Thanks for the guidance from Len Lubinsky. I will add it to my work list. Last night we were talking about how we must neutralize Manchin the Blackmailer. 54 seats in the Senate is a great goal.
As to the expectations gap, I find that a "popularity contest" is a meaningless mixed bag. What if there was a poll that asked how Biden was doing compared to the former guy? Biden has already accomplished more than most presidents have in their first year. What are people thinking? Did they expect Joe to be a wizard who could wave a wand and get a Congress that is filled with political puppets to act like reasonable people?
Reminder: The Senate and the House of Representatives make laws.The President can only introduce legislative ideas and then try to shepherd them. Almost all of our disappointment should be directed at a dysfunctional Congress. Until corporate and other dark money is removed from our elections, that's what we will have. A corrupt Congress. That's not any president's fault. Of course, part of the blame lies with the Supreme Court - speaking of political puppets.
There are great talking points in this newsletter. We can only hope that Democrats can figure out how to message to the public as clearly as the GQP does. But here is what makes it so baffling that we can't get our messaging better: all we have to do is tell the truth! Why is that so hard?
Thanks Robert as always and for the addition of Senate recommendations. As a psychoanalyst and a very politically engaged person, my first campaign was dragging my 16 y.o. self around Brooklyn canvassing for George McGovern, I have seen Democrats make the same errors time and time again. We can walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time. We need to be less wonky and simultaneously give out information. I find that many of my highly educated colleagues have limited knowledge of the way our government works. We all learned about the 3 branches of government, but do we really know that without a Democratic House and Congress we can't pass laws. Far too many people do not factor this in when they evaluate Biden's performance, or that of any President, and we can, succinctly and not wonkily (is that even a word?) spread that message. We need to lean into partisanship, not try to talk bipartisanship. It may have existed in the past, and we can talk about hoping it comes back, but it is really not a thing now. Maybe a bit in the House, but not in a McConnell Senate. I also hear Dems and the press talking about how we can't attract white non college educated voters, and it will be a very long time, if ever, that we can capture a majority of these voters, but we can make inroads. How? We need to stop assuming that because we want to "help" poor people by improving the material aspects of their lives, they will vote for our candidates. There is something unintentionally condescending in our messaging around this issue. We need to talk more to people's souls and hearts, and recognize that we are all more essentially human than otherwise. Obama won on "hope and change". Build back better is not nearly as inspiring a message. That doesn't mean we don't talk about material things, we spent too much time defending how we would pay for the current bills, and not enough on what they do. When are we going to understand that the best defense is a good offense. Psychoanalysis is about helping people act rather than react. I've been waiting over 50 years for Democrats to get there.
As a reader for several weeks and a new subscriber as of today, I have several questions, Robert. 1. You mention that people have emailed you questions. How do people send you emails? Since I don’t know, I’m putting my questions here today. 2. To update your Guardian quotation (thank you for that!), I’m pretty sure you saw this Guardian article which
Do you disagree with it? 3.Mr Lubinsky: He left off a choice for Democratic candidate for for RIchard Burr’s NC Senate seat. That’s a big deal here. Does he think that’s just plain unwinnable by either primary candidate? 4. Postcards. They seemed to elude me here in NC. How to take part in postcard writing? I tried for 2 years for the 2020 elections. My friend in VA went to a weekly postcard writing group there through Indivisible that seems to have little to no presence here in NC. I tried to write post cards for GA and VA races and NC to no avail. I ended up writing some once to a GA organization contacting teenagers who would be 18 by voting day. And I was on some card supplier list that sent cards, but the affiliated names list never showed up. Then I had a list for PA and they kept changing the date our postcards should be mailed, then it was too late. I had 200 postcards written that were then put in my recycling. It was very discouraging. Any advice for how to do this right would help more than just me. Thank you for your excellent work here, Robert.
I think the Press is partly to blame. For several months, I have been noticing the tenor of the headlines related to Dems and Biden, especially in the NYT, WaPo, and The Guardian that I scan daily. Those headlines don’t give anyone a pass, and Biden least of all. I am well aware of the effects of daily messaging on morale (former Facebook fan and library science professor), and understand the importance of a “free” press,” however one defines that, to the functioning of democracy, but the “attention economy” has changed the ground rules. Meanwhile, I think the public is exhausted from mentally micro-managing the world through the media. Your advice to periodically take a break is not only sound, it is vital in the current political climate.
