Monday’s Forum

FILED UNDER: Open Forum
Steven L. Taylor
About Steven L. Taylor
Steven L. Taylor is a Professor of Political Science and a College of Arts and Sciences Dean. His main areas of expertise include parties, elections, and the institutional design of democracies. His most recent book is the co-authored A Different Democracy: American Government in a 31-Country Perspective. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Texas and his BA from the University of California, Irvine. He has been blogging since 2003 (originally at the now defunct Poliblog). Follow Steven on Twitter

Comments

  1. EddieInCA says:

    Nothing like coming home from a trip and being greeted by four four legged friends who missed you terribly.

    My wife? She was ambivalent about my return.

    7
  2. Kylopod says:

    I was reading a little about the 1918 Spanish flu, and how there’s nothing new under the sun. There was also a fight over mask mandates back then, and there was a group called the Anti-Mask League. People who refused to wear masks were called “mask slackers.” The following is an actual headline from a San Francisco Chronicle article at the time:

    “Three Shot in Struggle with Mask Slacker”

    Of course, the masks back then were made of gauze, meaning they were of questionable effectiveness. But the mandates still appeared to have an effect in reducing the spread of illness.

    4
  3. Sleeping Dog says:

    The other day, commenting on @James post regarding the likely excision of Roe, the opinion was offered that the loss of a woman’s right to an abortion, wouldn’t result in a ground swell of support for Dems in the upcoming elections. Others feel the same.

    Why the threat to Roe may not save Democrats in 2022
    “I wish we lived in a world where outrage mattered. But I think we live in a post-outrage world,” said one party strategist.

    We’ll see how this plays out.

  4. KM says:

    @Kylopod:
    Even questionable effectiveness is better then zero protection. Only a fool leaves themselves unprotected in a face of a threat when they can have some reprieve; it doesn’t have to be total, just massage the odds to be ever in your favor. As seen in a youtube video when talking about safety:

    Because *this* {image of a feather duster} is better than *THIS* {image of ambulance with lights screaming by}.

    2
  5. CSK says:

    @KM:
    The anti-maskers maintain that the masks do absolutely nothing to protect people, and worse, that they’re an attempt to impose global communism on the populace.

    1
  6. Kylopod says:

    @KM: Yes and no. Going into a crowded indoor area wearing a not-very-effective mask is better than going there with no mask. The danger is if the person gets a false sense of security from the mask, and goes places they have the option of avoiding.

    2
  7. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    Oh, well, that explains all those pictures of Engels, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, etc. wearing masks.

    @Kylopod:

    Even bad masks have a small reverse exponential growth effect. A few less contagions lead to fewer subsequent contagions.

    In an excerpt of Meadows’ book, he remarks he was astonished Benito got infected with the trump virus, because he’s allegedly a germophobe and took all precautions. He lists hand sanitizer and testing. Not masks and quarantine and distancing. So, El Cheeto did not take every precaution, and infection was simply a matter of time.

    BTW, germophobes don’t necessarily practice good hygiene. Phobias are not rational (mine sure aren’t), and what they perceive as dirty and/or dangerous may not be.

    4
  8. @Sleeping Dog: On the topic of how an overturning of Roe might affect the mid-terms: we have to remember that most, if not almost all, of the reasons that the Reps are favored next November have very little, and sometimes nothing, to do with actual policies.

    9
  9. Kylopod says:

    @Kathy:

    In an excerpt of Meadows’ book, he remarks he was astonished Benito got infected with the trump virus, because he’s allegedly a germophobe and took all precautions.

    The book I’m currently reading (which is where I got the anecdote about the 1918 flu from), Nightmare Scenario by two WaPo reporters, says that Trump also hated masks because he thought they looked ridiculous and made him look weak. That apparently took precedence over his alleged germophobia.

    I’m also skeptical that anyone who lives in NYC (where I live) can be a germophobe. If you were one, you’d move out before long or suffer a nervous breakdown.

