Timely. Especially after the holidays when my wife's side of the family wouldn't stop talking about Evil Orange Man, and it seemed like the talking points were being beamed directly into their heads from a transmitter at MSNBC, which was on in the other room even at dinner. And the turkey was overcooked.
Timely. Especially after the holidays when my wife's side of the family wouldn't stop talking about Evil Orange Man, and it seemed like the talking points were being beamed directly into their heads from a transmitter at MSNBC, which was on in the other room even at dinner. And the turkey was overcooked.
Oh yes....I had that same experience at a dinner earlier this week. And lordy, you should have heard their explanations about the 14th amendment and original intent and so on. Totally bubbled. Totally MSNBC.
I’ve given up on taking the high road in such situations. When my family would launch into Orange Man Bad, I would launch into every latest embarrassment of the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately, my family doesn’t take it as well as they give it. My sisters formally stopped speaking to me about a year ago. The reason? I have incorrect views on abortion. They’ve never talked to me about it, they’ve never explained why they hold their views, and I never brought the topic up in front of them. I merely reposted something on Facebook and so my sisters stopped speaking to me. These are adult women in their 40s. To make matters worse they didn’t even have the courage to tell me to my face, they made my parents tell me, then my parents sided with them. Why? Because my politics are “heinous.”
I lost my family because after 32 years of silence I decided to share my opinions in the same way everyone else does.
A parent that does that is “heinous.” I learned long ago that you have to value your children as human beings that may have differing opinions. You love them even if you disagree with those opinions.
My suggestion: get them into counseling with you. Any therapist worth their salt will eviscerate your parents for doing that. They need to get a clue.
Wow--what a sad story. It is awful to hear. There are so many things wrong with how they reacted. I hope your family comes to its senses soon. Take care.
I recommend a new tradition we have adopted. Go to a good Italian restaurant and have a family style dinner with lots of drinks. Most of the time will be spent gorging, the food will be great and the food coma afterward will put everyone to sleep. A win for all.
I am amazed that anyone bothers with broadcast media anymore. I learn infinitely more reading TFP than I ever did watching cable news. I’m down to 5 publications I will even bother with. Sprinkle in interesting comments thoughtful people add to the discussion and that’s about all I need to stay informed.
When someone says “I heard xxxx on MSNBC” all I hear is “Blah ba blah blah blah!”
- Epoch Times - right. Hates the CCP. I’m pretty skeptical about what I read here, but there can be some pretty in depth pieces that can give you good grounding in a topic.
- The Fifth Column on Substack - libertarian? Not hard news but an awesome send off of all the news today. Kinda like TGIF on steroids. It is a great way to let off steam about annoying news today. They are big fans of TFP too.
I do read other stuff here or there and will admit to getting my breaking news from X. But I filter it heavily!
I used to do Fifth Column on Patreon; I still like Kmele, but just guess I grew tired of their talkfest after couple of years.
I allowed my Reason subscription to expire because I never touched the print copy and their comments section is THE worst. Nothing but spam.
Not sure why, but I’ve never subscribed too WSJ.
Epoch Times? They sent me a print copy a couple of months ago, but I’ve never read them. They used to scare me, but after what we’ve seen the past three years, I wonder if I was unfair to them. I think it is a bit odd that in their video ads they don’t all pronounce “epoch” the same way.
I’ve never done Twitter.
I do pay for National Review, but I’m less and less certain why; my favorite writers are all gone.
My fiancés family was doing the same. People have become so obsessed with seeing things as binary. Good or evil. Oppressor or oppressed. Black or white. It leaves no room for actual intelligent conversation or exchange of ideas. It’s exhausting and sad.
Daniela, you write: "People have become so obsessed with seeing things as binary. Good or evil. Oppressor or oppressed. Black or white." You are so right. I really, really hate the "blue state-red state" thing, which only started with the 2000 election; I wish it could be stopped, because I think it exacerbates our differences by pointing to an entire state as being "red" or "blue", when in fact all states are mixes.
When I was first into politics, starting in the early '70s, it upset me that the two parties seemed to have so few real differences. But wow, I would love to go back to that time when people could have different political points of view and yet still be friends.
I'm from the North lol. We know there will be disagreements so everyone knows politics is off limits. Who puts on cable news shows during the holidays? How can you when Frosty the Snowman is on?!