I continue to believe that one of the reasons for Biden's poor numbers and for Democratic Party struggles overall is the relentless attacks on conservative talk radio. If you listen to it, it is vile, it is filled with lies, and it is designed to prey on fear and provoke anger. It is powerful propaganda, and it is in the ears of listeners wherever they go. The Democrats have no answer for it, and if we don't figure one out, it will continue to cause a lot of pain.
Good Senate list. Thanks. For VA down-ballot candidates for the VA State House: our team's losses were usually at small, even tiny, margins. The rural turnout was larger than usual. We were closer than it feels in the State House Delegate races. We can do this better and better next time. Register more folks and GOTV. PS Our 800 postcards for Wendy Gooditis in VA State Delegate race (Loudon County) may have helped in her 256 vote margin to win. Whew.
Instant gratification is an American ailment - and the media absolutely feeds it - thanks, Robert, for your continuing encouragement to hang in, and your specific recommendations -e eg Marg Bergman and Len Lubinsky, as well as POSTCARD WRITING!!!!
A few thoughts. First Democrats need to shut up. A great part of the Democrats in Disarray meme comes from members of the party always looking to tell tales out of school. One of Nancy Pelosi’s few failings has been her inability to instill more discipline, particularly around loose talk.
Second, we can take heart and inspiration from FDR. This is the time to declare once more that, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And to remind the voters that fear is all that the Republicans have to run on.
I didn’t have many friends as a kid, so sometimes I would pull out a volume of my World Book encyclopedia and leaf through it. Under a photograph of Adolph Hitler the caption was something like, “His slogan was ‘Divide and conquer.’ He was defeated by nations that learned to unite and conquer.” Without likening the other party to Nazis, those words fit our time.
My sister sent this to me over the weekend. I thought it made some interesting points from another perspective:
Bulwark letter:
We Get Mail
As usual, we got a ton of correspondence this week, mostly about the Virginia/NJ elections. Please keep your darts, laurels, rants, and raves coming to cjaysykes@gmail.com.
Here’s a sample from this week’s mail bag:
**
Charles,
I spent most of my life as a Republican. I was a member of the College Republicans and the Federalist Society. I switched before Trump emerged because I was not comfortable with the way Republicans started foreign wars they could not win and because they treated gay people with disrespect.
Being a Democrat is tough because they make stupid mistakes. Deep down inside Democrats think that everyone will be rational and make decisions that are in their own self-interest. They really don’t get it that the other side has a different perspective. They really are out of touch.
First, even though critical race theory isn’t taught in school, the kids are taught about white privilege. The kids are taught that because they are white they have an advantage. There is an endless drumbeat of people getting cancelled or fired for innocuous mistakes. Lots of white people feel threatened by this. They feel vulnerable. Conservative media feeds off this stuff. It leads to distrust of academic institutions. I don’t hear Democrats say - “America is the land of opportunity where you will rise or fall based on your intelligence, character and diligence.”
Along this line, there is a story you may have missed. The Art Institute of Chicago fired all of its docents because they are white and middle class women. The Art Institute Board, which is filled with rich white people, just ruined 100 people’s lives all to appear politically correct. The Art Institute’s management is almost entirely white upper class liberals. This type of crass and cruel behavior tells people who are white that they are not welcome in America anymore. This may not be a rational fear, but it is real. No wonder the blue collar workers are leaving the Democratic Party.
Second, the Democrats are trying to push Hispanics out of the party by treating them as a monolithic group. Telling Hispanics that they have suffered systemic racism isn’t a good message. They didn’t own slaves or discriminate. That message does not work at all.
Third, there is more crime in the big cities and it scares the hell out of people. I have lived in Chicago for almost all of my 54 years and I’m starting to worry about my safety. The prosecutor releases everyone on their own recognizance and, duh, crime is way up. The feds now prosecute car jacking because The States Attorney won’t. Portland and Seattle appear to be lawless Hobbesian places run by liberals. Nobody is going to vote for that. The riots and looting last summer scared my rich friends who live in the City. They felt unsafe. The police feel the Mayor doesn’t have their back.
Fourth, parents of college kids believe that their kids are denied admission to make room for minorities. They may well be wrong but they believe it. Again, they feel that America is treating them unfairly because they are white. (It can’t be true because everyone tells me their kid got a 35 on the ACT.)
So there is white fear of the Democratic Party. Middle class people don’t identify with the Democratic Party.
