Terrifyingly optimistic. Today is my first day of working as election clerk for the next four days in a vote center in LA County. I'm looking forward to, hopefully, many voters coming in but uneasy about how they'll vote....even as I help them in that most fundamental of rights.
I don't know who will be No 1 in 2022, but sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its component parts and WE can do it!!! I post this on media and Republican sites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJWvvmSrOVw You can do it also. Highly effective.
IMHO Trump is doing us a favor by saying he is contemplating running in 2022. His negatives are huge!!!!
We aren't very ambulatory so we are calling and texting to get out registered Democrats..
I'm completely dumbfounded that Biden reappointed Republican, Jerome Powell to the Fed, despite progressive lawmakers being adamantly opposed to his reappointment (and for good reason).
Powell is committing class- warfare type assaults on American workers as a result of his rate hikes, the largest hike coming just before the midterms (curious timing, I think).
Instead of temporarily taxing the price-gouging and windfall profits of corporate America, a democratic administration is pursuing the easier, lazier path, American workers' wages.
If this isn't outright class warfare, I don't know what is.
Several things mentioned in snippets during today's klatch, and I'll just highlight two: 1) "We're entering into a new age." and 2) Joe McCarthy and Republicans' loss in the midterms of 1954.
Regarding the second point, the word "decency" was one that sunk McCarthy -- and for all my life, I felt I could count on the basic decency of the vast majority of my fellow Americans. That is no longer true, and I would argue the erosion of decency has been taking place with our tacit silence for a long time now.
And so we're entering a new age -- and whether it's this election or the one in 2024 -- decent Americans find it just awful having to live from election to election as each new shoe drops. People point to "messaging," but the level of the messaging has to be at the philosophical or spiritual level. Trumpism has done this from the dark side without anyone really articulating it. We've been taking policy knives to a cultural and philosophical gunfight.
These are the times that try souls. I'm worried about the results coming this week, but also have faith that the best of most of us will be brought out.
I was born at the end of the roaring 20s. I lived through the Great Depression. I was an adolescent when WWII started. I was lucky to be in premed and was not drafted. I was called to active duty as a physician in the Korean War, but never left the United States.
What I am saying is that times have always been terrifying and it seems to be much more terrifying in the past. I remember Huey Long.
Like it or not, ever since the Tower of Babel, we have been fighting. I wonder when we will start talking to each other again and hopefully following the 2nd great commandment Meanwhile, I am a short timer and hope you have a place at the table and are not on the menu. Good luck my friends. it is your party. Make of it what you will. Frank
The biggest enemy of this country is toxic disinformation.
In his 2011 essay "The Big Elusive Idea" Neal Gabler wrote "...if information was once grist for ideas, over the last decade it has become competition for them. We are like the farmer who has too much wheat to make flour. We are inundated with so much information that we wouldn’t have time to process it even if we wanted to, and most of us don’t want to." Eleven years later, information has been laced with lies.
The delivery of toxic disinformation is relentless because of the wealthy few behind it - either for their own financial gain or for the destruction of this country.
I marvel that the highest federal tax rate in the 1950s was over 90%. Imagine what we as a country could do - for the planet, for everyone - if we had fair tax rates and responsible tax payment.
This election will assess the health of American citizens' information-gathering and information-evaluating capabilities. Have the monied, self-serving few won out? Is Orwell's Ministry of Truth here?
Did you hear about the high school football team that lost the game, then refused to accept the results, saying the game was rigged, even though they had no evidence it was? Did you hear those sore losers stormed the field and staged a violent protest? Of course you didn’t, because that never happened. But what would happen if student athletes refused to accept the results? What would happen if they engaged in violent protests when they lost? Cold such sporting events continue to exist under such conditions?
Fortunately, every day in America thousands of young athletes wo lose do not do that. They may not like it—but they accept the results, using what they learn in defeat to become stronger competitors for future games. They do it despite an adult world where 70% of those in one political party declare, without any supporting evidence, that the 2020 election was rigged, and one in ten Americans say that violence against the government right now is justified.
What example are we setting for our children when those campaigning for or holding office spout lies and falsehoods to maintain and gain power? What example are we setting when elected officials who’ve taken an oath to preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution stand before microphones, or sit on daises, and repeat these lies, with no evidence to support them? What example are we setting when those who know these are lies remain silent, and do not speak out against them?
How can we expect our children to be truthful, and to accept the results when they lose, if adults around them do not model how to do that? How can this nation we love thrive, or even survive, under the weight of such lies?
Calling out violent acts without condemning the lies that spawned them is not enough— it is not acceptable. Our time on this Earth is limited, but the dishonor of putting power and party before one’s country is forever. It is Eternal.
