Democrats need to end linguistic contortions

I’m on the email list for First Run Features, a company that makes documentary films. Most of the time I glance at the latest offering and delete it. Recently the notice was about the film The Cinema Within, talking about the film editing process. I’ve watched a few other films about filmmaking, so this sounded intriguing. The film’s page on the First Run Features’ website said it can be viewed through Kanopy, while its page on IMDb says it can be seen through Prime Video. Kanopy looked worth exploring. So I explored. It is a streaming service for and supported by libraries and colleges/universities. Here’s the Wikipedia page for the service. All I needed was my library card. Since I buy books and rarely visit my town’s fine library I had to renew my card. Once I did I signed up to be a Kanopy member. My library created a list of films it made available. I am given twelve “tickets” a month and for each film I’m charged one or more tickets (kid’s films are free). I did some exploring of what films in my “to watch” list are on Kanopy. Some are, many aren’t. I do see LGBTQ films are available (at least through my library) and there is an LGBTQ category under Browse. There is also access to some BBC shows. I’ll be back to Kanopy. The film The Cinema Within discusses why film editing works. In no other experience in life (or the 400 million years of eyeballs) are two different images shown immediately one after the other and we make sense of it. If we couldn’t make sense of such cuts film would be reduced to a motionless camera pointing to an acting area. The first films were exactly that. But by 1910 filmmakers had figured out a standard set of continuity principles that are still used in film today. Modern films cut every 3-4 seconds and we don’t notice. The same techniques are used around the world. We don’t need years to understand what these cuts between images mean. This film asks the question: Why do these techniques work? Yes, research was done. A woman found a village in Turkey where the residents had not seen movies. She showed them short videos of the various editing techniques and asked them to describe what they saw. She and other researchers were surprised at the results and surprised again when they saw what made a difference. Other researchers focused on the eye and blinking. Only a small area of our vision is in detailed focus, so 2-3 times a second we shift our focus. The brain can’t process the images as we shift, so doesn’t. Between that and blinking about a third of the time we’re functionally blind. Of course, other aspects of the research are also surprising. I found it fascinating and recommend the film. Kos of Daily Kos discussed a way Democrats might better reach voters. The discussion was prompted by an article in the Washington Post about “a growing backlash among Democrats who are fed up with jargon that alienates voters more than it persuades them.” Some examples of the jargon that confuses and turns off voters: “Oligarchs” instead of “rich people.” “People experiencing food insecurity” instead of “people going hungry.” “Equity” instead of “equality.” “Unhoused” instead of “homeless.” Bernie Sanders has toured, speaking against the oligarchy, and drew big crowds. But even he has switched to saying “greedy billionaires.” There are words and phrases that just baffle many voters: “privilege,” “cultural appropriation,” and “settler colonialism.” There is also that acronym that has gone from “LGBT” to “LGBTQ” to other versions that try to include every variation of human gender and sexuality (few are going to wade through all those letters or to understand “two spirit”). Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego of Arizona won last November by championing liberal causes while speaking English. Not “social equity” but “even chance.” Gallego won the state’s Latinos 61-37, the same margin as Biden in 2020, while in 2024 Harris won them by 55-42.

Yes, some of these terms seek to avoid stigma and otherwise redress certain injustices embedded in our language, but it’s a distinction that’s lost on most people. The intent is noble, but the outcome is disastrous for those who are supposedly being protected by these linguistic contortions. ... Talk like a human—and win more voters.

Kos posted that article Thursday evening. He posted again on the same topic Friday evening. That first post got more than 1,000 comments (it’s over 1220 when I checked). Kos expected commenters would blast him. Yeah, some did. But the rest offered constructive commentary. Kos contrasted the big words of Democrats with the straightforward message of the other side:

Trump’s message is all about danger. You’re physically in danger—because Black and brown people are going to kill you. You’re economically in danger—because “globalists” (i.e. Jews) and immigrants are cheating you. You’re culturally in danger—because trans people are coming for your children. Security isn’t a luxury: It’s as fundamental as food, water, and shelter. And Trump taps into that primal fear so effectively that he’s peeled off major parts of our traditional base: lower-income voters of color and the organized labor movement.

Those three components about danger – they’re all lies. But they’re quite effective lies. To win again candidates need to talk about the most important issue, the economy, and to speak English. Mark Sumner, Kos Emeritus, discussed a lot of Democratic politicians and consultants are talking about. They believe Democrats need a “Joe Rogan of the Left.” Rogan has radio show or podcast (or something like that) who is quite influential in promoting conservative ideas. Rogan is far from the only conservative voice, just an effective one. So, we should have effective liberal voices out there too. Sumner calls the idea “painfully stupid.”

