Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted
50 minutes ago, Goofyboy said:


The counter to this is - hey, you’re really hungry, fuck these rich assholes, we are going to give you XYZ and not raise YOUR taxes.

Granted, the boot lickers that make $10 an hour will tail against taxing people making over $400k getting a marginal tax increase. Those folks are lost no matter what the Dems present.

and the counter to that is those same voters @Red Five was talking about don't want any policy that browns might benefit from. Rinse and repeat. Ole Red Five is dead on.

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Like 1
  • Replies 32.1k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Posted
1 hour ago, Bullneck said:

A couple of months ago you had unkind words for how Democrats in Texas pick their candidates.

I would like to hear who you think is a good candidate.  Either now or in the past.  Who meets your standards?

National, local, statewide? It’s really a question of context and every electorate is unique. But in general:

1) they have to be interesting and get attention- to make their own weather. 
2) they need to connect to their voters on an intuitive level and frame themselves as a champion for that voters interests, so they don’t get cornered by the specifics of policy
3) when they do talk about policy, they talk about objectives and outcomes and who they benefit, not itemized lists of policies and goodies for connected interests.  Leaders talk about where they are taking you. Democrats read turn by turn directions.

So- who is a good candidate? It’s context dependent. Gallego is good in Arizona but probably wouldn’t translate nationally. Same thing with Booker in NJ.
 

Trump is historically great, esp because of #1. Attention is more important than money. Ann Richards and Obama were the best I ever saw at 2&3.  
 

Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick are among the worst candidates in the history of politics but keep getting elected because Democrats.  

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
6 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

National, local, statewide? It’s really a question of context and every electorate is unique. But in general:

1) they have to be interesting and get attention- to make their own weather. 
2) they need to connect to their voters on an intuitive level and frame themselves as a champion for that voters interests, so they don’t get cornered by the specifics of policy
3) when they do talk about policy, they talk about objectives and outcomes and who they benefit, not itemized lists of policies and goodies for connected interests.  Leaders talk about where they are taking you. Democrats read turn by turn directions.

So- who is a good candidate? It’s context dependent. Gallego is good in Arizona but probably wouldn’t translate nationally. Same thing with Booker in NJ.
 

Trump is historically great, esp because of #1. Attention is more important than money. Ann Richards and Obama were the best I ever saw at 2&3.  
 

Ted Cruz, Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick are among the worst candidates in the history of politics but keep getting elected because Democrats.  

You're almost there, but you're way off on #3.  "Who they benefit" only has play for high-information voters, who are a dying minority.  "Who they hurt" is the only thing that matters anymore.  The rage beast is the largest creature on the block, and it is all-consuming.  Feed the rage beast, or lose.

Oh, and the best way to do that is to speak primarily in hyperbole and flat-out lies about the other side, so your desired voters are extra-motivated to hurt them.

Posted
9 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:



If the Democrats are smart, they'd make Elon the face of the Republican party. He's just weird, and no amount of his own social media is going to cover up that fact. In fact, I think the more he's seen/heard the weirder he'll be thought to be.

Dems need to hammer home the anti-oligarch thing.  It's one of the few issues that can get across the board support except for the most deranged corporate simps such as what you find in the markets still falling and inflation threads.  Counter the right's stupid ass frog meme with pics of Luigi.

  • Hook 'Em 5
Posted
10 minutes ago, Fudge Nuggets said:

Dems need to hammer home the anti-oligarch thing.  It's one of the few issues that can get across the board support except for the most deranged corporate simps such as what you find in the markets still falling and inflation threads.  Counter the right's stupid ass frog meme with pics of Luigi.

Luigi_by_Shigehisa_Nakaue.png.07ccf2fff47cf2d4aec0ed6600285bdc.png

  • Hook 'Em 8
  • Like 1
Posted
13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

You're almost there, but you're way off on #3.  "Who they benefit" only has play for high-information voters, who are a dying minority.  "Who they hurt" is the only thing that matters anymore.  The rage beast is the largest creature on the block, and it is all-consuming.  Feed the rage beast, or lose.

Nah. Now it is certainly true that the people who vote to see others suffer are very influential on policy, and for them the cruelty is very much the point. But they aren’t why Trump and the GOP win. In other words you are exactly backwards - the high info voters are the cruelty seekers, the ones who actively support P2025, the ones who demand actual policy action. But most of their voters don’t pay much attention to any of this stuff and think the guy from the apprentice will make everyone better off, and that Democrats are whiny, hysterical, kill-joy losers.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
13 minutes ago, Firemans4Horn said:

 

"Covid without the virus". 