Fifth, the Democrats lost their message that the Republicans only care about the rich. That was a good slogan and, for the most part, it was true. My grandmother used to say that all the time. It was a simple and effective slogan. It meant that the Democrats were fighting for the working man against the fat cats. People could identify with that. Listen to Roosevelt or Truman. Their message was clear. Who are Democrats fighting for? Who are they fighting against? They don’t know.
Without a message of their own, the Democrats are going to get killed off by a party that capitalizes on white grievance.
I look forward to Leonard Lubinsky's insight into the contributions puzzle. I have to object to the characterization of the withdrawal from Afganistan as "chaotic." Compared to what? Our entrance? Our stay there? Any transitional (or non-transitional) war scene? I saw film clips of Afghan civilians running around cargo planes on the air strips. It's a credit to the forces managing the withdrawal that far more didn't die.
The VA election is already old news but somehow this Edition got pushed down in my inbox so I am just now discovering it and thus will belatedly comment here on that. I am in VA and I am curious what the conclusion "Top issues – economy and jobs; eclipsed education" was drawn from. There is no indication. If from exit polls, then I submit that exit polls reflect what voters are willing to tell strangers about what influences and motivates them and many would be hesitant to reveal their less savory, less intellectual and more emotional but motivating reasons. We were bombarded by phone messages and almost all of them were very worried sounding female voices expressing concern about parents being deprived of the right to have any say in what our children are taught by the government, or about abortion being "made available on an unlimited basis" or, my personal favorite "all the way up through birth and after". I so wish I had saved that one! We got almost no messages about the economy. It seems the Rs believed the issues that would move their voters to the polls were "education" and abortion (which I hear nothing about in analyses of the VA outcome).
I sincerely wish Ds would stop defending themselves by repeating the simple truth that CRT is not taught below the college level. R voters know that. They also know that they don't mean actual CRT when they say that so the defense is irrelevant. They mean any history or analysis of history that makes them feel bad about certain of their white ancestors. They are feeling defensive about x and calling it y as a smoke screen and the Ds keep saying "there is no y here". It doesn't meet the need in any way, and it's naive.
Thanks for the guidance from Len Lubinsky. I will add it to my work list. Last night we were talking about how we must neutralize Manchin the Blackmailer. 54 seats in the Senate is a great goal.
As to the expectations gap, I find that a "popularity contest" is a meaningless mixed bag. What if there was a poll that asked how Biden was doing compared to the former guy? Biden has already accomplished more than most presidents have in their first year. What are people thinking? Did they expect Joe to be a wizard who could wave a wand and get a Congress that is filled with political puppets to act like reasonable people?
Reminder: The Senate and the House of Representatives make laws.The President can only introduce legislative ideas and then try to shepherd them. Almost all of our disappointment should be directed at a dysfunctional Congress. Until corporate and other dark money is removed from our elections, that's what we will have. A corrupt Congress. That's not any president's fault. Of course, part of the blame lies with the Supreme Court - speaking of political puppets.
There are great talking points in this newsletter. We can only hope that Democrats can figure out how to message to the public as clearly as the GQP does. But here is what makes it so baffling that we can't get our messaging better: all we have to do is tell the truth! Why is that so hard?
Thanks Robert as always and for the addition of Senate recommendations. As a psychoanalyst and a very politically engaged person, my first campaign was dragging my 16 y.o. self around Brooklyn canvassing for George McGovern, I have seen Democrats make the same errors time and time again. We can walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time. We need to be less wonky and simultaneously give out information. I find that many of my highly educated colleagues have limited knowledge of the way our government works. We all learned about the 3 branches of government, but do we really know that without a Democratic House and Congress we can't pass laws. Far too many people do not factor this in when they evaluate Biden's performance, or that of any President, and we can, succinctly and not wonkily (is that even a word?) spread that message. We need to lean into partisanship, not try to talk bipartisanship. It may have existed in the past, and we can talk about hoping it comes back, but it is really not a thing now. Maybe a bit in the House, but not in a McConnell Senate. I also hear Dems and the press talking about how we can't attract white non college educated voters, and it will be a very long time, if ever, that we can capture a majority of these voters, but we can make inroads. How? We need to stop assuming that because we want to "help" poor people by improving the material aspects of their lives, they will vote for our candidates. There is something unintentionally condescending in our messaging around this issue. We need to talk more to people's souls and hearts, and recognize that we are all more essentially human than otherwise. Obama won on "hope and change". Build back better is not nearly as inspiring a message. That doesn't mean we don't talk about material things, we spent too much time defending how we would pay for the current bills, and not enough on what they do. When are we going to understand that the best defense is a good offense. Psychoanalysis is about helping people act rather than react. I've been waiting over 50 years for Democrats to get there.
