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wardencommanderrodimiss · 4 years

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roddy plays fire emblem: three houses - prologue

all I know about this game I learned from twitter. I don’t know much of anything about this game. but I’ll tell you what I know about the characters anyway.

I’m only doing characters who I can distinctly recall off the top of my head. I’m not looking up anyone’s names because there are so many characters in this game.

Byleth - the player character. a teacher at this academy, despite not being much older than the oldest students here. game devs are cowards who couldn’t believe that lady Byleth could be Big Sexy in proper armor and instead they gave her fuckin....thigh-highs and lace and a titty window and a belly-button window ma’am your organs are there, you can’t expose that. my disdain for impractical lady armor is outweighed by my desire to play as the girl whenever possible, so like, I’ll play Lady Byleth, but I just won’t be happy about it.

Jeralt - Byleth’s dad? I think it’s Jeralt? There’s some other guy who looks a lot like the guy who I think is Byleth’s dad so I can’t actually tell you if I got the name right. he’s a mercenary. I don’t know why he and his kid are hired at a fuckin....church academy? but they are. he raised Byleth basically as a feral child and he doesn’t even know how old they are? even though his wife died in childbirth and I think he talks about how long ago that was? or something? there’s something about him not knowing how old his own kid is. Dad what the hell.

Rhea - the lady pope of The Church, but not a cool ladypope like Leliana Dragon Age. I saw someone compare her outfit/hair to Ghetsis from Pokemon and I sent that meme to Wolf and Liam asking if they could confirm or deny and they told me that’s an insult to her but Ghetsis is slime of the earth so relatively, we still don’t know. I don’t trust her because I don’t trust quasi-historical-inspired-setting fantasy church leaders, except for Leliana/Vivienne/Cassandra.

Seteth - green hair? all the church people have green hair are they related? is it magic? I think it’s magic, Byleth’s hair is sometimes green. he’s like the Hot Dad but since he’s not your dad you can romance him. I don’t know if I trust his goatee but one of my friends retweets a lot of art of him and I trust her so maybe I trust him? he’s on thin ice.

Flayan? Flayn? Flyann? I’m calling her Flan like the custard but I know there’s a Y in there somewhere right? - more green hair, so a church person I guess. I have no idea how old she is because this is anime and she could be anywhere from 12 to an ancient dragon person because I know this series has some of those. maybe Seteth’s daughter?? I get that vibe??

Sothis - the ancient dragon person who looks like a 12 year old girl. more green hair. I couldn’t tell her and Flan apart for a while.

BLACK EAGLES

why aren’t they the Red Eagles? they’re red. the other two are blue and yellow. who named these guys. what the fuck.

Edelgard - every time I see the pokemon Eldegoss in SwSh I think of her. leader of the BE. controversial. very controversial. doesn’t like the Church. I can handle this, I romanced Anders in my first playthrough of DA2 which was my first time playing any Dragon Age game, controversial and Church-hating is like.... sometimes you just gotta blow up a fantasy church, you know? I get it. even if I don’t end up agreeing with her, like, I get it, I guess. she didn’t always have white hair but something happened. there sure is a lot of magic hair color shit in this game. I think Dmitri is her stepbrother.

Hubert - Edelgard’s right-hand man. vampire jokes for days. I’m gonna cut myself on that edge....the edge of his cheekbones they are Sharp. I don’t buy that this guy is a teenager. I don’t know whether he’s actually tall or people just play that up because it’s funny to draw him Tall and Looming behind Edelgard.

Ferdinand von Aegir - I AM FERDINAND VON AEGIR!!!!!!!!

Dorothea - she’s the opera singer one, right? if I got the name wrong, I’m talking about the pretty opera singer one with the hat that’s kinda like a beret. she’s my favorite because I’m gay and she’s very pretty and looks very sweet. she’s like the only one of the Eagles who’s a commoner I think? I don’t know why she’s here but okay. I like her. I would like to kiss her.

GOLDEN DEER

Claude - that’s not his real name. leader of the GD. he’s an archer and he has a big fuckoff dragon wyvern. his mother is from whatever country this game is set in but his dad isn’t and lots of people are rude and racist to him for it. he seems kinda chill but also suspicious of everyone which honestly I get it. also he might poison people? I trust him and I’m sure he has good reason to do it. I support him.

Hilda - Claude’s right-hand lady. pink hair anime girl with a giant fuckoff axe. I thought I knew more about her than that but nope that’s all I’ve got. has an older brother.

Lorenz - purple haired anime boy. look at his post-timeskip haircut this boy is Gay and there’s nothing anyone can tell me that would change my mind. needs to be smacked with some good ol’ Character Development to grow past being a pretentious noble prick but he’s pretty cool once that happens. one of the artists I follow who turned overnight into a FE3H twitter for like six months is a big Lorenz stan so I think I could be biased toward him already but that’s just How It Be when you’re coming into this via osmosis.

