I'm not discounting what your saying. At all. I agree with your original diagnosis of the issues and the sentiment that something needs to be done. And I'm grateful to you for your hard work in Georgia and in Alabama.
What I am saying is this: Given the nature of this man, his administration, given the cruelty, the immortality, the glaring incompetence, the work should never have to be this hard. Given who Doug Jones was running against, he should have been able to conduct that election alone from his cell phone on a beach in St Vincent's and still win by 40 points. Roy Moore should have never been anywhere near that nomination. Decent people voting their consciences and safeguarding their own interests wouldn't let that happen. But desperate people who think they're in a life and death struggle with a soulless enemy might.
And republicans don't only exist in rural areas. We have them here, too. I know tons of them. I call one of them, "Mom." And they all have several different motivations for their conservatism.
But nearly every one of them believes the best way to save ourselves is to get the government out of their lives. Out of their paychecks, their schools, their places of worship. A lot of it doesn't make a damned lick of sense and god knows many of them demand the government take control of the bedrooms all across the land.
I'm glad the GOP's numbers were cut into where you were fighting. But that doesn't change the fact that one of the worst people to ever hold high office ANYWHERE IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD increased his numbers this time around and helped the GOP gain seats in the House and maybe hold the Senate. That he's running at 55% in rural Georgia isn't and argument against what I'm saying. It's my whole thesis.
There is something out there that isn't about revitalization or reaching out or uppity Democrats.
A couple of additional points. I'm a 28 year recovering lawyer. Any good lawyer knows both sides of an argument.
Whether I was arguing before a judge(s) or jury in person or in writing I always laid out the opposing side's arguments then burned them to the ground before they had a chance to make those arguments and before I made my own.
Of course Republicans are going to throw out the smear that Democrats are for big government, tax & spend and socialism.
Democrats are terrible at messaging and counter arguing. If I were a Democratic politician I'd say something like, "here we go with the big government, tax & spend and socialism bogeyman scare tactics. Republicans use those scare tactics to cover up how their trickle down free market is robbing you blind and free trade is shipping your job overseas". "Just so you know I'm not going to sic big government on you, raise your taxes and I doubt a Republican even knows what socialism is".
I respect your expertise. I, myself, am a 30 year (mostly recovered) actor/director/theatre instructor. Above all else, a good actor-director had better study human behavior, our internal motivations, the subterranean impulses animating our actions. Let it suffice to say you're an expert at crafting arguments and fine-tuning messaging. We need that. But I'm an expert at tracking what's happening behind that flash in the eyes; an expert in looking at wide and disparate sets of actions and finding the thru-line. Your skillset helps you to guide people into a dialogue that will affect outcomes. My skillset helps me understanding why that probably won't work quite so well this time.
There have been several democratic politicians who have preemptively taken your advice on messaging re taxes, free trade and big government. I'll bet I can scour the transcripts and find Obama, HRC, Biden, Harris, John Edwards, John Kerry, Kirsten Gillibrand - almost any democrat in the past decade with a national platform - echoing those thoughts almost verbatim. The message isn't getting thru.
Now, yes. The economic decline in the rust belt, for example, has continued apace no matter who is in control of the levers of government. And yes. Agrobusiness, like Monsanto, has forced smaller family farms into something like indentured servitude. Walmarts have replaced Mom & Pop's on the once thriving Main streets in small towns. Opioid addictions have decimated those same places at an alarming rate.
But all of that happened not only under democratic leadership but, even more often, under republican governance. So, policy isn't the disconnect here. And messaging won't change that. Many of the people who have lost their way in the political jungle (MAGAs, Qanons, Tea Partiers, etc) aren't connecting their troubles to policy. Instead, they draw a line to Big Government (read: democrats) taking all their stuff away from them and giving it to "Other People." It's a zero-sum kind of thinking. I'm suffering because government took all my stuff and gave it to women, blacks, gays, immigrants in order to foster "equality."