- Helpful candidate list!
- Try indivisible.org in DC for NC contacts.
- Just learning of Indivisible’s new initiative, Give No Ground, with a goal of holding onto the house and senate.
- My diversion Today from politics: Helping with our public library book sale.
Robert, Thanks for continued reminders about balance and perspective.
As a reader for several weeks and a new subscriber as of today, I have several questions, Robert. 1. You mention that people have emailed you questions. How do people send you emails? Since I don’t know, I’m putting my questions here today. 2. To update your Guardian quotation (thank you for that!), I’m pretty sure you saw this Guardian article which
articulated for me what I’ve noticed since shortly after Joe Biden’s inauguration (sorry, but it IS the media): https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/06/democrats-election-victory-loss-media-republicans?
Do you disagree with it? 3.Mr Lubinsky: He left off a choice for Democratic candidate for for RIchard Burr’s NC Senate seat. That’s a big deal here. Does he think that’s just plain unwinnable by either primary candidate? 4. Postcards. They seemed to elude me here in NC. How to take part in postcard writing? I tried for 2 years for the 2020 elections. My friend in VA went to a weekly postcard writing group there through Indivisible that seems to have little to no presence here in NC. I tried to write post cards for GA and VA races and NC to no avail. I ended up writing some once to a GA organization contacting teenagers who would be 18 by voting day. And I was on some card supplier list that sent cards, but the affiliated names list never showed up. Then I had a list for PA and they kept changing the date our postcards should be mailed, then it was too late. I had 200 postcards written that were then put in my recycling. It was very discouraging. Any advice for how to do this right would help more than just me. Thank you for your excellent work here, Robert.
I think the Press is partly to blame. For several months, I have been noticing the tenor of the headlines related to Dems and Biden, especially in the NYT, WaPo, and The Guardian that I scan daily. Those headlines don’t give anyone a pass, and Biden least of all. I am well aware of the effects of daily messaging on morale (former Facebook fan and library science professor), and understand the importance of a “free” press,” however one defines that, to the functioning of democracy, but the “attention economy” has changed the ground rules. Meanwhile, I think the public is exhausted from mentally micro-managing the world through the media. Your advice to periodically take a break is not only sound, it is vital in the current political climate.
I continue to believe that one of the reasons for Biden's poor numbers and for Democratic Party struggles overall is the relentless attacks on conservative talk radio. If you listen to it, it is vile, it is filled with lies, and it is designed to prey on fear and provoke anger. It is powerful propaganda, and it is in the ears of listeners wherever they go. The Democrats have no answer for it, and if we don't figure one out, it will continue to cause a lot of pain.
Good Senate list. Thanks. For VA down-ballot candidates for the VA State House: our team's losses were usually at small, even tiny, margins. The rural turnout was larger than usual. We were closer than it feels in the State House Delegate races. We can do this better and better next time. Register more folks and GOTV. PS Our 800 postcards for Wendy Gooditis in VA State Delegate race (Loudon County) may have helped in her 256 vote margin to win. Whew.
Instant gratification is an American ailment - and the media absolutely feeds it - thanks, Robert, for your continuing encouragement to hang in, and your specific recommendations -e eg Marg Bergman and Len Lubinsky, as well as POSTCARD WRITING!!!!
A few thoughts. First Democrats need to shut up. A great part of the Democrats in Disarray meme comes from members of the party always looking to tell tales out of school. One of Nancy Pelosi’s few failings has been her inability to instill more discipline, particularly around loose talk.
Second, we can take heart and inspiration from FDR. This is the time to declare once more that, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” And to remind the voters that fear is all that the Republicans have to run on.
I didn’t have many friends as a kid, so sometimes I would pull out a volume of my World Book encyclopedia and leaf through it. Under a photograph of Adolph Hitler the caption was something like, “His slogan was ‘Divide and conquer.’ He was defeated by nations that learned to unite and conquer.” Without likening the other party to Nazis, those words fit our time.
My sister sent this to me over the weekend. I thought it made some interesting points from another perspective:
Bulwark letter:
We Get Mail
As usual, we got a ton of correspondence this week, mostly about the Virginia/NJ elections. Please keep your darts, laurels, rants, and raves coming to cjaysykes@gmail.com.
