POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

[SJHovey]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

The problem with that is the underlying assumption that the other side wants to govern responsibly, too.

If one side had the sole goal of making the other side lose power, then the system of compromises and trading votes falls apart.

I'm with Kepler, we need to bring back earmarks as the grease to keep the legislative wheels turning. I'm willing to accept some bridges to nowhere if it means a return to legislative norms.

No question that if you are dealing with unreasonable people it is hard to remain reasonable. But I think if you want to be effective, you at least have to try.

Again, I'd start within my own party. I don't see any point in attacking those supposedly on the same team as me, at least not personally.

If I'm a freshman Congressman who is a Republican, I'm not trying to build relationships with Pelosi. She isn't going to do me any good. I'm starting with those in power on my own side, and the newbies and grinders on the other side. Those are the ones who you have the best chance of picking off for something you want to accomplish, and they are the ones that 12 years from now can do you some favors, after they come to power.

[SJHovey]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

That’s cute and all. Where are the calls for the right wing to work with the democrats?

Until then, these kinds of posts aren’t great, they’re useless platitudes.

I only used Democrats in my example because that's who we had been talking about in terms of dealing with Pelosi.

My recommendation certainly works both ways. I would tell a freshman Republican in the US House the same thing. Bide your time, work hard, learn, develop relationships, and don't unnecessarily create enemies.

[The Rube]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

I only used Democrats in my example because that's who we had been talking about in terms of dealing with Pelosi.

My recommendation certainly works both ways. I would tell a freshman Republican in the US House the same thing. Bide your time, work hard, learn, develop relationships, and don't unnecessarily create enemies.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If The Squad learns and develops the tact/prowess of Pelosi...they will become a powerful and effective force.

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

No, it’s not. It’s approaching the problem like Chamberlain. We’re dealing with people who think children in concentration camps is normal. You don’t beat nazis by doing them favors.

I have absolutely no idea why you think this is a great post. The first third is fine and all. The last two thirds is mind bogglingly naive. Mitch isn’t going to do you a favor if you scratch his back.

Let's deconstruct it:

See that's the interesting question. Will the landscape look a lot different very soon?

Good question: will the dinosaurs retain their stranglehold on power within the Democratic party or are the cracks we see harbingers of a coming change? Nothing guarantees continuity of power. Power is, well, powerful, so it tends to protect itself, but if you look at the demographics of the party both in Membership and in the electorate, a change is coming. The Democratic establishment made its peace with wealth long ago because it draws it's membership from the privileged, but it faces a huge challenge in the racial change of the party (gender not so much: there are plenty of wealthy, entitled white women to hand the reins to). The way parties have handled this in the past is co-option: like the Raj, you allow a subset of POC into the Club and keep the game going. But there aren't that many Uncle Toms out there.

The timeframe in which that changes occurs alters how AOC et al should play this.

Politics is and always has been about relationships if you want to get something done. You do people favors, you work on their behalf, a credit goes in your column.

I saw it when I worked for the North Dakota legislature. People had no idea why their bill got killed. It didn't get killed by the committee chairman with whom they thought they had a good relationship. It got killed by someone behind the scenes who was owed a favor by that committee chairman.

You seem to have read this as D v R. I read it as AOC v Pelosi. But let's look at it from the POV of your interpretation.

It still cannot be exaggerated and it has nothing to do with opposing the Nazis on policy. The alternative isn't to kick over the table -- the table's going nowhere. The alternative is to leave the table and give the Nazis a supermajority. That's what the German Socialists did in the Reichstag when the Nazis had power. The result was the Nazis simply passed sweeping legislation outlawing all other parties. Symbolism is for saints and losers. The principled holding of one's breath does nothing but make you unconscious.

You look at a guy like Paul Wellstone. Probably as far left as there was for his time.

Cough. I'll just say that you guys really need to get out more. Paul Wellstone was Milton Friedman compared to the true radical left.

Yet he was well-liked by people in Congress on both sides of the aisle, even though many of them thought of his politics as extreme.

Of course if you view this as D v R it is rhetorical false equivalency. "People who want to castrate immigrants regard those who do not as extreme." That's right out of the Rube textbook for normalizing fascism by claiming that the midpoint between the sane and the insane is the center. No -- the sane are the center. In our environment the Dems are the center, even right-of-center, and the GOP has exited Loonyland and is on it's way to the Galaxy of Hopeless Delusion at warp speed.

But again, I viewed it as AOC v Pelosi and that he is saying AOC will attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

It's a relationship business. Kind of like the corporate world. Four representatives in the US House have about as much power as you or I have if they don't build relationships. Energy, enthusiasm, great ideas and a million twitter followers won't get you anywhere, alone.

This is, again, very true. Think of who runs for Congress. Members are social animals even more than the gen pop. These are dogs, not cats. They operate by the slack-jawed, empty-skulled, shifty-eyed inauthenticity of the salesman. The unique skill which brought them to the majors is the ability to manipulate and guffaw their way through life with an otherwise deficient set of intellectual and moral skills, because that's what appeals to the average voter. Clear your mind and imagine... Paul Ryan.

You can't just ignore that.