One man single-handedly destroying the world economy. Amazing. 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
11 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Nah. Now it is certainly true that the people who vote to see others suffer are very influential on policy, and for them the cruelty is very much the point. But they aren’t why Trump and the GOP win. In other words you are exactly backwards - the high info voters are the cruelty seekers, the ones who actively support P2025, the ones who demand actual policy action. But most of their voters don’t pay much attention to any of this stuff and think the guy from the apprentice will make everyone better off, and that Democrats are whiny, hysterical, kill-joy losers.

Disagree.  The high-info voters who support P2025 are doing so in service of out-and-out fascism, in which they (mostly correctly) see themselves as the winners in that game (being favored by the regime in a fascist system is a lucrative game indeed).  The cruelty is, for some of them, a happy side benefit.  For others, it's just a cost of doing business.  What is human suffering in comparison to my increased wealth and profits?

But the low-info voters....they are the ones who feel genuine joy in their hearts -- I mean, measurable joy, if you hooked them up to a heart monitor, you could pick up the increased pitter-patter -- when "the other" suffers.  Libs crying, brown people in chains, people they hate losing their jobs....oh man, THAT is the good stuff.

You underestimate how hate an cruelty is the dominant, and only winning, message in American politics today.

The only way to beat hate and rage is to hate and rage MORE and BETTER than the other side.  Is that awful?  Does that mean that as a society, we have already lost, and are beyond all redemption?  Well, of course it does.  Duh.  Kinda what I've been saying for better than a decade.  But, here we are.  You either completely surrender to the GQP and fascism, or you beat them at the game that is being played -- it's the only game in town.

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted
47 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

1) they have to be interesting and get attention- to make their own weather. 
2) they need to connect to their voters on an intuitive level and frame themselves as a champion for that voters interests, so they don’t get cornered by the specifics of policy
3) when they do talk about policy, they talk about objectives and outcomes and who they benefit, not itemized lists of policies and goodies for connected interests.  Leaders talk about where they are taking you. Democrats read turn by turn directions.

 Obama were the best I ever saw at 2&3.  

do you think obama would have won a state-wide senate race in Texas in 2008 or 2012?

  • Hook 'Em 3
Posted
10 minutes ago, sidis said:

do you think obama would have won a state-wide senate race in Texas in 2008 or 2012?

No. You need somebody who was right for the context. But a real cultural Texan with Obama’s skill set and approach to the campaign would have.

And BTW- Obama would have run 3-4% if not for the party diverting re Away from Texas in the final 10 weeks, and the senate race was winnnable with a stronger candidate than Rick Noriega

  • Hook 'Em 1
Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, bolverk said:

I'd like to acknowledge that yesterday was, low-key, the best day for liberal democracy in the US since after the election.

  1. Cory Booker made a historical, 25-hour-long, record-breaking marathon of a speech (my gawd, he didn't take a leak, or shit, for an entire fucking day at the age of 56!). He brought passion and literally showed America how to stand up for democracy and put a spotlight on our broken system of government and this corrupt regime. I know we're not normal, but I think he caught America's attention. It's only a start, but we've got to start somewhere.
  2. The people of Wisconsin literally stopped the shadow president and richest man in America from buying a Supreme Court election, thereby ensuring a fairer Congressional District map and, therefore, increasing the odds that their delegation will better reflect the will of Wisconsinites (a reminder that this purple state's current delegation is comprised of 6 Republicans and only 2 Democrats because of extreme Gerrymandering). It's only a start, but we've got to start somewhere.

So, props to you, Senator Booker, and the people of Wisconsin. The fight has only just begun, and we've still got this nightmare ahead of us.

giphy.gif

We had to start somewhere.

You don't know this.

Edited by Chad Fuck
  • Haha 4
  • Fuck Around and Find Out 1
Posted
1 minute ago, Chad Fuck said:

You don't know this.

Admittedly, I didn't watch the whole thing and mostly left it running in the background, but unless he got behind the podium to squat and take a shit or break out a water bottle to piss in while I wasn't looking, then okay.

a bald man wearing glasses and a plaid shirt is talking on a phone

Posted
Just now, bolverk said:

Admittedly, I didn't watch the whole thing and mostly left it running in the background, but unless he got behind the podium to squat and take a shit or break out a water bottle to piss in while I wasn't looking, then okay.

a bald man wearing glasses and a plaid shirt is talking on a phone

Astronaut diapers for the win.  

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Haha 1
Posted
Just now, bolverk said:

Admittedly, I didn't watch the whole thing and mostly left it running in the background, but unless he got behind the podium to squat and take a shit or break out a water bottle to piss in while I wasn't looking, then okay.

a bald man wearing glasses and a plaid shirt is talking on a phone

IMG_2339.thumb.webp.185643264f9aee9fe2a57644e362d518.webp

  • Hook 'Em 1
  • Haha 2
Posted
2 hours ago, Red Five said:

For 10 years it's been "the democrats should do this, or that, or this...." when I think the problem is that it's really tough to counter telling shitty people that it's perfectly ok for them to be as shitty as they want. There is no "left" version of that. 