I ask all Americans, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, or Unaffiliated—or whatever your political stripe is— to stand up and call out these lies. And I remind all; the midterms are November 8. What will you do in 2022 to stand up for truth, for democracy, and for our Constitution, and to be a positive role model for our children?
I am quite worried, but am using my wallet to fund various Democratic candidates for Senate and Governor, and the DCCC. I live in Illinois, where I believe Tammy Duckworth and J. B. Pritzker will win, so I have concentrated on funding other Democrats throughout the Midwest, but also in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, New Hampshire, Florida and North Carolina.
According to Cornell Belcher, speaking last night on MSNBC, Republicans have been flooding the zone with biased polls that use turnout models from 2010 and 2014, instead of 2018 and 2020. THEIR GOAL IS TO CREATE A RED WAVE NARRATIVE IN THE DAYS LEADING TO THE ELECTION IN AN ATTEMPT TO SUPPRESS DEMOCRATIC VOTER TURNOUT. DO NOT BE FOOLED. GO VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS AND ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO DO SO AS WELL!
We can discuss consequences of victory or loss and tactical responses after the fact. But the overall strategy cannot be based in despondence. It must be based on the idea that PROGRESSIVES, OR EVEN MODERATE DEMOCRATS, CAN STILL WIN IN 2024 AND BEYOND. The 2024 election will be the one that makes or breaks liberal, multiracial and multicultural democracy in the United States. WE CANNOT LOSE HOPE OR TIME IN PREPARING FOR THAT ELECTION NO MATTER THE OUTCOME OF THIS ONE.
For a few words of hope for the coming elections, read the November 4, 2022 "Letter from an American" by Heather Cox Richardson, a history professor and commentator on politics. Four of the battleground states are trending blue.
This situation is NOT a Trump problem. The problem started back in the 1950's when the a minority group, the very rich, decided they were being over taxed. They have played the long game to undermine democracy. I highly recommend "Democracy In Chains" by Nancy MacLean as a reference. Another is "the Brothers" by Stephen Kinzer on US's terrible foriegn policy blunders done to support American business interests.
Yes, my answer is Worried. I am an eternal (mostly) optimist, but with the political scene such as it is worries even me. To be ruled by our politicians and not the people is a nightmare and the looks of it, it might just happen. Why or how could this happen in the largest democracy in the world? I am a democrat and will always believe the people will rise up and take control of America. We have a spirit that cannot be put out by a republic run country. There..there is my optimism.
I keep pretty close tabs on the Democracy in Europe movement -- DiEM25. Democracy is on the ropes over there too. Keep your eye on the UK's new PM, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer (their Jerome Powell) wanted to further privatize the national health system and institute increased austerity measures. And, like the finance ministers of Italy and Greece, is former Goldman Sachs.
Back in 2003, five years before the financial meltdown of the housing markets and Wall Street, Paul Krugman wrote a book he titled: The Great Unraveling. This is what we are living through. If we don't start learning to hang together as democrats -- small D intended -- we shall surely be hung out separately.
I think you should have included “Hopeful” in your list of feelings about the midterms. That’s where I am.
However, one thing I haven’t seen brought up anywhere is the fact that our government, for years, with President after President, has interfered with and really crushed democracies in other countries in pursuit of what were seen as our national interests. We’ve fomented coups in many places, many times, rarely admitting it, overturning democratically elected leaders who wanted to take care of their people—better jobs, wages, schooling, childcare, healthcare, justice, equality—and replaced them with our chosen despots who will foster profiteering above all else and benefit a few rich people in their own countries, plus our corporations which will exploit their people’s labor and land. Gang violence has become widespread. The coups have resulted in the deaths of many innocent people. These countries have been seriously messed up. The US is criminal and very anti-democratic. I worry that recently elected leftist leaders in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, for instance, are in grave danger of our interference. The US should keep its dirty hands off.
Why, therefore, do we worry about our own democracy? We haven’t acted as if any other country was entitled to it.
Terrified is an understatement, "panic-stricken" might be more accurate. I never thought I would see anything like this in my lifetime. I'm losing my cautious optimism that sanity will prevail on Tuesday with no plan on how to move forward while remaining true to myself, healthy and optimistic.
Idea for getting out the vote. Call all your left leaning friends and relatives NO MATTER WHERE THEY LIVE and get them to commit to vote. When they commit ask them to call all their left leaning friends and relatives NO MATTER WERE THEY LIVE and get them to vote and then suggest they call thier ... . This can create an exponetial stealth wave across the nation and it does not cost anything!
Terrifyingly optimistic. Today is my first day of working as election clerk for the next four days in a vote center in LA County. I'm looking forward to, hopefully, many voters coming in but uneasy about how they'll vote....even as I help them in that most fundamental of rights.
I'm worried. But we can win. Still time.