So what can AOC do? She is lightyears beyond most of her D peers and all of her R peers both mentally and ethically. She should not compromise on those attributes. But. She does need to realize that truth does not rule by decree. Like any other smart person in a dumb room she needs to read those she deals with and appeal to them on their limited level. That is the only way, in the words of Henry II, to be "50, king, and alive at the same time."

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

If The Squad learns and develops the tact/prowess of Pelosi...they will become a powerful and effective force.

No, they'll become Obama. Whose legacy will be one of being outplayed and outmaneuvered by a minority wing of the opposition party. Basically Clinton 2. The Democrats lived off of FDR until Reagan got elected. The Republicans have been living off of Reagan now for 40 years.

We need another FDR. We do not need another Bill Clinton.

[The Rube]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

No, they'll become Obama. Whose legacy will be one of being outplayed and outmaneuvered by a minority wing of the opposition party. Basically Clinton 2. The Democrats lived off of FDR until Reagan got elected. The Republicans have been living off of Reagan now for 40 years.

We need another FDR. We do not need another Bill Clinton.

The world ended 10 years ago, according to you, so I'll take your opinion with a grain of salt.

[joecct]

.. I'm with Kepler, we need to bring back earmarks as the grease to keep the legislative wheels turning. I'm willing to accept some bridges to nowhere if it means a return to legislative norms.

Count me in on that group.

[SJHovey]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

Cough. I'll just say that you guys really need to get out more.



Of course if you view this as D v R it is rhetorical false equivalency. "People who want to castrate immigrants regard those who do not as extreme." That's right out of the Rube textbook for normalizing fascism by claiming that the midpoint between the sane and the insane is the center. No -- the midpoint is the sane.

But again, I viewed it as AOC v Pelosi and that he is saying AOC will attract more flies with honey than vinegar.

I'm glad you changed your quote. I wasn't intending to compare anyone to anyone else with the Wellstone reference. I was just trying to think of some who, correctly or incorrectly, was perceived as having views either left or right of center, but still got along personally with his or her fellow Congressmen, and Wellstone's name popped into my head (probably due to the Minnesota connection).

[The Rube]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

The sane is the center, Kep. Don't get me wrong.

AOC and Sanders are really left of center. I think Amy K and Pelosi are center. I think Obama was maybe a tick left of center, if that.

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

Count me in on that group.

It's one of the most bitter tings I learned by Dr. Mrs. being a leg assistant in a Senate office. Earmarks allowed Leadership to guarantee numbers when they negotiated with the other side. That had two salutary effects:

1. It let the party leaders come to agreements and exclude their respective radicals, thus making Congress work better. The Freedumb Caucus and the Squad cannot jam the gears if there are earmarks.

2. It strengthened the party leaders in their negotiations so the other side couldn't try to play chicken. There was no point in playing chicken because you knew you couldn't pick off a traitor. The wages of party treason was appropriations, and thus electoral, death.

[SJHovey]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

So what can AOC do? She is lightyears beyond most of her D peers and all of her R peers both mentally and ethically. She should not compromise on those attributes. But. She does need to realize that truth does not rule by decree. Like any other smart person in a dumb room she needs to read those she deals with and appeal to them on their limited level. That is the only way, in the words of Henry II, to be "50, king, and alive at the same time."

You can't buy or learn charisma. You either have it or you don't, and she has it. Now she just has to learn the job. If she can do that, if she can learn how you acquire power, how you can use it, and how people may try to use it against you, that's when you can become a dangerous legislator. That's when you can start declaring my way or the highway.

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

[The Rube]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

You can't buy or learn charisma. You either have it or you don't, and she has it. Now she just has to learn the job. If she can do that, if she can learn how you acquire power, how you can use it, and how people may try to use it against you, that's when you can become a dangerous legislator. That's when you can start declaring my way or the highway.

Ding. AOC definitely has "it." She is Luke friggin' Skywalker, and Pelosi is Obi-Wan, IMO.

[Kepler]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

AOC and Sanders are really left of center.

AOC and Sanders are to the left by the margin that Reagan was to the right.

The bulk of the GOP is so far to the right they are indistinguishable from a fascist party. There has never been a left with any power in this country even half as extreme as they. To get that you would need an actual Communist party, as in abolition of private property and replacement of wages by credits for state-provided goods.

[Handyman]

Re: POTUS 45:55: Wow, @CNN RATINGS HAVE CRASHED. LOST ALL CREDIBILITY!

This is also a great post. I would add that the final paragraph also cuts this way: when we see breathless stories about a rift between Pelosi and AOC those are clickbait: a lazy trope so simple even infotainment boobs-on-a-stick can report it and so puerile even the average voter can follow it. In reality, the Methuselah Wing and the Molotov Wing work hand in glove on 95% of House business, but stories about that don't move Twizzlers and iPhones.

To be fair The Twitter Caucus is spreading the clickbait like wildfire for a reason. They want the rift to be real. They want it to see like a huge deal that people within the same party have different styles and beliefs. Some of them are bots, some of them are trolls but some of them just want discontent...and dont just think that it is Righties doing it sometimes the call is coming from inside the house. (look at the people posting a lot of this stuff...they arent foe they are friend)