I'll only repeat a story I've told before. Before the 2020 election a friend announced "If I had the choice between Trump and a lump of shit on that table, I'd vote for the lump of shit."
That may make you feel good but doesn't actually help. Our system of two dominant parties is actually an advantage compared to the proportional representation schemes found in many European countries.. The dynamics force both parties to move a little closer to center in order to attract a majority. You may not want to believe that, but it's true. The empirical evidence is the closeness of our elections.. A protest vote on either side is functionally the same as not voting. Pick the least bad alternative, if that's the way you view things. I did that in 2016 and was pleasantly surprised when he picked from the list of nominees published before the election. Given the outsized power we've let SCOTUS accumulate and the highly politicized standards for nomination since Lawrence Tribe's 1980s book God Save This Honorable Court, I think the voters should demand such a list from every candidate.
I don’t think the contemporary results support this. What the two party system has allowed is an abdication of responsibility by congress due to partisanship. If other parties were on equal footing I could see several combining forces to get things done. Things like immigration, entitlements, abortion, the budget, etc. All important issues stymied by the left and right extremes wanting a good campaign issue. They have ridiculous fantasies about “running the table” which never materialize. When they do have enough power to accomplish something they never deal with these key issues.
As a result the executive and judicial branches keep increasing their power which I think they justify by the impotence of congress.
Diogenes, when I taught college level American and Comparative Government in the 1980s, this was exactly the argument I made for our system over a PR system. And it was true; having only two parties created great moderation.
It is no longer true. It's hard to say when exactly it changed, but as a someone who long defended gerrymandering as a nothing-burger, it pains me to say that the change started with the reapportionment following the 1990 census. The 1992 districts were the first-ever drawn with powerful computer algorithms that could split districts to order. (It was also the first year that racially drawn gerrymanders were specifically encouraged, though SCOTUS then sort of backpedaled on that one). So why do these precision gerrymanders matter?
I suspect you know where I'm going, but please indulge me. With such precise gerrymanders, almost 400 of the House districts in any election are predestined to either go D or R. If a House district is already guaranteed to go R in November, then the election that matters is the primary election for that house seat. And in THAT election, moderation is a losing strategy. The candidates who appeal to the center-right lose to the candidates who just swing right. And the reverse happens in guaranteed-D districts, where moderate candidates will lose in the primary to more progressive candidates. And then, in November, we get a "close" election that is never really in question, because the seat is gerrymandered for one party over another.
Now you might say that this is House elections, it's not the Presidency. But the fact is, when people get accustomed to the taste of red meat, that's what they want. Moderate presidential candidates do have a better chance than moderate House candidates, but the extremists care more than the moderates, and increasingly, they will get their way. This is arguably more true on the Right than the Left, but that is just today.
Congress has allowed the Supreme Court to accumulate that much power by not doing their jobs. They have also done the same thing with the Executive Branch.
I profoundly disagree, but well argued. No. When the two parties are tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee and they have a Gentleman's Agreement to compete, yes, but more importantly to keep real competition away, then voting for either one is to perpetuate the system. Notice how, no matter which party is in power, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?
And notice too that the center is being ignored. Visibly, the two parties have never been more polarized opposites. Both parties play to their base, not the majority. Either could win easily by appealing to common sense, but the deeper powers that control both parties like the current situation. Divide and Rule.
Interesting, if I had to choose I'd say the Rats are stupid and the Reps are evil ... and yet it doesn't matter -- I take your point, they may be opposites in terms of position on the political spectrum, but they are not opposites in the way that black and white or hot and cold are -- they are defective in different ways, not 'opposite' ways. Yes, good post.
Nobody wants to be thought of as “evil”. In an age when the Left reaches for a world without an accepted moral dogma, rushing Judeo-Christianity to the dust-bin as Nietzsche predicted, I have found it fascinating that Democrats see Nazis everywhere to their Right. As Tom Holland has expounded so well, those leaning toward atheism and the sufficiency of humanism have a strong desire to label their foes as evil (or deplorable or “clinging” to religion). Those critiques, to me, are chilling and more nightmarish than the alleged reemergence of the Klan, treating as they do their foes as sub-human and disgusting.
Thanks for responding. I think most of us who land here lie far from the problem.
