For subscribers to the Athletic, I wrote about three prospects who’ve really seen their stock rise this year and three who’ve seen theirs fall as a follow-up to last week’s top 50 ranking. I also wrote a news story (which I think is free to read) on Wake Forest baseball coach Tom Walter using a homophobic slur during a game, and his weak apology after he got caught on camera. And I held a Klawchat here on Thursday.
Over at Paste, I reviewed Zenith, an outstanding new two-player game where you fight your opponent for control of five planets, playing cards from your hand to three different areas to try to pull planets your way. You win by getting the same planet to your end of the table three times, or four different planets to your side, or five planets in any combination at all.
I sent out another issue of my free email newsletter on Friday, my third in four weeks, which for me constitutes some sort of hot streak.
I appeared on Marty Caswell’s Youtube channel to talk about the Padres’ farm system, potential trades if they stay in the race, and what to do with Xander Bogaerts; and on 92.3 the Fan in Cleveland to talk about Travis Bazzana and Cleveland’s struggling offense.
And now, the links:
- Longreads first: This undated story on the main suspect in the Tylenol poisonings and how he slipped through multiple murder investigations is the best thing I read all week. At least part of the basis of a new Netflix documentary series, this story is at least two years old, as James Lewis, the suspect in that case and at least one other murder, died in July 2023.
- Federal and Texas state law enforcement officers arrested 47 people at a house party, claiming they were members of a gang called Tren de Aragua. Months later, they’ve found and offered no evidence of any gang connections, according to a Texas Tribune investigation.
- The AP reports on how Trump’s slashing of public health budgets is destroying our national infrastructure of preventative health services, which will cost us billions more in lost lives and years while further eroding trust in those same authorities.
- Oklahoma Republicans passed a law allowing parents to opt their children out of any class subjects they believe to be “harmful.” Rational-minded parents there are now using the law to withdraw their kids from classes pushing election conspiracy theories and Christian theology. If you live in Oklahoma, the form you can use is here.
- WIRED has the story of a study on the keto diet and arterial plaque that keto proponents claim validates their position – but one of the study’s authors left the project and has called for its retraction, due to conflicts of interest and shoddy work. There’s an underlying theme here on how peer review can break down and how bad actors are increasingly trying to exploit the academic-research system.
- “Israeli gunfire” targeted Gazan civilians outside an aid distribution center, according to the Red Cross. The Guardian had a later update that raised the death toll to over 30. Israel first denied anything happened, then denied firing at civilians, then later admitted to firing “warning shots.”
- The Trump Administration has ended an NIH program that was working towards a vaccine against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS – a program that also had potential in many other areas, including possible therapies for autoimmune disorders.
- NBC News interviewed several families who are leaving the U.S. because of the increasingly anti-transgender climate. I’ve assumed we’ll see, or even already are seeing, migration out of red states for LGBTQ+ families because of hate laws passed there, but adding this to the brain drain from the Administration’s war on academia is going to further erode our economic position for decades to come.
- Indeed, even in red states where voters have passed progressive ballot initiatives on subjects like abortion and cannabis, Republican lawmakers are trying to subvert the will of the voters, usually in the name of religion.
- MIT banned one of its scheduled student speakers from graduation because she gave a pro-Palestinian speech the day before.
- The GENIUS Act looks like it will prioritize crypto holders over depositors if a bank becomes insolvent.
- The New York Times reports on WelcomeFest, a gathering of so-called “centrist” Democrats who are mad that we’re all yelling at them online. The story notes on politicians taking shots at Indivisible, an important voter mobilization group with hard-left ideas like “don’t cut aid to the poor.” These people are only centrist if you ignore how much the Overton window has lurched to the right in the last decade.
- Talking Heads enlisted director Mike Mills (the C’mon C’mon guy, not the REM bassist) to film a music video for “Psycho Killer,” starring Saoirse Ronan. It’s excellent, and Ronan is both hilarious and unsettlingly weird in it.
- The Spanish publisher Salt & Pepper Games has a new crowdfunding campaign up for Battle of the Divas, a two-player game that casts the players as Maria Callas and Renata Tibaldi, fighting to be the greatest singer of their era.
My favorite part of welcome fest is Matt yglesias, serial moron and always wrong about everything, stated that the problem with democrats losing constantly is due to bad groups holding power.
Just extraordinary
Right. This notion that Dems should go farther to the right is insane to me. Kamala campaigned with Liz Cheney in the last few weeks of the elections. Right now, they’re seen as fascist light without presenting an alternative vision. They’re a center-right party essentially. The Dems need a positive left wing message to present to people who feel left behind. Medicare for all means you aren’t at risk for going bankrupt if you have a medical emergency for example. Guaranteeing a living wage helps everyone. Being in favor of due process for all means you’re not at risk of being kidnapped by an ICE agent and disappearing like a Missouri waitress (here legally) was recently. Being opposed to bathroom laws means a cis woman doesn’t have to worry about being accused of entering the wrong bathroom. Being in favor of regulations means keeping people safe. These are values Dems need to embrace instead of bringing more rich people like Elon into the fold.
How anyone could have this takeaway – “…how much the Overton window has lurched to the right in the last decade.” – from recent events is beyond me. I’ll grant you that maaaaaaybe it has shifted *slightly* back to the right the past couple of years, but only after shifting hard-hard-hard left for years, even decades, prior to that, almost to the point of dangerous overreach and dire consequences from the nation’s left flank.
Also, using the following to describe Matt Yglesias – “serial moron and always wrong about everything” – exposes just how deep, not to mention serious, the divisions are in this country and how out-of-touch the fringes have gotten. Matt has been as consistently and stridently anti-Republican/conservative/Trump as any other public figure or commentator – especially in the political economy media circles – going back as far as I can remember. Sure, maybe he isn’t as animated as someone like Elie Mystal, as unhinged as someone like Keith Olbermann, or as passionate as someone like Paul Krugman, but he is, part and parcel, every bit the progressive that those guys are and firmly in the left camp, with no love lost for anyone on the right side of the aisle or anyone even remotely “right-adjacent.” I am quite confident Brian in Ahwautukee isn’t critiquing Matt from a right-leaning perspective, so I’m very curious where exactly he thinks both he and Matt sit on the ideological spectrum?
