David, in order to build a movement and momentum you got to let people grow and come at their pace. Let evolution happen my friend.— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) September 24, 2017
8:00 AM The Romper Room Reboot with Leni Riefenstahl (animated)"The truth is I am kind of done with politics for now," she stated, citing the show's objective as providing the audience a place to share "a laugh with us, a smile, sometimes a tear, and maybe a little hope to start your day."
...a former American football coach and current ESPN analyst. Ryan was formerly the head coach of the New York Jets and Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL), and also held various coaching positions with eight other NFL and college teams.
“I’m pissed off I’ll be honest. I supported Trump, and I’m appalled at these comments. SOB’s? Not the men that I know.” - Rex Ryan just now pic.twitter.com/hsJRRktlsv— justin kanew (@Kanew) September 24, 2017
For a quarter of a century, I was a major part of the conservative movement. But like many on the right, in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory I had to ask some uncomfortable questions. The 2016 presidential campaign was a brutal, disillusioning slog, and there came a moment when I realized that conservatives had created an alternate reality bubble—one that I had helped shape...
You got t-shirts. I got hats. pic.twitter.com/bYoCMnVpsI— Charlie Sykes (@SykesCharlie) September 23, 2017
It is now impossible to consume media without the constant encroachment of political divisiveness and partisan tribalism, Breaking down the walls between us is easier to do when our culture is not so politicized—when we can feel free to watch, laugh and cheer alongside our fellow Americans without catching ourselves wondering how they voted. That is the healthier way to live, particularly in the era of Donald Trump.
I mean two tribes whose mutual incomprehension and loathing can drown out their love of country, each of whom scans current events almost entirely to see if they advance not so much their country’s interests but their own. I mean two tribes where one contains most racial minorities and the other is disproportionately white; where one tribe lives on the coasts and in the cities and the other is scattered across a rural and exurban expanse; where one tribe holds on to traditional faith and the other is increasingly contemptuous of religion altogether; where one is viscerally nationalist and the other’s outlook is increasingly global; where each dominates a major political party; and, most dangerously, where both are growing in intensity as they move further apart...
How have they found themselves here again, after their previous repeal bills failed in July? The underlying truth, the beating heart of Obamacare repeal that refuses to let it die, is: Republicans just want to pass a bill, any bill, to say they repealed Obamacare. Whatever standards they’ve set for their health care plan, whatever promises they made before, don’t matter.It is time for all good Liberals to once and for all get over the idea that any of this is surprising or shocking or jaw-dropping. Or that the reaction to the ongoing, escalating sadism and depravity of the American Fascist Party from men and women with a financial or psychological stake in defending the Both Sides narrative will ever amount to anything other than, "Yeah, but the Liberals..."
And so, among tribal conservatives, the Iraq War remained a taboo topic when it wasn’t still regarded as a smashing success, tax cuts were still the solution to every economic woe, free trade was all benefit and no cost, and so on. Health care was perhaps the most obvious example of this intellectual closure. Republican opposition to the Affordable Care Act was immediate and total. Even though the essential contours of the policy had been honed at the Heritage Foundation, even though a Republican governor had pioneered it in Massachusetts, and even though that governor became the Republican nominee in 2012, the anathematization of it defined the GOP for seven years.
But we should not delude ourselves that this is all a Trump problem. What Obama could not overcome would have buried Hillary Clinton, who, almost uniquely in public life, carries the scars of our tribal era. Her campaign made no effort to persuade “deplorables,” just to condemn them, and her core strategy was not to engage those on the fence but to maximize the turnout of her demographic tribe...
I mean two tribes whose mutual incomprehension and loathing can drown out their love of country, each of whom scans current events almost entirely to see if they advance not so much their country’s interests but their own. I mean two tribes where one contains most racial minorities and the other is disproportionately white; where one tribe lives on the coasts and in the cities and the other is scattered across a rural and exurban expanse; where one tribe holds on to traditional faith and the other is increasingly contemptuous of religion altogether; where one is viscerally nationalist and the other’s outlook is increasingly global; where each dominates a major political party; and, most dangerously, where both are growing in intensity as they move further apart...
As for indifference to reality, today’s Republicans cannot accept that human-produced carbon is destroying the planet, and today’s Democrats must believe that different outcomes for men and women in society are entirely a function of sexism.
During the Bush years, liberals inveighed ceaselessly against executive overreach; under Obama, they cheered when he used his executive authority to alter immigration laws and impose new environmental regulations by fiat.
This atmosphere can affect even the finest minds. I think of Ta-Nehisi Coates, the essayist and memoirist. Not long ago, he was a subtle, complicated, and beautiful writer. He could push back against his own tribe...
He remains a vital voice, but in more recent years, a somewhat different one. His mood has become much gloomier. He calls the Obama presidency a “tragedy,” and describes many Trump supporters as “not so different from those same Americans who grin back at us in lynching photos.” He’s written about how watching cops and firefighters enter the smoldering World Trade Center instantly reminded him of cops mistreating blacks: They “were not human to me.” In his latest essay in the Atlantic, analyzing why Donald Trump won the last election, he dismisses any notion that economic distress might have played a role as “empty” and ignores other factors, such as Hillary Clinton’s terrible candidacy, the populist revolt against immigration that had become a potent force across the West, and the possibility that the pace of social change might have triggered a backlash among traditionalists. No, there was one meaningful explanation only: white supremacism. And those who accept, as I do, that racism was indeed a big part of the equation but also saw other factors at work were simply luxuriating in our own white privilege because we are never under “racism’s boot.
"Welcome my son, welcome to the machine."
