“our cities are concrete hellscapes but at least i always have a place to park!”
even in a place like charlottesville, it is an uphill battle to convince decision makers that actually, yes, you can have a vibrant downtown without building hundreds of additional structured parking spaces
it’s like no one can imagine even a slightly different world than the one we live in
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malapportionment of the Senate would not be as a big of an issue if the Senate did not have a de facto supermajority requirement for legislation & if it wasn’t governed by party cartel. with both of those in place, however the Senate just acts as an intractable veto point.
not hard to imagine a Senate where weak party leadership meant all kinds of legislation got to the floor to be deliberated on and voted on with passage guaranteed by simple majority
if the senate is just going to be a veto point, rather than a governing partner, the best solution is to change the nature of the veto, such that one needs a supermajority to reject legislation from the House, rather than a supermajority to approve it.
“i disapprove of the virus’ killing spree but it supports pro-life judges and that’s enough for me”
“you know, i am uncomfortable with how the virus wants to infect my respiratory system and use me as a vehicle for its own propagation, but its tax plan would really help the economy”
the congressional leadership strategy of running on health care did not work, AOC gave a constructive interview noting the ways in which moderate Democrats did not maximize their own advantages to their own detriment, and the response is to, i guess, double down on failure.
One helpful thing here would be if people got out of their feelings and actually read what Ocasio-Cortez said, which wasn’t “adopt my views” but “build campaigns that can actually reach voters where they are, especially digitally.”
As I understand it, AOC’s message is this: There’s nothing stopping moderate Democrats from building institutional capacity, adopting cutting-edge techniques, and modernizing their campaign infrastructure, and progressives are willing to help if they want it.
I've said this a few times before but I am not so certain there is anyone who can replicate Trumpism and get the same political results except for Trump. Somehow, we still greatly underrate the extent to which Trump's sui generis celebrity is his special sauce.
Yep, tens of millions of people over the course of a decade watched a "reality" television show that relentlessly pushed the idea that Trump was among America's greatest businessmen. Who else has that kind of juice?
Some future Republican may be able to assemble a winning coalition for a similar politics, but I don't think we can just assume it will be Trump + competence, since I don't think Trump's appeal to marginal voters happens on the level of "normal" politics.