Text: The accountability of the Democrats to antagonistic constituencies produces both rhetorical incoherence— what does this party stand for?—and programmatic self-cancellation. Champions of the domestic rule of law and the rules-based international order, they engaged in a spectacular series of violations of domestic and international law. Promising a new New Deal, they admonished voters to be grateful for how well they were already doing economically. Each step taken by the party's policymakers in pursuit of one goal imposes a limit in another direction. It is by this dynamic that a decade of (appropriate) anti-Trump hysteria led first to the adoption of parts of Trump's program by the Democrats, and then finally his reinstallation as president at new heights of public opinion favorability. Nothing better than the real thing.
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As political scientist Martha Derthick put it:
> Congress loves action—it thrives on policy proclamations and goal setting—but it hates bureaucracy and taxes, which are the instruments of action. Overwhelmingly, it has resolved this dilemma by turning over the bulk of administration to the state governments or any organizational instrumentality it can lay its hands on whose employees are not counted on the federal payroll. [1]](media_attachments/files/113/447/696/021/032/071/original/5355aaa7e82f9e2c.jpeg)
Text: As political scientist Martha Derthick put it: > Congress loves action—it thrives on policy proclamations and goal setting—but it hates bureaucracy and taxes, which are the instruments of action. Overwhelmingly, it has resolved this dilemma by turning over the bulk of administration to the state governments or any organizational instrumentality it can lay its hands on whose employees are not counted on the federal payroll. [1]
touting a record stock market as an indicator of Biden’s great economy seems kind of dumb now, doesn’t it?
management of the US dollar is now in the hands of… the people who’ve been buying a ton of bitcoin in a bet on the imminent death of the US dollar.
the resolution to the debate about “deliverism” is it only works if what gets delivered is substantial, material results prior to the election.
if what’s delivered is just the legislation, maybe some change that will eventually bear fruit but takes time, opponents gin up cynicism and fear no problem.
if you are blaming “we” or “the electorate” or “the American people”, you are not doing anything useful.
i am so terrified and heartbroken i am almost catatonic.
but the future is not yet written. the worst outcomes are far from certain. we still, all and each, have our parts to play in writing this story.
all things to everyone, it turns out, is no things to anyone.
do people do event studies of heart attack rates around elections?
suddenly everybody is on-board with american carnage.
one way to think about it is the electorate wanted Teddy Roosevelt and Donald Trump seemed the closest thing on offer.
the marginal voter was not voting on the basis of “issues”. they were choosing who best fit the role — in their imagination, by virtue of their parasocial attachments — of hero who can fix it.
parasociability is a tremendous challenge to contemporary theories of democracy.
“If the pattern of the past holds, the future won’t be majority-minority; it will be a white majority, where Spanish last names are common.” @jbouie, writing in 2014 https://democracyjournal.org/magazine/31/demography-is-not-destiny/
it feels like everywhere is the nazi bar now.
when the threshold is a supermajority and a clear majority supports, it is inaccurate to write “Florida voters reject”.
Florida voters support, by a large margin, but fail to meet the 60% threshold required to amend the state constitution. https://mastodon.social/@axios/113433518956678234
scab zombie needle. stay away.
not feeling great about being a floridian so far tonight.
