After all of the crawlers at the bottom of TV screens, corporate news readers jawing for days with “reporting and analysis”, and some congresspeople playing “will they or won’t they” footsie with a worried American public, the deed is done.
The values and behaviour of right and left politiking/politicians in Australia is identical. People here have had a better safety net than those in the States, so there's a cushion. But the agenda of wealth gathering and the underclass can rot is well and truly underway. Thank you for writing this piece, it speaks of so many thousands of hours of keeping abreast, an activity I can't bring myself to perform, so I really value your sharing it with me, with one and all.
Genevieve, thanks so much for reading my latest screed. Frankly, I hit publish and took a deep breath. I would stand behind what I wrote either way but I definitely was bracing for impact nonetheless.
I'm sad to learn that not only is our country exporting abominable fast food and junk TV, it seems our wealth worship is an invasive species abroad too. As this is an international menace, it requires international cooperation. May each nation's residents inform and educate each other to deploy all successful strategies, and beat back the orcs in parliaments sacking our nations for their benefactors.
The Pretender in Cheese may preen now but there will be a day coming when he will fall into ignominy. When will that day come, you may ask? Not fucking soon enough.
Adam, thanks again for reading and liking my work. I do hope you're right. There's nothing I'd like to be more wrong about than this character's continued dominance, aided and abetted by racists and cowards. We both agree that this epic comeuppance cannot come soon enough.
We'll have to do like they do in France. Macron or whomever fucks up and viola! General strike. Eat it motherfuckers!!! We have to throw sand into the gears.
These guys give the appearance of competence (in destruction of our pillars and principles) but they really do not understand how things work. We'll all suffer as they FAFO but I think we'll come back stronger once the dust has settled and a REAL reconstruction commenced.
Of course, this time we'll have to allow our Gen Sherman to KILL THEM ALL! No mercy for the unrepentant.
This country was founded on murder, theft, rape and misery. Until that sorry-ass history (which makes a mockery of our vaunted freedoms) has been addressed and put to rest we will never succeed with our democratic experiment!
Man, no argument here. It's the striking and obstruction of normal operations that's a big part, maybe the only effective part, of what's going to win the day. I made that explicit connection between the money and observed results for that reason. Your idea of importing the French method, and any others that people brainstorm, will need to be used. All tools are welcome.
I'm not as down with the future as you, though I've designated today as my own personal day of mourning. I don't think all that energy in calling and writing was wasted, though its TARGET was clearly going to be a brick wall. But what all that energy did was connect those expending it and watching it. And the polls are showing that there were a LOT of fellow Americans who observed and agreed. What there are now is a further huge bunch of Americans who have to be persuaded as to what exactly the pain will be and where it will come from. Our energy has to be directed at THEM now--I don't mean the cult, but the cult is not really that big a part of the populace. There are a lot of simply unaware people, and even what I think of as "cult camp-followers" who will drop away as the disease being spread in their name begins to infect their lives.
If nothing else, I suspect the outcry gave the Parliamentarian the courage to kick out the stuff she did kick out. If you LOOK at what she did, you realize how much worse this could have been.
This is particularly true for those of us who are actually better off under the new tax regime, from a purely monetary point of view. The new SALT limit and the senior deduction are going to help me personally. But that pittance is as NOTHING compared to the devastation wreaked; we who "benefit" (however temporarily) have to point out that any complacency because "it didn't hurt me" is utterly based on short term selfishness, and "Do you want to be that person?"
I'm old enough to have been here before. I lost friends and classmates in Vietnam. I lived through the Reagan years and not a trace of nostalgia ever took root. And the Patriot Act, and Iraq, and on and on. About war, I'm a total cynic: humans are never going to be peaceful.** But I also lived through the Civil Rights movement and women's rights have changed so drastically that I don't think anyone who was not alive in the Before can feel just how huge the change has been.
I'm not happy with the tepid response of the Dems as this regime started. We are all subject to cognitive dissonance and it takes a lot to beat it. I think that "lot" is happening now. I hope the messaging from our leaders becomes strong and persistent as trump's spin is broadcast. (One ploy I now see as intentional was the proposing of Gaetz for AG--it was SO out the door that even I thought "well, Bondi must be better. She IS an attorney and knows about ethics. " I couldn't really predict how she would throw ethics into the toilet. ) But I do think that BEATING on the Dems is not the way to encourage them to grow a spine. Positive reinforcement always works better than negative: ask any flatworm.
