The Dumb of the Dumb
Can someone show me the polling data on this one? Granted, this is getting its biggest wave of attention in media right-wing, but that os because it is Democrats acting stupidly…
Though, half of Democrats oppose and all Republicans oppose, so this is dead on arrival regardless… Still there is a thing problematic in the selling.
Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., on Thursday said she was “shocked” that lowering the legal voting age to 16 is a “polarizing” subject of debate.
Dr. Kendi, I was shocked by how polarizing an issue this was, and listen, when I would tell people [the late Rep.] John Lewis is an original co-sponsor of this — you know, our young people deserve to have a stakeholder in our democracy,” Pressley, a member of the so-called “Squad” said in response to Kendi, who said lowering the voting age is an example of anti-racist policy.
And welcome to Hell.
Why do I suspect that this is on the most extreme edge, and a temuously based one at that, of this electoral reality.
If you look at the concrete questions, white liberals are to the left of Hispanic Democrats, but also of Black Democrats, on defunding the police and those ideological questions about the source of racial inequity.
And then
In a post for Slow Boring on how Democrats can win more elections, Matthew Yglesias offers some concrete suggestions for the party’s candidates:
Say you think it’s dumb that they are putting warning labels on old TV shows like the muppets. Just let people watch stuff.
Say you don’t think it’s fair to call people racist when they worry about crime or illegal immigration — these are things lots of folks worry about, and the government owes them solutions.
Especially if you are Vice President Kamala Harris, a former elected official from San Francisco, say that canceling Abraham Lincoln while keeping the city’s schools closed is the kind of dumb shit that makes people think Democrats can’t govern, and you’re mad about it.
I would add that Democratic candidates should fire any staffer who advised them to use the word “Latinx.” That this term, which only about 2 percent of Hispanics actually like and use, has rapidly taken hold in mainstream media, is a powerful example of how campus culture has quickly come to dominate elite institutions, contrary to the wishes of actual minorities.
Hm. Interesting to note on the immigration issue, two points of departure. Apparently the Washington Monthly is to the right of the New York Times — the Washington Monthly looking at the electoral reality and finding…
The public has indeed become more sympathetic to immigrants and immigration, partially as a thermostatic reaction to the practices of the Trump administration. But that does not mean that Democrats can simply be the opposite of Trump on this issue. He was closed; we’re open! He was mean; we’re nice! Any moves toward greater leniency at the border and the creation of legalization regimes for undocumented immigrants raises the possibility of knock-on effects and unintended consequences that would be highly unpopular. How do you prevent people from gaming the system? How do you handle the possibility of surges at the border to take advantage of leniency and legalization regimes? Any immigration reform package worth its salt must have serious answers to these questions.
The New York Times gets us this editorial, probably straight news analysis, on Republican fortunes…
It’s possible that Republicans who are not prioritizing economic issues are accurately reading their base. A survey last month by the GOP pollster Echelon Insights found that the top concerns of Republican voters were mainly cultural ones: illegal immigration, lack of support for the police, high taxes and “liberal bias in mainstream media.â€
Ignoring, whether or not the effects are rightly analyzed by these Republicans irrelevant, that these “top concerns” — the first three at leadt — have strongly economic concerns tied to them.
But the question is… How will 16 and 17 year olds analyze them? Probably end up not voting, ala the olfer 18 to 20 somethings.