TrickstaPriest

Of course that's not the purpose of this act at all. It's all political posturing to throw meat to the "Let's Go Brandon!" mob. They won't find any definitive evidence either for or against linking COVID-19's origins to China without the cooperation of the Chinese government, which they know they'll never get.
 
"The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
- Hermann Goering

Got to disagree.  At least some progressives live in their own black and white world.  Different set of standards, sure, but can be equally intolerant and equally fantastic.

That's because liberals/progressives, etc. live in the real world where things are multifaceted and complicated. Reactionaries live in a world of black and white absolutes...no matter how much of a fantasy that world might be. It's easy to be consistent in your message when you don't have to acknowledge any other options.

I agree that it's troubling, although not hopeless. Republicans are still a minority of Americans.
 
What I find more troubling is the number of Americans who believe political violence may be justified -- 18% of all adult Americans, and 30% of Republicans, according to a recent poll: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/11/01/4-10-who-say-election-was-stolen-trump-say-violence-might-be-needed-save-america/

Looks like they're kicking her out of the club ... even though she continues to be one of the most Conservative lawmakers in the House. Loyalty to Trump matters more than actually being a Conservative, I guess.
 
Wyoming GOP votes to no longer recognize Rep. Liz Cheney as a Republican

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/the-third-force-stupidity-and-transcendence/
EDIT: I'm sorry, I can't make the link work even though I'm sure I typed it correctly. Strangely, AOHell doesn't let me copy and paste links anymore. Try Googling the article title and Keizer's name.
 
As Parieah says, fear makes people stupid. But what's going on in the US right now goes far beyond run of the mill stupidity. As Garret Keizer says in his essay "The Third Force: On Stupidity and Transcendence," ordinary stupidity falls in a pit because it isn't paying attention. Aggressive stupidity goes looking for pits to jump in. It's a denial of reality and a concomitant lust for transcendence, a yearning to escape the murky, tangling, complicated world of fact and fly into a fantasy world that seems clean and simple by comparison.
 
Iwould call this "magical thinking" rather than "stupidity," but the result is the same. Denial of realities that seem too painful or humiliating to one's pride *will* catch up with you eventually.
 
(And I am not sure I agree with Keizer's diagnosis that the ultimate cause is alienation from labor, with cure of better wages, that he tacks on at the end. Better wages would be a Good Thong anyway, but I see American neofascism as growing far more from dissonance between myth and reality than from anything for which government might find a material policy solution. As Arlene Hochschilde found in her sociological examination of Louisiana Tea Party Trumpists, Strangers in their Own Land, these tend to be materially comfortable people who merely feel that other people -- especially minorities -- are getting greater rewards than they are, without having earned them; and behind that, a loss of their own sense of prestige.)
 
Dean Shomshak

The Man Who Made January 6 Possible
 

It seems that people tend to see their own qualities in the people around them. People who are good at heart tend to look for the good in others; those who are wrapped up in small-mindedness and conspiracy theories are incapable of believing that anyone else could be any different. We live in a world of mirrors without realizing it.
 
There's a saying I've heard that kind of reinforces this: If you run into a jerk one day, you've run into a jerk. If you run into a couple of jerks one day, you're probably just having a bad day. If everybody you run into during the day is a jerk, chances are the jerk is you.
 
It's apparent this was true even in New Testament times. Consider Titus 1:15: "Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure". 

Not that Mr. Asimov is wrong, but it goes deeper than that.  There is a certain kind of ignorant person that fears and distrusts the intellectual, assuming that the intellectual would use their greater intellect to hoodwink the ignorant--because that's what they'd do if the roles were reversed.  In fact, hoodwinking and fraud are seen as marks of high intellect among such people, as if swindling the innocent proved that they were smarter than their victims.  Not only are such people not rare, they seem to be especially commonplace in corporate, financial, and political circles.

Said the intellectual.
 
In my experience Americans have always had a mean anti-intellectual streak. What’s different now is that it’s been weaponized by corporate media with an agenda. It’s not going to get better until something stops the propaganda. In other words, it’s not going to get better. 

Well, the Pubs will be feeling emboldened. Everyone knows that the Dems are going to lose Senate and House seats next year. Possibly even lose both. So…
 
Practically, accomplish anything you can. Centrist? That’s just what you can get done realistically. If that can’t be pushed through, then you cannot effectively govern. There’s no real party coalition.
 