What the Dems have to do is WIN in 2026. What will their power be? Little, with trump OR vance, in charge. I don't think it is possible to get a veto proof majority in the Senate. But what they CAN do is pass repealing legislation over and over and over so that trump has to spend the rest of his term vetoing--with his claim of a "mandate" getting more and more hollow in the eyes of even the "non political."
I actually think that the end may be a splitting of the country into Blue and Red countries, but I won't be around to see it.
Susan, thanks for reading and engaging with this piece. As usual, I appreciate it and your thoughtful challenge to some of its arguments. I agree that the energy expended towards legislators wasn’t wasted, and I hoped to make that point in the piece. I strongly believe it was informative in showing voters how much traction they actually have with legislators compared to wealthy campaign donors. I hadn’t considered the networking that’s taken place between likeminded people through organizing and protests that happened, though. That is definitely a very important key benefit.
We disagree, however, that the Democratic Party will respond better to positive reinforcement. Most Democrats stayed loyal, with some voting bloc subsets leaving only when they felt ignored, and party leaders behaved like they knew what those voters wanted better than voters themselves. When that comes, like the disenchantment of Sanders supporters or those critiquing American weaponry raining down on Gaza, those voters stay home. The always faithful and stalwart supporters who do vote, see their loyalty repaid with more requests for campaign donations, while the party increases the number of failed overtures to an imagined bloc of non-existent Republican swing voters. It regularly abandons, or falls silent on more progressive earlier party stances, hoping to land some crowd of Reaganites just itching for the chance to vote for Dems. After bleeding more seats with the same miscalculation, Democratic leadership repays the same loyal members with redoubled pursuit of that mythical, dissatisfied, center-right Republican and asks them for the money to do it.
A restaurant that keeps serving up ptomaine doesn’t get the message to improve until you stop going and/or file an angry complaint with the health inspector. Dems are overdue to sanitize the platform, strategy and messaging stations in their policy kitchen. The billionaire’s bill could have been worse but regardless, the Dems approach is serving up plates of heartburn, rights loss, poorer health, financial hardship and general devastation to vulnerable communities. It’s true that things have been historically worse for many of the communities concerned, but important gains were significantly curtailed recently. A party that represents you should fight ardently to prevent that backslide from happening, not shrug and say it could be worse. Dems keep failing to meet the moment, waiting until the axe is starting to fall before showing urgency. Unshakable support resulted in nonchalance and an assumption that their supporters will stick around regardless of how listlessly they perform. When good support is rewarded with indifference, it seems to me that the best tack is to try hardball instead.
I think your repeal approach to legislating is a great tactic to add to the Dems toolkit. It may even accomplish informing the persuadable like you proposed. Frankly, Republicans have used lots of allowed chicanery in the past very effectively. Dems refuse to use the same, like your repeal idea, to their discredit.
Thanks for sharing both the song and poem in your comment too. They’re powerful works of art.
my point about positive reinforcement has to do more with private interactions with one’s representatives; I by no means think one should ignore positions they take you disagree with and you should let them know. But when they DO take the position you agree with, a thank you is in order.
Remember that all the calls that didn’t work over the BBB were to Republicans. You can’t really despair over the Dems’ reaction to the bill. It was universal. As far as positive reinforcement goes, thanking the GOP members who did vote against it would be in order if you are a Dem constituent of theirs.
As far as public divisions of the Dems go, I do wish they’d do it in private. The dreadful reaction to Zohran Mamdani, to the extent it is coming from Dems, should be excoriated by communication to the reactor, but I really wish Dems wouldn’t frickn DEBATE such things. The party needs a unified FRONT if it is to be the beneficiary of growing disillusionment with trump, If you want to argue old guard vs progressives, do it in the damn restroom. Just, in public, go on being either old guard or progressive, minus the attacks, don’t go making negative comments about the “other side.” I don’t actually spend much time following that stuff; limited energy focuses on the GOP.
I suspected we were more aligned than not. Completely agree with this point. Yes! I actually called our district representative and thanked his office for the town hall he held for that very reason. No, we didn't get the results we wanted, but I did want him to know his constituents appreciated him listening to our concerns and not ducking them like some others did. They've definitely got to keep family business in house and behind closed doors too. There's no extra credit for airing laundry publicly for opponents to seize on and splinter you.
Thanks for patiently walking me through your point some more, Susan.