I understand your point of view, but "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" is not correct. For the 3 years 2017-2019 (ignoring the wild card of the pandemic), incomes rose for all income groups, even more after taking transfer payments into account. Search for CBO (Congressional Budget Office) and "distribution of household income" plus the year for 2016 and 2019. Nominal growth for the bottom quintile was 13% over those three years and inflation was low. Compare and contrast to the last 4 years..
The center looks like it's being ignored in the rhetoric, but cannot be ignored in reality or we wouldn't be so evenly split.
That was entirely a result of an 8 year+ economic expansion hitting its peak stride in the years 2017-2019. It had nothing to do with any "policy" of Trump (of which no one can provide as directly causing), or Trump himself. Clinton would have inherited the same headwinds had she been elected in 2016 instead, and I'm guessing the perception of those years would be vastly different for most Republican voters now claiming some "Trump Miracle" if that were the case.
I totally disagree. You have no idea what would have happened if Clinton had won. She could have initiated a wall of regulations that completely stifled the economy. Trump deregulated and with Congress lowered taxes and we got a better economy out of it,. That is what actually happened.
Probably not, given that Clinton 2016 was the expectation of the extension of the Obama Presidency that presided over the 8 year long expansion to begin with, and given the Clintonian long allegiance to a fairly market centric/friendly economic touch as part of the "triangulation" of the 90's Clinton era.
Point being, Trump walked into an economic sweet spot, and few to zero economists credit the 2017 tax cuts with doing much (other than not harming growth, unless we're talking about deficits, well then.. ouch), and the simple fact is that regulatory changes take years to effect in the economy, so again, there's no real reason to credit Trump with the economic conditions of the first 3 years of his Presidency when few of his regulatory changes would have worked through the economy let alone have been enacted, nor any to assume he would have some "magic touch" if he regained Office in 2024 (other than to perhaps have the fantastic luck to assume Office in an already deflationary economy where by Jan 2025 prices will have probably met the deflation points, which UGH).
Let me just ask - if Trump wins in 2024, and the economy goes into recession, or worse, under his watch without some global event like COVID (understanding this is the "allowance" he was given for his final year in Office and final record), what will be your take? If Trump and his "policies" are to be given full credit for 2017-2019, if 2025- ? sucks, economically speaking, will you blame Trump and his "policies"?
Sure. I understand the working people have just barely stayed ahead of inflation for the last few years. But it's been almost nonstop bad news since the 80s. Thanks for the correction.
I disagree with your disagreement. Not with the substance thereof but as it applies to this, and to the 2020 election. One party is led by a man who is not an establishment candidate; he is hated as much, maybe more, from within his party as he is by the opposition party voters. The guy for the opposition party is IMO a shill. That party puts its thumbs on the scale in its preliminary elections and campaigning. My hope is that all of this is indicia that the parties are in transition. Additionally all of this emphasis on picking the Prez is misplaced. Congress is by and large the problem.
Agree Congress is the root problem, but government by executive order has gotten way out of hand. it was my hope after 2016 that Congress would be motivated to reassert its Constitutional authority and rein that in a bit. Didn't happen - instead we went to a regime of bureaucratic "resistance", (even more) media bias, and lawfare. We'll be paying the price for that for a long time, but with luck SCOTUS will keep it from getting too much worse. I expect CO and ME to be overturned, but think Trump cannot get a fair trial from a DC jury. It's going to be a complicated year even if China doesn't invade Taiwan.
True all. I am glad you brought up the fair trial issue. I have been thinking about that too. The Constitutiinal checks and balances are certainly about to be tested.
Timely. Especially after the holidays when my wife's side of the family wouldn't stop talking about Evil Orange Man, and it seemed like the talking points were being beamed directly into their heads from a transmitter at MSNBC, which was on in the other room even at dinner. And the turkey was overcooked.
Oh yes....I had that same experience at a dinner earlier this week. And lordy, you should have heard their explanations about the 14th amendment and original intent and so on. Totally bubbled. Totally MSNBC.
But I spoke up and things kind of dissipated...
you mean, deteriorated ... ?
Other than that, how was Thanksgiving?