In other words, government is an enemy we must defeat in order to restore proper order in the country. The GOP gets this and capitalizes on it. They don't have to help these people so long as the scapegoating buys them time.
When the liberating Allied forces moved into war-torn countries in WWII, they won over the people with chocolate bars and nylon stockings. But the people in those countries KNEW who their oppressors were. And when they didn't, the chocolate bars didn't work.
100 million americans have an enemy. It isn't predatory capitalism, deregulated privatization, crumbling infrastructure, global climate change, Covid-19 or any of those things. It's you, me and Kamala Harris.
So, Question:How can you get them to trust you in order to convince them that the world isn't zero-sum - opportunity for others has no correlation to their own chances of success, and that the leaders they have tuned into and trusted all their lives have been lying to them for personal gain? How do YOU do that? 'Cuz I can't. VP-elect Harris can't. Liz Warren can't. Doug Jones obviously can't. Even when FOX News rains a small bit of empirical reality down on them they turn on it. What are you prepared to do?
Some True Believer, some Ric Grennell type, somebody committed to the success of the coup, would be more than happy to do so. AG Erik Prince, for instance?
Usually the unitary executive doctrine proposes a very powerful and unfettered executive, with broad authority and latitude. Only in the fevered minds of Trump's administration does it mean an executive completely unaccountable to the other two branches.
Nope. I wish I had done something else to make a living for those 28 years but I couldn't think of any other way to support my kiddies and wife, So glad to be retired.
This may be a stupid question because I am not a lawyer person, but isn't giving Roodles and the failspawn pre-emptive pardons basically admitting that you know they committed crimes?
Hey, I made a band name! Roodles and the Failspawn...hire them when you want people to leave the partly early.
I'm not discounting what your saying. At all. I agree with your original diagnosis of the issues and the sentiment that something needs to be done. And I'm grateful to you for your hard work in Georgia and in Alabama.
What I am saying is this: Given the nature of this man, his administration, given the cruelty, the immortality, the glaring incompetence, the work should never have to be this hard. Given who Doug Jones was running against, he should have been able to conduct that election alone from his cell phone on a beach in St Vincent's and still win by 40 points. Roy Moore should have never been anywhere near that nomination. Decent people voting their consciences and safeguarding their own interests wouldn't let that happen. But desperate people who think they're in a life and death struggle with a soulless enemy might.
And republicans don't only exist in rural areas. We have them here, too. I know tons of them. I call one of them, "Mom." And they all have several different motivations for their conservatism.
But nearly every one of them believes the best way to save ourselves is to get the government out of their lives. Out of their paychecks, their schools, their places of worship. A lot of it doesn't make a damned lick of sense and god knows many of them demand the government take control of the bedrooms all across the land.
I'm glad the GOP's numbers were cut into where you were fighting. But that doesn't change the fact that one of the worst people to ever hold high office ANYWHERE IN THE DEVELOPED WORLD increased his numbers this time around and helped the GOP gain seats in the House and maybe hold the Senate. That he's running at 55% in rural Georgia isn't and argument against what I'm saying. It's my whole thesis.
There is something out there that isn't about revitalization or reaching out or uppity Democrats.
A couple of additional points. I'm a 28 year recovering lawyer. Any good lawyer knows both sides of an argument.
Whether I was arguing before a judge(s) or jury in person or in writing I always laid out the opposing side's arguments then burned them to the ground before they had a chance to make those arguments and before I made my own.
Of course Republicans are going to throw out the smear that Democrats are for big government, tax & spend and socialism.
Democrats are terrible at messaging and counter arguing. If I were a Democratic politician I'd say something like, "here we go with the big government, tax & spend and socialism bogeyman scare tactics. Republicans use those scare tactics to cover up how their trickle down free market is robbing you blind and free trade is shipping your job overseas". "Just so you know I'm not going to sic big government on you, raise your taxes and I doubt a Republican even knows what socialism is".
