The challenges ahead (Biden's America)

[N.E. Brigand]

I would be very skeptical of a determination that the clearing of the park had nothing to do with Trump's photo op at the church.

A federal judge today ruled that Trump, Barr, and oher federal officials can't be sued for violating protesters' rights while violently clearing Lafayette Park, but that Arlington County and District of Columbia officials who helpd Trump, Barr, et al. violently clear the park can be sued for violating protesters' rights.

Apparently due to some bad Supreme Court precedent.

Seems like an "I was just issuing orders" rule that protects the evil masterminds while throwing the book at their henchmen.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Seltzer poll in Iowa proved to be quite accurate in predicting the presidential result in that state last fall, so this may be notable: Joe Biden's approval vs. disapproval in that state has dropped from +3% in March (47% vs. 44%) to -9% in June (43% vs. 52%). Biden's numbers are being dragged down by Iowans' perception that he's doing a bad job on crime and on immigration.

Which is total nonsense. Biden hasn't done anything to make crime or immigration worse. As regards immigration, there was a brief surge in the number of people the number of people crossing the U.S. southern border in the first months of Biden's term, but (1) it's subsiding; (2) it was never half as much as the surge in 2019 when Donald Trump was president; and (3) nothing Biden did caused the surge.

But Republican propaganda, often filtered through the mainstream sources which, as I have repeatedly said, are primed to believe and spread the lies, is working.

[Dave_LF]

The Democrats have lost *me* over their failure to respond meaningfully to last June's and this January's riots, so I can only imagine the effect that's had on *real* moderates. If it weren't for the fact that the Bad Faith Party went full fascist over the same time period, I'd be actively campaigning against the D's.

[Frelga]

The Democrats have lost *me* over their failure to respond meaningfully to last June's and this January's riots, so I can only imagine the effect that's had on *real* moderates. If it weren't for the fact that the Bad Faith Party went full fascist over the same time period, I'd be actively campaigning against the D's.

Yeah, that's the catch. Over the last decade I went from "both parties are bad" to "this party is bad but holy crap that party is actually fascist."

Although I am not clear on what exactly constitutes a moderate platform (but I have my suspicions )

[N.E. Brigand]

In 2010, after Republican candidate Scott Brown won the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy's death and the Democrats thus lost their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, Krysten Sinema (then a member of the Arizona statehouse) said that at least there was a silver lining: Senate Democrats need no longer bother appeal to the right-leaning members of their party and could just pass legislation by reconciliation, which only requires 51 votes.

But today Sinema penned an op-ed extolling the value of the filibuster and the importance of trying to get 60 votes.

[N.E. Brigand]

The Democrats have lost *me* over their failure to respond meaningfully to last June's and this January's riots, so I can only imagine the effect that's had on *real* moderates. If it weren't for the fact that the Bad Faith Party went full fascist over the same time period, I'd be actively campaigning against the D's.

Are we talking about all the police riots in which cops were attacking innocent protesters last summer? As documented here, for example, with hundreds of instances of police brutality caught on video recorded over just the span of a month or so? (Seriously: between May 30, 2020 and June 29, 2020, there are 686 different incidents of police violence curated in that thread, most of which are on video. And, as also noted on this spreadsheet, there were hundreds more documented incidents over the rest of the summer.) If so, while I think it would have been morally satifsying in the short term for Democrats to have responded more strongly, perhaps by advocating for the abolition of police unions that protect cops who act so badly, a maority of the public feels well-disposed toward police despite the violence they impose on others, and Democrats speaking out more than they did probably would have handed Donald Trump a second term, during which time the police brutality would have gotten even worse.

But my point is that nothing has changed since March, on immigration or crime* or any other issue, that should cause Joe Biden's popularity to go down by 12 points in Iowa. Therefore I think it has to be that people are being lied to -- and I think Democrats need to get the truth out there.

(*Crime rates in the U.S. are up from where they were three years ago, but (1) crime rates had already risen in 2019, before the pandemic started and while Republicans controlled both the White House and half of Congress, and (2) crime rates are up in placed governed by Democrats and places governed by Republicans.)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I've been restraining myself from saying anything about the equating of the events in June 2020 to the events of January 2021. Frankly, I doubt my ability to do so without having to ban myself.

