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Badsmerf

By Badsmerf
in The Sports Bar

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Brock Beauchamp GOAT

Brock Beauchamp

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Your reading seems awfully strained to me.  (That the Democrats are "smart" is not mutually exclusive to Republicans being smart too).

 

It is a burden if you can't bring to bear your education and intellectual accomplishments for fear of being framed as speaking down to people.  Anti-intellectualism is abhorrent.  Yes, humility is important, but it's also a great thing to have really smart and educated people running things as important as our government (case and point POTUS).

 

Somehow, conservatives evade criticism of elitism when bragging about their business and wealth accomplishments, and literally speak down to everyone. (Trump isn't the only example of this, simply the most salient; the talking-down-rhetoric is what Rush Limbaugh has been doing for a generation).  There's something more going on here than a lack of humility that the conservative base decries intellect so consistently.   I mean how did Ben Sasse ever get elected to the Senate, with gasp, a PhD from Yale (conservatives are fine with their own elites, it's just the other tribe's elites they have a problem with).  

This is absolutely true. I spend far more time than I should perusing conservative chat areas (social media, websites, forums) and the blatant - and I mean BLATANT - elitism is breath-taking, at least in the online arena. I mean, we're talking about dozens of posts about how "it requires true intellect to be right wing" and "you literally have to be a moron to be a liberal" types of posts aren't only prevalent, they're a staple of these communities. And they're not the mouth-breathing misspelled nonsense we see in most places where we can laugh it off; these are fully functioning, (at least moderately) intelligent people espousing these views.

 

Yet these same (self-proclaimed intelligent and quite articulate) people will latch onto something Trump (or Cruz, or whatever) will say that is FACTUALLY WRONG and run with it. I mean, it's not that we're dealing with stupid people here.... well, not all of them. There are intelligent people who have bought into an alternate reality that simply doesn't exist. I haven't the slightest idea how to repair that situation.

 

A great example, and one I'm particularly tuned into, is net neutrality. We're simply dealing with two "realities", but only one of them is actually real.

 

And normally, when I run into that situation, I do a **** ton of self-checking to make sure I'm not the lunatic in the situation but in this case, I know so much more than the average person and have spent so much time examining why things work the way they do that I kinda question myself but basically know I'm on the path of right.

 

Thanks, Dunning-Kruger!

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PseudoSABR Cedar Rapids Kernels

PseudoSABR

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Texas judge rules ACA unconstitutional, putting the health care of millions of Americans in jeopardy. President is happily tweeting about it.

I haven't looked at the ruling, but my guess it's a crock of pppp.  It's fair to be worried, but I think an unfavorable outcome is unlikely.

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ashbury Cooperstown

ashbury

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"We Democrats know so much [that is true!], that we have to kind of tell everyone how smart we are..."

 

 

 

My first reaction to your take on Mazie Hirono's gaffe was ' "Spin!?!" How could anyone come up with a way to 'distort' those words to make them any more damaging for Hirono and her party ?'

 

But setting politics aside for just a second... Honestly, have you ever known anyone personally who bragged about how smart they are? If so... were they?  I'd think not, but more to the point... did it make them seem smart ?

 

Or did it just make them seem like a complete and utter j****$$ ?

 

Yes, Hirono started out trying to make a point about head vs. heart, and that's completely fine. But not only did she not stop there, she blew right past her tone-deaf celebration of Democrats' superior intellect and went on to frame it as a burden when they're forced to attempt to enlighten Repubs and independents.

 

Elitism? I think that if you're a Democrat strategist looking ahead to 2020, you watch that clip with your palm on your forehead, hoping that people see it as painting your party as just garden-variety elitists, instead of a party filled with insufferable self-proclaimed Brainiacs who've been dying to explain just how much their heads hurt from the strain of talking down to the rest of us.

The senator is telling her fellow party members NOT to be like that.

 

On a non-political level, I saw a local initiative to improve some hiking trails where I used to live go down in flames because the proponents spent so much time at public meetings demonstrating that all the technical aspects of trail-building were being handled professionally, that they forgot to get buy-in from the public. It all came across as railroading something through as though it was already decided. People reacted negatively to that, and they started making up things such as bus-loads of mountain bikers from Sacramento coming up to ruin their quiet neighborhoods (no way were these nice little trails going to be a "destination") or helicopter pads to transport people in (an emergency helipad already exists for fire suppression and people misunderstood).

 

It made an impression on me. Hirono is speaking to that.

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PseudoSABR Cedar Rapids Kernels

PseudoSABR

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Top target in 2020. She isn't a very strong candidate imo. If she doesn't get primaried, democrats have a good shot at her.

Normally, I'd agree.  But I don't have much confidence in the AZ Dems putting forward a strong candidate.  Sinema was something of an anomaly.

 

I also thing McSally will conduct herself as a moderate while in the Senate, which should attract the voters who've been electing McCain and Flake.  But then she does risk getting primaried.

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Badsmerf Cedar Rapids Kernels

Badsmerf

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Normally, I'd agree. But I don't have much confidence in the AZ Dems putting forward a strong candidate. Sinema was something of an anomaly.

 

I also thing McSally will conduct herself as a moderate while in the Senate, which should attract the voters who've been electing McCain and Flake. But then she does risk getting primaried.

