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Greg Greene Profile picture
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9 Nov, 4 tweets, 2 min read
The Jacobin survey making the rounds never offers a precise definition of “woke” as a political characteristic — but proceeds as if that term draws a sharp distinction between AOC and Bernie Sanders. Quite a choice, that.
What words or terms best describe the characteristics that set Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, AOC and Ayanna Pressley apart from Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden: “woke,” or race and gender?

Asking because it’d be helpful to clear up what we’re driving at.
(This also seems like the latest in what has become a series of clumsy attempts to characterize the race-class narrative — see, e.g., this thread contending with a study from earlier this year:)
To be straightforward, I don’t see the survey as jerry-rigged. I just find its use of a major load-bearing term more than a little imprecise.

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Greg Greene Profile picture
9 Nov
This might not have been fully foreseeable before the Delta wave it the U.S. — bit in hindsight, the failure by the Biden administrtation to prioritize approval and distribution of rapid tests in its very first days was a mistake. propublica.org/article/heres-…
One effective way to hold viral transmission down & get schools feeling more ‘normal’ would have been ubiquitous testing, in order to allow students and their families to know their standards — and to isolate, if that were necessary, for briefer periods. nytimes.com/2021/11/08/opi…
The monumental effectiveness of the vaccines might have influenced the choice to focus on vaccinating the country back to normal. For a fortnight in early summer, it looked all set to work.

But then, it didn’t. Sigh. nytimes.com/2021/11/05/us/…
Read 6 tweets
Greg Greene Profile picture
7 Nov
There was a term in usage in my home state, Alabama, before my time — a term for people seen as too concerned with the rights of people on society’s margins.

That term was “n––er lover,” if you wonder.

Anyhow: that’s what comes to mind when I hear “are Democrats too woke?”
Am I saying anyone using “woke” as a pejorative might as well be using the N-word? No.

What I _am_ saying is that this article on America’s penchant for reactionary backlash is spot on — and with the words “too woke,” one identifies oneself with the latest backlash.
But don’t just take my word about this.
Read 6 tweets
Greg Greene Profile picture
5 Nov
This thing that right-wing opinion leaders and media outlets have aggressively mischaracterized and mislabeled for nearly a year must be real, because people nowadays keep talking about it! Image
“We didn’t start the fire,” he said, holding a jerry can and a match.
Imagine someone applying the same logic to Havana syndrome, or the lab-leak theory: “people talk about it now, so it must be real.”

People would look at someone who made such arguments with a straight face as if they were mad. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
Read 4 tweets
Greg Greene Profile picture
3 Nov
“We were so willing to take seriously a global pandemic, but we’re not willing to say, ‘Yeah, inflation is a problem, and supply chain is a problem, and we don’t have enough workers in our work force.’”

Okay, Rep. Spanberger: let me name a concern or two. nytimes.com/2021/11/03/us/…
Thing #1: Can we name what Dems in the WH and Congress should have done to immediately solve the chip shortage?

Hell: part of the shortage results from the failure of Texas to keep the lights on last winter, ruining countless chips in mid-production. Biden’s fault? How?
Thing #2: A huge purpose of the Build Back Better agenda is to help people get back into the work force by providing crucial supports: child care, home care, and so on.

Maybe it’s a better use of a Dem representative’s time to lay into the Dems on the Hill blocking that?
Read 6 tweets
Greg Greene Profile picture
3 Nov
I hate that it may have taken a shocking election night to make this happen—but better now than never.
To give myself as much grief as I dole out: I should have taken more seriously the point I made, late last year, about the need for people to see amends made after a hellish 2020.

BBB is not some giveaway. It’s an apology for the failure to provide a functioning nation-state.
That’s how it needs to be designed, at least.

@zachdcarter nails this in a piece he’s adapted for the Atlantic. Public-health arguments for keeping schools closed for much of 2020 were sound — but the results were punishing & traumatic. theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/…
Read 8 tweets
Greg Greene Profile picture
3 Nov
It seems seems strange, TBH, to expect voters to make the GOP pay a price for Trump or Jan. 6 when Democrats in government seem sluggish — if not outright diffident and unenthused — about extracting one. How many months did the party blow seeking a bipartisan 1/6 panel, again?
How many months did Dems in Congress fritter away seeking Republican stewardship of an investigation into their own party, which precipated 1/6? How many leading Dems have offered — still offer — paeans to bipartisan cooperation with the GOP, the party of Trump and 1/6?
How many times have leading Democratic figures openly asked for a “strong Republican Party”?

Why should voters see the need to hold the GOP accountable, if Dems stress the need to work with them?
Read 4 tweets

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