Slightly cold, but still very funny. :+)
I’ve given up on taking the high road in such situations. When my family would launch into Orange Man Bad, I would launch into every latest embarrassment of the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately, my family doesn’t take it as well as they give it. My sisters formally stopped speaking to me about a year ago. The reason? I have incorrect views on abortion. They’ve never talked to me about it, they’ve never explained why they hold their views, and I never brought the topic up in front of them. I merely reposted something on Facebook and so my sisters stopped speaking to me. These are adult women in their 40s. To make matters worse they didn’t even have the courage to tell me to my face, they made my parents tell me, then my parents sided with them. Why? Because my politics are “heinous.”
I lost my family because after 32 years of silence I decided to share my opinions in the same way everyone else does.
So sad, Douglas, but yet, increasingly common these days.
A parent that does that is “heinous.” I learned long ago that you have to value your children as human beings that may have differing opinions. You love them even if you disagree with those opinions.
My suggestion: get them into counseling with you. Any therapist worth their salt will eviscerate your parents for doing that. They need to get a clue.
Wow--what a sad story. It is awful to hear. There are so many things wrong with how they reacted. I hope your family comes to its senses soon. Take care.
They sound like a wonderful family. Good luck next Christmas.
I recommend a new tradition we have adopted. Go to a good Italian restaurant and have a family style dinner with lots of drinks. Most of the time will be spent gorging, the food will be great and the food coma afterward will put everyone to sleep. A win for all.
I am amazed that anyone bothers with broadcast media anymore. I learn infinitely more reading TFP than I ever did watching cable news. I’m down to 5 publications I will even bother with. Sprinkle in interesting comments thoughtful people add to the discussion and that’s about all I need to stay informed.
When someone says “I heard xxxx on MSNBC” all I hear is “Blah ba blah blah blah!”
May I ask what your 5 publications are, Gregg?
Let’s see:
- TFP - pretty much center
- WSJ - center right, but some center left?
- Reason - libertarian
- Epoch Times - right. Hates the CCP. I’m pretty skeptical about what I read here, but there can be some pretty in depth pieces that can give you good grounding in a topic.
- The Fifth Column on Substack - libertarian? Not hard news but an awesome send off of all the news today. Kinda like TGIF on steroids. It is a great way to let off steam about annoying news today. They are big fans of TFP too.
I do read other stuff here or there and will admit to getting my breaking news from X. But I filter it heavily!
I used to do Fifth Column on Patreon; I still like Kmele, but just guess I grew tired of their talkfest after couple of years.
I allowed my Reason subscription to expire because I never touched the print copy and their comments section is THE worst. Nothing but spam.
Not sure why, but I’ve never subscribed too WSJ.
Epoch Times? They sent me a print copy a couple of months ago, but I’ve never read them. They used to scare me, but after what we’ve seen the past three years, I wonder if I was unfair to them. I think it is a bit odd that in their video ads they don’t all pronounce “epoch” the same way.
I’ve never done Twitter.
I do pay for National Review, but I’m less and less certain why; my favorite writers are all gone.
Same.
Hear hear! I’ll drink to that !!
I would call this, “crazy uncle upside-down world.”
My fiancés family was doing the same. People have become so obsessed with seeing things as binary. Good or evil. Oppressor or oppressed. Black or white. It leaves no room for actual intelligent conversation or exchange of ideas. It’s exhausting and sad.
Daniela, you write: "People have become so obsessed with seeing things as binary. Good or evil. Oppressor or oppressed. Black or white." You are so right. I really, really hate the "blue state-red state" thing, which only started with the 2000 election; I wish it could be stopped, because I think it exacerbates our differences by pointing to an entire state as being "red" or "blue", when in fact all states are mixes.
When I was first into politics, starting in the early '70s, it upset me that the two parties seemed to have so few real differences. But wow, I would love to go back to that time when people could have different political points of view and yet still be friends.
I grew up in the Deep South. Manners dictated no discussion of religion or politics in social settings.
I'm from the North lol. We know there will be disagreements so everyone knows politics is off limits. Who puts on cable news shows during the holidays? How can you when Frosty the Snowman is on?!
Brigattista -sounds like you were in my house last week
| And the turkey was overcooked
So perfectly apt.
America is now much like that turkey.
I'll only repeat a story I've told before. Before the 2020 election a friend announced "If I had the choice between Trump and a lump of shit on that table, I'd vote for the lump of shit."