[N.E. Brigand]

I've been restraining myself from saying anything about the equating of the events in June 2020 to the events of January 2021. Frankly, I doubt my ability to do so without having to ban myself.

While I strongly feel they are radically different, I think I understand a law-and-order perspective that views them as similar (and it is to Joe Biden's credit that he saw the trap being laid and, by avoiding "defund the police" rhetoric, was able to stay ahead of Donald Trump; the same strategy tonight seems to be pushing ex-cop Eric Adams, as I predicted yesterday, to a solid lead for New York's mayoralty). There were definitely pointlessly destructive riots last year that were loosely connected to the the non-violent protests. In general, the meaningful protests during the day often devolved into more violent events at night,* but the violence, while deplorable and frustrating, was often on the same scale as the kind of hooliganism one sees after major sporting events. The public at large decries those too but generally doesn't complain about how it shows a rise in crime.

*My personal opinion is that the police last year, fearing that the police murders of George Floyd and others risked forcing actual change upon police departments, often were deliberately brutal in handling protesters as part of an effort to encourage violence in response, which would turn public opinion against the protesters. And the mainstream media did their best to help the police win that argument. Notice that most of the 1000+ videos of police brutality at those links were never shown on the news networks, but there was lots of video of looting and fires. If that's the law-and-order propaganda people are being fed, it's no wonder they don't know just how much violence the police themselves were engaged in.

[Túrin Turambar]

There were certainly some inconsistencies in how the June and January riots were reported on in progressive media, even taking into account their obvious differences (the most important being that one was random and spontaneous, the other whipped up by concerted action from those in power). E.g. this is writer German Lopez in Vox on the 2015 Charlotte riots (not the 2020 riots, but a similar event):

Riots are destructive, dangerous, and scary — but can lead to serious social reforms

To prevent more violent uprisings and protests, we need to take their causes seriously.

When tensions in Charlotte, North Carolina, over the police shooting of Keith Lamont Scott quickly boiled over into violence, looting, and riots, many people on social media had the same reaction: Why are people destroying their own communities in such senseless violence?

But this misses the point. This sentiment, experts previously told me, underplays the real anger behind riots and urban uprisings. "People participate in this type of event for a real reason," Darnell Hunt, a UCLA professor who's studied the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, said. "It's not just people taking advantage. It's not just anger and frustration at the immediate or proximate cause. It's always some underlying issues."

Riots are the culmination of these underlying issues. They might be catalyzed by one particular cause — such as a police shooting — but they're also the result of long-held angers — broader police abuse, residential segregation, economic inequality, and racial tensions, generally, in America.

Same writer, same platform, following the Capitol attack:

Every person who forced their way into the Capitol should be arrested

Lock them all up.

If America wants to prevent another event like Wednesday’s storming of the Capitol in Washington, DC, officials should make all efforts possible to arrest and prosecute every single person involved in the violent protests — events that some branded as an attempted coup by President Donald Trump and his supporters.

This is not simply a matter of vengeance. It’s a real-world example of a common concept in criminological theory focusing on the best way to use punishment to deter future crimes.

[Dave_LF]

Not equating--1/6 was way worse as a moral crime, and I only mention the two in one breath because of their surface similarities and temporal proximity. That said, it's not too much of an exaggeration to say protecting people from roving bands of raiders who pillage and burn was the whole reason government was invented in the first place. If you can't or won't perform that most fundamental function, you've got no business governing.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

Not equating--1/6 was way worse as a moral crime, and I only mention the two in one breath because of their surface similarities and temporal proximity. That said, it's not too much of an exaggeration to say protecting people from roving bands of raiders who pillage and burn was the whole reason government was invented in the first place. If you can't or won't perform that most fundamental function, you've got no business governing.

Exactly: the government often failed to stop the roving bands of police during their pillaging last year.

Edited to add: My apologies if I've posted this before, but here is one of the hundreds of examples of police brutality last summer. This case is perhaps less dangerously violent than some others, but it's still egregiously awful behavior, and too many police were engaging in this sort of thing last year. It immediately came to my mind when the word "pillaging" was used, because when I saw the video a year ago, I immediately thought of the ruffians in "The Scouring of the Shire":



That's the police walking down the street in a residential Minneapolis neighborhood, shouting at people legally standing on their own porch: "Go home! Go inside! Get inside! Get inside! Get in your house now! Let's go!" Then the police say to each other, "Light 'em up." Then they yell again at the residents on their porch, "Go inside now! Get in the house!" and then shoot at them (with non-lethal ammunition).