BLUE LIONS

Dmitri - leader of the Blue Lions but everyone calls him a boar. gets absolutely hammered by Bad Times in the timeskip and comes back with an eyepatch and absolutely feral and unhinged. murdered a bunch of people? Dimi You Can’t Just Go Around Murdering People. 30-50 feral hogs in a big fuzzy mantle. very unfortunate that he’s being forced to do Leader Shit and just wasn’t allowed to be chill and relax and get to work through his issues instead of getting more of them and going feral.

Dedue - you cannot convince me that this man is not a 30-year-old father of two. how is he a student. get out of here. you’re wrong and you’re lying. who did these character designs. I think out of almost everyone here, he is the guy who Does Not Deserve All Of This but fate has been a dick to him. everyone he loves got murdered by I think Dmitri’s countrymen but now Dedue is Dmitri’s right-hand-man which I do not understand. He deserves better both in-game and also from the writers because they just kind of write him out post-timeskip I hear. just free this man from whatever the fuck is going on in his life and the game. I still don’t believe you that he’s of any age to be a student.

Sylvain - the redhead. childhood friends with Dmitri and someone else but I don’t remember who. The Horny Guy. may just automatically be recruited by Lady Byleth to their class, betraying his country and his oldest friends because he saw a belly-button window. just y’know. sometimes it be like that.

FELIX - he’s the other childhood friend. I don’t know shit about him.

OTHER STUDENTS WHOSE NAMES I CAN RECALL BUT I DON’T KNOW WHERE THEY ARE AND IT DOESN’T MATTER BECAUSE YOU CAN RECRUIT ALMOST EVERYONE TO ANYWHERE ELSE

Caspar (artist?), Linhardt, Bernadetta (Bernie, my brain keeps just swapping her and Dorothea around because they both have these long regal names but I don’t think they’re actually anything at all alike), Petra, Leonie, Marianne,

ASHEN WOLVES

they’re not really a house they’re just a bunch of people who live in the fucking basement and I think it’s the church’s fault.

Yuri - the other purple-haired anime boy. got kicked out of war crimes academy somehow. declared himself the leader of the basement people and they were just like “hey sure cool I guess”.

Someone who’s a friend of I think Hilda’s older brother - not even a student or someone who needs to be living in the basement, he’s just down here for tax fraud? debt evasion? again, it be like that.

THE PLOT

matchmaking simulator. Byleth plays matchmaker for all of their students by setting them up into the most healthy friendships/relationships that are as ambiguously gay as the COWARDS writing this game will allow. I know there are a few, but it’s mostly a few Byleth romances, so. that.

also Byleth makes the other professors’ jobs easier by poaching all their students so that they only have to teach like two people while Byleth has everyone in their class. recruit the students by giving them gifts and having tea with them. eat lunch like five times a day trying to hang out with everyone. go fishing. go fishing some more. the game limits your amount of bait per month because otherwise this will be a fishing simulator. I know this specifically because I asked Wolf and Liam if I could just fish infinitely forever and they told me no. I was upset. the day that the game starts is 4/20. I know this because Wolf made a meme about it and that’s what started our long conversation about the game that established nothing.

immediately after everyone graduates, Byleth goes into a fucking coma for five years and wakes up and the five-year reunion is interrupted by a war between the three houses. -rimshot- also there might be some greater threat called the Flame Emperor or some shit but I know fuckall about that. mostly I just know everyone’s despair as they are forced to kill their friends who they didn’t manage to recruit.

I’ve never played a Fire Emblem before and I’ve never known what a tactic is in any RPG I’ve ever played. this is going to be fantastic.

#roddy plays fe3h

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bladekindeyewear · 4 years

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HS^2 bloggin’ Patreon Commentary Catchup 2020-03-29

I know I’ve been sitting on half-a-dozen asks, but I’m gonna sit on those a little longer because after I’m done catching up on ALL the commentary I’ve missed I’ll probably be a little exhausted.

First the commentary on Chapter 5: YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D. I skimmed this before, just so I could leave a comment about what I’d been told about the suicide feeling / Jaspers funeral when she was “eight” being way too late on the timeline. They still haven’t made any corrections to that HS^2 page. Hm. Are they just feeling the general vibe and tags to help the fandom guide things? I’m wondering if anyone came to any of them specifically with that, since Patreon commentary doesn’t seem to cut it. (Which I might be grateful for, from another point of view, because why would they favor paid methods.)

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 5, "YOUR 3Y3S H4V3 B33N CLOS3D"

Starting commentary on why they played with the medium by opting for a Longpage with that update. Unsurprising and understandable~

Ooh, they included the commission/sketch instructions for the image they asked from Xam.

I don't know what we did to deserve Xamag.

Yeah few people dispute Xamag’s awesomeness.~

Much of this conversation was written before they launched HS^2′s first chapter, huh?

