Dunno who needs to hear this but McAuliffe’s problem wasn’t that Dems didn’t pass Manchin-Sinema’s infrastructure bill. Had that passed, the people who would disproportionately benefit: white guys who work construction & owners of big contract firms, would still vote 65/35 GOP.
It’s the OTHER bill — the one they nuked parental leave, college debt repayment and a major climate provision out of — that actually would help the people who mainly vote for Democrats: minority, young and single women, working class POC, white collegians… you know: their base.
McAulliffe’s problem was that A) the overall mood narrative is bad for Dems & Biden, and B) Youngkin, like the Republican he is, filled the vacuum with inchoate fear of threats to the cherished historical narrative of a glorious history of unbroken white Christian great/goodness.
It’s not like that’s not easy to do in America, where a portion of the population has always prized group dominance over democracy and shared progress. Nixon did it. Reagan did it with “welfare queens.” Atwater preached it. GWB did it with Willie Horton. Trump LUXURIATED in it.
And it almost always works. Recall that the number three man in the House Republican caucus allegedly called HIMSELF “David Duke without the baggage.” Laundering white fear of “replacement” and loss of power is the oldest trick in the book. Dems just don’t know how to answer it.
Why? Because as I said last night, to effectively do so they would have to actively and aggressively defend THEIR base, the way Republicans go to the mat to defend even their most extreme voters. But most Dems can’t or don’t want to. They crave the voters they don’t have.
Progressive Dems are almost alone in vigorously defending the kind of people who would actually be open to voting Dem and would reward them if they delivered. But for doing that, they take a beating from their party and the Beltway press. So here we are.
Obviously meant GHWB not GWB in the earlier post. Don’t have the energy to redo the whole thread.
And last but certainly not least McAuliffe’s other problem is that there was nothing new or particularly interesting about his candidacy. To beat Virginia’s long history of flipping gubernatorial parties to the opposite of the president’s party, maybe run someone novel to voters?

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More from @JoyAnnReid

30 Oct
A thread. The "activist parents" fighting the bogeyman they have named "critical race theory" object to the teaching of history that paints anyone white in a negative light. They demand a version of U.S. history that uplifts white historical figures as both innocent and heroic.
They claim that they must have this because it's the only way to salvage the self-esteem of white children, whose spirits would be utterly broken were they to discover that there were mean white people in America's history. This isn't much of a vote of confidence in their kids...
So how do these supposedly grassroots "activists," allegedly completely unsullied by astroturf political organizations posing as intellectual outfits like the Claremont Institute, propose to teach slavery or the civil war, presuming they want them taught in public schools at all?
Read 24 tweets
29 Oct
.@CoriBush w/ a crucial point tonight: w/o BBB, the infrastructure bill crafted by an all-white group of Republicans & Democrats leaves behind the Black, brown, indigenous and AAPI voters, especially women, who put Biden and that Senate majority in power.
msnbc.com/the-reidout/wa…
It's pretty simple: picture the side of a road where the work crews are, or the big infrastructure jobs in your community. Who gets those huge, lucrative contracts & jobs? Now ask yourself: who largely does elder care, works in daycares and gets hit hardest by the climate crisis?
Here's a hint: the latter are overwhelmingly women... commonwealthfund.org/blog/2020/invi…
Read 4 tweets
23 Oct
Slavery in the Americas was an unmitigated evil. Everyone who indulged in it, ok’d it or went to war to preserve it was a villain. Period. That fact shouldn’t hurt anyone’s feelings. But it should make you feel a certain way about how American institutions evolved because of it.
If you have slavery-based wealth, you have slavery-based wealth. You can’t expect the descendants of those who your people exploited to create that wealth to manage the emotional toll that fact takes on you. They aren’t required to make you feel better about that. Not their job.
And the descendants of the despoiled have no obligation to coddle and cuddle the descendants of the spoilers, or to make excuses for them, or to laud fake “heroes” (who in reality were villains) or preserve their statuary to boost your self-esteem. It’s literally not on them.
Read 5 tweets
21 Oct
To be very clear: the coal industry is dying. Joe Manchin can’t save it any more than Donald Trump could. Worse, West Virginia politicians are propping the rotting husk of that industry up by pushing higher electric bills on widely poor West Virginians. mountainstatespotlight.org/2021/03/11/wes…
And he’s not alone. You know why Manchin thinks “bipartisanship” is real? Because in his state there is a bipartisan determination to artificially prop up coal by any means necessary, even at the expense of capitalism and common sense. Of course socialism for Big Coal is cool 👍🏿
And it’s not like there isn’t another choice. West Virginia could get off the mat by leaning more into the very clean energy alternatives Manchin is demanding be stricken from the Build Back Better bill. West Virginians would benefit, but not coal companies. So…
Read 7 tweets
16 Oct
Hi Senator. Can you comment on whether/how your financial ties to the coal industry, including the $500k in dividends you collect annually from the coal brokerage Enersystems and your relationships w/ the oil lobby impact your stance? We’ve also tried booking you on @thereidout
It also seems, per the available polling, that the people of your state SUPPORT the elements of Biden and the House Democrats’ Build Back Better plan, including the climate crisis provisions. Who are you speaking for in opposing them? filesforprogress.org/memos/build-ba…
More on the proposal which you oppose, and it’s potential impact on your state, which has a very high poverty rate relative to the rest of the country, despite the enormous power you wield in the Senate. wvpolicy.org/the-build-back…
Read 7 tweets
16 Oct
This is such a betrayal of fellow officers, many of whom were injured or pelted with racist vitriol, and some of whom are dead… it’s actually, genuinely shocking.
Was this not a big deal to a fellow officer??
Whewwwww
Read 4 tweets

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