Turn out. Ground game. Number of people who voted is high.
A I said previously, the number one influencer in 2020 was Taylor Swift. Here is her site. https://www.instagram.com/p/BopoXpYnCes/?hl=en
I don't know who will be No 1 in 2022, but sometimes the whole is greater than the sum of its component parts and WE can do it!!! I post this on media and Republican sites. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJWvvmSrOVw You can do it also. Highly effective.
IMHO Trump is doing us a favor by saying he is contemplating running in 2022. His negatives are huge!!!!
We aren't very ambulatory so we are calling and texting to get out registered Democrats..
I'm completely dumbfounded that Biden reappointed Republican, Jerome Powell to the Fed, despite progressive lawmakers being adamantly opposed to his reappointment (and for good reason).
Powell is committing class- warfare type assaults on American workers as a result of his rate hikes, the largest hike coming just before the midterms (curious timing, I think).
Instead of temporarily taxing the price-gouging and windfall profits of corporate America, a democratic administration is pursuing the easier, lazier path, American workers' wages.
If this isn't outright class warfare, I don't know what is.
Several things mentioned in snippets during today's klatch, and I'll just highlight two: 1) "We're entering into a new age." and 2) Joe McCarthy and Republicans' loss in the midterms of 1954.
Regarding the second point, the word "decency" was one that sunk McCarthy -- and for all my life, I felt I could count on the basic decency of the vast majority of my fellow Americans. That is no longer true, and I would argue the erosion of decency has been taking place with our tacit silence for a long time now.
And so we're entering a new age -- and whether it's this election or the one in 2024 -- decent Americans find it just awful having to live from election to election as each new shoe drops. People point to "messaging," but the level of the messaging has to be at the philosophical or spiritual level. Trumpism has done this from the dark side without anyone really articulating it. We've been taking policy knives to a cultural and philosophical gunfight.
These are the times that try souls. I'm worried about the results coming this week, but also have faith that the best of most of us will be brought out.
I was born at the end of the roaring 20s. I lived through the Great Depression. I was an adolescent when WWII started. I was lucky to be in premed and was not drafted. I was called to active duty as a physician in the Korean War, but never left the United States.
What I am saying is that times have always been terrifying and it seems to be much more terrifying in the past. I remember Huey Long.
Like it or not, ever since the Tower of Babel, we have been fighting. I wonder when we will start talking to each other again and hopefully following the 2nd great commandment Meanwhile, I am a short timer and hope you have a place at the table and are not on the menu. Good luck my friends. it is your party. Make of it what you will. Frank
Knowing what the republicans will do if they win who in their right mind would vote for them?
The biggest enemy of this country is toxic disinformation.
In his 2011 essay "The Big Elusive Idea" Neal Gabler wrote "...if information was once grist for ideas, over the last decade it has become competition for them. We are like the farmer who has too much wheat to make flour. We are inundated with so much information that we wouldn’t have time to process it even if we wanted to, and most of us don’t want to." Eleven years later, information has been laced with lies.
The delivery of toxic disinformation is relentless because of the wealthy few behind it - either for their own financial gain or for the destruction of this country.
I marvel that the highest federal tax rate in the 1950s was over 90%. Imagine what we as a country could do - for the planet, for everyone - if we had fair tax rates and responsible tax payment.
This election will assess the health of American citizens' information-gathering and information-evaluating capabilities. Have the monied, self-serving few won out? Is Orwell's Ministry of Truth here?
What will you do?
Did you hear about the high school football team that lost the game, then refused to accept the results, saying the game was rigged, even though they had no evidence it was? Did you hear those sore losers stormed the field and staged a violent protest? Of course you didn’t, because that never happened. But what would happen if student athletes refused to accept the results? What would happen if they engaged in violent protests when they lost? Cold such sporting events continue to exist under such conditions?
Fortunately, every day in America thousands of young athletes wo lose do not do that. They may not like it—but they accept the results, using what they learn in defeat to become stronger competitors for future games. They do it despite an adult world where 70% of those in one political party declare, without any supporting evidence, that the 2020 election was rigged, and one in ten Americans say that violence against the government right now is justified.
What example are we setting for our children when those campaigning for or holding office spout lies and falsehoods to maintain and gain power? What example are we setting when elected officials who’ve taken an oath to preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution stand before microphones, or sit on daises, and repeat these lies, with no evidence to support them? What example are we setting when those who know these are lies remain silent, and do not speak out against them?
How can we expect our children to be truthful, and to accept the results when they lose, if adults around them do not model how to do that? How can this nation we love thrive, or even survive, under the weight of such lies?
Calling out violent acts without condemning the lies that spawned them is not enough— it is not acceptable. Our time on this Earth is limited, but the dishonor of putting power and party before one’s country is forever. It is Eternal.