This is makes me lament about “why do Democrats excel at policy debates and lose elections?” You also have to appeal to emotion, and have something to show at the end of your term. 
 
These are difficult days. 

Republicans will campaign on fear...when is the last time they didn't?

Also not sure Manchin, at least, counts as a Democrat at all.  Or a centrist.  Imposing a requirement on bilateral support is simply contrarian.
 
The downside to pushing for younger, more energetic progressives is, as I think Pariah mentioned, they sacrifice the good for the perfect too often.  I don't think policy centrists are the problem.  If your only message is "I'm not Trumpist"...yeah, that's totally a losing strategy.  If you're "we all have to agree now, so everyone, let's gather round the camp fire"...gahhhh.  You're not a decision-maker and you have no business setting policy.

If the United States government actually enacts such a policy, it will be out of step with almost all the rest of the world. It will lag behind in the development of critical new technologies, and may eventually become a third-world country of little importance or influence. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the more progressive regions secede, such as the west coast,
 
Of course the industrialists behind this legal challenge will be dead by then, having sucked all the profit for themselves out of the planet that they could in their lifetimes. What happens to the rest of us after they're gone doesn't concern them.

The lesson to be learned here, I think, is that Perfect is the enemy of Good. 
 
Yes, Democrats, you have the White House. You have a small majority in the House. You have the tiebreaker in the Senate. That's hardly a mandate.
 
As Dean was saying above, focus on things A} that are accomplishable and B} that are going to matter to the voters. Baby steps. For example: Green New Deal? Unlikely. Incremental steps toward cleaning up the Earth and reversing (to whatever extent possible) climate change? Desirable, attainable goals that even clear-thinking Republicans will support. 
 
You won't be able to do everything you want, everything you think is important. But do something. Give the voters a reason to vote for you. "I'm not Donald Trump" isn't enough, just like "I'm not George W. Bush" wasn't good enough in 2004 and "I'm not Barack Obama" wasn't good enough for Republicans in 2012. 
 
I'm old enough to remember Bill Clinton playing the saxophone on the Arsenio Hall show. When he was done, Hall quipped something like, "Finally a Democrat who can blow something other than an election!" Let's not make that an isolated incident, please. The future is too precarious to trust to the GOP right now.

Well, I've thought Democrats were -- again -- snatching defeat from the jaws of victory ever since House Democrats decided to make passing the "hard" infrastructure bill contingent on passing the social spending bill. As pundit David Brooks said, the infrastructure bill was a trillion-dollar aid package and love letter to the working class -- a class that Dems spent decades alienating as the party became more college-educated, accredited, and wokishly obsessed with cultural reform instead of jobs.
 
I am told the strategy was that Joe Manchin would hold his nose and vote for the full Progressive agenda, rather than see the bill he helped negotiate and pass go nowhere?
 
But that seems like a flipping stupid strategy. When your majority is so razor-thin, the chief concern should be increasing it in the next election. I think the way to do that is to keep showing voters that Dems can deliver what the voters want. So, pass something practical -- anything -- every few months. Start off with the infrastructure bill. If Republicans want to take credit, let them. Biden's the President, he's the one people will associate with the bill and the results. Move on to other programs with overwhelming public support, such as the child tax credit program that was putting money in millions of parents' pockets through the pandemic. Even a mojority of Republicans liked that. Pay for it with an inheritance tax on trust funds. If Republicans shoot it down, the attack ads write themselves -- "Republicans care more about the children of their billionaire donors than about YOUR children!" Funding for Historically Black Colleges & Universities is another potential easy pass: Even Trump backed that, in an attempt to curry favor with Black voters.
 
First try to pass such bills by standard means. If a few Republicans want to be seen assisting practical legislation, that's good for everyone. If they stand firm and block it, everyone knows who's responsible, and Dems can move on to budget reconciliation or other tactics.
 
It's also worth remembering that while solid majorities support many individual progressive policies, that doesn't mean a solid majority supports the full progressive package. So the strategy for progressives should be to seek small and narrow victories instead of some big, utopian vision. Yes, that means abandoning climate change legislation... for now. Manchin makes it impossib le... for now. But if voters see Dems passing bills that improve their lives, they might be more inclined to vote Democrat in 2022 -- perhaps enough to increase their Senate seats, so they no longer need to placate Manchin.
 