With the "primary" version of its original protagonist dead in a wallet,

Did... did Terezi or someone else put John’s body in his wallet after he died? I forget. *checks back*

(Meat 35) That’s definitely a fair question. But I have one that’s much more important for her to answer. Terezi, are you seriously just going to leave the body here? “TEREZI: HUH?” Of course not. Terezi’s a practical girl, after all. She digs the wallet out of her blood-stained pants, and captchas the corpse. She holds it close to her heart, like a secret. Like John’s stupid last words: a confession whispered for her and no one else.And then she starts walking home.

(Meat 36) Terezi’s jaw tightens. She’s not ready to hear any words that remind her of those few hours with John. Her hand goes to her pocket, where she’s keeping the wallet. She traces the contours of it with her thumb and forces a smile.

[...] Here we both are. It’s a beautiful day. You’ve got your dead boyfriend in your wallet. And we’ve already managed to strike such a nice metatextual rapport. So hear me out. [...] I ease the throttle back a bit, just enough so that I’m not whispering directly into her ear when she slips the wallet out of her pocket. She clutches it so hard in her palm that she’s digging dents into the leather, and bites her lip.

God damnit, that was an important fucking thing for me to forget. I hope she preserved his corpse in a better way than just “wallet”. And why the FUCK did Dirk think it was so important to bring him???? That’s not good, is it.

Back to the commentary, going to how the Dirk crew’s conversations especially cover the meta question of why continue the story at all...

This is actually a similar question to one explored by a series that shares a lot of Homestuck's creative DNA, Steven Universe.

Oh god damnit, what timing, huh? And then they go on about what constitutes a happy ending and what’s supposed to happen after, how work might not be done, et cetera. Hopefully these authors take a page from how SU:F finished, because Steven Universe managed to pull it back to uplifting pretty well.

These are two dangerous women, confined together long enough to learn all of each others' weaknesses, and sharp-edged enough to exploit them.

True enough.

Dirk, unfortunately, cucks the audience from seeing the scene's "true resolution." What an asshole. I've never been madder at this guy than I am right now. I bet he didn't even provide a warranty.

Pff.

On to the next commentary:

Sketches and Commentary: Catnapped, Part Three

Catnapped is some of the most fun I’ve had while writing, because Jasprose is just so goddamn fun. Cats don’t plan, they live in the moment. She’s always existing in that moment of pushing a glass off the table.

We can all agree with that I think.

Plenty they talk about here, but I’ll just quote part of anything about characterization...

First, I actually really appreciate getting a lot at Jane's genuine sympathy for Dirk here. There was quite a bit of mutual fondness and care between the two of them – but, at the same time, they enabled each others' worst tendencies.

Hm!

Swifer remains the closest thing to a "straight man" this story has. (Not in the sexuality way. In the comedy way.)

Yep.

There was no universe where we left this story without Jasprose saying "owo what's this". You know it, I know it.

Jesus Christ, I didn’t catch that.

God, Problem Sleuth just has the worst commuting luck. He should put some of his rug money into a permanent locksmith. Checking back in with these scenes is always a delight. It probably took PS like two hundred off-screen panels to get to this point. Miserable.

Wait, that’s right, Catnapped 28 is shown before DDD 12, but AFTER Dad is shown marching up handcuffed in Catnapped 26. And yet in DDD 12, Dad and DD come fetch PS from out of his office, when the handcuffed thing hasn’t happened yet in DDD. You can’t DO that, authors! It only makes RELEASE ORDER sense, not any sort of OTHER sense? What about when people come to catch up or read this later! Come on, that’s sloppy. Unless they’re going to leave PS behind to stay trapped in his office MORE, which I wouldn’t put past them. (But, wouldn’t make sense since the bullethole from C28 is already there in DDD12.) Andrew knew more of how to be responsible telling an out-of-time-sync story, believe it or not.

Commentary ends with a few sketches, like Jasprose doing a The Mask impression, appropriately.

Sketches and Commentary: Chapter 6, "A Conversation Regarding Relevance"

Oh, it’s Jade time.

On alt!Callie’s starting Space rant:

I wanted to impress on everyone just how vast it is, and also to remind the audience that alt!callie has them at the same mercy that Dirk does. She can force us to listen to her pontificate endlessly if she so chooses. She’s slightly less insufferable than Dirk, if only perhaps because her text isn’t orange.

Yep, mostly.

So here she is. Jade. We find out that not only is she conscious inside her own head, she is also incredibly chatty. And not too thrilled with her current situation. I know most of the audience isn’t either, considering the fact that Jade having no agency has basically become a meme at this point.

NEVER. AGAIN. PLZ.

As Callie told us in the beginning of the chapter, it isn’t natural for people to behave like narrative devices. Even within her own thematic framework, Callie has a habit of defaulting to behaving like a person after all.

Even alt!Callie still became a story nerd, not just original Callie -- she just became a different, more insufferable type of story nerd.