The values and behaviour of right and left politiking/politicians in Australia is identical. People here have had a better safety net than those in the States, so there's a cushion. But the agenda of wealth gathering and the underclass can rot is well and truly underway. Thank you for writing this piece, it speaks of so many thousands of hours of keeping abreast, an activity I can't bring myself to perform, so I really value your sharing it with me, with one and all.
Genevieve, thanks so much for reading my latest screed. Frankly, I hit publish and took a deep breath. I would stand behind what I wrote either way but I definitely was bracing for impact nonetheless.
I'm sad to learn that not only is our country exporting abominable fast food and junk TV, it seems our wealth worship is an invasive species abroad too. As this is an international menace, it requires international cooperation. May each nation's residents inform and educate each other to deploy all successful strategies, and beat back the orcs in parliaments sacking our nations for their benefactors.
The Pretender in Cheese may preen now but there will be a day coming when he will fall into ignominy. When will that day come, you may ask? Not fucking soon enough.
Adam, thanks again for reading and liking my work. I do hope you're right. There's nothing I'd like to be more wrong about than this character's continued dominance, aided and abetted by racists and cowards. We both agree that this epic comeuppance cannot come soon enough.
We'll have to do like they do in France. Macron or whomever fucks up and viola! General strike. Eat it motherfuckers!!! We have to throw sand into the gears.
These guys give the appearance of competence (in destruction of our pillars and principles) but they really do not understand how things work. We'll all suffer as they FAFO but I think we'll come back stronger once the dust has settled and a REAL reconstruction commenced.
Of course, this time we'll have to allow our Gen Sherman to KILL THEM ALL! No mercy for the unrepentant.
This country was founded on murder, theft, rape and misery. Until that sorry-ass history (which makes a mockery of our vaunted freedoms) has been addressed and put to rest we will never succeed with our democratic experiment!
Man, no argument here. It's the striking and obstruction of normal operations that's a big part, maybe the only effective part, of what's going to win the day. I made that explicit connection between the money and observed results for that reason. Your idea of importing the French method, and any others that people brainstorm, will need to be used. All tools are welcome.
Thanks for the restack too. I'm very grateful.
It's cool CJ. This is how we win the day. By taking direct action be it large or small, we build momentum. Everything counts goddammit!
Restacked w/note!
PS: I'm gonna use this one day (with you permission of course):
"It’s like comparing the heat output of a toaster oven to being baked between two blue stars."
Oh man, definitely. Just casually direct listeners to this little corner of Substack when you do.😉
I'm not as down with the future as you, though I've designated today as my own personal day of mourning. I don't think all that energy in calling and writing was wasted, though its TARGET was clearly going to be a brick wall. But what all that energy did was connect those expending it and watching it. And the polls are showing that there were a LOT of fellow Americans who observed and agreed. What there are now is a further huge bunch of Americans who have to be persuaded as to what exactly the pain will be and where it will come from. Our energy has to be directed at THEM now--I don't mean the cult, but the cult is not really that big a part of the populace. There are a lot of simply unaware people, and even what I think of as "cult camp-followers" who will drop away as the disease being spread in their name begins to infect their lives.
If nothing else, I suspect the outcry gave the Parliamentarian the courage to kick out the stuff she did kick out. If you LOOK at what she did, you realize how much worse this could have been.
This is particularly true for those of us who are actually better off under the new tax regime, from a purely monetary point of view. The new SALT limit and the senior deduction are going to help me personally. But that pittance is as NOTHING compared to the devastation wreaked; we who "benefit" (however temporarily) have to point out that any complacency because "it didn't hurt me" is utterly based on short term selfishness, and "Do you want to be that person?"
I'm old enough to have been here before. I lost friends and classmates in Vietnam. I lived through the Reagan years and not a trace of nostalgia ever took root. And the Patriot Act, and Iraq, and on and on. About war, I'm a total cynic: humans are never going to be peaceful.** But I also lived through the Civil Rights movement and women's rights have changed so drastically that I don't think anyone who was not alive in the Before can feel just how huge the change has been.
I'm not happy with the tepid response of the Dems as this regime started. We are all subject to cognitive dissonance and it takes a lot to beat it. I think that "lot" is happening now. I hope the messaging from our leaders becomes strong and persistent as trump's spin is broadcast. (One ploy I now see as intentional was the proposing of Gaetz for AG--it was SO out the door that even I thought "well, Bondi must be better. She IS an attorney and knows about ethics. " I couldn't really predict how she would throw ethics into the toilet. ) But I do think that BEATING on the Dems is not the way to encourage them to grow a spine. Positive reinforcement always works better than negative: ask any flatworm.