    4
  10. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Steven L. Taylor:

    True 🙂

    2
  11. CSK says:

    @Kylopod:
    The business about Trump hating to wear masks because he thought they made him look silly has been verified elsewhere. He refused to wear one while touring a plant because he feared he’d be photographed.

    And of course there was the supremely comic moment when, upon returning from Walter Reed, he ascended the stairs of the White House in the full glow of spotlights and dramatically stripped of his mask. I don’t know how the spectators kept from laughing.

    3
  12. Kylopod says:

    @CSK:

    He refused to wear one while touring a plant because he feared he’d be photographed.

    Even when he wasn’t being filmed he refused to wear one, and he ordered other people in the WH to remove them in his presence.

    2
  13. Mu Yixiao says:

    A tale of Saturday woe.

    I have a spare bedroom that I rent out. It’s currently empty, so I thought I’d do a little work on it. My mother is getting a new area rug for her living room, and I took the old one (which is still in great shape).

    So last weekend, I pulled out the old carpet and padding, pulled out the staples, and pulled off the ugly, chalk-white 1×10 planks that were politely referred to as “baseboards”. The underlying floor is southern pine with (so I thought) a wash/stain on them.

    This weekend, I rented a 4-disk floor sander, lugged the 100-lb beast up my narrow stairs (with my bad shoulder) and started sanding. …and nothing happened. Within 5 minutes, I had burned though all 10 of the 36-grit pads and there was not a square inch of wood showing.

    So… drive another 30 miles to get a stack of 50 more pads–at 20-grit.

    After burning through 30 of them–and taking excessive precautions, like taking a single pass, then sweeping everything out of the way before taking a second pass… I’d advanced to “next to nothing.” About 2 square feet of wood showing on the 40 linear feet I’d worked on.

    You see… that “wash” I mentioned above? It was an illusion. It was actually a thick layer of battleship enamel paint with some sort of glue-turn-to-sand on top.

    $100, 120 miles of driving, 5 hours of work for… nada.

    I’ll have to call in some professionals with a planer if I want to get down to bare wood.

    2
  14. Jim Brown 32 says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    The states where people care about this will have services that look like Roe now. States like Mississippi…do they think some hidden horde of Dem voters are going to flip those states over this? Ridiculous.

    These Bible Belt States view abortion through the lens of the Old Testament concept of “community sin” staining their land. Even the people that have no problem being Abortion tourists don’t necessarily want it in THEIR State.

    In a certain vein, I don’t blame the Supreme Court. , Why should they, and the Executive Branch, always play the villain because Congress critters don’t want to do their jobs and pass legislation? Congress can always pass a law on Abortion, Immigration, or Voting rights. But no, they get to perennially fundraise and focus on the next election, while deflecting the hard stuff to the SC and the POTUS. Pretty sweet deal if you’re in Congress. Never having to lead and run with or against other Branches of Govt depending on public sentiment.

    Enough is enough, if a right wing SC forces Democrats to actually do the governance they campaign on…so be it. Strike down Roe & uphold all the State Voter suppression fuckery as well. Then maybe we have a chance at getting John Lewis passed into low and national rights to privacy as it pertains to Roe.

    7
  15. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    The travails of the do-it-yourselfer. When we moved into this house, it had some filthy wall-to-wall industrial carpeting in the kitchen. Figured I tear it up and see what was underneath. 4 layers of flooring later, I found some quarter sawn oak that unfortunately was perforated with nail and screw holes. That would need to come up as well, but before that I demoed the kitchen, which was the eventual plan anyway. Owning a home can s#ck.

    I’m through with ownership after this one, they’ll either take me out of this place feet first or we’ll be renting.

  16. Barry says:

    @Jim Brown 32: SCOTUS likes to play innocent and to ‘hand off’ problems, but this a fraud.

    1
  17. Mu Yixiao says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    My kitchen was ugly gold linoleum. Under that was masonite–with approximate 1 billion staples per sheet. Under that was some sort of construction paper–which was glued down to the birdseye maple (my entire downstairs is maple*). I spent a week pulling that all out, then scraping up the paper with a wide putty knife and a vice-grips to pull out the staples (put in with a nailer, not a hand staple gun, obviously).