I do know what anyone who wants to reach out to young people should say: Billionaires took your money. They took your chance to buy a home. They took your chance at a good education. They stole your opportunities. Billionaires took the things you want in life. If you really want those things, you have to take them back. That's the message. That's the whole message.

Republicans are still at it, taking from you and giving it to people who already have so much.

How does a tiny fraction of the population get away with this? They do it by dividing the other 99% of Americans against themselves. They turn us against other working people who happen to be women. Other working people who happen to be Black. Working people who happen to be gay. ... Every single day, Joe Rogan and a host of other influencers spread out across social media to tell young people that their problems exist because Black people exist, gay people exist, immigrants exist. Women exist. Go forth and hate. Their message is clear: It's not you, it's them. And they're right. It is them. Only "them" isn't people of color or someone who happens to be LGBTQ. Them is billionaires. Them is funding this message of hate because they just f'ing love it when the little people turn on each other. Them is laughing at us all.

Conservatives, with the “again” part of their slogan, are invoking a time when finding a good job and buying a home was much easier.

But the reason that things were better for those Americans wasn't because that time came double-dipped in racism and misogyny. It was better because that time came with strong unions, vast investments in education and infrastructure, and tax rates that meant money flowed to first homes rather than super yachts.

Urge your progressive candidates to run on that message. That should be their job. A Joe Rogan of the Left isn’t necessary. The Senate has a tradition that if a member puts a hold on something, like confirming the nomination to a job, the whole body can’t combine that nomination with others and must go through a roll-call vote. Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville put a hold on about 450 military promotions for nearly a year because he opposed letting service members travel out of state for abortions. The hold put all those promotions in limbo because the Senate didn’t have the time to do a roll-call vote on that many individual confirmations. They’re usually handled many at a time and by voice vote. The vice nasty, back when he was a senator, also put holds on Biden’s attorney nomination. By the time he became a senator most of Biden’s nominations had already been confirmed, so no great damage. Lisa Needham of Kos reported that Democrat Sen. Dick Durban put a hold on the nomination for US attorney for Florida and said he might put a hold on other attorney nominees. Wow, a Democrat showing some spine! It’s also a nice switch for Durban who kept honoring the tradition of blue slips, which prevented the Senate from confirming liberal federal judges in conservative states. Putting a hold on nominations, as Tuberville did, is a long Republican tactic. And they’re quite annoyed that Democrat Durban is using it.

Republicans genuinely can’t conceive of a world where Democrats deploy the same tactics they do. Democrats are supposed to follow the rules, and the rules are whatever Republicans say they are. But as Durbin put it in his statement about the hold: “As I’ve said time and time again—there cannot be one set of rules for Republicans and another set for Democrats.”

Andrew Mangan of Kos puts out a weekly column on the most important polls. One of interest this week is about what Americans think of Biden’s cognitive decline. Did it have no effect on his ability to be president? Little effect? Or severely limited him as president? The poll shows 58% thought Biden was severely limited. That’s 31% for Democrats, 58% for independents, and 83% for Republicans. Yeah, the nasty guy is also cognitive decline and is also a terrible guy, and we’re still focused on Biden? It matters because another poll shows 57% of all people believe Democrats concealed Biden’s true mental state. That includes 28% of Democrats, 57% of independents, and 86% of Republicans. A reminder that Republicans were pushing the idea that Biden was too old, so of course their people believe that he couldn’t handle the job. But poll numbers like that indicate how the public views the Democrats. Less trust and lower favorability ratings. Which means while voters are turning away from Republicans they are not necessarily turning toward Democrats. To win back trust Democrats need to honestly discuss all that happened around Biden’s mental abilities. Kai Ryssdal of the NPR show Marketplace spoke to Evan Osnos, whose new book is The Haves and the Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich. While working on the book Osnos began to wonder if America was approaching an “untenable imbalance.” We may be living in the most unequal time in all of history. Wealth has accumulated so fast our minds, laws, and institutions can’t keep up. About 100 years ago some of the top capitalists realized that disparities had gotten so large that if they didn’t figure out a more even distribution capitalism could be in doubt. They wanted to make sure the country was sustainable. The current moment is quite different. The Vanderbilts, even when they could buy members of Congress, didn’t have a White House office. Also, Republicans are flat on their backs as Musk rampaged through the government. Even so, Osnos is optimistic. Americans are noticing and clearly seeing who is standing in their way of succeeding. America has “a way of finding its way back to a more sustainable path. But it takes a time, and it takes sustained commitment on the part of the public.” Lisa Needham of Kos wrote that the nasty guy, through his Truth Social, attacked Leonard Leo. I’ve mentioned Leo a few times as the guy at the Federalist Society who recommended sufficiently conservative candidates for federal and Supreme courts. He was the one who made sure it was Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett who got onto the high court. So why did the nasty guy attack the one person who shaped the American court system to allow the nasty guy get where he is? Recently, a three judge panel on the Court of International Trade ruled that the nasty guy’s wide ranging tariffs are not legal, at least through the law the tariffs are based on. And the nasty guy is not capable of admitting his mistake of selecting a judge who would rule against him. So he blamed Leo, even though Leo probably didn’t have a part in selecting these judges. Rather nice these two are in a catfight. So the nasty guy will select judges without Leo’s help. A problem with that is at least the candidates Leo recommends are competent. The last time I wrote about the Russian invasion of Ukraine was quite a while ago. And over the weekend there is news. NPR talked about the massive drone strikes Ukraine pulled off deep in Russian territory, but didn’t give details. So I did a bit of online searching and found a story by NBC. I’ll let you read the details of the audacious plan. Though Kos didn’t post an officially reviewed article, annieli of the Kos community has been posting daily for quite a long time and, of course, included this attack. The post included another attack on the Kerch bridge, which allows Russia to get supplies into Crimea. This explosion wasn’t enough to bring the bridge down, but it was just as good – the bridge was declared unstable and closed for use. About a third of the way down annieli’s post is a meme showing the cost of various aircraft carriers. The US model costs $13 billion. The British model is $7.6 billion. The French is $4.14 billion. And the Ukrainian version is 39,000 Euros – it looks like a semi truck and “Comes with kettle and toaster.” Down in the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos are several of memes and cartoons about the attack. A few more are in response to the nasty guy telling Zelenskyy that he doesn’t have any cards. Zelenskyy is showing holding a royal flush (with an extra ace) the whole time. Todd Alcott posted what looks like the cover of a comic book with Batman wearing a pink outfit with identical green, yellow, blue, purple, and orange outfits behind him.