Which makes for a good seque to my next question, which is the opinion from this group, specifically those identifying as some flavor of left, progressive, or whatever and vehemently opposed to conservative and/or libertarian principles for governance, about a national divorce? In other words, a union of blue states goes one way and a union of red states goes another, with potentially more than one split, whether based on geographical realities or deeper ideological schisms that can’t be reconciled by creating just two new options.
I ask this seriously because the present trajectory, with irreconcilable differences and bitter antipathy from the red and blue “bases” toward one another, will lead to something very dark within the next 5-10 years, I am quite confident in that. We have moved past the point where saying something like that isn’t idle speculation. It is a mathematical certainty, and I am curious if left-leaning people are starting to see a path to just go their own way and do their own thing, and allow a measure of reciprocity for right-leaning people, or if people feel trapped and desperate and start leaning more into violence and bloodshed.
Two requests:
1. Can you share one or two specific examples of this “dangerous overreach and dire consequences”?
2. Can you share one or two specific examples of Matt Yglesias’ work that would, in your opinion, classify him as a “progressive”
“Which makes for a good seque to my next question, which is the opinion from this group, specifically those identifying as some flavor of left, progressive, or whatever and vehemently opposed to conservative and/or libertarian principles for governance, about a national divorce? In other words, a union of blue states goes one way and a union of red states goes another, with potentially more than one split, whether based on geographical realities or deeper ideological schisms that can’t be reconciled by creating just two new options.”
I am not left-leaning, nor right-leaning, but I’ll answer, since your question was posed to this group as a whole.
Can we have a third Union of Libertarians and centrists who strongly dislike both major parties? Where does someone like me fit into this “Blue states one way and red states another way?
I’m reluctant to play this game of semantics and demanding quantitative examples in response to a qualitative assessment, because I’m near certain you’ll play the no-true-Scotsman card, pull a motte-and-bailey, and/or retreat behind some other logical fallacy to validate a difference of opinion as you holding the “correct” one, so I’ll split the difference and answer one as directly as I can while politely pushing back on the other by answering your request with a question, Ron Swanson-style:
1. The border and, mostly illegal, immigration. Plain and simple, the Democratic Party and everyone to its left have grown completely apathetic about the border and regulating who is crossing it and remaining on US soil over the past several years (and that’s at best, as there is a small faction that has been actively subversive about abusing it). I’m no fan of Trump, but his comments on illegal immigration as a political candidate and office-holder going back to 2015 are practically indistinguishable from Bill Clinton’s when he was in office and even most other Democrats prior to, say, 2010. There used to be a bipartisan consensus that unchecked illegal immigration had negative consequences for the country, for obvious reasons, but Democrats abandoned that position at some point along the way, and the problem has festered into a crisis in some areas. Disagree if you must, but your opinion does not hold a candle to the lived experiences of millions of people dealing with breakdowns in the academic, health care, and justice systems, not to mention disruptions to the labor market, because of an overrun of undocumented migrants*.
*In case you want to respond that most of the problem has been the US government/CIA meddling throughout Latin America and creating so much instability that fleeing and asylum-seeking are seen as the only remedy for some, then I wholeheartedly agree. But that doesn’t change the underlying problem with unchecked illegal immigration.
2. Can you share one or two specific examples of Matt Yglesias’ work, or just him personally, being lauded or welcomed by other, presumably “fellow,” conservatives or libertarians as a champion for their causes? Feel free to disown him as an ally on the left or for progressive causes, that’s fine, but my bigger point is that he is not seen as a public figure representing anything remotely right-leaning and is actively disdained, mocked, etc. in those circles. That would give credence to the notion that not everything or everyone falls neatly in the left-right binary and that we have more than two “camps,” but all I’m saying is that just because people on the left deride him as a “moron” – when people on the right also view him as one, but specifically a “left-wing moron” – but disavow him as one of their one because he isn’t sufficiently left-wing, it doesn’t automatically make him a “right-wing moron.”
The specific reason I seek “quantitative examples in response to a qualitative assessment” is that it is very hard to productively respond to your qualitative assessment without understanding its material basis. Of course I disagree with your assessment and find your reasoning in the original post to be suspect, but I don’t see the use of responding to that post in any detail without further inquiry. More generally, I don’t really think it’s a “game of semantics” to be asked to justify your assertions by those who disagree with you.
1. I do not think the Democratic Party has grown “apathetic” about the border in any way. The Biden budget proposal from 2024 included increases to DHS/CBP/etc. Deportations were higher under Biden than under Trump (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/22/us/trump-biden-immigrants-deportations.html). Harris and other Democrats ran explicitly on challenging the Republican’s seriousness on border security (see the whole rigamarole around the Border Act of 2024). And several Democrats joined the Republicans in voting for the horrid Laken Riley Act.
I say all of this in part because I very much dislike all of this! I wish there was a political entity in our country that was actually opposed to inflicting pain and suffering on those that seek the fiction that is the American Dream. I think your assertion that there is a “crisis” at the border is mistaken and that the “breakdowns” you mention are not caused by immigrants but by 50-odd years of austerity and retrenchment on behalf of capital. And I think the reason for the persistence of this myth of a border “crisis” is that it serves the aims of both parties; both to absolve them of any responsibility for creating these “breakdowns” and to keep us fighting against our fellow man rather than against those that subjugate us.
2. I am confused about your counter-question, given that the reason we are talking about Yglesias is his appearance at “WelcomeFest,” where he derided (per BlueSky) “school closures during covid,” “paralysis on women’s sports,” “candidates running on late-term abortions,” and “the negative influence of “The Groups”” exemplified by “Democrats visiting Trump’s gulag in El Salvador.” All of these positions are far from “progressive” and most are outright revanchist. And more specifically for your counter-question, it is very clear that the whole thing was an exercise in determining how to further subsume the will of the Democratic Party to the whims of capital. Given that Yglesias was invited to this, it sure seems like this is a prime example of being lauded by anti-progressive forces as a champion for their cause.
There used to be a bipartisan consensus that unchecked illegal immigration had negative consequences for the country, for obvious reasons,
I’m curious what those reasons are, when most academic research on the subject shows that so-called “illegal” immigration produces large net positives for the U.S.?
