In my mind, mwa will always be men with attitude despite us knowing those were his initials.
Shoutout to Tom Paris, Menace, Ragnar
- Thread starter ClarindaA's
- Start date
Prove what wrong? All the things you say that haven’t ever happened and aren’t gonna happen?
So, some of the interesting things I've read are on that very subject. They talk about that disconnect. A big part is just a misreading of how much inflation meant to people...the ruling premise, in general but especially for Dems, was that you can't overdue stimulus, because even if there is inflation, wage growth offsets it. But people, especially working people, don't see it that way. When they get raises or more overtime, they earned it. When prices go up, its the government's fault. Lost jobs are bad, but are generally resolved as soon as they next job, meanwhile prices stay high for years.
People are saying, and I never thought that much about it but I agree, that Americans, and especially working class, respond to an economy of abundance (lower prices, many options, etc) than they do to full employment.
But here's another way they are describing they've lost the middle and working class. Look at the great cities that are under full Democratic control. LA, San Francisco, Baltimore, NYC, Seattle, etc. What does a working class or middle class person see in those cities for them? What does progressive leadership, as displayed in those cities, promise the middle or working class?
At BEST, totally unaffordable housing...you simply CAN'T live in many of those cities. At worst, a hell of disorder in neighborhoods a middle class person might live...normal toiletries locked up, homeless tent cities, open drug use, harassment, etc. If you use these full progressive cities as a model, what does progressive leadership promise to the working and middle class? That they could shoplift without prosecution?
Obviously, it's easy to see how a high income urban professional can still (maybe) imagine living high in a condo or up in the hills in these cities, enjoying the culture around them from their multi-million dollar abodes.
The most interesting thing I saw is that for all the hand wringing about wokeism, which is actually pretty easily dropped with a little discipline (the Harris campaign mostly abandoned it), the best thing the Democrats can do is make over the place they govern completely into shining, desirable examples of what progressive leadership means. Fix the places they completely control.
People should want to, and be able to, move to those cities, instead of them hemorrhaging people to red states. Be able to say "We'll do for America what we've done for Portland!", and have it sound like a promise instead of a threat. The fact that literally no Democrat would dare run on the success should say something.
Which comes down to this...there's a compelling argument that the single most important thing Democrats could do, is...build houses. A huge amount of their issues are downstream of their absolute refusal to build houses (and anything else) in their blue enclaves. Democratic communities taking on a building boom would have all kinds of effects...lowering homelessness in their cities, and the associated chaos of that. Lowering costs/inflation. Stop losing population (and electoral representation) to red states. Show they serve the middle and working class with affordable housing. Demonstrate good governance. Attract companies other than high tech, etc etc.
I think that's a pretty interesting premise, and find it hard to dispute. A LOT of things get a lot better if the Democrats build housing and do the other associated things to fix their cities.
The democrats having a better candidate will require the repubs to have a better candidate, all of which will be better for us citizens.
Good post.
hawkeyetraveler
HB Heisman
As someone who spends a LOT of time volunteering in one of the most blighted neighborhoods in Chicago I would say the #1 thing we need to do is economic development. There are plenty of houses in a short commute to the loop. But many of them are in unsustainable neighborhoods and in disrepair. Fixing them is a part of it, but only a part.
So how do you fix it? More government grants that come with 1,000 strings attached so never get spent? Giving people more donations? I say no. That has been tried over and over, many billions have been spent and it just doesn’t work. That is just giving people fish. It feels good, but is creates an ongoing dependency and there are too many loopholes that allow people the easy out of generational poverty/dependence. We need to teach people how to fish and make the tools to do so accessible while at the same time closing the pathways to generational poverty. What does this mean?
- Free entrepreneurship / business classes and visibility into potential business opportunities
- Subsidized capital for small businesses. Banks don’t lend in those areas to those borrowers.
- Improved streetscapes, better lighting, etc.
- Housing stock upgrade - subsidized loans for residential improvements.
- Job fairs in the inner city
- Overhaul of unemployment rules
The only difference between him and Chis is that he doesn't spam Twitter links.
Well, I guess there's the dodgeball thing and DUI's thing.
Far from open minded.
Very good take. I really think very large, planned, mixed income housing developments are a big step in the right direction.
your point about great cities is spot on and it's one that dems were unwilling to acknowledge prior to election and perhaps this smallish issue cost them big because sf and nyc are so iconic that they affect more than just the people who live there. anecdotally both those locations i've been before and after the decline. the change is jarring/shocking/saddening. so much so that at my firm pretty much nobody wants to go there even for 2-3 day trips and as a result nobody schedules offsites there anymore. they used to be the most frequently visited meeting locations, now they are at zero and meetings get held instead in cities in midwest, texas, and if has to be in california outside of sf.
I am not familiar with SF, but I am surprised to hear anybody say anything negative about NYC. It is thriving, and so much cleaner and safer than it was in the 70's and 80's: crime has been decreasing for some time and it is recognized as one of the safest major cities.
It's way better than it was in the 1970s and 80s, not even comparable. But it is apparently considerably worse in terms of street quality of life than it was a five years ago. There is a reason they elected a cop as mayor.
But I definitely don't hear nearly the negatives as far as visiting NYC that you do about visiting many other progressive cities, agreed.
yeah i’ve heard things were awful in 70s through early 90s in nyc. i was comparing current with 2019 nyc manhattan specifically. it’s much worse. but yes comparatively sf is the worst.
I don’t know what that is supposed to mean. Homelessness is up, but crime is still down.
I’d like to hear in what way it’s “much worse” than 2019. I’ve not noticed any difference.
It's good you haven't noticed any difference.
Comparing crime rates to 2019 show just how dangerous ‘reforms’ have been
Crime is down a statistically insignificant 0.77% this year compared to 2022, but it is a hefty 33.7% higher than it was in 2019, before bail reform and discovery reform trashed our criminal justic…
nypost.com
presence of homeless, drug addicts, and generally people hanging about who have nothing to do. there is a heightened sense of lesser personal safety. locals say (i wasn't mugged or anything) there is more crime and not to take the subway. it isn't as bad as sf (where you see excrement and extreme mental illness/perhaps even dying addicts on display) but none of this was present when i was there in 2019. bottomline people at my work are reluctant to go there right now.