Plenty more discussion I don’t need to touch on... keep in mind I’m omitting large parts of this in most cases, again, to respect the paywall.

A remark on Dave and Karkat being two emotionally-constipated early-twenties Bernie Bros, which... I mean. Fair.

She definitely does love them, and she wanted to be with them, but also...Jade has a lot of other prospects. She’s actually the one character who seems to be enjoying her time on Earth c. Hitting up interspecies raves and getting around. We just haven’t seen any of that because none of those other people she boned are main characters.

Maybe that’s why alt!Callie was so blind and dismissive of it? Offscreen experience being less in the Light, therefore less relevant to her, even though that’s the exact attitude she’s ostensibly at war with?

Anyway Jade’s consciousness is huge.

Yep.

It’s been a while since we’ve had any sort of serious meta talk about classpects. Mostly because there’s really no use for classpects outside of the game, unless, for instance, you go around referring to everyone as the Prince or the Witch because you are a dramatic alien in a hood. It does make sense that a Witch’s powers would be more useful than a Sylph’s to a Muse.

Aaaand that’s all the classpect mention we’re gonna get isn’t it? ;P

(Yes I know, the author told us to dial it back. They ARE going ahead and prepping to answer some outstanding questions, though.)

Honestly, the Jade Situation is a tough one. To be sure, she has been sacrificed to the plot again and again, something that probably began as a coincidence and then later grew into a theme. Space players are destined to be huge, cosmic forces in the universe. Big movers. [...] But usually when we hear the story of big, god-like beings, we don’t think about the personalities behind them. What was it like for god to create the universe? Was he lonely? Did he regret it? Did he wish he could live in it instead?

And Jade WAS too powerful not to sideline, by a certain point in the plot. And before that, maybe trapped in a bit of a character arc where she had to get over some notions to step into the action.

I actually think Jade could have been okay with this. With being A Force For The Narrative. [...] But then Callie makes it personal.

Agreed. If alt!Callie hadn’t been so shitty about it in general, they could have worked things out more meaningfully; but the immense resolve and effort it took to dominate Caliborn in her origin timeline has tainted her perception ALMOST as bad as Dirk’s. Much of HS^2 is probably going to involve her gradually learning how to get over that in the background, the balance she needs to take ala the Ultimate Riddle’s lesson.

(Tangentially... it was said that it would have been nearly impossible to make alt!Callie dominate, even across ALL timelines. What if alt!Callie had her timeline’s origin explained in HS^2 by a Third Scratch at this late date with the likes of Davebot running around to do it??? That would probably make me fucking mad.)

Back to the commentary.

Admittedly these last few chapters have definitely been “girls beating the crap out of each other” heavy, and I hope that’s okay.

PFFFFF

Callie and Jade aren’t really sure who makes a decision on what is considered “just” or “heroic”. Plot twist, it’s us. We do. But also the alpha timeline does.

Hmm.

More gorgeous Xam art. Initially we were going to make it more ambiguous whether or not she actually ate the peanut butter, but we decided to have it be a decisive moment of triumph.

Really? Well, you could have made it visually clearer that the candy dropped. A lot of people visually missed that. This is a consequence of the back-and-forth artist-isnt-the-author art-commissioning going on, in part... Andrew was MUCH better at conveying what he wanted to convey BETWEEN panels than this crew, like comic book panels and their composition together; you can see that when comparing Homestuck proper’s sprite animation to that of fan adventures that used sprites, for instance. These guys are at something of a disadvantage due to their disconnect.

Commentary on the Commentary

This commentary uses "she/her" to talk about the alternate Calliope possessing Jade, while the "other" Callie (remember them?) uses they/them. This other Calliope, presumably, has a much different relationship with her gender – and her brother – than the Callie we saw discussing the subject with Roxy and John. One of my favorite things about this update (I can say that, because I'm a second person who didn't write it) was that subtle hint about how different her Caliborn must have been to allow her to predominate in the first place. I'd be really interested in fan works exploring more about her (and his) past.

Hhhhmmmmmmm.

Not sure what else to say to that, but it does make me hmmm.

Sketches and Commentary: Diamonds, Dames, and Dads, Part 1

Probably not much plot-relevant here...

Oh pff.

They had full drawings of them going in for the kiss on standby. They couldn’t resist making them.

Real talk, I have been looking forward to writing this story the most out of any other part of HS^2. Finally I get to combine my passions. Cheesy noir bullshit and old men making eyes at each other.

Pfffffff. Yes.

...the next three or four pages of this writing go on to describe how sexy this is and these characters and setting are. I can’t fault a word of any of it.

The dream team is assembled. Nothing can possibly go wrong.

Wow, I caught up on all this commentary quick. See you next time.

#Homestuck #hs2 #Homestuck Liveblog #upd8 #Homestuck^2 #bladekindeyewear #blastyoboots #Homestuck Commentary #spoiler #spoilers

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sapphiresea · 5 years

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The Earp Expo Experience

Wow. The three E’s. This is why I’m never in charge of titling things.

