. In some ways, I am sure people find this refreshing. It is good that we can have some level of relief from the dichotomy of Team Republican vs. Team Democrat. But party affiliation actually gives you an idea of what that person’s political positions are and completely removing that information from the decision for local politics means people like myself, who know a lot about national politics, some about state politics, and little about local politics, are voting blind.
I still can’t believe that this obvious bigoted scaremongering is:
1. So fucking common
2. So rarely called out for the odious, irrational, hateful bullshit that it is.
erichoug:
Indeed. In fact, no Democrats are Jedi Knights. And, no, not all Republicans are bigoted know-nothings. Some Republicans are just bigots, some are just know-nothings, some are just libertarians with fucked up priorities. And finally, some aren’t necessarily bigoted but are incredibly horrible human beings nonetheless. There is a vibrant spectrum of awful.
Sometimes I agree with Democrats and disagree with Republicans.
Sometimes I disagree with Democrats and think the Republicans are stark raving bonkers.
That about covers it.
So from my side The best example I can give you is the Democrats insistence on investing in Solar and Wind power.
My training and background is an Electrical Engineer and I have had a good bit of field experience with both of these technologies I don’t believe we should be subsidizing them as heavily as we do. The technology is simply not where it would need to be to make it economical, reliable and an effective use of tax money.
There’s also these guys :http://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/Texas-House-committee-approves-full-legalization-6247225.php
Not to mention that I am on the same page as a lot of Democrats AND Republicans when it comes to criminal Justice Reform and reducing our jail population. IN that case, Democrats see it as a Human rights issue whereas a lot of Republicans see it as a budget issue. But, either way, they are working towards the same goal.
So your examples include something you are flat out wrong on (https://www.iea.org/Textbase/npsum/ElecCost2015SUM.pdf) and something where the republicans and democrats currently somewhat agree, but which is diametrically opposed to decades of the republican platform?
Wow, strong examples there.
erichoug:
I don’t even. One, part of the goal in “investing in Solar and Wind power” is to improve the technology and to make it economical. Two, even if it less economically efficient you still need to factor in whether the environmental benefits make the economic loss worth it. You don’t even seem to suggest that such a consideration was even on your radar. Which is fucking baffling.
Two Republicans (and three Democrats) are right about marijuana. Hurrah.
We simply want clean energy. Do you think it’s part of the Democratic platform to “insist” against nuclear, geothermal, etc.? Or are you seriously complaining that we “insist” on investing any money whatsoever in wind and solar?
What exactly is your problem with them, in your professional opinion as an electrical engineer? Maybe you could share that information with the rest of us, since this is supposed to be a conversation.
Also, in your opinion as someone who clearly isn’t any kind of economist or public policy expert … what should be subsidized more heavily instead?
So, far this isn’t even an example of anything. And if it’s the best example you’ve got … well, then….
If they see it as a budget issue, you can expect them to think a privatized prison system could be legitimate. But that’s fucking ludicrous, and it’s very much not working toward the same goals. Not to mention that saving money somehow or another, or spending it more wisely, is often completely irrelevant to how we should actually go about reforming the system, because it is in fact a human rights issue which needs to be addressed as such — it’s not just something we happen to see that way.
So, here you’re just plain wrong. I’m calling that an own-goal.
Are we done with this bullshit yet? Republicans have consistently been raging asshats my entire adult life. When that changes, if it ever does, I will gladly recognize it, and I won’t need to assume anything, because they’ll have done something to fucking demonstrate it.
OK, thanks for the education folks. I really appreciate the input and comments.
Gee, when Rethugs actually try to do something progressive, they kill it with greed.
The Ohio referendum to legalize small amounts of marijuana failed due to the “monopoly” of only ten sources the referendum specified
If they were really concerned about assaults (sexual or otherwise) in public washrooms they would be lobbying to have double door “airlock” entrances replaced with maze entrances. According the Calgary Police Services’s Environmental Design specialist double door entrances are an effective sound barrier and enable crime while maze entrances deter crime.
I voted for ten GOO candidates in my life: then ten were a block that were running for offices that were jobs that should be done by professionals, not elected. And their platform was to make that happen. They lost, so it continued being a set of jobs that went to the Democratic Party machine. One of the positions was county clerk.
I missed it, but one year, a democrat won the democratic primary for some top Pittsburgh-area school policy post, who wanted to effectively abolish the schools. He did this by counting on terrible turnout at the primary and getting his vote out effectively. Word got out that to vote for the GOP candidate, who was backed by both party establishments. She won, a lifelong democrat under the GOP banner.
Yeah, the hate on for trans people is pretty universal. One of the bigger problems is the mushy middle tend to follow trends and buzzwords rather than fully accepting of humanity. What that means is when the middle sees that gay marriage support has passed the 50% mark, all of a sudden, it’s the “duh” thing to support gay marriage and look how homophobic the haters are, but the attitudes that led to prejudice don’t get analyzed. People don’t look at how they automatically associate queerness with sex, or the assumptions they make about how queer people are, and they certainly don’t extend their viewpoints with regards to other marginalized communities like trans people.
