Totally agree. Biden just said what we all (in the normal world of vaccinated folks) have been thinking as we watch day cares and schools shut down and hospitals flooded by "stupid" stuff. Anyone who has small children around doesn't want to go to a hospital for preventative tests if half the staff are not vaccinated. I kept saying "GO JOE" when I watched his comments.
I have always liked Joe Biden, back to his days on the Foreign Relations Committee. But his talent and skill as an executive is a revelation. He seems unshakeable, and willing to take a stand in a plain-spoken way. This was exactly the message the country needed to hear, in the way we needed to hear it.
And I know we all acknowledge how good this substack publication is. Dan’s writing is top notch, his research also. Original thought, great ideas and phrases we can all adopt. Great job. No wonder the second Pod Save America is my favorite.
This will take a lot of work, but I agree. Dems need LOTS of media and outreach around the costs of COVID and the data around not vaccinating. Historical examples like polio and the iron lung treatment wouldn't be a stretch. Also, full page ads in regional newspapers with healthcare and other emergency service workers who are placed directly in the line of the pandemic need to be run repeatedly. I'm ready for a "I'm Pro-Vaccine and I Vote" bumper sticker.
This is an excellent, well-researched analysis (as usual). However, there's a key media frame that is consistently left unaddressed in messaging around pragmatic, centrist or center-left policies advocated by the Democratic Party and the Biden admin, which is the ever-rightward creeping definition of the term "conservative." This imprecision is enabling the mainstreaming of a repugnant, authoritarian, revanchist ideology that in no way resembles traditional small-c conservatism.
"The fringe of the Republican Party is sick of being called the fringe. Led by people like Ms. Greene and Mr. Gaetz, two upstart members of Congress with little legislative power and few allies in their party’s caucus, these conservatives believe they have assets more valuable than Washington clout: a shared language with the party’s base, and a political intuition that echoes Mr. Trump’s."
Conservatism as a term defines a belief system that's based around traditional values and social harmony, at least in the Anglo-American context. We are allowing the media to get away with laziness in using the term to also refer to an entirely new breed of anti-democratic rightist bomb-throwers who have little interest in democracy beyond using its levers to entrench permanent minority rule. These people get to hide in plain sight as "conservative," which used to be a comfortable, mainstream political ideology that represents the interests of the status quo.
Fighting misinformation and extremism cannot be done without calling ideas, groups, and ideologies what they actually are. And we as Democrats should not allow extremists to run around calling themselves "conservative," and should push back against that media narrative wherever it appears. We also need a new shorthand for the kinds of fascist-adjacent authoritarians who have wholly consumed one of the two major political parties in the United States, and the discipline in communications to constantly use and reinforce it.
I'd love to know what Dan thinks about this topic.
I have a friend who just got over Covid (he had only received one shot and believes he got infected on the same day he got the shot).
He is terrified the company he works for is going to force him to get another shot when it’s not safe for him to do so.
I tried to tell him he doesn’t have to get the vaccine but he might have to get weekly testing, but he is furious.
He’s also concerned for his wife who just got over Covid at the same time he did. She works in a small office with far less than 100 employees and the rule won’t apply to her either. I tried to explain it to him, but he just doesn’t get it.
We are so far losing the messaging battle with people like him.
Totally agree. Biden just said what we all (in the normal world of vaccinated folks) have been thinking as we watch day cares and schools shut down and hospitals flooded by "stupid" stuff. Anyone who has small children around doesn't want to go to a hospital for preventative tests if half the staff are not vaccinated. I kept saying "GO JOE" when I watched his comments.
I have always liked Joe Biden, back to his days on the Foreign Relations Committee. But his talent and skill as an executive is a revelation. He seems unshakeable, and willing to take a stand in a plain-spoken way. This was exactly the message the country needed to hear, in the way we needed to hear it.
And I know we all acknowledge how good this substack publication is. Dan’s writing is top notch, his research also. Original thought, great ideas and phrases we can all adopt. Great job. No wonder the second Pod Save America is my favorite.
Yes! This phrase captures it “Republican governance costs lives“
This will take a lot of work, but I agree. Dems need LOTS of media and outreach around the costs of COVID and the data around not vaccinating. Historical examples like polio and the iron lung treatment wouldn't be a stretch. Also, full page ads in regional newspapers with healthcare and other emergency service workers who are placed directly in the line of the pandemic need to be run repeatedly. I'm ready for a "I'm Pro-Vaccine and I Vote" bumper sticker.
This is an excellent, well-researched analysis (as usual). However, there's a key media frame that is consistently left unaddressed in messaging around pragmatic, centrist or center-left policies advocated by the Democratic Party and the Biden admin, which is the ever-rightward creeping definition of the term "conservative." This imprecision is enabling the mainstreaming of a repugnant, authoritarian, revanchist ideology that in no way resembles traditional small-c conservatism.
To get a broader sense of what I mean, take a look at the articles that pop up under the New York Times topic for "conservatism" -> https://www.nytimes.com/topic/subject/conservatism-us-politics
One good example of what I'm talking about is here -> https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/21/us/politics/marjorie-taylor-greene-matt-gaetz-iowa.html
Here's a telling quote from the above article:
"The fringe of the Republican Party is sick of being called the fringe. Led by people like Ms. Greene and Mr. Gaetz, two upstart members of Congress with little legislative power and few allies in their party’s caucus, these conservatives believe they have assets more valuable than Washington clout: a shared language with the party’s base, and a political intuition that echoes Mr. Trump’s."
Conservatism as a term defines a belief system that's based around traditional values and social harmony, at least in the Anglo-American context. We are allowing the media to get away with laziness in using the term to also refer to an entirely new breed of anti-democratic rightist bomb-throwers who have little interest in democracy beyond using its levers to entrench permanent minority rule. These people get to hide in plain sight as "conservative," which used to be a comfortable, mainstream political ideology that represents the interests of the status quo.
Fighting misinformation and extremism cannot be done without calling ideas, groups, and ideologies what they actually are. And we as Democrats should not allow extremists to run around calling themselves "conservative," and should push back against that media narrative wherever it appears. We also need a new shorthand for the kinds of fascist-adjacent authoritarians who have wholly consumed one of the two major political parties in the United States, and the discipline in communications to constantly use and reinforce it.
I'd love to know what Dan thinks about this topic.
I have a friend who just got over Covid (he had only received one shot and believes he got infected on the same day he got the shot).
He is terrified the company he works for is going to force him to get another shot when it’s not safe for him to do so.
I tried to tell him he doesn’t have to get the vaccine but he might have to get weekly testing, but he is furious.
He’s also concerned for his wife who just got over Covid at the same time he did. She works in a small office with far less than 100 employees and the rule won’t apply to her either. I tried to explain it to him, but he just doesn’t get it.
We are so far losing the messaging battle with people like him.