Dean Shomshak

I really don't want fascists in charge of America's military and nuclear arsenal. Sigh...
 

So that just happened. I hope there’s some serious soul searching among the party leadership… but more likely they’ll throw around angry accusations of “isms” and double down in “preparation” for next year’s mid term elections.
 
It would be so very easy for a moderate to generate substantial appeal right now, if only either party was even remotely willing to let that happen. Ugh. Meanwhile let’s consider this a stop along the way to inevitable escalation?

We have got significant problems right now, in this country, and are very divided. I fear it is going to get much more difficult before there’s any chance of improvement.

You haven't waited your entire lifetime yet, though, have you? 

Plus, 9/11 was the first direct attack against the US since Pearl Harbor...and while that was horrific enough, it was 60 years earlier.  Plus, it got no live coverage, of course.  We got the news second hand and much later.  How many of us saw one or both planes hit?  One or both towers fall?  Plus, while Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack, it was one against a military target.  So in that sense, it fit with many other, similar attacks like the Cole.  9/11 *used* civilians, and targeted civilians.  For better or worse, terrorist attacks in Britain and France have targeted civilians.  They also remember much more deeply the devastation of WW II.  So they may be more emotionally resilient.
 
It's a combination of many things.  Demonizing goes back to the 50's with Communism.  Can also argue that this was the start of distrust of government, due to McCarthy's tactics, and the damage it did.  It showed that governmental abuse of power was a Real Thing, on a scale we'd not seen.  Then there were the lies of Vietnam, and the first clear schisms on ideological grounds.  Watergate.  Carter...a Democrat...let an embassy be sacked, and Americans held hostage (!!!)  Reagan could be painted as the paragon of normalcy and a return to Good Old American Values.  Then the tawdry, pathetic lies of Clinton...another Democrat, another embarrassment.  9/11 happened on Bush's watch...but he had an acceptable response.  Hit the bastards back HARD.  And even Iran...HECK no, we're not gonna let Saddam pull off another 9/11.  
 
On issues:  Democrats support women's rights, gay rights, immigration.  While "kinder, kuche, kirche" might not literally hold, I suspect it's a LOT closer to what's comfortable for too many American men.  And there's much more resentment, I think, when a man loses a position to a woman, compared to losing it to another man.    Immigration...the narratives here are obvious.  They're cash sinks, they're job stealers, they're criminals.  Gay rights...they're all sinners and fornicators and damned to hell.  They're anti-family.  The perceived threat to family strikes at something very basic.
 
The lesson of McCarthy and Nixon is, you can't trust government.  The lesson of the Democrats is their values are wrong.  So government should do NOTHING...but protect us.  The Wall.  More defense spending.  Strong military.  Don't tell us what to do because your motives are BS to begin with.
 
It's a total mess.

I've always been struck by how deeply traumatized American society seemed to be by the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps it's because Americans felt secure on their own soil before that day, but the reaction seemed, frankly, out of proportion to the actual scale of loss. As a friend of mine who's an immigrant from Iraq put it, "In my country, every day was 9/11."

Ah, but the United States DID have a Great Enemy to define itself against ... Islam! When those dirty Muslim terrorists dared to blow up buildings on our soil, we couldn't get into their countries and start shooting stuff (and people) fast enough. And we've been doing it for a full generation now.
 
And thus began the longest, most expensive war in American history. And the repercussions will be felt for at least another full generation, I expect.

Regardless of whether they actually believe it, some will repeat the Big Lie. I have been volunteering online for the New Jersey and Virginia elections. And I have gotten a couple of responses ranting about how Democrats are evil and steal elections. They are in the minority, though. Most responses are much shorter, ranging from a polite "no thank you" to the ever-popular f-bomb.

I'm not a big fan of this quote. It's the kind of thing a Covidiot would say.
 
I've run into too many stubborn people who will die in a ditch over a wrong opinion.
 
On the other hand, if you actually are right...

I have been reading up on Secretary Wyman, she seems a woman of personal integrity and strong conviction regardless of her party. Given the enormous pressure exerted by the current incarnation of her party, I’m reminded of:
 
”When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree by the river of truth, and tell the whole world 'No, You Move.”
 
Good for her, we need more politicians like that.

‘When do we get to use the guns?’: TP USA audience member asks Charlie Kirk when can ‘we kill’ Democrats?