There had been a curfew put in place due to protests, but it explicitly said that you were permitted to be outside on your own property.

And here is a memorable passage from The Return of the King:

"The hobbits opened the barrier and stood aside. 'Thank you!' the Men jeered. 'Now run home to bed before you’re whipped.' Then they marched along the street shouting: 'Put those lights out! Get indoors and stay there! Or we’ll take fifty of you to the Lockholes for a year. Get in! The Boss is losing his temper.'"

If police are going to behave like Tolkien's ruffians, then perhaps it would have been just for them likewise, as Tolkien says, to have been "rounded up ... [and] shown to the borders."

Edited to add a question: When I posted that video earlier today, I could view it in my post. But now seeing my post on a different computer, it says that the video can't be played here: you have to go watch it on Youtube. Are others seeing that message too?

[Dave_LF]

So it's a big country and with at least 12 metric craptons of rioting occurring simultaneously last June, I'm sure all kinds of wild stuff went on. But to characterize the big picture as rioting *by* police rather than *against* them is a pretty out-there take, IMO.

[N.E. Brigand]

So it's a big country and with at least 12 metric craptons of rioting occurring simultaneously last June, I'm sure all kinds of wild stuff went on. But to characterize the big picture as rioting *by* police rather than *against* them is a pretty out-there take, IMO.

I accept that many people don't see it my way! But I persist in believing that's because most people didn't see the hundreds of examples of police attacking the populace last June. Probably fewer than 5% of those 600+ videorecorded incidents (from that month alone) made it to the regular media.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

There is a lot of different levels to what was going on. Part of it was very much violence generated by right wing extremist groups like the Boogaloo Bois who were taking advantage of the protests to advance their own agenda. Some of it was the police, as N.E.B. says, and some it really was, as he also said, "often on the same scale as the kind of hooliganism one sees after major sporting events." While I don't condone violence of any sort, I do think it is important to understand the utter sense of frustration and despair that permeates the African-American community, which is why I posted that clip of Kimberly Jones, which I think should be required viewing for every person in America.

[N.E. Brigand]

Further unexpected complications to the general portrayal of Democratic and Republican attitudes about law and order:

Joe Biden's spending packages call for funding that local governments would use for "hiring cops," while all Donald Trump's budget proposals as president cut federal spending to police departments.

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A further complication. As noted here, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was early and strongly *opposed* to calls to "defund the police" last year.

Nonetheless, Republicans are now running ads including this video from a year ago, but with the sound off so you can't hear that she's arguing *against* defunding police:

[Voronwë the Faithful]

[N.E. Brigand]

I can't believe that Oregon's Democratic governor, Kate Brown, has signed legislation requiring Oregon universities to survey their students about their political and cultural beliefs and that she suggested that the results will be used to cut funding for schools whose students are too conservative.

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The reason I can't believe it is that it's not true.

But Florida's Republican governor, Ron DeSantis, has just made an equivalent move in his state:

https://www.tampabay.com/news/florida-p ... n-beliefs/

The measure, which goes into effect July 1, does not specify what will be done with the survey results. But DeSantis and Sen. Ray Rodrigues, the sponsor of the bill, suggested on Tuesday that budget cuts could be looming if universities and colleges are found to be “indoctrinating” students.

[N.E. Brigand]

Further unexpected complications to the general portrayal of Democratic and Republican attitudes about law and order:

Joe Biden's spending packages call for funding that local governments would use for "hiring cops," while all Donald Trump's budget proposals as president cut federal spending to police departments.

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A further complication. As noted here, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was early and strongly *opposed* to calls to "defund the police" last year.

Just in the past day:

Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida said the U.S. should defund the FBI.

Conservative commentator Laura Ingraham, who hosts a primetime show on Fox News, said the U.S. should defund the military.

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As far as I am aware, Joe Biden has never called for defunding the police, the FBI, or the military.

Neither, to my knowledge, have Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer or, for that matter, any primetime hosts on CNN or MSNBC.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Hard to judge how significant this will be, but I'm sure glad to see it.

Justice Department suing Georgia over voting restrictions