    I’ve done a lot of work on my house. She’s a 1920 bungalow that, once I got past the 1970’s “refurb”, is absolutely gorgeous. And… 16 years in, I’m still working on it. 🙂

    Living room
    Dining room

    ======
    * With the exception of 3 or 4 boards in the back room that are oak, birch, and something else. No clue what they’re doing in there.

    3
  18. inhumans99 says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    Nice digs Mu! Your place has a very warm and inviting interior look, very homely. This apartment dweller is impressed.

    4
  19. Mu Yixiao says:

    @inhumans99:

    Thanks.

    You should have seen it when I bought it. Ugh! Fortunately, everything was surface stuff that’s easy to fix.

  20. gVOR08 says:

    @Kathy:

    Oh, well, that explains all those pictures of Engels, Marx, Lenin, Stalin, etc. wearing masks

    It does seem that we Demoncrats are being accused of an Underwear Gnomes plot.
    1. Make everyone wear masks.
    2. ???
    3. Worldwide socialist domination.
    But, to be fair, I have seen pictures of Chicoms wearing masks.

    And none of them ever advance an argument for not wearing masks that isn’t a blatant rationalization. I mentioned a few days ago learning a new word, “schismogenesis”, an anthropological term for the differentiation of one tribe from another. He Who I’m Tired Of didn’t wear a mask so they all refuse to wear masks as a mark of being good, loyal MAGAts.

    Me wearing one has become by default a political statement, although I don’t want it to be. I just don’t want to catch COVID from somebody in PUBLIX. Saw a tee shirt I should have bought, “I’m vaccinated and wearing a mask because I have trust issues, and y’all look nasty”. And I think this ties into your comment about not being rationale about what’s dirty. They think – people like me and my neighbors at the Kroger store aren’t dirty, it’s those *other* people that spread COVID.

    3
  21. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Mu Yixiao:

    Nice! I love residential architecture from the Arts & Craft era. Those houses are warm and homey, you can just imagine sinking into an overstuffed chair with a book and a brandy.

    2
  22. Michael Reynolds says:

    My perfect house would be southwestern adobe, with a pool, on a height affording distant views of the ocean, within walking distance of at least three restaurants, a coffee shop and a pub. The sea’s going to have to rise quite a bit before I get an ocean view from Santa Fe.

    4
  23. Kathy says:

    @gVOR08:

    I keep saying masks aren’t political in many other countries, but people there either don’t wear them or wear them incorrectly anyway.

    There must be something that makes masks intolerable for a lot of people. Partly it must be the discomfort, but there’s more. The other part, I think, it’s the belief they don’t help, or don’t help enough to be worth it.

    And another part is just apathy.

    2
  24. CSK says:

    @EddieInCA:
    Why? Just because she doesn’t wag her tail and lick your face?

    2
  25. CSK says:

    @Kathy:
    From what I’ve read, the anti-maskers have gone from claiming that the masks don’t work to claiming that they cause disease.

    2
  26. Kathy says:

    @CSK:

    Harmless things that are believed to cause disease or death are rampant, and vary by regions. I’ve heard in South Korea there’s a belief that fans “steal” oxygen, or air, and having one on while sleeping can kill you.

    Here in Mexico people tend not to use heaters in heir cars when it’s cold, because there’s the belief upon getting out of the car you will die or develop pneumonia instantly. I also recall a widespread belief that having plants in one’s bedroom was dangerous, because they use up oxygen at night.

    Even if the last were true, how much oxygen can an organism weighing less than a kilogram use up? You may as well not sleep with anyone else, because they do use up oxygen during the night.

    1
  27. inhumans99 says:

    @Kathy:

    Interesting on the not running the car’s heater when cold thing, as I could possibly see how folks might have been told it is easy to get carbon monoxide poisoning if you run the heater in your car, but the idea that after leaving a nice and toasty warm vehicle that you would open the door to instantly developing a pneumonia or drop dead, yikes….the irrational things that people believe are indeed legion.