It’s a perfect example of the shift. Republicans are arguing for very strict limits on legal immigration and severe crackdowns on illegal immigration. Democrats aren’t arguing for open borders or unlimited legal immigration or the like; they’re arguing for moderate positions like paths to citizenship for people who are already here and participating in our society & economy. As President, Biden even reduced access to aslyum at the US-Mexico border.
The sense I’m getting is that you don’t see the way the Overton window has shifted because it has shifted towards views you espouse.
To those saying the Dems haven’t been moderate enough on a lot of issues, need I remind you that Kamala campaigned with Liz Cheney down the stretch? The problem is that their vision has merely become “we’re not the fascists” without actually explaining their own alternative. Saying they need to go even farther to the right is missing the point. The Dems are close to a center right party already. If anything, we need an actual liberal party.
I was up in arms over the Pca for Baez trade as were many of my fellow Mets fans. The Kelenic trade sort of worked because kelenic hasn’t panned out but that trade was still really dumb and was a Gm in over his head that had no clue how under water the Cano contract was. I’ve said a million times if they really wanted cano it should have been cano and Diaz essentially for nothing. Diaz as the sweetener to take on the awful cano contract. It’s almost 7 years later so I’ll relax.
I would recommend Roger read the words of Yglesias. Literally there are lots of places to see that he is explicitly fighting the left by his own admission. In this very event he complained about Abrigo Garcia being a bad message. Except polling suggests people care about basic rights of people and liked seeing Dems fighting for due processes. The senator from Connecticut going to El Salvado was popular.
The best parts if Biden’s presidency came from Lina Khan. Yglesias wanted her fired. I can go on and on.
“Can we have a third Union of Libertarians and centrists who strongly dislike both major parties? Where does someone like me fit into this “Blue states one way and red states another way?”
Yes, absolutely. Perhaps you missed where I said – “with potentially more than one split”?
“I would recommend Roger read the words of Yglesias. Literally there are lots of places to see that he is explicitly fighting the left by his own admission.”
I’ve read Yglesias, extensively in fact. This is what you guys who’ve drifted far, FAR left seem unwilling or incapable of wrapping your head around. You’re so far out on the fringes in an echo chamber that you’ve lost the plot of WHY Yglesias’ messaging comes across like it does, i.e. that he is “fighting the left.” It’s because, from his perspective, his “fellow progressives” have gotten so extreme on certain issues that they’re costing Democrats very winnable elections and political power. A Republican Party headed by Donald Trump is, or at least should be, immensely vulnerable, and certainly beatable. You struggle to comprehend how the country can elect someone as insane and unstable as Trump but fail to grasp that there’s a (particularly vocal) faction of the left displaying their own flavor of insanity and instability that a critical mass of voters simply can’t stomach and are rejecting at the polls. If you can’t see it, then it might mean you are part of that group and hence part of the problem. But instead, you lash out at guys like Yglesias and Bill Maher who have historically been firmly ensconced in the “left camp” and no friend of Republicans or conservatives.
This blind spot applies to some of the far left critiques of Kamala Harris and why she lost. They lament that “evidently the country didn’t want a centrist candidate” because she tacked to the center on certain issues on the campaign trail and chide for not being “more progressive.” But here’s the problem. She was a very progressive candidate based on her PAST statements. The power brokers in the Democratic Party knew her past positions were baggage, as she previously held stances considered deeply unpopular by the “mainstream” in polling. Yes, she shied away from those statements and positions on the campaign trail, but that’s part of the problem with politics. You open your mouth and hold office long enough, the people will hold you accountable for what you’ve said over years, even decades, not just what you “say” in the 6-9 months before an election.
“Except polling suggests people care about basic rights of people and liked seeing Dems fighting for due processes. The senator from Connecticut going to El Salvado was popular.”
Yes, but you need to read the room. This works both ways. The favorable polling on the basic rights/due process issue is in part a response to (admittedly dangerous) overreach on the part of Trump and Republicans. But not that long ago, and this is what I alluded to earlier, “the polling” showed Democrats and the left way out of step with most of the country on the foundational, or “precursor,” issue to that of the border and immigration.
You chide Yglesias for not being sufficiently progressive enough or being on the “right side of history” and demonstrating himself as a strong enough ally on human rights/due process, but I’m guessing it’s because he’s still traumatized by how far out of touch his fellow progressives have gotten on the baseline issue of immigration. He’s still reacting to THAT overreach, and rightly so, but it seems to have clouded your judgment for why (to avoid landing back out on the unpopular fringes?) he might be treading carefully on navigating Trump’s/Republicans’ overreach.
When you get too far out of the mainstream, you tend to lose sight of the “big picture.”
@Roger
I didn’t miss where you said that. I just wish you had elaborated somewhat. What do we get, a tiny state somewhere in the middle of nowhere? Nobody in society cares about Centrists and libertarians. Even a lot of centrists I know still speak ill of Libertarians, thinking we are horrible people.
A national divorce is untenable for a fucketonne of reasons including good ones by Frank. Even the most extreme blue and red states are still 30% non-majority, so that’s a ton of people who are going to be displaced or largely disenfranchised. For most states it’s 60-40 or less, so where do those (and true swing states) fall? Realignment happens as well–the midwest was blue for decades until Trump won. If realignment happens, do those states change custody status? I’m sorry, but this is not remotely a serious idea.
“The sense I’m getting is that you don’t see the way the Overton window has shifted because it has shifted towards views you espouse.”
Regardless of what I “espouse” or don’t, just thinking about as many headline socioeconomic and culture issues off the top of my head, compared to 30 years ago, we’ve seen:
Expanded access to health care/insurance for lower-income households and those previously uninsured from government support.
Expanded access to food and nutrition assistance for lower-income households from government support.
Expanded immigration, both legal and illegal.
Expanded rights for women and the LGBTQ+ community (perhaps you forget there was a time in this country where gay couples could not officially marry, adopt children, etc.?).
Expanded abortion access, even with the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade.
Expanded use of medical marijuana and for drug legalization, decriminalization, etc. more broadly.
Diminished emphasis on the importance and influence of religion, and especially Christianity, in public institutions.