This past weekend, I went to Earp Expo in New Orleans and a couple of people have expressed interest in reading about my experience. Since I’m currently in the middle of the post-con crash, I’m writing about it now to alleviate some of that with memories of how completely amazing it was. Because...it was. The cast, the volunteers, and all the other Earpers made it one of the most special weekends of my entire life.

My Expo began on Thursday, right from the start when I met a couple other Earpers on my flight from Calgary to New Orleans. We knew each other from previous events and the twitter world, but hadn’t actually planned to go in together until it happened. Let me tell you, flights are so much easier when you’ve got someone to share them with –– especially the stopovers! We even met a couple of UK Earpers in the airport in Atlanta who were really great to chat with.

Our evening was spent with a few other Earp friends watching the Raptors game in the hotel bar. Kat even walked by once on her way to another bar and asked how the game was going, and at the end of the night, her and Dom walked by us again on their way in and waved at us. Most of the time, we just spent chatting amongst ourselves, but as the game grew closer, we all started getting into it. Even our bartender started cheering for the Raptors with us, and I don’t think I’ve laughed or cheered so hard in a long time. I’m not usually a sports person, but I was so into it.

The real expo started the next day, though, with registration. I had to get up so early because I was curling my hair and dressing up as Waverly from the Big Gay Dinner episode. I looked cute, though, and I got to spend the time between registration and autographs sitting in a meeting room chatting with people from across the world! Not a bad way to start.

The first thing I did with the start of the programming was to head to the autograph room to see Kat. I had a Bernie tote that my friend Abbie had made holding things to give to people. The line was long, but even the longest lineups were pretty fun because you’re never just standing there in silence. You’re with each other.

I gave Kat a bag of Old Dutch ketchup chips and teased her that she was eating the wrong kind, so I was going to fix that. She admitted she had never tried Old Dutch and said she was so excited to dig into them and thanked me for bringing them all the way from Canada. I also gave her a copy of Portia de Rossi’s Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain because of our previous conversation, which she said she remembered, and said she couldn’t wait to start.

Friday and Saturday, I was asking cast members to sign my final honours thesis. I told them that I had a bit of a tough time getting through university for awhile because I had gotten very ill right in the middle of it, but that now I was going on to grad school. I said I wanted them to sign the thesis because Wynonna Earp had helped to keep me sane through all of it. Particularly to Dom and Kat, I said that meeting them at Emerald City Comic Con had really given me the inspiration I needed to get through to the end and that it had paid off because I had gotten top grades across the faculty and won a couple of awards for it. Their names were all in the acknowledgements as a result, as well as a thank you to the entire Earper family, and that’s where they all signed.

Kat, along with everyone else who signed it (Dom, Melanie, Emily, Dani, and Varun), said she was very proud of me and that I should be very proud of myself for it because it was amazing and congratulated me on all of it. Emily, who signed next, made such a big deal about it. She told me that I was breaking barriers for women in research and that I had an incredible story that she would love to read one day. Dom and Dani echoed Kat’s sentiments. Michael Eklund came over while Dani was signing the thesis, too, and she asked if he had signed it because she couldn’t believe she was signing someone’s thesis. At least I’m unique? And I’ll get to Varun’s response later, when I get to the part where we met, because his was probably the best.

Kat and I took three selfies (even though I’m only posting two here) before I left to see Emily. I also had a photo op from the Calgary Comic Expo for her to sign from last year’s convention. She’s making a pretty ridiculous face in it and when she saw it, she was like, “Oh my god! What am I doing!? I’m so sorry I ruined your photo!” I assured her that actually I just thought it was hilarious and that I love that picture.

I told her that I was glad to get to meet her now because back then I was still so new to watching that I wasn’t really an Earper yet. I told her that my dad and I started watching because the show was filmed in Calgary and we were both Calgary natives, which really excited her. We talked about the city for a bit and she told me that part of why she had been so jazzed about developing Wynonna Earp was that she could imagine just from reading the comics the potential to film in Calgary. We talked about the city a bit and she later said that since my dad isn’t big on conventions, we should come to set once it starts filming again. I don’t know if she really meant it, but it was so sweet anyway!

I also mentioned with my thesis that I was doing the expo instead of graduation stuff and she congratulated me on graduating. “I feel like I should get you something!” she exclaimed, apologizing for not getting me anything. As if I needed it. Bridget pointed out that she had beads on her table so she picked up a purple string and said, “Oh yeah. I got these for you. I went to Tiffany’s and got these for you,” as she hung them around my neck. The only beads I bothered to bring home from New Orleans. After we took a selfie, she asked if she could hug me, and of course, I said ‘yes.’

