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Jennifer's avatar

"So, I tend to write about Biden’s age more than Trump’s sociopathy, and about the Dems’ identity and woke obsessions more than the Republicans’ fundamental corruption. Because the Dems have to find a way to 51%, lest we lapse into Hungary or Russia."

Joe Klien is very much part of the problem.

I am so tired of "it will be the Dems fault if trump wins"

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Maryah Haidery's avatar

I’m not a big fan of Joe Klein. But people should really read the whole article instead of the excerpt. The point of the piece an acknowledgment that what he is doing is not “fair”. And the rest of the piece explains just how different the two sides are and why it’s pointless to argue or reason with Republicans.

I still don’t think it justifies his criticism of Democrats but it’s a start. Ultimately I hope people like Klein and Texeiria and others who criticize and condemn the Democrats because they fear Trump’s reelection stop antagonizing the party they believe is still “good and rational” and use their platform to tout Democratic accomplishments and offer constructive solutions to get the popular vote to 55% instead of condemning things like Joe Biden’s age (Which no one can change!) But his conclusion makes it seem he’s less likely to do that in the future. So a bit of a hollow mea culpa...but who knows?

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Mark P's avatar

The comments on Klein's post are great, he gets completely reamed and deservedly so.

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NLTownie's avatar

I’m getting tired of people of influence freaking out about Biden being old because people of influence are freaking out about Biden being old. If they keep this up then people of influence will discover that people who have been influenced are freaking out because people of influence are freaking out about Biden being old.

Please, everybody, just stop. Biden is old. He knows what he’s doing. He’s good at his job. Vote for him. The End.

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Charlie's avatar

I was going to rant about how a**-backwards Joe Klein's thinking is, but you captured it more calmly and with fewer words. Thx.

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Jeannette Benavides's avatar

I agree. I am tired of hearing definitions of us Democrats. Sweeping outlandish generalizations.

Painting us as obsessed, emotional voters, oblivious to Biden's age and living in la la land where Biden is a 45-year-old incredible Hulk, who don't believe in the military, etc, etc. And the explanation for this is to wake us up from our zombie state so we don't get Trump to win. So, their strategy is to exaggerate to the voters the flaws of Democrats so voters will vote democratic (?). This is not journalism. It is as if I kept exaggerating and misconstruing the faults of my brother-in-law to my sister who want a divorce and get together with a horrible man will convince her to stay with her husband who is a good man. There is no logic.

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Substacker's avatar

He's a smart guy. He's gotta know that Repetition is Reality (tm).

It sure seems like a sizable part of the Democratic Party is obsessed with identity and worship of a new DEIty. Unlike military policy or tax reforms with delayed effects, these issues are intimate. We've got daily exposure to this through our school age children. Our family is far from traditional, but it's disturbing when a child comes home declaring that she'll never read another Harry Potter book (which she loves) because "JK Rowling is a bigot."

However, our society can get past that -- with some eventually accommodation. It won't get over a permanent fascist takeover. And whether Klein likes it or not, you fight the war with the army you've got, rather than the one you want (nb. it pains me to quote Rumsfeld, but, on this, he was right).

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JF's avatar

Blaming Democrats for Trump is victim shaming.

“What was she wearing?”

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Bonnie's avatar

Yes, this thing about it's gonna be all the fault of Democrats is getting old and it's entirely unhelpful. If Trump wins, the blame goes to Republicans-- all of them, even the critics of Trump. It's only Republicans that can really clean up their own mess because they refuse to adequately accept that there even is a mess and keep sweeping it under the rug. Look at Paul Ryan. Look at Sununu. Look at Hogan. Look, even, at Christie. They ALL refuse to act like adults and engage in reality and indicate that in these times, people should vote for Biden. I disagree very much with giving them a pass and saying it's okay to just not vote. That's not acting responsibly in our system. We have a choice between two parties and one party is now an authoritarian cult. It's far past time for conservatives who are former Republicans and people who still consider themselves Republican to step up and do the work to defend democracy and stop shifting the blame.

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Carolyn Spence's avatar

Writers need to speak the truth - today's Republican party with Trump at its head hates the Constitution, the balance of power, and democracy.

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JF's avatar

Tom Nichols has a piece in the Atlantic that I haven’t read yet, but the summary seemed like vintage “tell it good and hard” Nichols. I’m going there next for a dose of reality.