On each of those issues, the Overton window has moved indisputably left. What issues, pray tell, am I missing where the Overton window has shifted overtly to the right? Gun access/control, maybe? I can probably grant you that one. I’m sure you’ll dismiss my claims around reproductive rights because of the recent decision on Roe, but the stats on this issue support my position on the 30-year trajectory.
On what issues has the Overton window shifted right? I can come up with a bunch. The debate over the 14th amendment and birthright citizenship is a pretty hard swing right. A conservative SC in the 80’s created Chevron deference. A much more conservative SC got rid of it. Hell look at the due process debate in regards to immigrants. Anyone that would’ve claimed with a straight face that the 5th amendment didn’t apply to all people regardless of status would’ve been laughed out of a court room. Those are just a few off the top of my head.
Many of these issues don’t map as cleanly as you suggest. Speaking as someone who identifies politically as centrist economically/libertarian, these issues all are not clearly left or right, but mostly based on equal treatment under the law. If you are an Authoritarian or Christian Nationalist these appear to be the Overton window shifting left when it has actually shifted towards freedom and equality (unless one wants to cede that freedom and equal treatment are only left wing values).
•Expanded rights for women and the LGBTQ+ community (how does equal treatment under the law affect others negatively?)
•Expanded abortion access (granted over the longer time frame back to the late 60’s/early 70’s), even with the recent overturning of Roe v. Wade (the unconstitutional and immoral religious based state restrictions we are seeing post-Dobbs are definitely a hard right swing).
•Expanded use of medical marijuana and for drug legalization, decriminalization, etc. more broadly. (Complex issue with lots of questions that need answering about safety, effectiveness, etc.; should we not try to answer those questions based on being biased towards how we have “always” done things?)
•Diminished emphasis on the importance and influence of religion, and especially Christianity, in public institutions. (Why is this a bad thing, unless one cedes that you want the US to be a theocracy? The first amendment is really clear about government implementation of disparate treatment based on religion. This SC is the most pro-Christianity Supreme Court of my six decades here on earth, as their recent decisions have revealed.)
As a fiscal conservative, I can easily make arguments on all the following that we (as a group who currently pays for this in an incredibly inefficient way) should do these things:
•Expanded access to health care/insurance for lower-income households and those previously uninsured from government support.
•Expanded access to food and nutrition assistance for lower-income households from government support.
Finally, you make the argument that immigration policy has swung far left, I wonder what those who were deported under President Obama would say? Have you read President Reagan’s speeches on immigration? Here is a place I agree our current climate and entrenched positions have halted good faith efforts to come up with a workable immigration policy.
@FrankJones,
I feel your pain and wish I had the answer!
But yeah, most of the time, I just want to withdraw and/or hide somewhere safe and let all the zealots fight all this out among themselves and leave me alone.
In regard to the whether the Dems need to go left or right, I think there’s some nuance being lost. The Dems need to go back to basics on economic issues and show voters they care about those things. I would argue that involves a leftward shift. They need to embrace issues involving unions and living wage arguments. hey need to go after the oligarchs who are enriching themselves at the expense of the working class. Yes, it’s class warfare. We need some at a time where the wealthiest family have 71 times the wealth of the middle class compared to 36 times in 1963. They need to show a positive value of freedom that involves their values instead of just being “we’re not the fascists”. For example, Medicare for all means that you don’t have to worry about going bankrupt due to medical bills. I know conservatives don’t like AOC but that’s because she’s a very provocative speaker on many of those values. The idea that Dems need to keep moving right seems bizarre when Kamala was campaigning with Liz Cheney.
@Brian in NoVA,
I realize a shifting of the Overton window is as much about a “shift in the conversation” toward a more extreme position as much about eventual policies backing it up, but wake me up when the birthright citizenship issues moves beyond “debate” to anything tangible. We are nowhere close to any sort of change on that issue, regardless of a few zealots entering their most extreme interpretation of the Constitution into the discussion.
Okay, I will be gracious and grant you things like the Chevron deference and Citizens United decision a while back, but compare those issues to the laundry list I outlined and think about the bigger impacts on society and culture for the vast majority of the population.
“Hell look at the due process debate in regards to immigrants. Anyone that would’ve claimed with a straight face that the 5th amendment didn’t apply to all people regardless of status would’ve been laughed out of a court room.”
I’m not granting you this, though, because the only reason people seem out of touch in applying the 5th amendment and shifting the conversation “far right” is because of how far left the conversation, and more importantly policy, was allowed to shift on immigration to begin with. Thirty years ago, leftist activists would have been laughed out of a courtroom for defending some of the stunts they pull today to undermine federal enforcement of the border and immigration. Not that long ago, the concept of a “sanctuary state/city” would have been considered patently absurd, if not obstructive, illegal, and perhaps seditious.
You try and swing the pendulum so ridiculously hard toward the left end, you can’t be surprised when some people try and swing it hard toward the right just to achieve “balance.”
The Overton window’s shift is right in front of you. We’ve rolled back affirmative action and have the government trying to ban DEI in private corporations. We’re talking about ending trans people’s right to exist as transgender, and eliminating parents’ rights to provide gender-affirming care for their children. We’re talking about overturning Loving v. Virginia, ending access to abortion and contraception, ending no-fault divorce. We’re cutting billions from public health initiatives, most of which had (have?) broad bipartisan support for decades and which have unequivocally net positive economic effects. We’re in the midst of the greatest assault on our First Amendment rights in my lifetime; Texas Republicans tried to target bookstores that sold legal material if any one person found it “objectionable.” (That bill failed, fortunately, but again, the Overton window is about what is considered an acceptable part of mainstream discourse.) The WH has discussed suspending habeus corpus, for crying out loud.
Here are some links arguing that the overall Overton window, or the window on specific policy questions, has shifted to the right since Trump’s first election.
“The idea that Dems need to keep moving right seems bizarre when Kamala was campaigning with Liz Cheney.”
That’s her own fault for picking the most out-of-touch warmongering, neoconservative wing of Republicans to embrace in establishing her anti-Trump street cred.