He got his wish.
OK Bruce true or false: "If I had the choice between Biden and a lump of shit on that table, I'd vote for the lump of shit."
False.
There would be two lumps of shit.
Hobson's choice.
The question is, do you reelect the lump of shit, vote for the evil orange man, or just abstain?
or vote libertarian like I did in 2016 and 2020 and seems likely again in 2024
That may make you feel good but doesn't actually help. Our system of two dominant parties is actually an advantage compared to the proportional representation schemes found in many European countries.. The dynamics force both parties to move a little closer to center in order to attract a majority. You may not want to believe that, but it's true. The empirical evidence is the closeness of our elections.. A protest vote on either side is functionally the same as not voting. Pick the least bad alternative, if that's the way you view things. I did that in 2016 and was pleasantly surprised when he picked from the list of nominees published before the election. Given the outsized power we've let SCOTUS accumulate and the highly politicized standards for nomination since Lawrence Tribe's 1980s book God Save This Honorable Court, I think the voters should demand such a list from every candidate.
I don’t think the contemporary results support this. What the two party system has allowed is an abdication of responsibility by congress due to partisanship. If other parties were on equal footing I could see several combining forces to get things done. Things like immigration, entitlements, abortion, the budget, etc. All important issues stymied by the left and right extremes wanting a good campaign issue. They have ridiculous fantasies about “running the table” which never materialize. When they do have enough power to accomplish something they never deal with these key issues.
As a result the executive and judicial branches keep increasing their power which I think they justify by the impotence of congress.
Diogenes, when I taught college level American and Comparative Government in the 1980s, this was exactly the argument I made for our system over a PR system. And it was true; having only two parties created great moderation.
It is no longer true. It's hard to say when exactly it changed, but as a someone who long defended gerrymandering as a nothing-burger, it pains me to say that the change started with the reapportionment following the 1990 census. The 1992 districts were the first-ever drawn with powerful computer algorithms that could split districts to order. (It was also the first year that racially drawn gerrymanders were specifically encouraged, though SCOTUS then sort of backpedaled on that one). So why do these precision gerrymanders matter?
I suspect you know where I'm going, but please indulge me. With such precise gerrymanders, almost 400 of the House districts in any election are predestined to either go D or R. If a House district is already guaranteed to go R in November, then the election that matters is the primary election for that house seat. And in THAT election, moderation is a losing strategy. The candidates who appeal to the center-right lose to the candidates who just swing right. And the reverse happens in guaranteed-D districts, where moderate candidates will lose in the primary to more progressive candidates. And then, in November, we get a "close" election that is never really in question, because the seat is gerrymandered for one party over another.
Now you might say that this is House elections, it's not the Presidency. But the fact is, when people get accustomed to the taste of red meat, that's what they want. Moderate presidential candidates do have a better chance than moderate House candidates, but the extremists care more than the moderates, and increasingly, they will get their way. This is arguably more true on the Right than the Left, but that is just today.
Congress has allowed the Supreme Court to accumulate that much power by not doing their jobs. They have also done the same thing with the Executive Branch.
I profoundly disagree, but well argued. No. When the two parties are tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee and they have a Gentleman's Agreement to compete, yes, but more importantly to keep real competition away, then voting for either one is to perpetuate the system. Notice how, no matter which party is in power, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer?
And notice too that the center is being ignored. Visibly, the two parties have never been more polarized opposites. Both parties play to their base, not the majority. Either could win easily by appealing to common sense, but the deeper powers that control both parties like the current situation. Divide and Rule.
Not sure I agree with “polar opposites”.
I believe Senator Alan Simpson had it right:
Democrats: evil party
Republicans: stupid party
If you believe I am one attacking the other, you are still a partisan.
Interesting, if I had to choose I'd say the Rats are stupid and the Reps are evil ... and yet it doesn't matter -- I take your point, they may be opposites in terms of position on the political spectrum, but they are not opposites in the way that black and white or hot and cold are -- they are defective in different ways, not 'opposite' ways. Yes, good post.