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Colleen Kochivar-Baker's avatar

I think it's more accurate for a large piece of MAGA that they hate any form of government that includes democrats. In the end, this may be the biggest bait and switch leading to an authoritarian democracy. The Democrats are the great Satan. On the upper end of the GOP it also percolates through the writings of people like Klein by insisting if Trump wins it's the Dems fault because they are too 'woke' and make too many incompetent decisions.

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Dave Yell's avatar

I suspect that Joe Klein also blames Democrats for electing Obama twice as a reason for Trump becoming president.

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NLTownie's avatar

Even though it is tragically real that the two-term Obama Presidency triggered

the Tea Party, Trump, Maga and the resurfacing of white Christian nationalism, the blame lies completely with Republicans, all of whom refuse to accept responsibility for any part of the entire mess. It’s just easier to blame Democrats for it all.

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howard's avatar

Joe Klein admits to being a self indulgent piece of garbage who truly doesn't understand the stakes.

I am not surprised.

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Hortense's avatar

I wonder if they wrote more about the GOP's fundamental corruption, would that be more damaging to the GOP? I would guess so, by nibbling away at the edges. At some point, the thinking that we can change the hard MAGA's mind needs to stop. We need to more isolate them and expand the number of the gettables. Ragging on the Dems will not do that.

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Carolyn Spence's avatar

Yes! At a minimum, after they have a talking head on, they could follow up with a Will-style comparison with past statements & behaviors that contradict current comments.

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Hortense's avatar

That can't be that hard to do. It should almost just roll off the page, so to speak.

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Richard Kane's avatar

Thank you! He is definitely a part of the problem! What offended me (and maybe other Dems who are veterans or active duty) is his statement "even those—like the military—that they really don’t believe in". I believe the majority of Dems do believe in the military, they just have issues on how military funding is utilized. Of my friends, a greater percentage of them who served are Democrats.

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Greg Alcorn's avatar

This jumped off the page at me too! How dare he?! Like I noted a couple of weeks back in a JVL comments thread, I'm a Navy officer and Desert Storm veteran who has moved from medium right to medium/well left over the past 20+ years. Within that evolution, my opinion of our military (and the brave people in it) and my belief in its mission, purpose and existential importance have not changed one bit. That's just me, but more broadly and more relevant, homogenizing "Democrats" into a party that doesn't believe in the military is lazy, irresponsible and flat wrong writing and thought. I also agree with being tired of "Dems fault if Trump wins". Give me a break.

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Myr Leake's avatar

My grandson, son and brother are Marines . . .

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knowltok's avatar

Must be rough on family gatherings, not believing in them.

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Myr Leake's avatar

And I served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in 1964. We are all liberals, and just 2 months ago my brother disowned me for calling the orange man with tiny hands a crook and a con artist. What a world!

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knowltok's avatar

That sucks. I'm an only child, but I can't imagine things going that badly between brothers over a political disagreement. Especially one revolving around one man.

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Myr Leake's avatar

Not the Marine brother - my other one who did serve in the Army .

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MAP's avatar

Thank you! This exactly. I am a lifelong Dem and believe in the military and a strong defense (and agree about the spending). Many members of my family have served. I was annoyed by that line too.

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Carolynsv's avatar

And the biggest supporters of Ukraine are the Democrats, in both Chambers, and not the Republicans ( mostly in the House except for Rand Paul and a few others).

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Grumpy Liberal's avatar

Many, too many, Republicans think of the military as their private armies to enforce unlegislated policies that support their benefactors. Then there’s the “military” that is weapons systems and high cost high tech.

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Colleen Kochivar-Baker's avatar

GOP pundits like Klein seem to have to define their positions by always stating the Dems are against it, while completely ignoring the crazies in their own party who really are for defunding federal law enforcement, holding up military promotions, and refusing to fund Ukraine because of the supposed cost to the defense budget. It's really rich that the Dems have to also fight the GOP voices who are ostensibly supporting them.

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zedsdead's avatar

Richard .. this was the first thing that stood out to me as well.

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Teddy’s Mom's avatar

I’m sure Tuberville thinks he’s pro military.

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Ben Gruder's avatar

He's not actually pro-military. He's pro fantasy-picture-theoretical-image of the military. For example, the fact that he thinks poetry is for sissies means he doesn't know anything about General George S Patton. Or war poetry written by souls with far more physical courage than he.

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Carolyn Spence's avatar

There is also the link between political goals & ego and the military. We should not risk lives just to appear strong to the electorate, or because it's there, or because someone else says it's a good idea. Truly solving problems is much harder, time consuming, and not shared with the public, or not understood by the public.

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knowltok's avatar

"Truly solving problems is much harder, time consuming, and not shared with the public, or not understood by the public."