See my comments about about her campaigning versus her long history of statements and policy positions. You all act like just because she was “campaigning with Liz Cheney” and made a few a few centrist- and right-coded statements ahead of the election, that is what defines her, but voters defined her instead for years of *voting* with the likes of AOC, Bernie, etc.
@Roger, AOC and Bernie would be center-left politicians in Europe. That’s kind of proving my point that the Dems can’t go much farther right. They need to go to the left on economic issues and actually present an alternative vision that isn’t just “we’re not the fascists”. They’re gonna get tagged with the socialist card by the right anyways. If you’re gonna get tagged with the label, how about you be proactive and show voters what the right means when they say you’re a “socialist”? If being socialist means I think your average American should have a living wage, I own that label. If being a socialist means I think hard working Americans should be able to afford a house and not have to worry about being one medical emergency away from being bankrupt, I embrace that label as well. Sherrod Brown was one of the more progressive members of the Senate and he did pretty well in a reddish state until it finally got too red. He’s the example to follow and not more Manchin types or trying to appeal to the oligarchs.
@Roger, did you really pull “Look what you made us do” defense to justify the right arguing that due process shouldn’t apply to everyone (which affects everyone including citizens) or that ICE agents should be allowed to disappear people to torture camps? That’s not balancing things out in the slightest. It also allows one to justify some pretty immoral behavior.
@Mike,
“Deportations were higher under Biden than under Trump”
Using a baseball analogy, though admittedly extreme, Catcher A and Catcher B play roughly 145 games and the same number of innings (MLB, same league, division even) over a full season.
Catcher A successfully throws out 60 baserunners out of 180 total attempted steals.
Catcher B successfully throws out 2 baserunners out of 7 total attempted steals.
Who’s the better defensive catcher, at least with respective to baserunning and attempted steals by opposing teams?
Your logic would seem to say it’s A. After all, he threw out 58 more baserunners and had a better caught-stealing %, 33% to 29%.
Or maybe we should consider the fact that hardly anyone was willing to run on B and only 5 were successful over the course of a season instead of 120 for A?
It’s hard to deport people who don’t cross in the first place.
I’m typically not inclined to debate with people who abuse statistics like you did there. Your “but Biden was the really serious deporter” gives off similar vibes as the Republican “but Democrats are the real racists” line.
I was specifically responding to your claim that “Plain and simple, the Democratic Party and everyone to its left have grown completely apathetic about the border.” Regardless of the “base-stealing environment” in which Biden found himself, it is clear that Democrats have not abandoned the punitive policing of the border that has dominated the last 30+ years of American politics. That’s my whole point with sharing this one item, and frankly, it’s the most irrefutable part of my response. That you would pick this one thing to respond to with a tortured analogy leads me to believe that you’re not particularly serious about actually engaging on this matter.
Meanwhile, we have a White House official saying we should do anything required to fix the border:
First Amendment? Habeus corpus? Due process? Nah. Throw them all out the Overton window!
@Roger, you’re making my point on the moving left on economic issues. Democrats will always get tagged with the socialist card for any economic policy that isn’t regressive so own it and let’s lay out the proposals. They need to embrace an alternative economic vision and make the case. If you want to claim that thinking every hard working American deserves a living wage makes me a socialist, I embrace that label. if you want to claim that buying a house should still be attainable to someone in the middle class makes me a socialist, I own that label. If you want to claim that I’m a socialist for being opposed to another tax cut for millionaires and billionaires at the expense of cutting Medicaid, I wear that label as a badge of honor. Kamala would be a center politician in Europe. Bernie and AOC would be center-left. I want more of a debate on economic issues. Sherrod Brown was one of the more progessive members of the Senate until Ohio finally got too red for him. We need more of that on the left and less appealing to the Manchin types.
@Brian in NoVA,
“did you really pull “Look what you made us do” defense to justify…”
Serious question, is the declaration of martial law or suspending the writ of habeas corpus, as President Lincoln did in April 1861 at the beginning of the US Civil War, ever justified or appropriate?
Or perhaps, is it ever justified or appropriate for a law enforcement officer to use lethal force against a suspect they’re trying to apprehend?
Think carefully about your answers. And I did not try and “justify” anything from the current administration. I alluded to their overreach on this issue as well. I merely explained that boundaries had been pushed so far in a certain direction for so long that the other side now looking for whatever boundaries it can push the other way to bring about a course correction.
If you assume, through the best efforts of both parties and all government officials in executing the law through our justice system, we still have 10,000 people somewhere in the country who shouldn’t be and need to be returned to their home country, then I’d say that’s a “manageable” enough number to where the basic tenets of due process and all that implies need to be carried out as fully and thoroughly as they possibly can> But what if it’s 10 million? Or 100 million? At some point, the threat posed by a sufficiently large foreign population trumps the threat of not offering the most robust version of our justice system to every single individual. Our laws are based both on ideals and reality, but sometimes the ideal (read the suspect his/her Miranda rights, apprehend/arrest him respectfully and humanely with the proper restraints, and then peacefully bring him to the proper authority) gets trumped by reality (he drew a firearm and started shooting at me when I approached so I returned fire and subdued him lethally).
I don’t think we should ever get rid of due process for anyone period. That shouldn’t be a leftist stance. 10 years, it wasn’t a debate. It was wrong when FDR did it and it’s wrong now. There is no way the pendulum can swing far enough for me to ever entertain it. Once you do that, innocent people will get caught up like we’re seeing. Due process is something that protects all Americans and depriving it of one group of people is allowing the government to deprive it of others including potentially you and me. In other words, I dispute your premise. Things hadn’t swung too hard no matter what Fox and the conservative bullshit machines say. Even entering into that argument justifies the government being allowed to go too far like we’re seeing. Suspending Habeas Corpus should be the absolute last resort not the first one. What’s happening at the border isn’t close to being bad enough to justify any of the actions from the administration.
@Brian in NoVA,
Do whatever floats your boat, I guess. I don’t really care. I have no love for Trump or Republicans right now, but this incarnation of the Democratic Party is toxic and untenable for me also.
But keep pushing for more and more “leftist” reforms on the economic front. See how that works for you, not to mention the country.
That was the direction Argentina was headed pre-Milei, and the country ended up in a huge mess. I’d be curious hearing your thoughts around why his libertarian-based reforms have been generally hailed as successful.