Next, I saw Dom. Her table was being a lot more rushed due to long lines, but she was still so sweet and gracious. She said it was really nice to see me again. I gave her a handmade card with a quote on it and a bracelet I hoped she might like, which she thanked me for and said both were beautiful, especially the card. She also asked to see the tattoo I had gotten of her writing from ECCC and smiled at the result. I love this tattoo like a lot. When she got up to take selfies with me, she also gave me a really big hug without me even asking, which was super nice. Kat had done the same, which was also great because I hadn’t gotten the chance to give her a hug at ECCC.

I had a couple photo ops after with Dom, then Dani. Dom’s was pretty quick. I had forgotten props at home for it, so I gave her rainbow sunglasses and we posed with those. Dani, I asked just to make a silly face. She asked for direction and when I had none, she said, “Just any funny face?” and I nodded. When I thanked her for the photo, she said she didn’t think I’d be thanking her once I saw it. But I did see it and I did love it, so I guess she’s wrong hah!

The representation panel separated my photo ops with Dani and Dom from my photo op with Kat. It was really great, but Varun totally made me tear up when he talked about Indian representation on television. I’m going to let the internet cover the panel, though, since I imagine it’ll be on YouTube at some point. My photo with Kat was also kind of dampened by my forgetfulness for props, but I gave her my cell phone and told her to hold it out of reach for me. She didn’t hold it all the way up, though, so I had to crouch a little to make the picture and it kind of looks weird? But I made it a meme anyway. Here’s the original.

Back up to the autograph area, I then went to see Dani. In addition to discussion of my thesis stuff, I also told her I loved Workin’ Moms and that since I’m Canadian, I was all caught up. I told her I watched with my parents, which made her laugh and exclaim, “You watch it with your parents!? Is that awkward? What did they think about the scene where I m*st*rb*te on the couch?” I just said that thankfully, I did watch some episodes without them. She thanked me for my support and I complimented her outfit before moving onto Varun’s table.

Similar to Emily’s table on Friday, Varun’s had a relatively short line but was taking a long time to get through because he was chatting with everyone for so long. When I got up to have my thesis signed, he wasn’t even sitting behind his table. Instead, he was stood leaning against it, and every time someone came up, he would engulf them in a big hug. He looked at me with a big grin and said, “I recognize you!” and I guess I kind of made a confused face because he added, “I think?” and we had an awkward conversation about how I’d never actually met him before. Oops.

The rest of the interaction was far from awkward, though. Varun is extremely personable and kind. He asked me a million questions about my thesis. Actually, most of the cast had questions as to what it was about and how to define words like ‘alexithymia,’ but he was genuinely interested in how I ran the experiment and measured all my variables, what populations I used, etc. We had a long talk about things like physician bias and gender bias in diagnosing disorders among other things. He said psychology has always fascinated him, along with meditation. He finally had to move on to some of the people behind me, but he gave me another big hug. The selfie we took was inspired by the one of Kat and I from ECCC because he saw it as my lock screen when I took my phone out and mimicked it because he liked it.

Although I was done with that for the day, I spent the whole of Friday night with a bunch of different Earpers, at restaurants and bars before taking a haunted tour of the French quarter with a new friend that was really fun. I stayed up way too late again, and thus became the pattern of the weekend. I’m so sleep-deprived, guys. I probably need a 12 year nap.

Saturday was a different beast. I arrived only fifteen minutes early and started with photo ops. A friend and I had a joint Unkillable Gay Squad photo first. Since we’re both academics and geeks, I brought my stats books down and we asked them to pretend we were teaching them stats. I think Dom has the best face out of everyone because it’s the face I get every time I tell someone I’m going into quantitative psychology. Kat was genuinely trying to read the textbook over my shoulder and when we were done, she was like, “Yeah, I understood none of that!"

An incredibly sweet Earper had extra cast photo ops. Since it was one of my best friends’ first convention ever, she gifted to us one of the cast photos. Another friend couldn’t find her party and was bummed to miss her photo ops so we pulled her into ours instead. Our plan for poses didn’t work because some of the cast were in chairs, so we told them just to do whatever pose they wanted. As I walked in, Varun made a point to tell me that he had been trying to explain my thesis to Dom the night before. So that happened. Crazy, honestly, because it means they were talking about me!! Madness.

Following that, a friend and I hopped into Melanie’s autograph line for her first signing session. We were early for it, but there was already a full line and overflow line, so we were the beginning of the second overflow. Everyone wanted to see her at once. I had to laugh, though, because while I was in line, I changed into my Lasagna Del Rey tee and realized that Mel was wearing hers, too. It was a long time before I would get to the front to point it out, but the time went fast enough. My friend and I met a couple other Earpers with Earp playing cards and we played a few rounds of Go Fish followed by Blackjack. We were also all fighting over who could collect the most Wayhaught cards. Good times.