I am reminded of the line from General Mattis: “If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately,"

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Carolyn Spence's avatar

Perfect quote!

( I am not using the Trump definition of perfect.)

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mjdlight's avatar

Simply put, a two party system cannot function with one rational party. The Dems are flawed -- of course - as is every human organization ever created. Harping on their flaws is counter-productive, because they will always be flawed. Either the GOP is replaced by a rational conservative party, or the house will fall. We are living on borrowed time at the moment.

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Terry Mc Kenna's avatar

Agree but re the Dems - they do police their wrongdoers. And they do correct the positions (like Defund the Police - popular with the left but it has mostly been dropped).

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rlritt's avatar

Only a few left wing activists said defund the police. No one actually took them seriously. But the current Republicans want to defund the military and not a word about it on this article or in the Bulwark or even main stream media. It's almost as if they were afraid to talk about it.

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JF's avatar

Dems are, if anything, a little too exuberant to police their own. I think they expect positive results from their displays of integrity, which assumes a rational electorate.

“Defund the Police” was a street protest slogan; as far as I remember it was never a serious Democratic policy suggestion. But I could be wrong.

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knowltok's avatar

IIRC, there were some low level pols who did propose it. Either as a way of shifting funding (maybe fewer Scorpion teams) to better ways to promote public safety, or as a way of starting over on corrupt departments.

Pretty natural response (and horrid sloganning) to a situation where the thin blue line and police unions act to severely retard accountability for bad actors.

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JF's avatar

I can’t remember if the low level pols used those words, “defund the police”. It’s a sad fact that GOP three or four word slogans have staying power, but similar slogans by Dems are usually duds. I’m not sure if that’s more reflective of our simple minded electorate or our too-lofty Democratic leaders.

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Substacker's avatar

"Defund the Police" was, in fact, used as the term for proposed legislation in Minneapolis. Whether it was initially intended to advocate reallocation of only a portion of resources devoted to conventional policing, the term was eventually walked back to mean that.

There's tons of evidence that the term handed The Right a pithy meme to beat up on the Democratic Party as a whole.

The Right Wing has long had greater discipline than the Democrats at adoption and repetition of potent memes.

"RINO" is another example of newspeak that effectively crowds out nuanced thought.

That Party seems to have better means to enforce their well-crafted slogans with their unforgiving primary system.

Repetition is Reality (tm).

Since Edward Bernays pioneered public relations, influenced by the insight of his uncle Sigmund Freud, persuasion engineers in commercial and political marketing organizations have aggressively exploited this feature of human cognition.

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JF's avatar

Yes, that’s retrieving a memory about Minneapolis; shortly after George Floyd’s murder. It’s very frustrating when pithy phrases seem to work for the GOP but not Dems. I thought “Build Back Better” was a good phrase, but it was relentlessly attacked by both sides! Which correlates with your observation that GOP has better discipline over their members. I think that’s because the GOP is culturally relatively monolithic, compared to the fractious “big tent” of the Dems. In an ideal world, a big tent would be a desirable scenario, but it is kind of like herding cats.

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Youngy's avatar

Mind you Pelosi herded her cats extremely well whereas McCarthy is hopelessly trying to herd his face eating leopards 🐆

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JF's avatar

Excellent point. No argument there. I suppose I was thinking more about Democratic voters being a more varied and boisterous group, each with a subset of interests.

When it comes to legislators, I’d bet my retirement account that the difference in IQ between GOP and Dems is vast. Pelosi was/is an incredible leader, but she also had better material to work with than My Kevin, insofar as getting them to understand the stakes and importance of unity and seriousness. On Newshour last night (Tuesday) Amna Nawaz interviewed a GOP congressman I had never heard of, from one of the southern states, who was a perfect Exhibit A in that hypothesis.

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Substacker's avatar

"Build!" would have been better. And, of course, dividing the legislation proposed more strategically -- with each component named carefully with its own instantly understandable label.

"Inflation Reduction Act" is an example of a good one (although it was largely a wrapper around policies intended to address climate issues).

Here's one that's too edgy: Exclusively refer to Trump as "

The Joker" to sum up his sociopathy, love of chaos, and criminality with an image that's been drilled into the public mind for 70 years. It has the virtue of also being accurate.

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knowltok's avatar

"It has the virtue of also being accurate."

Uh, no...they wear different colored makeup. Duh.

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Substacker's avatar

Excellent point! :)

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Sep 19, 2023Edited
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JF's avatar

I could easily name ten regular commenters on this forum who would be much better political analysts than many who make their living that way.

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