He was dismissed as a quack initially for not being orthodox left/socialist, and they even tried to pin some of the hangover from those ridiculous policies on him when his reforms didn’t fix things overnight, but it’s abundantly obvious his approach to governance is better than what most others are trying.
I can get behind a fight against “the oligarchs,” but to me, that’s more about ripping up policies that allow for cronyism and/or crony capitalism and instead implementing true market-based reforms that have historically lifted millions/billions out of poverty by incentivizing productivity, not the same old socialist claptrap of promising a roof over every head and chicken in every pot.
@Roger, what was the last leftist economic policy that was even attempted in this country? Wealth inequality keeps growing with the exception of the period from 2020 to 2022. In the meantime, the top marginal tax rate is at its lowest rate since 1931 for crying out loud.
He was dismissed as a quack initially for not being orthodox left/socialist
good grief, that is a blatant lie. He was dismissed as a quack because he said things like he could talk to his dead dog.
Economists have preached austerity as a remedy for hyperinflation for decades. That’s been Milei’s main achievement – he slashed government spending, which caused some short-term pain for Argentinians, but he’s brought inflation way down. His solution was within widely accepted economic principles.
@Keith, that’s not even factoring in that we’ve now a proposal three times in the past year (the most recent being part of the budget bill before the section was thankfully eliminated) that would allow the Treasury Secretary to unilaterally accuse nonprofits without any real burden of proof that they’re “terrorist-supporting organizations” and revoke their status. Again this has come up three times in the past year. Just this past week, the DOGE Subcommittee had a hearing straight out of the McCarthy era that accused nonprofits of being anti-American. That’s a major shift in the argument. My employer has been nonpolitical from its founding and has had to speak up numerous times about what this type of legislation would do.
Yglesias reader Bro: “Habeas corpus? Read the room.”
Yikes
.
@Brian in NoVA,
“I don’t think we should ever get rid of due process for anyone period.”
In essence, I agree with this statement. But what I’m getting at is, you might have to be imaginative or get a little creative about what “due process” can and should look like in “emergency” situations. Again, to repeat myself, due process when arresting someone typically means reading them their Miranda rights and calmly transporting them to the appropriate authority or holding facility. If they immediately respond to that engagement, assuming it was legal and appropriate, with lethal force, appropriate due process might include responding with lethal force to ensure the safety of LEO’s or other civilians.
“I dispute your premise.”
And I yours.
“What’s happening at the border isn’t close to being bad enough…”
My only compromise on this issue is that I’ll grant things maybe aren’t as dire as Trump, the Fox talking heads, etc. have framed it, but it has gotten far more serious than almost anyone on the left has been willing to acknowledge. If you’re denying that it had gotten bad enough to at least take bold, decisive action, you’re not engaging with reality.
“what was the last leftist economic policy that was even attempted in this country?”
What was the last truly market-based policy attempted in this country, especially at the federal level? (I can play this question for question game all day.)
You guys interpret policies tacking nominally left but not fully going there – take, for example, the Affordable Care Act – as a right-leaning, market-based reform, and that is not only inaccurate but patently absurd.
“Yglesias reader Bro”
Is this directed at me? That’s an odd characterization.
I said I’m very familiar with his work. I didn’t say I’m a fan or embrace him as an ideological ally or anything like that. In fact, I patently reject most of his ideas from my little corner of the politisphere.
My “read the room” remark was directed at all you supposedly under the same big left tent. It was more generally to make the point that if someone as consistently left-leaning as Matt has been is showing restraint on left-leaning overreach, some of you a little further out on the fringes might want to do the same. It was not about his take on the recent border/immigration/due process debate specifically.
Feel free to set up another strawman.
@ Roger, the ACA was first implemented by Mitt Romney and proposed by the Heritage Foundation. That was an attempt to bring private health insurance into the market for people who didn’t get it through their employer. It certainly wasn’t leftist or socialist economic policy. Your view on Miranda is moving the goal posts. Of course, someone is allowed to defend themselves if their life is at danger. That’s not getting rid of due process. Now there absolutely should be a discussion on police overreach but that’s neither here nor there. What the Stephen Miller types and what ICE is doing is much different. If we were at a point where suspending Habeas Corpus should even be on the table, we’d be in a much different place in this country. Like I said, it should be the absolute last option on the table and getting rid of due process for anyone should never be on the table. My civil libertarian views are that Constitutional rights matter most for the marginalized among us and not the most privileged (since we historically are protected downstream). Miller wants to invert that.
Idk how else to read that but feel free to pretend you meant it otherwise.
I try to stand by my principles regardless of left/right framing. I believe in habeas corpus no matter the person. Idk why you’d find any need to “read the room.” I just find it amusing Yglesias called it out as a bad thing to focus on explicitly because he finds boarder security as a winning message.
Note: it’s a winning conservative message. It a losing message for whatever it is we may call the left.
K I’m out!
Opening this up and seeing 30 comments, and I know this is gonna be good. Socially, the Overton window has moved left some in terms of things like gay marriage, but oh boy has the right responded in ugly ways by scapegoating trans people. For economics, I think the Overton window has been consistently rightward since Reagan. IMO, Bernie has tried and failed to move the Overton window leftwards towards acceptance of European style social democracy. The left has failed to get any momentum on economics–they’re essential conservatives here–trying to conserve Social Security and Medicare. I’m most concerned though on the shift of the Overton window towards the acceptance of authoritarianism, which is currently happening on the right via populism. The belief that the executive doesn’t need to uphold the constitution, that the courts cannot weigh in on legality or constitutionality, that due process can be ignored. All of that is more dangerous than anything ideological that the left has done socially or the right has done economically.
Speaking of the Courts, they’re another institution that has shifted pretty far to the right. Kavanaugh is to the right of Kennedy and going from RBG to Barrett was a massive rightward shift. The fact that Roberts (who wrote the immunity case, gutted the Voting Rights Act, and killed Chevron) is seen as the median justice is pretty telling. That’s not even getting into how many of the judges of the federal judiciary at the lower levels have been appointed by Republicans with the approval of Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society. The Supreme Court has to moderate the rulings of the 5th, 8th, and 11th circuits which is mind boggling.