I ask all Americans, whether they are Republicans, Democrats, or Unaffiliated—or whatever your political stripe is— to stand up and call out these lies. And I remind all; the midterms are November 8. What will you do in 2022 to stand up for truth, for democracy, and for our Constitution, and to be a positive role model for our children?
I am quite worried, but am using my wallet to fund various Democratic candidates for Senate and Governor, and the DCCC. I live in Illinois, where I believe Tammy Duckworth and J. B. Pritzker will win, so I have concentrated on funding other Democrats throughout the Midwest, but also in Georgia, Nevada, Arizona, New Hampshire, Florida and North Carolina.
According to Cornell Belcher, speaking last night on MSNBC, Republicans have been flooding the zone with biased polls that use turnout models from 2010 and 2014, instead of 2018 and 2020. THEIR GOAL IS TO CREATE A RED WAVE NARRATIVE IN THE DAYS LEADING TO THE ELECTION IN AN ATTEMPT TO SUPPRESS DEMOCRATIC VOTER TURNOUT. DO NOT BE FOOLED. GO VOTE FOR DEMOCRATS AND ENCOURAGE OTHERS TO DO SO AS WELL!
We can discuss consequences of victory or loss and tactical responses after the fact. But the overall strategy cannot be based in despondence. It must be based on the idea that PROGRESSIVES, OR EVEN MODERATE DEMOCRATS, CAN STILL WIN IN 2024 AND BEYOND. The 2024 election will be the one that makes or breaks liberal, multiracial and multicultural democracy in the United States. WE CANNOT LOSE HOPE OR TIME IN PREPARING FOR THAT ELECTION NO MATTER THE OUTCOME OF THIS ONE.
For a few words of hope for the coming elections, read the November 4, 2022 "Letter from an American" by Heather Cox Richardson, a history professor and commentator on politics. Four of the battleground states are trending blue.
This situation is NOT a Trump problem. The problem started back in the 1950's when the a minority group, the very rich, decided they were being over taxed. They have played the long game to undermine democracy. I highly recommend "Democracy In Chains" by Nancy MacLean as a reference. Another is "the Brothers" by Stephen Kinzer on US's terrible foriegn policy blunders done to support American business interests.
Yes, my answer is Worried. I am an eternal (mostly) optimist, but with the political scene such as it is worries even me. To be ruled by our politicians and not the people is a nightmare and the looks of it, it might just happen. Why or how could this happen in the largest democracy in the world? I am a democrat and will always believe the people will rise up and take control of America. We have a spirit that cannot be put out by a republic run country. There..there is my optimism.
I keep pretty close tabs on the Democracy in Europe movement -- DiEM25. Democracy is on the ropes over there too. Keep your eye on the UK's new PM, who, as Chancellor of the Exchequer (their Jerome Powell) wanted to further privatize the national health system and institute increased austerity measures. And, like the finance ministers of Italy and Greece, is former Goldman Sachs.
Back in 2003, five years before the financial meltdown of the housing markets and Wall Street, Paul Krugman wrote a book he titled: The Great Unraveling. This is what we are living through. If we don't start learning to hang together as democrats -- small D intended -- we shall surely be hung out separately.
I think you should have included “Hopeful” in your list of feelings about the midterms. That’s where I am.
However, one thing I haven’t seen brought up anywhere is the fact that our government, for years, with President after President, has interfered with and really crushed democracies in other countries in pursuit of what were seen as our national interests. We’ve fomented coups in many places, many times, rarely admitting it, overturning democratically elected leaders who wanted to take care of their people—better jobs, wages, schooling, childcare, healthcare, justice, equality—and replaced them with our chosen despots who will foster profiteering above all else and benefit a few rich people in their own countries, plus our corporations which will exploit their people’s labor and land. Gang violence has become widespread. The coups have resulted in the deaths of many innocent people. These countries have been seriously messed up. The US is criminal and very anti-democratic. I worry that recently elected leftist leaders in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, for instance, are in grave danger of our interference. The US should keep its dirty hands off.
Why, therefore, do we worry about our own democracy? We haven’t acted as if any other country was entitled to it.
Terrified is an understatement, "panic-stricken" might be more accurate. I never thought I would see anything like this in my lifetime. I'm losing my cautious optimism that sanity will prevail on Tuesday with no plan on how to move forward while remaining true to myself, healthy and optimistic.
Idea for getting out the vote. Call all your left leaning friends and relatives NO MATTER WHERE THEY LIVE and get them to commit to vote. When they commit ask them to call all their left leaning friends and relatives NO MATTER WERE THEY LIVE and get them to vote and then suggest they call thier ... . This can create an exponetial stealth wave across the nation and it does not cost anything!