    Covid has really laid bare how many individuals in this country (liberals/conservatives/wanna-be fascists) believe in irrational ideas.

    1
  28. CSK says:

    @Kathy:
    I’ve been under the lifelong impression that plants convert carbon dioxide to oxygen during photosynthesis. Silly me.

    4
  29. Kathy says:

    @inhumans99:

    I even recall a TV news item about the car heater thing, during a cold snap.

    @CSK:

    There’s no photosynthesis at night.

  30. Mu Yixiao says:

    @CSK:

    I’ve been under the lifelong impression that plants convert carbon dioxide to oxygen during photosynthesis. Silly me.

    That’s during the day. At night, they actually use oxygen (though not very much).

    1
  31. reid says:

    @Michael Reynolds: I must be doing something right, because I check most of your boxes. No pool, and I’m not looking forward to a world where I have an ocean view.

    1
  32. gVOR08 says:

    @Jim Brown 32: @Jim Brown 32:

    Why should they (the Court), and the Executive Branch, always play the villain because Congress critters don’t want to do their jobs and pass legislation?

    In the case of abortion congress did not abdicate responsibility to the Court. I’m old enough to remember Roe. There were no massive protests against the decision, and there had been no particular movement to legalize abortion. It wasn’t an issue on Congress’s radar. It came before the Court as a routine legal matter. And the Court made a routine decision, basically extending doctor/patient privilege. That said, yes, Congress should have tried to lock this in with legislation years ago. But I fear there would still be protesters at clinics, Red states would still be passing attempts to weaken the law, and SCOTUS would be hearing appeals to overturn the new law instead of Roe. The issue is just too important to GOPs.

    The Guardian has a good story today on how abortion became a political football.

    By the 1978 midterm congressional elections, Paul Weyrich, one of the architects of modern conservatism, was testing abortion as a campaign issue with evangelical Christians with a small fund from the Republican National Committee. Roman Catholic volunteers distributed hundreds of thousands of leaflets in church parking lots in Iowa, New Hampshire and Minnesota, and their efforts prevailed. Four anti-abortion Republicans ousted Democrats.

    The groundwork laid by Schlafly and Weyrich made “Roe shorthand for a host of worries about sex equality and sexuality”, wrote Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University and author of After Roe: The Lost History of the Abortion Debate.

    “Even as late as August 1980, the Reagan-Bush campaign wasn’t certain abortion would work for them as a political issue,” said Balmer. However, as Reagan sailed to victory, he was carried in part by religious voters hooked on the promise of a constitutional amendment to ban abortion. When a constitutional amendment failed, a new strategy took hold: control the supreme court.

    GOPs have always been the cynical scum they are now, but we’re no longer talking about small funding from the RNC. The RW outrage machine has turned into an industry with more than generous funding from the Koch et al Billionaire Boys Club. Look how quickly they were able to turn CRT, an obscure law school theory, and a few clumsy diversity seminars into a major issue. Should SCOTUS overturn Roe, the holy roller preachers and GOP pols will pause for about five seconds before launching a drive to outlaw abortion nationwide.

    4
  33. CSK says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    I know. But the increase in oxygenthat they produce during daylight appears to more than make up for what they use at night.

    3
  34. gVOR08 says:

    @Kathy: There is a natural aversion to wearing masks, or any other minor nuisance. And people, young people especially, are always going to resent being told what to do, especially not to party. But I think RW leaders, and RW opposition parties, have seen what He-Who-I’m-Tired-Of did with masks, and vaccines, and are eagerly copying him, exploiting whatever molehills of opposition existed in nature. There has to be a seed to work with, but RW pols have given that seed plenty of water and fertilizer (of the traditional sort).

    GOPs will seize on any issue to divide us. Guns, CRT, incandescent light bulbs, Jade Helm, anything*. See me above @gVOR08: on abortion.
    _____
    * It’s occurred to me that GOPs are always lit up about something, much of which fades away. LGBT seems to be fading as we speak. I started a list, but realize I’ve forgotten much of it. I’d appreciate any contributions to my list of forgotten conservative outrage de jour.