I'm going to go right on directing everyone to visit our NEW website -- http://www.proleftpod.com -- for all of the sweet bells and whistles: there are links to donate to our podcast work at that site, as well as a links to our swingin' Zazzle merch store, our respective blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Kittehs! and much more. Many thanks once again to @theologop for building us such a lovely home.-- Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
How Democrats won the presidency
Can centrism be a movement?
While Manhattan’s already snarled streets filled beyond capacity with limos toting dignitaries, a quieter, less-theatrical group of thinkers and leaders was meeting to discuss strategies for a rising new political center...
The Sunday event was the inaugural “Ideas Summit” of the New Center, the policy arm of No Labels, an organization dedicated to restoring bipartisanship and a centrist governing philosophy in Washington...”
And about 100 politicians, financial backers and others convened to hear former British prime minister Tony Blair in a conversation with Joe Lieberman,a former U.S. senator from Connecticut and a No Labels co-chair..
Contrary to early criticism of No Labels as a front for right-leaning 1-percenters, and its predicted failure, the group’s composition and much of what it proposes are very much in the middle of the muddle. Successful by most measures, the organization has about 15 staffers and, importantly, a group of committed financiers who can underwrite political campaigns in the absence of party support...
But, I asked, can centrism really become a movement? Does it need a party?
Said Lieberman: “There’s nothing in the Constitution that says we have to have a two-party system. We can do whatever we want.”
Indeed, we can.
Well, as leader of all liberal activities in Casablanca, I am an influential and respected man. So allow me to explain.Liberal leaders should explain how shutting down free speech by protest or violence is illiberal and shortsighted. https://t.co/t3mE1gvd3H— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) September 20, 2017
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.But the thing is, Congress has made no law abridging the freedom of speech of skinheads or Nazis or even basic meatheads like Joe so no ones actual free speech rights are being trampled on in any way that the Constitution would recognize as unconstitutional.
The truth about the tea partyBy JOE SCARBOROUGH 10/21/2012 12:57 PM EDT...let’s not get bogged down by history. Instead, we can blow apart this fanciful meme by reviewing the tea party’s short history. Let’s simply review how terrible the tea party has been for the GOP.— They energized a conservative movement battered by eight years of bloated Republicanism,— they shocked the political world by taking Ted Kennedy’s seat,— they put Obama Democrats in a constant defensive crouch,— they led the resistance against “Obamacare,”— they helped bring about the largest legislative landslide in U.S. history in 2010,— they grabbed six seats in the U.S. Senate that year,— they helped elect six governors,— they helped win 700 seats in state legislatures, and— they helped elect a Republican majority that included the largest number of Republicans elected since 1946.With a track record like that, the Republican Party had better watch their backs. If this trend keeps up, they might just win the White House and the Senate.Regardless of what happens in the next few weeks, the general theme that the tea party has been bad for the GOP is pure malarkey.
How a new generation of left-wing podcasters are dethroning Rush Limbaugh and right-wing talk radio
...Starting with Rush Limbaugh in the late 1980s, influential personalities have projected their grievances and biases onto millions of listeners, who have rewarded these hosts with wealth and incredible influence in Republican politics. Efforts to deliberately build an alternative network of left-wing radio shows have all ended in the same way: with failure, none more spectacular than the 2010 implosion of Air America.Suddenly, though, Limbaugh has company.Since the election, subscribership to a series of left-leaning podcasts has exploded...
The most prominent is Pod Save America, the brainchild of former Obama administration speechwriters Jon Favreau and Jon Lovett, as well as former Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor. Episodes draw anywhere from 800,000 to 1.4 million listeners. Those numbers rival major cable programs, and in some cases eclipse household name shows like Morning Joe and Anderson Cooper 360.The Pod Save empire also includes programs like Pod Save the World and Pod Save the People, all of which have strong numbers. Vox's podcasts, including The Weeds and The Ezra Klein Show, are also extremely popular......The left's new stars are actual experts in public policy — people like former Obama strategist David Axelrod (of The Axe Files) — more than people who are famous for being famous.
Conservative dominance of the airwaves allowed the right to do one of the most important things in public life: "agenda-setting." By communicating to conservative listeners what is important and what they should care about, Limbaugh and his fellow movement conservatives were able to direct which issues their listeners would feel most passionately about. Not only that, but they also engaged in "framing," which means they were not just setting the agenda but also offering a set of preferred options about how to achieve it.In a 2000 study, David Barker and Kathleen Knight found that Limbaugh was able to move the needle on the issues he was most hopping mad about at any given time, and that his listeners showed "hostility toward those items beyond what can be accounted for by ideology, party identification, exposure to other conservative messages, affect for Limbaugh, or a host of other factors." Limbaugh's withering attacks on "the beautiful people," as well as "feminazis" (a disgusting term he helped popularize on the right), for example, were so effective that this year the scholar Robert Brown deemed him the "president of talk radio."That is incredible influence for someone who possesses no meaningful advanced background in politics or policy....
Right-wing radio's success was partly geographic. Republicans, who, very broadly speaking, tend to live outside of major cities and prefer the car-centric lifestyle of ranch houses, strip malls, and sprawl, spend more time driving to work than the average Democrat, making them available in huge numbers for over-the-air or satellite radio programs piped directly into their cars. By contrast, many urban-dwelling liberals walk, bike, or take public transit to work, and in many major cities, radio signals as well as the internet are unavailable on trains. Podcasts resolve this issue by downloading automatically onto smartphones for all subscribers, who can listen to the show even when they are being shunted to work 50 feet underground.
"Hillary Clinton has given up on the mainstream media," @amychozick tells @brianstelter https://t.co/SOoN45ALLQ— Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) September 17, 2017
Normalizing Trump: An incredibly brief explainer
A conflict in the journalist's code was created by a president wholly unfit for the job.