What the Dems have to do is WIN in 2026. What will their power be? Little, with trump OR vance, in charge. I don't think it is possible to get a veto proof majority in the Senate. But what they CAN do is pass repealing legislation over and over and over so that trump has to spend the rest of his term vetoing--with his claim of a "mandate" getting more and more hollow in the eyes of even the "non political."
I actually think that the end may be a splitting of the country into Blue and Red countries, but I won't be around to see it.
-----------------------------------------
**My feeling about war is summed up here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkSAlnCRFew
And here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/46560/dulce-et-decorum-est
Susan, thanks for reading and engaging with this piece. As usual, I appreciate it and your thoughtful challenge to some of its arguments. I agree that the energy expended towards legislators wasn’t wasted, and I hoped to make that point in the piece. I strongly believe it was informative in showing voters how much traction they actually have with legislators compared to wealthy campaign donors. I hadn’t considered the networking that’s taken place between likeminded people through organizing and protests that happened, though. That is definitely a very important key benefit.
We disagree, however, that the Democratic Party will respond better to positive reinforcement. Most Democrats stayed loyal, with some voting bloc subsets leaving only when they felt ignored, and party leaders behaved like they knew what those voters wanted better than voters themselves. When that comes, like the disenchantment of Sanders supporters or those critiquing American weaponry raining down on Gaza, those voters stay home. The always faithful and stalwart supporters who do vote, see their loyalty repaid with more requests for campaign donations, while the party increases the number of failed overtures to an imagined bloc of non-existent Republican swing voters. It regularly abandons, or falls silent on more progressive earlier party stances, hoping to land some crowd of Reaganites just itching for the chance to vote for Dems. After bleeding more seats with the same miscalculation, Democratic leadership repays the same loyal members with redoubled pursuit of that mythical, dissatisfied, center-right Republican and asks them for the money to do it.
A restaurant that keeps serving up ptomaine doesn’t get the message to improve until you stop going and/or file an angry complaint with the health inspector. Dems are overdue to sanitize the platform, strategy and messaging stations in their policy kitchen. The billionaire’s bill could have been worse but regardless, the Dems approach is serving up plates of heartburn, rights loss, poorer health, financial hardship and general devastation to vulnerable communities. It’s true that things have been historically worse for many of the communities concerned, but important gains were significantly curtailed recently. A party that represents you should fight ardently to prevent that backslide from happening, not shrug and say it could be worse. Dems keep failing to meet the moment, waiting until the axe is starting to fall before showing urgency. Unshakable support resulted in nonchalance and an assumption that their supporters will stick around regardless of how listlessly they perform. When good support is rewarded with indifference, it seems to me that the best tack is to try hardball instead.
I think your repeal approach to legislating is a great tactic to add to the Dems toolkit. It may even accomplish informing the persuadable like you proposed. Frankly, Republicans have used lots of allowed chicanery in the past very effectively. Dems refuse to use the same, like your repeal idea, to their discredit.
Thanks for sharing both the song and poem in your comment too. They’re powerful works of art.
my point about positive reinforcement has to do more with private interactions with one’s representatives; I by no means think one should ignore positions they take you disagree with and you should let them know. But when they DO take the position you agree with, a thank you is in order.
Remember that all the calls that didn’t work over the BBB were to Republicans. You can’t really despair over the Dems’ reaction to the bill. It was universal. As far as positive reinforcement goes, thanking the GOP members who did vote against it would be in order if you are a Dem constituent of theirs.
As far as public divisions of the Dems go, I do wish they’d do it in private. The dreadful reaction to Zohran Mamdani, to the extent it is coming from Dems, should be excoriated by communication to the reactor, but I really wish Dems wouldn’t frickn DEBATE such things. The party needs a unified FRONT if it is to be the beneficiary of growing disillusionment with trump, If you want to argue old guard vs progressives, do it in the damn restroom. Just, in public, go on being either old guard or progressive, minus the attacks, don’t go making negative comments about the “other side.” I don’t actually spend much time following that stuff; limited energy focuses on the GOP.
I suspected we were more aligned than not. Completely agree with this point. Yes! I actually called our district representative and thanked his office for the town hall he held for that very reason. No, we didn't get the results we wanted, but I did want him to know his constituents appreciated him listening to our concerns and not ducking them like some others did. They've definitely got to keep family business in house and behind closed doors too. There's no extra credit for airing laundry publicly for opponents to seize on and splinter you.
Thanks for patiently walking me through your point some more, Susan.