    3
  35. Gustopher says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    Why the threat to Roe may not save Democrats in 2022
    “I wish we lived in a world where outrage mattered. But I think we live in a post-outrage world,” said one party strategist.

    If I know my Democrats, they will still get outraged — but it will be at other Democrats. And it will be stupid:

    – so-and-so is a corporate sellout because they are in the pockets of Big Abortion, and don’t have enough reverence for the Mom & Pop Abortion Providers

    – how insensitive of what’s-his-face to not mention that transmen also need to be able to terminate their pregnancies! let’s have a die in at their office, bring lots of coat hangers, guys!

    – This important 90 year old man on a relevant committee from a red state said he wants abortions to be “safe, legal and rare!” We should celebrate our abortions! Let’s primary him! He’s part of the patriarchy we must smash!

    – Terminating unwanted pregnancies is one of the most important things we can do to help reduce the effects of climate change. People who terminate a pregnancy should be able to get a no-child tax credit.

    Ok, it won’t be one of those, but it’s gonna be stupid. (Might be the third one)

    5
  36. gVOR08 says:

    @Kathy:My gawd. The deep state must be hiding huge mass graves of the victims of car heaters and bedroom plants. No doubt because Killary has a monopoly on the African Violet market.

    I wonder if the car heater thing is some distortion of the idea that leaking heaters in air cooled VW Beetles could cause carbon monoxide poisoning. Beetles were, IIRC, widespread in Mexico. I’m not sure poisoning from Beetle heaters was even a real thing, but there were a lot of warnings about the possibility when Beetles were common.

    (Having no cooling water, they drew air past the exhaust pipes to heat it and fed it into the cabin. And damn little of it, which led to aftermarket gas fired heaters. Either, if there were leaks, could feed carbon monoxide into the cabin.)

    1
  37. Mu Yixiao says:

    We’re in the middle of our company-wide, year-end meeting right now (I’m watching online). Nobody turned off the phones, so I’m answering calls. “Hi, can you call back later?”

    {sigh}

    1
  38. just nutha says:

    @gVOR08: There are pictures of South Koreans and Japanese wearing masks, too. What’s your point?

  39. gVOR08 says:

    Fred Hiatt is dead. I agree with Erik Loomis,

    There must be a way his paper can blame this on Democrats.

    One is supposed to be generous at times like this so I’ll recognize Hiatt as one of the giants of bothsides, horse race journalism and one of the elites of our meritocracy that made the political world we find ourselves in now.

    4
  40. just nutha says:

    @Mu Yixiao: ” At night, they actually use oxygen (though not very much).”

    Sure. Easy for YOU to say. How do I know that the little that they use isn’t the difference between waking up tomorrow morning in my bedroom compared to waking up in the afterlife?

    1
  41. Kathy says:

    @gVOR08:

    I wonder if the car heater thing is some distortion of the idea that leaking heaters in air cooled VW Beetles could cause carbon monoxide poisoning.

    I don’t think so. The heater thing deaths happen when it’s cold, not all the time (of course, no one uses the car heater in August). There’s also a separate carbon monoxide myth. This one states the exhaust gasses from the engine are high in CO, which changes to CO2 at the muffler. therefore any leak from the exhaust will kill you.

    Exhaust leaks inside a vehicle are serious and can kill the occupants. The myth is that CO is odorless and colorless, so you’ll never know there’s a leak. the first part is true, but CO is hardly the only gas in the exhaust. You’ll notice a leak.

  42. Kathy says:

    I think Football changed while I wasn’t looking.

    First, in the 4th quarter of the Raves vs Steelers game, each team kind of seemed to want to hand the game to the other team, only to be politely rebuffed. Until the clock ran out and one team was one point ahead of the other.

