Tuesday Open Thread [1.27.15]
E.J. Dionne Jr. on the new Culture War, because the Right needs to hate something in order to exist:
House Republicans were able to pass without much difficulty a remarkably restrictive bill that would overturn Obama’s executive actions on immigration. It was aimed not only at his measures to keep families together but also at a highly popular provision for the “Dreamers” brought to the United States as children.
This is the new culture war. It is about national identity rather than religion and “transcendent authority.” It focuses on which groups the United States will formally admit to residence and citizenship. It asks the same question as the old culture war: “Who are we?” But the earlier query was primarily about how we define ourselves morally. The new question is about how we define ourselves ethnically, racially and linguistically. It is, in truth, one of the oldest questions in our history, going back to our earliest immigration battles of the 1840s and 1850s.
So we must hate the brown people. Check. Hating brown people goes hand in hand with hating Muslims.
Dean Obeidallah expects Islamaphobia to be the GOP’s new fearmongering motivator now that the Right has lost so decisively on gay marriage:
First, Muslims are a small percentage of our nation’s population at approximately 1 to 2 percent. Second, there are horrible Muslims who do commit terror in the name of our faith, which does offer cover for anti-Muslim bigotry. Third, we still don’t have many allies outside of our community that stand with us. Sure, we have some interfaith supporters. But when anti-gay comments are made, like in the case of “Duck Dynasty’s” Phil Roberson in 2013, the response by the left was swift and united. But with anti-Muslim bigotry, we don’t see that. …
My hope is that I’m wrong. But after seeing close to a thousand people over the weekend protesting a Muslim-American event in Texas that was ironically organized to counter extremism, I’m not so optimistic. The more conservative parts of the GOP base tend to vote in higher numbers in the primaries. So don’t be surprised when you see Republican candidates trying to get their attention with this cut of red meat.
George Zornick at The Nation blasts our new neighboring Republican governor of Maryland, Larry Hogan, a supposed moderate, who wasted no time after taking office in gutting Maryland’s Environmental and LGBT Protections.
But Hogan’s first days in office are proving to be anything but moderate. Rather, a familiar storyline is playing out: the friendly Republican gubernatorial candidate suddenly becomes a hardline conservative governor.
After being introduced by New Jersey Chris Christie at his inauguration Wednesday as someone “who knows how to bring people together,” and after the VIP guests dined on shrimp scampi, crab cakes and grilled chicken, Hogan got to work: he immediately rescinded blockbuster environmental regulations on state coal plants and pollution of the Chesapeake Bay. He also called back regulations designed to protect LGBT Marylanders from healthcare and employment discrimination.
To all the voters who stayed home in November 2014, I say again, and always, go fuck yourself. I don’t care if you were not inspired to vote. It is your duty to prevent Republicans from getting into office. You failed. Horribly. And now, for the next four years in Maryland, I hope you suffer. Well, there is no hoping about it. You will suffer, because a Republican is your Governor.
At The Crystal Ball Alan I. Abramowitz explains why “the president’s rising approval rating in recent polls is good news for Hillary Clinton or whomever the Democratic Party eventually chooses as its nominee.” The latest Gallup has the President at 50% approval, 45% disapproval.
Whenever I see a news story that references a state-run news agency in a foreign country, like Russia, for example, or North Korea, the adjective “state-run” is always a pejorative, indicating to the reader that the news or quote you are about to read is not to be trusted, because it is coming directly from the suspect government in question, a government that is so distrustful of an independent media and the freedom of press and speech that it has set up its own propaganda arm.
Keep that in mind when you read that Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, of course a Republican, is setting up his own state-run news agency. The agency will be called “Just IN” will provide pre-written stories for small Indiana news outlets on breaking news as well as “personality driven profiles.” Stories will be written by the Pence administration’s communications team. Yes, this is a valuable use of taxpayer money. I wonder which child’s education was cut to pay for the Republican propaganda?
In Delaware, we’re a little more subtle.
Take a look at the former reporters and editors from the NJ and the State News who are now working as spokespersons or communications specialists for Health and Social Services, DOE, DEDO, Tourism, Agriculture, the courts, the General Assembly, and probably a few others.
And the University of Delaware has done pretty well too in the past few years, beefing up its communications team by latching on to some of the best of the NJ.
Given the way Gannett operates, it hasn’t been too hard to recruit this quality talent for government or higher education … but it’s easy to see where this is going.