Here’s a sample from this week’s mail bag:
**
Charles,
I spent most of my life as a Republican. I was a member of the College Republicans and the Federalist Society. I switched before Trump emerged because I was not comfortable with the way Republicans started foreign wars they could not win and because they treated gay people with disrespect.
Being a Democrat is tough because they make stupid mistakes. Deep down inside Democrats think that everyone will be rational and make decisions that are in their own self-interest. They really don’t get it that the other side has a different perspective. They really are out of touch.
First, even though critical race theory isn’t taught in school, the kids are taught about white privilege. The kids are taught that because they are white they have an advantage. There is an endless drumbeat of people getting cancelled or fired for innocuous mistakes. Lots of white people feel threatened by this. They feel vulnerable. Conservative media feeds off this stuff. It leads to distrust of academic institutions. I don’t hear Democrats say - “America is the land of opportunity where you will rise or fall based on your intelligence, character and diligence.”
Along this line, there is a story you may have missed. The Art Institute of Chicago fired all of its docents because they are white and middle class women. The Art Institute Board, which is filled with rich white people, just ruined 100 people’s lives all to appear politically correct. The Art Institute’s management is almost entirely white upper class liberals. This type of crass and cruel behavior tells people who are white that they are not welcome in America anymore. This may not be a rational fear, but it is real. No wonder the blue collar workers are leaving the Democratic Party.
Second, the Democrats are trying to push Hispanics out of the party by treating them as a monolithic group. Telling Hispanics that they have suffered systemic racism isn’t a good message. They didn’t own slaves or discriminate. That message does not work at all.
Third, there is more crime in the big cities and it scares the hell out of people. I have lived in Chicago for almost all of my 54 years and I’m starting to worry about my safety. The prosecutor releases everyone on their own recognizance and, duh, crime is way up. The feds now prosecute car jacking because The States Attorney won’t. Portland and Seattle appear to be lawless Hobbesian places run by liberals. Nobody is going to vote for that. The riots and looting last summer scared my rich friends who live in the City. They felt unsafe. The police feel the Mayor doesn’t have their back.
Fourth, parents of college kids believe that their kids are denied admission to make room for minorities. They may well be wrong but they believe it. Again, they feel that America is treating them unfairly because they are white. (It can’t be true because everyone tells me their kid got a 35 on the ACT.)
So there is white fear of the Democratic Party. Middle class people don’t identify with the Democratic Party.
Fifth, the Democrats lost their message that the Republicans only care about the rich. That was a good slogan and, for the most part, it was true. My grandmother used to say that all the time. It was a simple and effective slogan. It meant that the Democrats were fighting for the working man against the fat cats. People could identify with that. Listen to Roosevelt or Truman. Their message was clear. Who are Democrats fighting for? Who are they fighting against? They don’t know.
Without a message of their own, the Democrats are going to get killed off by a party that capitalizes on white grievance.
Keep up the fight. Your work is valuable.
All the best,
Edward X. Clinton, Jr.
I look forward to Leonard Lubinsky's insight into the contributions puzzle. I have to object to the characterization of the withdrawal from Afganistan as "chaotic." Compared to what? Our entrance? Our stay there? Any transitional (or non-transitional) war scene? I saw film clips of Afghan civilians running around cargo planes on the air strips. It's a credit to the forces managing the withdrawal that far more didn't die.
The VA election is already old news but somehow this Edition got pushed down in my inbox so I am just now discovering it and thus will belatedly comment here on that. I am in VA and I am curious what the conclusion "Top issues – economy and jobs; eclipsed education" was drawn from. There is no indication. If from exit polls, then I submit that exit polls reflect what voters are willing to tell strangers about what influences and motivates them and many would be hesitant to reveal their less savory, less intellectual and more emotional but motivating reasons. We were bombarded by phone messages and almost all of them were very worried sounding female voices expressing concern about parents being deprived of the right to have any say in what our children are taught by the government, or about abortion being "made available on an unlimited basis" or, my personal favorite "all the way up through birth and after". I so wish I had saved that one! We got almost no messages about the economy. It seems the Rs believed the issues that would move their voters to the polls were "education" and abortion (which I hear nothing about in analyses of the VA outcome).
I sincerely wish Ds would stop defending themselves by repeating the simple truth that CRT is not taught below the college level. R voters know that. They also know that they don't mean actual CRT when they say that so the defense is irrelevant. They mean any history or analysis of history that makes them feel bad about certain of their white ancestors. They are feeling defensive about x and calling it y as a smoke screen and the Ds keep saying "there is no y here". It doesn't meet the need in any way, and it's naive.