Robin: Batman! You’ve been wearing a different color suit every night! What’s going on? Batman: Homophobes are terrified by rainbows, old chum!

Back in the main body of the roundup Chitown Kev quoted Margaret Sullivan of the Guardian talking about libraries and museums.

Why would any politician – especially one as hungry for adulation as Donald Trump – go after such cherished parts of America? It seems counterintuitive, but this is all a part of a broad plan that the great 20th-century political thinker Hannah Arendt would have understood all too well. Take away natural beauty, free access to books and support for the arts, and you end up with a less enlightened, more ignorant and less engaged public. That’s a public much more easily manipulated. [...] What’s really going on is a long-term power grab. In crippling learning, beauty and culture Trump and his helpers “seek to make the country more amenable to their political domination”.

Jonathan Sumption is a former justice of the supreme court of Britain. He wrote an article for the New York Times about failing Western democracies:

The tragedy is that historical experience warns us that strongmen do not get things done. At best they may indulge the fantasies of some of the population. But at what cost? Strongmen tend to be fixated on a few simple ideas that they offer as solutions to complex problems. The concentration of power in a small number of hands and the absence of wider deliberation and scrutiny enable them to make major decisions on the hoof, without proper forethought, planning, research or consultation. Within the government’s ranks, a strongman promotes loyalty at the expense of wisdom, flattery at the expense of objective advice, and self-interest at the expense of the public interest. All of this usually makes for chaos, political breakdown, economic impoverishment and social divisions.

Max Burns, a Kos contributor reported that “A supermajority of Americans support ditching the Electoral College in favor of using popular vote,” though no mainstream media is discussing it. The Electoral College is a big deal because Republicans won the presidential popular vote only twice since 1992, yet won the presidency four times. And because of that Republicans haven’t wanted to get rid of the Electoral College. They are changing their opinions on the EC because the nasty guy won the popular vote. They could claim to be the ones to get rid of it. There are lots of reasons to get rid of the EC. One is that voters in all states matter, not just those in the swing states. In the comments of another pundit roundup are several cartoons for Pride month. One posted by paulpro and created by Bless the Messy shows two rainbow colored circles. The top one is what people think Pride is: rainbows and parades. The bottom one, with a lot more colors, is what Pride actually is: Being in the closet to stay safe. Having community. Feeling free. Loving yourself more than needing to be loved by others. Being accepted and respected as ourselves. Protecting trans youth. Fighting for equal rights. Honoring those who paved the way (especially black trans elders). And a few more. There are also more cartoons about TACO – Trump always chickens out. Quite a ways down is a cartoon by Monte Wolverton showing a taco talking with lots of exclamation points. Xi of China tells Putin, “I’m not particularly concerned about it... It’s mostly full of beans.”