And the haters get that. They are very good at exploiting whatever social button has made the least social acceptance progress and talking straight to that lizard brain. Non-discrimination ordinance for LGBT? Bring out the specter of the trans person in the bathroom and associate them with a child molester because that’s the most marginalized piece and allows the middle to justify their automatic bigotry. But that’s just the tip of it. This is why they make noises about “thugs” and vague allusions to suburban fears about gang violence to justify the murder of young black men. This is why they make allusions to drug wars and home invasions to justify the continued brutality of our immigration system. And this is why fantasies of “welfare queens” in “Cadillacs” are still trumped out to block any possible idea of a fair economy.
And it works, especially in the off-years, because fighting against the tide to vote seems a lot less urgent for those with lengthy jobs or institutional barriers during off-elections and so it even more favors those who literally have nothing better to do with their time other than sit and fear anything different from them. And because most people would prefer to put their fingers in their ears and sing loudly than engage directly and honestly with the accumulation of toxic messages built over a lifetime.
… an unlikely and rare possibility, that sexual predators would invade the women’s restroom …
So far (last I heard), the advocates of this argument have exactly zero real-world examples.
Which really puzzles me. Consider, e.g., Mike Huckabee proclaiming this as a great way for pervs to get peekies.
We know our society has lots of losers obsessing with voyeurism on female bodies, and we know we have lots of people dumbass enough to believe, e.g., what Mike Huckabee says.
So why haven’t we had a rash of cases of male shitheads trying to crash women’s restrooms?
Why not you (for next election)?
It is a shame when a political office is “elected” via hobson’s choice.
@#33, Lynna, OM
Which is kind of hilarious, since IIRC it was the Clinton-founded DLC who basically killed off the Democratic Party’s existing GOTV apparatus back in the 1990s, to say nothing of packing the party with uninspiring corporatist right-of-center candidates who make it almost impossible to build enthusiasm.
Let’s face it folks: the Democrats are losing because they have moved so far to the right that the only good thing you can say about them is that they aren’t the Republicans. They don’t actually stand for left-of-center values — if they did, the ACA would have given us either single-payer or a public option, the Bush tax cuts on the rich would be gone, the debt ceiling “compromise” wouldn’t have involved raiding Social Security, and our foreign policy wouldn’t be a mass of drone bombing, saber rattling, and bluster. Trying to get people to the polls by saying “our candidate will screw you over just like the other guy, but he won’t spray flecks of spittle all over you and he promises to pretend he doesn’t hate minorities” is a hopeless strategy, but it’s all the Democrats have these days because they have chosen to make it so.
@#39, erichoug
The fossil fuels industry gets massive subsidies from the government, and they are slowly killing us, to boot. And it turns out that we’ve just made nuclear power obsolete, too: wind power is now cheaper. So, basically, you are uninformed and just plain wrong.
@#49, Usernames! (╯°□°)╯︵ ʎuʎbosıɯ
Been there, done that, got the leftover lawn signs. Running a political campaign is a huge commitment, even if you’re only doing it to be a name on a ballot for a minor local office and will only be going to the bare minimum of obligatory events. Heck, even just working seriously on someone else‘s campaign is stressful and time-consuming well out of proportion to the benefit of “at least we tried” if you know in advance that you won’t get enough of the vote to have a chance.
And the Democratic Party machinery will pressure you to drop any actual progressive positions you may have, because they hate even the slightest suggestion that they are bad for “business”, but if you run as an Independent they will try to crush you because they hate Independents, too — a good Independent office-holder might make people wonder why need the Democratic Party if Independents are doing a better job at representing the community. (And it won’t take much effort on their part to make your campaign tough, because if you run as an Independent, you won’t have access to the party machinery for running the campaign and will have to do everything yourself, and in most parts of the country the electoral system has basically been designed to put unforeseen barriers in the way of running a campaign for the first time to let the Democrats and Republicans have an edge. And, naturally, the few public platforms for local elections — possibly a single debate if you are very lucky, plus a few other events, and “meet the candidates” events you have to organize yourself and which most people will avoid — will be hosted by groups which are more or less explicitly affiliated with one party or the other, and they will be very hostile towards Independent candidates.)
where you err, is that it is now a conclusion, NOT an assumption.
it’s a sad fact, but fact it is.
…actually, I amend that to say…
one side is HALF wrong while the other is ALL wrong.
which, of course, is even sadder.
…which is basically just a shorter version of what Vicar said in #50.
it’s never counterproductive to start with an actual factual assessment of the shitcan that is american politics.
what HAS been counterproductive for over 30 years, is assuming both sides actually HAVE something rational and productive to bring to the table to begin with.