“good grief, that is a blatant lie.”
No! THAT is a lie. And do not ever call me a liar so flippantly.
I can point to countless examples of him being dismissed as a quack SPECIFICALLY for his proposed remedies, which were unabashedly pro-market, libertarian-based, etc. He my have some personal quirks incidental to his governing style that arguably make him kooky, but don’t pretend that those were the main critiques against him. I watched his rise to power like everyone else. He was torched for being unorthodox and libertarian, sticking it to the neoliberal hegemony in Argentina, NOT for anything like you describe.
You’re just straight up retconning the narrative because someone with a non-left governing view has offered solutions to problems created by left-wing governance.
I suppose now you’ll want to claim that the precipitous drop in violent crime in El Salvador has been Bukele’s leftist tilt in his governing style?
“A national divorce is untenable…I’m sorry, but this is not remotely a serious idea.”
Then be prepared to either compromise (and being extremely disappointed that many of your progressive prescriptions won’t be viewed as tenable by the rest of society)…recognizing at least 30% of the country is staunchly conservative and another 20%-30% is decidedly “non-left” even if not fully conservative…or for violence and bloodshed.
That’s all I can tell you.
Do you really think that a national divorce if attempted would not end in a huge amount of bloodshed in the vein India-Pakistan?
I have no illusions that it would be hard politically to implement progressive policies (and I’m probably to the right economically of many progressives here, but that’s irrelevant to the discussion). Imagining that we do somehow get progressive policies implemented, is your implication that there will be rightwing violence? Or do you think that the left will resort to violence if they don’t get their way, despite that not happening for ages? I don’t understand your last point.
“We’ve rolled back affirmative action…”
Narrator: In fact, making discrimination, typically against white and male members of society, not just socially acceptable but also legal in the first place represented a SEISMIC shift in the Overton window toward the left.
No need to read further if that’s your first example. You just owned yourself.
@Roger, the original affirmative action rulings were in the 70’s (Bakke was in 1978) and over the last 10-15 years as the courts have shifted right they’ve rolled back a lot of those policies including a SC case checks notes last year, That’s an example of the Overton window shifting back to the right. You actually just told on yourself.
“…you’re not particularly serious about actually engaging on this matter.”
If it makes you feel better, I haven’t found the dialogue coming back the other way particularly serious either. Just a lot of talking past each other, as per usual.
I shared a piece of hard data that refuted your point. You responded with a tortured analogy that falls apart the when you start thinking about. Who is talking past whom? Anyway, a lede from yesterday from the bastion of liberal thought WSJ:
“Even with the high-profile arrests of suspects by masked immigration agents and the plane loads of migrants swiftly ferried out of the U.S., President Trump was falling short of the number of daily deportations carried out by the Biden administration in its final year.”
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/protests-los-angeles-immigrants-trump-f5089877?st=uY6fj3&reflink=article_copyURL_share
“Do you really think that a national divorce if attempted would not end in a huge amount of bloodshed in the vein India-Pakistan?”
No, I don’t think it necessarily has to go that direction. That is a *decision* that people have to collectively and deliberately make, and I don’t think there’s enough “desperation” out there for people to “fight to the death” over those differences, assuming the trajectory changes here soon. I’d frame it thusly. I live in the heart of Red State America. I also do everything I can to stay on top of what’s happening (culturally, economically, etc.) in Blue State America. For as far back as I can remember up until somewhat recently, it feels like there has been this tug-of-war from each side to impose the vision and ideals held dear in their respective enclaves on All of America. Increasingly, I get a sense that people are finding that untenable, i.e., that Blue State people are not persuadable to the Red State vision and vice versa.
My impression from many of you left leaning Blue Staters is that you think Red State America is trying to impose a theocratic, economically anarchist nightmare on “everyone.” But I’m telling you that is NOT the vibe from inside the belly of The Beast. More so than at any point I can ever remember, Red State America is content to “go their own way,” i.e., form a collective of like-minded people and states and simply “break off” from the left-leaning portions of the country, even if that means a new nation of 120-150 million people or less. And I get a very similar vibe from many Blue Staters, where the old vision from Lincoln and Republicans of “hold the Union together at all costs” from the 1850s and 1860s has yield to a “let ’em go” mindset.
That seems to be what a huge chunk of rank-and-file partisans have determined. But I acknowledge many of the “power brokers” in each party and/or ideological camp still have this thought of forcing their will on the dissidents. What I’m saying is, if the rank-and-file were to get its way, a peaceful dissolution and separation is *possible.” Admittedly, though, the big moneyed interest from both sides don’t appear willing (yet) to leave well enough alone.
Anyway, I’m just saying that I see pepole on all sides sick of each other but more sympathetic to getting their way through strategic isolation, not “manifest destiny” of their ideological persuasions (which recent history suggests is going absolutely nowhere).
I have lived in a very blue state, a swing state (don’t miss the political ads), and I am now in a very red state. You are ignoring the fact that red states are not monolithic in political ideology. Assuming that all Republicans in my state want a national divorce, that’s still ~40% of the people in my state that wouldn’t want it (and I’m guessing that it would be far less than half that would want it if it were put up for a vote). The same goes for blue states. And again, who forms the new ‘red state’ country? Do you include GA, which is purple? This idea would result in the Balkanization of America, with far more likelihood for violence than the status quo.
The other reality is that a lot of red states need the blue states a lot. There are more red states that are recepient states than blue states and conversely there are more blue states that are donor states than red states. There’s also the fact that the borders will be a mess. Saying a national divorce is almost impossible and would be really messy is an understatement.
@A Salty Scientist,
Maybe we’re at an impasse than. You and I both seem to agree that we’re on sort of a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t trajectory even if actual violence/bloodshed aren’t ready to intensify.
I see the “trolley problem” as analogous to our current situation. We’re looking at violence and bloodshed regardless. I wish I could be more optimistic, but I can’t, and the escalating situation in LA right now bears that out.
From my vantage point, we can shift the track course and end up with 2 people dead or let it run its course as is and wind up with 20 dead. You seem to think staying the course results in only 2 dead and “flipping the switch” results in 20 dead. Fair enough, but I must agree to disagree on that point.