Meeting Melanie was amazing. When she saw my shirt, she leaned back in her chair, putting on an offended face and exclaimed to her handler, “Are you seeing this!?” and proceeded to tease me about it. I had her sign the same photo as Emily and she squinted at her hair like, “What’s with all the flyaways there? Thoughts?” and then was like, “Oh, it’s because I had all my fake Wynonna hair in and was trying to keep it all at bay.”

When I told her about my thesis, I added, “And just so you know, it’s not a crap thesis either. It tied for the Outstanding Honours Award and I got a certificate of academic excellence from the CPA for it.” Eyes widened and she held up her hand to high-five me and exclaimed, “That’s how we Earp it girl!” So I was pretty proud.

She then pointed out the matching shirts to everyone again as she got up and whispered in my ear, “Did you know I was going to wear this this morning?” and told me to post the pictures on twitter because her boss needed to see it.

Immediately following Mel’s autograph session was my Earp sisters photo with her and Dom. I gave them big lollipops, which they loved, and as we started, Mel turned me to Dom and said, “She’s from Calgary! Did you know that!?” Dom looked a little confused, to be honest, but she was like, “No, I don’t think I did. The name’s Steph, right?” I nodded and she smiled, but before she could say anything else, Mel was like, “And she only went and wrote a thesis for us!” So maybe my masters should somehow incorporate Wynonna Earp beyond the acknowledgements and dedications. I have no idea how though lol. Also, as I was leaving, she pointed out again to everyone that we were matching.

A combined photo op with Dani and Mel was next. I asked them to recreate the distracted boyfriend meme and Melanie exclaimed, “Yes!” They asked me who each of us should be and I said they could pick whoever they wanted. Mel wanted to be the girl at the front and Dani went through directing the rest of the photo. When we were done, Melanie winked at me and said this was probably the best photo they’d done.

I had to run to an overlapping photo op with Dom and Kat right after that, so I had to change in the lineup back into the Equality shirt beneath my Lasagna Del Rey and put on beads and a hat before getting the rest of the props ready. Pride photos are a lot harder than anticipated! But I love how it turned out, and Kat really dug the tiny glittery rainbow cowboy hats.

I tried to get autographs from Kat and Dom again because I had giveaway items, but they ran too close to the start of Emily’s workshop, so I couldn’t. The workshop was so much fun, though. She asked that there be no recording so that content remains fresh for newcomers at future cons, so I’m not going to talk much about it. All I’m going to say is that it was really interesting and even more funny. Kinda wish she’d come teach my regular classes.

Aside from at Dani’s table during her signing, the only time I got to meet Michael Eklund outside of photo ops was actually on the sidewalk outside the hotel. I showed him my shirt and he hugged me. Sadly I was never able to make it to his table because I had booked myself with too little flexibility, and every time he was doing a signing, I was busy. Sad. I hope I get to see him at a future con because he’s super great.

Sunday started early with photo ops again. My first was a cast photo this time – the one that I had purchased for myself. I had a lot of selfie props and handed them out to everyone as I told them that I would be using this in place of a real graduation photo. Someone (I don’t remember which one of them) said that was a great idea and they all agreed. As I was leaving, they all cheered congratulations and clapped for me. I almost died, y’all. It was way better than walking across a stage.

Shortly after, I had another photo op with Kat to make up for the one I didn’t like so much on Friday. It did. She wrapped her arms around me and you can see on my face exactly how pleased I am with myself for asking for prom poses. She also asked to make sure I was happy with the grad photo and was glad to know I loved it. A lot.

I had a meet and greet with Dani Kind next, which was fun. That woman really knows how to make you laugh, even when you’re fsjdkfnkv freezing from air con being way too high. She told us about her campy new horror movie and talked a bit about Workin’ Moms and politics. I didn’t talk a lot except for the Canadian election stuff, but it was still super fun just to listen to her.

I left to get into line for autographs from Dom for the giveaway, but because she had photo ops to get to, our line was cut off while we were still in overflow. We were given post-it notes with numbers on them to indicate that we would be allowed into her line first later. I hopped into Kat’s instead, but a few minutes later, they did the same for hers, so I went to take a breather with a friend until my last photo op.

My final photo was with Wayhaught and my friend for her first con. We asked them to kiss our cheeks, and I think my face says it all. Amazing. Kat apologized for getting lip gloss on my cheek but it really didn’t even matter. I loved it.

Using my post-it from earlier, I went to Kat’s line first since her session was supposed to start sooner. Since I had both post-its, I and two others were allowed to jump lines when we were finished instead of getting into overflow. Nice.

This time, we took our selfies first. When she sat down and looked at the names on the stickies for personalization, she was like, “You’re getting them for someone else?” I replied to tell her a bit about the girls I was having her sign for. She particularly loved that Kylie had decorated her grad cap writing ‘Aphrodite made me do it’ and signed that to her paper.