    Then, the Lions could have been the first team in the merger era, I think, to have two winless seasons, and also to have zero wins and one tie, and the threw that away by beating the Vikings. I just don’t get it.

    Last, on a serious note, just about no one in the sidelines and few in the stands were wearing masks.

  43. Mu Yixiao says:

    @just nutha:

    How do I know that the little that they use isn’t the difference between waking up tomorrow morning in my bedroom compared to waking up in the afterlife?

    You don’t, my friend. You don’t.

    (But I read on Facebook that the pretty ones are the real killers).

  44. Kathy says:

    @Mu Yixiao:
    @CSK:

    It’s simple common sense. If plants used as much oxygen as they produced, there’d be no free oxygen at all. What plants giveth, they’d take away.

    More common sense: if animals used up more than a small portion of the free oxygen, then CO2 levels would be far higher than 0.04% of the atmosphere (and the planet would be a somewhat cooler version of Venus.

    How much oxygen do animals use? No clue. But I recall reading that exhaled human breath is 4% CO2. That’s why mouth-to-mouth resuscitation actually pushes in in oxygen to the recipient. Otherwise you’d be literally suffocating them.

  45. EddieInCA says:

    Today’s episode of “Progressives are cluelss about certain issues’:

    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/12/06/hispanic-voters-latinx-term-523776

    “Why are we using a word that is preferred by only 2 percent, but offends as many as 40 percent of those voters we want to win?” said one pollster.

    https://www.nbcnews.com/news/latino/latinx-can-counterproductive-hispanic-voters-poll-finds-rcna7733

    ‘Latinx’ can be ‘counterproductive’ among Hispanic voters, poll finds
    A poll of Latino registered voters in the U.S. found that “up to 40 percent are saying that this term either bothers or offends them,” Democratic pollster Fernand Amandi said.

    Gee… Not like any, you know, actual Latinos and Latinas, have been saying this from the beginning.

    5
  46. Kathy says:

    Another of Benito’s companies is under investigation.

    Do you suppose the companies not being investigated are jealous?

  47. Sleeping Dog says:

    @EddieInCA:

    It’s a dilemma, whose fee-fees do you injure, the minority group members who may actually be experiencing discrimination or the members of your book club who strive for purity.

    1
  48. Gustopher says:

    @Kathy:

    Last, on a serious note, just about no one in the sidelines and few in the stands were wearing masks.

    On a cold day, I actually find a mask more comfortable — keeps the air going into my lungs nice and warm. Also helps with the humidity if my sinuses are clogged in a way that would otherwise dry out the nose.

    1
  49. Gustopher says:

    @EddieInCA: I think it was Matt Yglesias who said that we will know when Democrats are listening to the LatinX community by when they stop calling it the LatinX community.

    4
  50. dazedandconfused says:

    @Kathy:
    It’s probably from the misconception that sudden temperature changes cause pneumonia.

    However there may be a fear of VWs inadvertently pumping exhaust gases through the heat exchanger into the cabin, which would be an intuitive fear base on the proximity of the exhaust gases to the heater.

    It’s an intelligent deduction, but uninformed. The reasons CO poisoning by Vdub bug engines are that both the exhaust system and the heat exchange manifold would both have to leak, perhaps not an uncommon condition in Mexican Vdubs as a vast amount of them in Mexico are shade tree mechanic-maintained. However it’s a pretty windy place due to the cooling fan constantly blowing a gale of fresh air through the area, so the leaks that happen are unlikely to be concentrated exhaust, even idling stopped in traffic. The smell would get through though. It’s certainly not unheard of for the smell of exhaust to start appearing in the cabin when the heater is turned on, but rare, and I don’t think there is a single case of anyone getting CO poisoning from it when it does.

  51. Kathy says:

    @dazedandconfused:

    It’s totally that misconception.

    Mexico has a more temperate climate than most of Europe and the rest of North America, with few exceptions. It gets cold, but not that cold.

    The CO myth is separate from the heater myth. The advice there is to keep at least one window cracked open even a little bit to provide fresh outside air and circulation. The advice for the heater myth is to never use the heat in the car.