She isn't a moderate though... If she rebukes Trump a single time she'll get primaried. Moderates don't win primaries, but they do win general elections. The Flake McCain voters already voted against her. Plus, the demographic changes and presidential election won't help her.

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TheLeviathan All-Star

TheLeviathan

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I think this is the best case scenario for Dems though. She's already shown she can lose a statewide contest.

 

Yeah, but as Pseudo said, she barely lost to a candidate the Dems are almost certaintly not going to find an equal for.  She does have to play a weird dance in terms of how closely she allies with Trump, but Ducey has done a great job of that.  So the blueprint exists.  

 

And as Ducey's limp opponent demonstrated - getting a good moderate in Arizona is really hard.

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Badsmerf Cedar Rapids Kernels

Badsmerf

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Finally, progress that we can all be proud of from Congress. Criminal justice reform was at the top of my list of things that need to be done. Amazing step for our country before Christmas. I'm sure we'll learn more about it in the coming days, but tremendous bipartisan collaboration and many groups like the ACLU and Koch industries helped push it forward.

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PseudoSABR Cedar Rapids Kernels

PseudoSABR

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Finally, progress that we can all be proud of from Congress. Criminal justice reform was at the top of my list of things that need to be done. Amazing step for our country before Christmas. I'm sure we'll learn more about it in the coming days, but tremendous bipartisan collaboration and many groups like the ACLU and Koch industries helped push it forward.

It certainly helped that Kushner's father is currently in prison, and reportedly he led the charge.  

 

This is a great first step, but so much more needs to be done both at the federal and esp. at the state level.  But the Florida felons-can-vote vote shows that the public has an appetite for scaling back the harshness of our current criminal justice practices.

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Musk21 First Round Pick

Musk21

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She has a good resumé and she’ll be Senator McSally when she runs for election. The Democrats must run a good candidate and Trump or the party has to remain radioactive.

 

Word is that Mark Kelly, former astronaut, current gun control advocate, and husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords is going to run against her in 2020. That would certainly be formidable opponent for McSally....Kelly is someone that many people know (very important) and respect.

 

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PseudoSABR Cedar Rapids Kernels

PseudoSABR

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Word is that Mark Kelly, former astronaut, current gun control advocate, and husband of former Rep. Gabby Giffords is going to run against her in 2020. That would certainly be formidable opponent for McSally....Kelly is someone that many people know (very important) and respect.

I've seen this floated on twitter and message board, but I haven't seen it sourced/reported any where.   Kelly would be a heck of a candidate.

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Craig Arko Wichita Wind Surge

Craig Arko

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In case anyone has a strong urge to help fund the border wall...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/816543980/border-wall

Or for those who think the wall is a bad idea there are ladders instead...

 

https://www.gofundme.com/ladders-to-get-over-trump039s-wall

 

 

I am myself holding out for a chance to fund Grond, Hammer of the Underworld, to use as a battering ram.

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D. Hocking GCL Twins

D. Hocking

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"We just had a very long productive meeting with the president. The president informed us that he will not sign the bill that came up from the senate last evening because of his legitimate concerns for border security," Speaker Ryan says

 

 

Profile in courage Paul Ryan must be upset that this possible temper tantrum shut-down is interfering with his stream self-congratulatory exiting his office tweets of what a great job he did with the tax bill.   

 

I am sure Speaker Ryan was forceful and truthful with Trump and did not simply try to appease him and his ego and tell him what he wanted to hear.

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stringer bell MVP

stringer bell

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Ryan had a chance to be more than a party hack. He chose to accommodate his Orangeness and throw red meat to the Freedom Caucus.

 

Living in Minnesota and watching the attack ads his Super-pac paid for told me he was another Republican that only wanted power.

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Squirrel GOAT

Squirrel

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Three MO state legislators switched parties, because they can't stand the GOP anymore......where are the so called moderates in the US Senate?

And a 4th was considering. All women, too. Not sure of the significance of that but found it interesting. But then women and minorities are most affected by this brand of conservatism.

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Brock Beauchamp GOAT

Brock Beauchamp

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And a 4th was considering. All women, too. Not sure of the significance of that but found it interesting. But then women and minorities are most affected by this brand of conservatism.

Frankly, I'm surprised it took so long after the spectacular failure of the scorched-earth brand of libertarianism/conservatism that Kansas implemented.

 

If you need a practical lesson why that kind of policy will fail in the modern day, Kansas is a pretty textbook example of its shortcomings.

 

Shocking how the principles that led to a successful 18th century agrarian society don't really thrive in the 21st century.

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TheLeviathan All-Star

TheLeviathan

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Frankly, I'm surprised it took so long after the spectacular failure of the scorched-earth brand of libertarianism/conservatism that Kansas implemented.

 

If you need a practical lesson why that kind of policy will fail in the modern day, Kansas is a pretty textbook example of its shortcomings.

 

Shocking how the principles that led to a successful 18th century agrarian society don't really thrive in the 21st century.

 

Pretty sure the Liberals are still to blame though.

 

At this point, I don't know how anyone with even the slightest bit of ability to think broadly can call themselves a Republican.  They don't stand for anything anymore.  At least 10-20 years ago they truly did want social and fiscal conservatism.

 

Now?  Hell if I can define that party other than hating immigrants.

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