I get the argument about the anywhere from 30% to 45% of people being ideological minorities and “refugees” based on the likely direction their state would head if there were a split, and that’s admittedly the most untenable part of a national divorce, but it’s not completely devoid of solutions. For starters, if enough people were willing to be accommodating and amicable enough to avoid broader bloodshed, there’s a strong case for something like a relocation grace period (5-10 years?) where people have a chance to move and/or “trade places” with people who’d maybe prefer to be in their particular location and vice versa for better geographical-ideological alignment. Secondly, I think you underestimate what may people “in the middle” will tolerate as part of a major geographical realignment. Yes, the staunch Democrat voter in West Virginia (paging Joe Manchin???) – who is well to the left of his/her immediate peers but comfortably more conservative than his voting peers on the coats – probably isn’t thrilled by the prospect of a split (much like conservatives in California), but I could see them warming more to the idea of staying put but coming to grips with the notion that they’re now one of the more “liberal” voices in a Heartland/Red State America than the idea of pulling up shop and moving to Massachusetts just because their voting preferences have historically aligned with the average Massachusetts voter.
Yes, we’re at an impasse, but I disagree that it’s a “damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t trajectory.” This country survived the Civil Rights Movement as an intact country, so I don’t see us remotely close to this being the trolley problem.
I get that you want a national divorce for your own reasons, but you are projecting those desires on a fucketonne of people that don’t, and then justifying that as a way to avoid widespread bloodshed (that is in no way likely, let alone inevitable). A relocation grace period? I think you underestimate how fucken unhinged you sound to ‘normies’ of all political persuasions. I’m out.
“The other reality is that a lot of red states need the blue states a lot.”
No, that is not the reality, and it’s a fallacious argument, at best. Left-leaning people trot this out all the time, with their only source being a gross/aggregate view of federal receipts and expenditures. At the very least, it’s an ecological fallacy. You’re basically saying that just because a state votes Republican and also takes in more federal dollars than it provides, if left to its own devices, it would “collapse.” That just isn’t true. Tennessee is decidedly red, but it’s the bluest areas of the state (looking at you, Memphis) where the imbalance between receipts and spending is greatest.
Regardless, right off the bat, there are many distortions related to the location of military bases and demographic dispersion (i.e., where Social Security/Medicare recipients reside) that affect those numbers. Lefties have always played this game of trying to take credit for a huge chunk of the nation’s GDP (per capita or otherwise) and federal spending imbalances, but they’re only able to do that through statistical aggregations, i.e., the aforementioned ecological fallacy.
Plus, the whole notion of “the red states can’t even take care of themselves” is part of the growing disconnect we have and why our divide has the potential to get so bloody. This is basically Democrats and the left saying, “they can’t make it without us economically, so it means we are morally justified in maintaining geopolitical cohesion through violence, if necessary, and beating those helpless conservatives into submission.” You guys hate being called communists, but this is EXACTLY the conversation that makes conservatives use that label. The mere thought of conservatives splitting and going their own direction, and you’re like, “Wellllll, they just can’t live without us, so that’s not really a practical solution.”
@Roger, I’m saying both the blue states and red states need each other in a big way. Also once you start a national divorce, you’re gonna end up with several hundred countries not 2. For example, what’s to stop the uppper peninsula of Michigan (which mind you was given to the lower peninsula without their choice) from wanting to split off? What’s to stop the part of Illinois that isn’t Cook County from splitting off? Hell what’s to stop California from splitting in 3 (SoCal, the Central Valley/Inland Empire, and Northern California)? Once you go down that road, there’s no going back. If that makes me a communist in your mind, so be it. I’ll keep my thoughts about you to myself. That said while I think some compromise is inevitable, I also think certain values shouldn’t be. Due process should never be taken from anyone even the worst of the worst. Habeas Corpus should be the absolute last resort. Birthright citizenship should be automatic like the Constitution says. There are a bunch of others that I will never compromise because I actually believe in the ideals of this country but also want them to be lived up to.
“This is basically Democrats and the left saying, “they can’t make it without us economically, so it means we are morally justified in maintaining geopolitical cohesion through violence, if necessary, and beating those helpless conservatives into submission.” You guys hate being called communists, but this is EXACTLY the conversation that makes conservatives use that label.”
This is incoherent. At what point have Democrats ever posed a threat of violence of the type you describe? And if they did, what would it have to do with communism? I can see that you think your arguments are somehow inevitable — I suppose most people do — but this last snarl was a bit “mask off.” I’m meeting more and more of your type of rightist the last few years (and no, I’m not a leftist so don’t bother). You wring your hands and lament this unavoidable conflict bearing down us when in fact you are rooting for it. As if your comments don’t telegraph that you would gladly beat those helpless progressives into submission given the opportunity.
Good god. This entire thread shows just how hopeless sit is. Everyone is just taking past one another.
I dunno man I’m seeing a bunch of people patiently trying to engage with one guy who thinks affirmative action is “discrimination.” Seems mostly like one guy being obstreperous and disregarding any information he doesn’t like.
Anyone can say that about any debate.
“This isn’t two sides talking past each other, it’s just one side being wrong and not listening to the side that’s right.”
For those wondering, “Roger” looks to be the same nut as “Mark” from almost 10 years ago. Same long messages and would debate anyone and anything. Same inability to know how the reply button works. “Mark” came right after “Mistro”, which was another of their pseudonyms. They might also be mule_rider. They’ll be back at some point.
https://meadowparty.com/blog/2016/09/10/stick-to-baseball-91016/
Funny that you brought that up. After reading through this thread that’s exactly who it reminds me of. He’s basically what you’d have if the “gish gallop” were a person. I will admit that I am still laughing at the line: “No! THAT is a lie. And do not ever call me a liar so flippantly.”
For a moment I thought he was going to come to fisticuffs with Klaw (Marquess of Queensbury Rules, naturally) or at least challenge him to a pistol duel at dawn to deal with this affront to his honor. Wild stuff.
a pistol duel at dawn to deal with this affront!
You have me laughing out loud 🙂
Thank you for injecting some levity into this discussion.
Thanks, Roger, for making this comments section an absolutely miserable slog. Your fact-free analysis is just the emetic this country needs.