That has been the case my entire voting life, and I voted Dukakis/Bentsen when I was 18.

  • Hook 'Em 4
Posted

That’s amazing, there’s some intern on his staff that is really stupid or a fantastic troll. Most likely the former.

Posted
3 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Perhaps I'm still too lenient, but there has to be something before that clips starts that explains that.

Regardless of context, the hubris to not immediately abort a sentence that begins "A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels..." in a public setting is amazing.

  • Like 3
Posted
5 minutes ago, Red Five said:

Perhaps I'm still too lenient, but there has to be something before that clips starts that explains that.

Yeah, a little context would be really helpful before I blow a fucking lid.

  • Like 2
Posted (edited)
8 minutes ago, bolverk said:

Yeah, a little context would be really helpful before I blow a fucking lid.

Here you go - in a nutshell, ol' Keith was using the "We're not Nazis, you're nazis ..." defense.

Quote

A Capitol Hill hearing held to explore supposed government censorship under Joe Biden was based on a “fiction”, a leading expert on countering online disinformation told members of Congress on Tuesday.

Nina Jankowicz, head of the American Sunlight Project, a pro-democracy organization, went on the offensive at a House of Representatives foreign relations subcommittee meeting held to examine the existence of an alleged “censorship industrial complex”, which Republicans claim was established to stifle rightwing views on social media, rather than combat foreign propaganda, as officially stated.

...

“The premise of this hearing, the so called censorship industrial complex, is a fiction that has not only had profound impacts on my life and safety, but on our national security,” she said in her opening statement at a fractious hearing that exposed the width of the chasm between Republicans and Democrats on the issue.

“More alarmingly, this fiction is itself suppressing speech and stymieing critical research that protects our country.

“I want to acknowledge the irony that we’re having this discussion as we witness an assault on the first amendment we have not seen in decades. The Trump administration has directed far more egregious violations of our constitution than the imagined actions of the Biden administration on which this hearing is premised.”

Quote

Keith Self, a Republican representative from Texas, provoked anger among Democrats by appearing to liken the Biden administration’s anti-disinformation efforts to steps by the Nazi to construct public opinion in 1930s Germany.

“A direct quote from Joseph Goebbels [the Nazi propaganda minister]: ‘It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion,’ and I think that may be what we’re discussing here,” he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/01/capitol-hill-hearing-biden-censorship-trump

Edited by Gap03
  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Like 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Red Five said:

Perhaps I'm still too lenient, but there has to be something before that clips starts that explains that.

Before?  Like years before?

 

  • Hook 'Em 2
Posted

She's so close to getting it

Quote

“They seed hate and teach students that they are starting off behind and have unconquerable disadvantages that they will suffer all their lives,” Blasingame said. “Not only does this teach hate among people, but how could you love a country where this is true?”

Quote from a CFISD board member who voted against teaching kids about Rosa Parks 

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/04/02/texas-cypress-fairbanks-removed-textbook-chapters/

  • Hook 'Em 2
  • Rage+1 4
Posted
2 hours ago, Paul Wesley said:

Just caught the last five minutes of this press conference.  
 

The flat-out lies ("we have virtually no inflation anymore," "groceries are cheap again," etc.) - it's comical.... as bad as any Soviet or North Korean level of dishonesty.  
 

I remember the first week of his 2017 term, and how the media spent a week refuting his "biggest inauguration crowd ever."  It was a huge amount of media coverage for a lie that was pretty inconsequential.  
 

Today he vomits out a whole series of bullshit economic "data," and the news media just moves right along instead of immediately saying "none of that is true."

Apparently the lies won.  I don't know how else to make sense of it.  

I don't really understand what's going on with the media during trump 2.0 but something is rotten in Denmark. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, Hookah Horns said:

I don't really understand what's going on with the media during trump 2.0 but something is rotten in Denmark. 

Forget Denmark, it's rotten right here in the good ole U S of A!

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 1
  • Rage+1 1
Posted
1 hour ago, Hookah Horns said:

I don't really understand what's going on with the media during trump 2.0 but something is rotten in Denmark Greenland. 

fify

  • Haha 1
Posted

Meanwhile Midwest is getting Hammered by tornados. Wonder who won these states.

Trump Tornados? Tariff Tornados from God?

Shit is nasty. Some major cities in the way.

 

 

Posted
3 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Meanwhile Midwest is getting Hammered by tornados. Wonder who won these states.

Trump Tornados? Tariff Tornados from God?

Shit is nasty. Some major cities in the way.

 

 

Can’t wait to see how Elon fixed FEMA 

  • Hook 'Em 3
  • Like 1


×
×
  • Create New...