I respect your expertise. I, myself, am a 30 year (mostly recovered) actor/director/theatre instructor. Above all else, a good actor-director had better study human behavior, our internal motivations, the subterranean impulses animating our actions. Let it suffice to say you're an expert at crafting arguments and fine-tuning messaging. We need that. But I'm an expert at tracking what's happening behind that flash in the eyes; an expert in looking at wide and disparate sets of actions and finding the thru-line. Your skillset helps you to guide people into a dialogue that will affect outcomes. My skillset helps me understanding why that probably won't work quite so well this time.
There have been several democratic politicians who have preemptively taken your advice on messaging re taxes, free trade and big government. I'll bet I can scour the transcripts and find Obama, HRC, Biden, Harris, John Edwards, John Kerry, Kirsten Gillibrand - almost any democrat in the past decade with a national platform - echoing those thoughts almost verbatim. The message isn't getting thru.
Now, yes. The economic decline in the rust belt, for example, has continued apace no matter who is in control of the levers of government. And yes. Agrobusiness, like Monsanto, has forced smaller family farms into something like indentured servitude. Walmarts have replaced Mom & Pop's on the once thriving Main streets in small towns. Opioid addictions have decimated those same places at an alarming rate.
But all of that happened not only under democratic leadership but, even more often, under republican governance. So, policy isn't the disconnect here. And messaging won't change that. Many of the people who have lost their way in the political jungle (MAGAs, Qanons, Tea Partiers, etc) aren't connecting their troubles to policy. Instead, they draw a line to Big Government (read: democrats) taking all their stuff away from them and giving it to "Other People." It's a zero-sum kind of thinking. I'm suffering because government took all my stuff and gave it to women, blacks, gays, immigrants in order to foster "equality."
In other words, government is an enemy we must defeat in order to restore proper order in the country. The GOP gets this and capitalizes on it. They don't have to help these people so long as the scapegoating buys them time.
When the liberating Allied forces moved into war-torn countries in WWII, they won over the people with chocolate bars and nylon stockings. But the people in those countries KNEW who their oppressors were. And when they didn't, the chocolate bars didn't work.
100 million americans have an enemy. It isn't predatory capitalism, deregulated privatization, crumbling infrastructure, global climate change, Covid-19 or any of those things. It's you, me and Kamala Harris.
So, Question:How can you get them to trust you in order to convince them that the world isn't zero-sum - opportunity for others has no correlation to their own chances of success, and that the leaders they have tuned into and trusted all their lives have been lying to them for personal gain? How do YOU do that? 'Cuz I can't. VP-elect Harris can't. Liz Warren can't. Doug Jones obviously can't. Even when FOX News rains a small bit of empirical reality down on them they turn on it. What are you prepared to do?
iULYpartner.yahoo.Com
Right.
Don't they have to be convicted of a crime before they can be pardoned?
Bertie-Bert, one of Lorne Malvo's victims in Fargo Season 1, I believe.
He's a chameleon.
Kayleigh says they should be named after him. Gag.
Some True Believer, some Ric Grennell type, somebody committed to the success of the coup, would be more than happy to do so. AG Erik Prince, for instance?
Weirdly, no. See Nixon.
Usually the unitary executive doctrine proposes a very powerful and unfettered executive, with broad authority and latitude. Only in the fevered minds of Trump's administration does it mean an executive completely unaccountable to the other two branches.
I mean, checks-and-balances, yo.
Nope. I wish I had done something else to make a living for those 28 years but I couldn't think of any other way to support my kiddies and wife, So glad to be retired.
Bell bottom blues rock.
Notre Dame football coach IIRC. Google. Yup.
This may be a stupid question because I am not a lawyer person, but isn't giving Roodles and the failspawn pre-emptive pardons basically admitting that you know they committed crimes?
Hey, I made a band name! Roodles and the Failspawn...hire them when you want people to leave the partly early.
Here comes AG Jared Kushner.