The NJ staff no longer has the size or the depth of knowledge needed to cover the state adequately on its own.
Now the government and UD have the writers with the skills needed to craft decently-written stories that can be dropped into the daily and weekly papers, with minimal editing, to eat up the space that the diminished reporting staffs can’t fill.
Delaware media might not be state-run, but the state (and UD) provide its content more often than you might think.
Let the reader beware.
I wonder what percentage of Indianans watch Fox News….. can it possibly be any more Republican Propoganday than that?
To my esteemed colleague, I call bullshit on this: “To all the voters who stayed home in November 2014, I say again, and always, go fuck yourself. I don’t care if you were not inspired to vote. It is your duty to prevent Republicans from getting into office. You failed.”
The Democratic Party failed. Furthermore, the root of that failure can be traced directly to the fact that they have never been held accountable by the Dem base.
i respectfully disagree, jason. I am of the “young people” voting block for a few more years, and I don’t care if my fellow Millenials had a sad about whatever…… if you don’t vote, you are at fault. If you aren’t engaged, you cant expect to even be able to vote for what you want. Repubs do their duty and show up…. even if they have to hold their noses.
I “had a sad.” Okay. Yes. That explains everything. Congrats on the deep thinking.
here’s the backstory to that.
an embarassing number of my friends didnt vote. their reasoning
“i dont really know what anyone running is about” – bullshit, people wont give you personal invitations to their polices. do friggin research
“it’s all the same no matter who i vote for” – the first 3 weeks of the republican congress show that is also bullshit
“my vote wont make a difference” maybe not.. but EVERYONE’S vote will make a difference
“i dont care about what the government does” – need i say more…..
My fellow 20 somethings are giving away our future to the failed governance and decision making skills of the Boomers and we have only ourselves to blame.
“i dont really know what anyone running is about” Because Democrats don;t have a coherent band and they allow the narrative set by the Republicans to go unchallenged. It isn’t the voters job to do research. Republicans know that, Democrats are clueless.
“it’s all the same no matter who i vote for” True. With “Democrats” like the ones we have in Delaware, this is undeniable.
“my vote wont make a difference” True again. If the “Democrat” is only concerned with accommodating Republicans and being “bipartisan” what’s the point of voting?
“i dont care about what the government does” Okay. That person is an idiot.
But I don’t blame anyone for not voting. With the Democratic Party we have today NOT VOTING is the most reasonable choice.
we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one.
Im the first to get mad as a hatter when people talk shit on how “lazy” or “entitled” my generation is …. screw you, (not you, j… the people saying it)… every single promise you made us about hard work and higher education became false, and now we have no choice but to take on insurmountable debt with not real guarantee we’ll ever have a good enough job to pay it off and you have the gaul to blame us for being mad about it (deep breath) …. every bit other than our horrific voting record. You can “show” a company you disapprove by not voting for it with your money. The only way you can turn the government into something you like is over multiple elections and forcing the trend you want to see. (mho)
Thinking more about this, it occurs to me that those who think that Democrats continue to lose midterms because party members don’t turn out in the absence of leadership don’t understand how human beings work.
How is that different than saying a football team lost because the players didn’t play hard enough to elicit a decent performance from the coach?
A football player, or political party member can play his heart out in the absence of leadership, and that is great. It speaks to his character. But the football player and political party member should not expect to win in the absence of leadership.
Well, factually speaking, they DO lose midterms because people don’t turn out to vote.
WHY people don’t turn out to vote is a different story.
Im not trying to say that supporting Democrats is a duty for .. whomever, but VOTING is. Surely if you aren’t totally behind whoever’s turn it is to be Tom Carper, you at least disagree with the opponent enough to vote against them…. I have only voted FOR a few people (Obama, Markell…mistake….Townsend) in my 12 years of voting. Every other vote cast was AGAINST someone else. I personally don’t see any valid reason to abstain from voting altogether. It is, I’m my mind, the most important part of being an American and since I’m a socialistic type person, I believe that shared benefits (health care, education, disaster relief) also requires shared responsibilities… like choosing the people who will run things.
I used to think that. Now I think that voting is an endorsement of this fraudulent system that offers no authentic differences between candidates. My vote gives me no influence in the outcome while providing PR coverage to the malefactors.
Until the Democrats come up with a program that earns my vote – I’m not voting.