Nobody wants to be thought of as “evil”. In an age when the Left reaches for a world without an accepted moral dogma, rushing Judeo-Christianity to the dust-bin as Nietzsche predicted, I have found it fascinating that Democrats see Nazis everywhere to their Right. As Tom Holland has expounded so well, those leaning toward atheism and the sufficiency of humanism have a strong desire to label their foes as evil (or deplorable or “clinging” to religion). Those critiques, to me, are chilling and more nightmarish than the alleged reemergence of the Klan, treating as they do their foes as sub-human and disgusting.
Thanks for responding. I think most of us who land here lie far from the problem.
I understand your point of view, but "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer" is not correct. For the 3 years 2017-2019 (ignoring the wild card of the pandemic), incomes rose for all income groups, even more after taking transfer payments into account. Search for CBO (Congressional Budget Office) and "distribution of household income" plus the year for 2016 and 2019. Nominal growth for the bottom quintile was 13% over those three years and inflation was low. Compare and contrast to the last 4 years..
The center looks like it's being ignored in the rhetoric, but cannot be ignored in reality or we wouldn't be so evenly split.
That was entirely a result of an 8 year+ economic expansion hitting its peak stride in the years 2017-2019. It had nothing to do with any "policy" of Trump (of which no one can provide as directly causing), or Trump himself. Clinton would have inherited the same headwinds had she been elected in 2016 instead, and I'm guessing the perception of those years would be vastly different for most Republican voters now claiming some "Trump Miracle" if that were the case.
I totally disagree. You have no idea what would have happened if Clinton had won. She could have initiated a wall of regulations that completely stifled the economy. Trump deregulated and with Congress lowered taxes and we got a better economy out of it,. That is what actually happened.
Probably not, given that Clinton 2016 was the expectation of the extension of the Obama Presidency that presided over the 8 year long expansion to begin with, and given the Clintonian long allegiance to a fairly market centric/friendly economic touch as part of the "triangulation" of the 90's Clinton era.
Point being, Trump walked into an economic sweet spot, and few to zero economists credit the 2017 tax cuts with doing much (other than not harming growth, unless we're talking about deficits, well then.. ouch), and the simple fact is that regulatory changes take years to effect in the economy, so again, there's no real reason to credit Trump with the economic conditions of the first 3 years of his Presidency when few of his regulatory changes would have worked through the economy let alone have been enacted, nor any to assume he would have some "magic touch" if he regained Office in 2024 (other than to perhaps have the fantastic luck to assume Office in an already deflationary economy where by Jan 2025 prices will have probably met the deflation points, which UGH).
Let me just ask - if Trump wins in 2024, and the economy goes into recession, or worse, under his watch without some global event like COVID (understanding this is the "allowance" he was given for his final year in Office and final record), what will be your take? If Trump and his "policies" are to be given full credit for 2017-2019, if 2025- ? sucks, economically speaking, will you blame Trump and his "policies"?
We will be in recession before the election.
Sure. I understand the working people have just barely stayed ahead of inflation for the last few years. But it's been almost nonstop bad news since the 80s. Thanks for the correction.
I disagree with your disagreement. Not with the substance thereof but as it applies to this, and to the 2020 election. One party is led by a man who is not an establishment candidate; he is hated as much, maybe more, from within his party as he is by the opposition party voters. The guy for the opposition party is IMO a shill. That party puts its thumbs on the scale in its preliminary elections and campaigning. My hope is that all of this is indicia that the parties are in transition. Additionally all of this emphasis on picking the Prez is misplaced. Congress is by and large the problem.
Congress is definitely the problem.
I agree with your disagreement of my disagreement :-)
Agree Congress is the root problem, but government by executive order has gotten way out of hand. it was my hope after 2016 that Congress would be motivated to reassert its Constitutional authority and rein that in a bit. Didn't happen - instead we went to a regime of bureaucratic "resistance", (even more) media bias, and lawfare. We'll be paying the price for that for a long time, but with luck SCOTUS will keep it from getting too much worse. I expect CO and ME to be overturned, but think Trump cannot get a fair trial from a DC jury. It's going to be a complicated year even if China doesn't invade Taiwan.
True all. I am glad you brought up the fair trial issue. I have been thinking about that too. The Constitutiinal checks and balances are certainly about to be tested.
I hafta agree. Loathe him as I do, he is entitled to a fair trial and that can't happen in DC.
Thanks - you've stated my observations about third-party "protest votes" very succinctly!