  52. Jax says:

    Devin Nunes is apparently going to resign from Congress for a Trump Media job.

    Now do Sinema and Manchin! 😛

    3
  53. Kathy says:

    @Gustopher:

    I’ve gotten so used to wearing a mask all day, sometimes I kind of forget to take it off when I get home. Ok. Mostly on weekends after a quick trip to the supermarket.

    BTW, I think the coldest climate I’ve ever experienced was early spring (late March or early April) in NYC in 82 or 83. Turns out 2 C in Mexico City feels warmer than 2 C farther north. Probably because, even when cloudy, the temps rise, even if only to 10 C in winter. Whereas in NYC, I think the high was like 7 or 8 C, even when it was sunny.

  54. gVOR08 says:

    @Jax: Good thought, but not workable. Apparently Nunes district is being redistricted out from under him. Can’t work that trick on Senators.

  55. Kathy says:

    @Jax:

    What about his cow?

    1
  56. Mikey says:

    @EddieInCA: AZ Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego tweeted in response to Fernand Amandi’s statement:

    To be clear my office is not allowed to use “Latinx” in official communications.
    When Latino politicos use the term it is largely to appease white rich progressives who think that is the term we use. It is a vicious circle of confirmation bias.

    Look y’all. Hispanic, Latin American are gender neutral. So we have already gender neutral options to describe the Latino community. Adding an x and creating a new word comes off as performative.

    It will not lose you an election but if your staff and consultants use Latinx in your mass communication it likely means they don’t understand the Latino community and is indicative of deeper problems.

    3
  57. OzarkHillbilly says:

    @Gustopher: I think it was Matt Yglesias …

    Taking one’s cues from MY is at best a questionable proposition. Which is not to say that a stopped clock isn’t right twice a day.

    I have no opinion on this matter besides my MY/stopped clock observation.

    @Kathy: Over my decades of working/living in unregulated environments, I have noticed that hanging drywall in 33 degree indoor temps is a hell of a lot colder than siding in 33 degree outdoor temps.

    I know it’s psychological, but it is no less real.

    1
  58. Jen says:

    @Sleeping Dog:

    …or the members of your book club who strive for purity.

    This made me laugh out loud because I was literally scolded by members of the book club (one member REALLY lit into me) I used to belong to. I don’t even remember the issue but it was because exactly this, some purity policing IIRC.

    2
  59. Gustopher says:

    @OzarkHillbilly: I like Yglesias. He’s mostly interested in trolling the people further to the left than me, so what’s not to like?

    Also, he hates Glenn Greenwald, so he’s not likely to go down the anti-anti-Trumper path.

    He’s an 80% ally with the left, which is basically an ally.

    2
  60. CSK says:

    Donald Trump says Biden should leave office because of his failure to stop…Covid.

    1
  61. Jax says:

    @gVOR08: Dang. A girl can dream!

    Gym Jordan, then. He’s one more dude I can’t stand.

  62. Just nutha ignint cracker says:

    @Kathy: She still has her job at the dairy, but if she decided to run, grassroots support would be high.

  63. Sleeping Dog says:

    @Jen:

    An old college friend, who then and now, is involved with leftist politics, scolded me about using Latino, I replied that when I began hearing non academic Hispanics using Latinx, I would as well.

    2
  64. Kathy says:

    @Just nutha ignint cracker:

    that’s nice.

    But if El Cheeto wanted the “best people,” he’d have hired the cow.

  65. wr says:

    @Gustopher: “Ok, it won’t be one of those, but it’s gonna be stupid. (Might be the third one)”

    So maybe — for once — if someone on the lefty fringes says something stupid, we could simply ignore it instead of rending our garments and retweeting it thousands of times to moan about how terrible our own side is. Maybe we could actually — for once — marginalize those useless people who are indeed on the margins instead of elevating them to the most important voices on the Left.

    You know, maybe we could actually — for once — focus on the real enemy instead of making sure to wipe out everyone on our side who says something stupid.