Tag: Liberals
How Nancy Pelosi hopes to back Joe Manchin into a corner
“In the House, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would link the two bills together, to prevent the party’s left from losing heart. “There ain’t going to be an infrastructure bill unless we have the reconciliation bill passed by the United States Senate,” Pelosi said Thursday.
This is an attempt to put the moderate Democrats in a box. It’s a promise from Pelosi to hold their cherished bipartisan deal hostage unless they fall in line with Biden’s reconciliation plan. It’s not clear whether this was necessary, since Manchin had already started speaking positively about the reconciliation effort. It also may be a bluff — if the reconciliation effort does fall apart, would Pelosi and House Democrats really choose doing nothing over settling for whatever got through the Senate? But Democrats hope the moderates will simply fall in line, so they don’t have to find out.”
Why liberals are bad at politics
“When you’re a hobbyist, you’re learning the wrong information and practicing the wrong skills. You are typically learning about big national news items, and oftentimes it’s just drama. So a hobbyist might learn all the details of the Mueller report and feel that’s important to know and will spend hours and hours on it.
But then if you asked him how he could get involved on some issues of importance in his local community or in his state, or where the pressure points are in his community to influence government, he has no idea. He’s just caught up in the national news cycle and he’s not actually improving anything.
The hobbyist is also learning the wrong political skills. Online politics is all about provocation and signaling outrage. But changing people’s minds, turning your vote into many votes, requires empathy and face-to-face engagement. Not only are you not doing this online or when watching cable news, you’re learning exactly the wrong skill set.”