I then asked her a bit about her experience going to Ellen Degeneres’ show, since she loves her so much (and so do I!). She got really excited and told me that it was absolutely amazing and hilarious, and that she had won a washing machine. I asked how and she said there was a giveaway and that she had also won a two-year supply of Tide. She had to sell the washing machine, though, since she didn’t live in L.A. at the time. She said if I ever have the chance to see her, that I should definitely go, because it was a real moment of seeing her hero live, adding that whenever she’s upset or depressed, she likes to binge Ellen’s talk show on YouTube or sometimes her comedy, which she also loves. I said I was a big fan of her sitcom, but she admitted she hadn’t seen it yet, and I told her to check it out some time.

Dom was my last stop, so I hopped into her line as told. She was moving a little faster, probably because she’s been so late at all the other cons lately, but was still taking time with everyone. She, too, took the selfie first this time. I told her I was getting these autographs for a giveaway for people who couldn’t be there and she exclaimed, “Oh that’s so nice!” I told her a little about the winners and she was jazzed when I said they were from across the globe (I told her the exact countries but just in case, to protect privacy, I won’t say where here).

I said that I had a random question and asked about her experience with the Spice Girls musical, since I loved them growing up. She blew out a breath and said that was a really big time for her, and that it taught her a lot, especially being part of a big musical that flopped. But, she said, she did get to sing with them on opening night and meet all of the girls. I said that was really cool and asked who her favorite Spice Girl was. She thought for a moment and said it fluctuated between Scary and Baby. I agreed that Baby was always my favorite and she said that she was definitely the nicest.

Also, while she was signing the second photo, she kind of paused for a second and looked at it and then said, “Oh, I just noticed that.” She pointed to a darker spot in the background of the picture and said she had never noticed it before but that for a second, she thought it was moving and that it was a bug. Then she said that her brain was kind of sdfsdfgdg (honestly, the only way to describe the sound that came out of her mouth is a keysmash) and laughed.

As I left, I told her that I hoped she had a great weekend and she said she hoped the same for me. I left and realized I had dumbly left my water bottle on her table and ran back to get it. I zipped back off so I wouldn’t interrupt the next person’s time, but I saw her turn toward me and laugh, saying, “Great job!” Oops... What is it with teal water bottles always being left behind guys?

I went to the cast panel with a bunch of my friends and I think just about the whole room was in tears by the end of the closing ceremonies. Again, I’ll leave those for YouTube. The best parts are already online, anyway, but it was really cool to see it live.

The con was over, but some Earpers posted later in the night that they were having a viewing party in one of the conference rooms on the second floor, so my friend and I went down to join. It was so much fun watching with other Earpers. We played the pilot and then went down a rabbit hole of Wayhaught, including playing the cheerleading scene on repeat. My favorite quote, though, was when we were watching them kiss in 2x02 at the end, when they’re making up. Someone asked an Earper who was hard of hearing if they could hear and they answered, “No.” She said, “Oh, let me pause and put on subtitles,” and they responded, “I didn’t say I needed to hear it to enjoy it.” Wow. Mood.

Monday morning was check out and Dom was in the lobby. She was on her phone and people were looking but no one was bothering her. I went to the desk to check out and Varun appeared at the desk next to me to check out too. He got to talking to my friend who was with me about my thesis (!?) and when I was done checking out, I joined them. He said he and Dom were about to go on a swamp tour and he had to go but that he hoped to see us again at future cons and that it was nice meeting us. That guy really is the sweetest.

Anyway, now I’m home. And a bit sad. But mostly just overwhelmed for love for this cast and for Earpers. I didn’t put as much in here as I could about the atmosphere of the event. So inclusive and kind. Everywhere I turned, I made a new friend. I was always talking to someone, and often those were people I had never met before. There was so much laughter, so much bonding. So many generous, amazing souls. I can’t wait for EH Con and to see them again. I love this family with all my heart. Any sadness I feel came from a place of great joy, and knowing this community is still out there even if we’re not together is so comforting. I love Earpers with my whole freakin’ heart.

#wynonna earp cast #earp expo 2019 #melanie scrofano #kat barrell #dominique provost chalkley #varun saranga #emily andras #dani kind #personal #but feel free to rb if you want to for whatever reason idc.#face

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wrongfullythinking · 5 years

Text

And then there were five...

The numbers say 20. Or maybe 21. It’s hard to tell. But in reality, I think we’re down to five. Five’s a good number, the same amount you can fit on a basketball floor and really know who is out there. Let’s face it, nobody but the most die-hard fan knows who bats 8th and plays left. Five? Five’s a number we can deal with. And looking at the state of things, we’re down to five realistic candidates. Maybe some of the other 15 or 16 will get a nice mike-drop moment, and maybe they’ll get a chance to advocate for a cause they believe in. But if your party is so oddly out that you need to use the presidential nomination as a way to get your ideas across... well, it worked for the Bern, but rarely do imitators have the same success as the original.

In this piece, I’m going to give brief thoughts on the five candidates, and then assign my own completely arbitrary “chance-of-winning-the-nomination” percentages.

The Frontrunner: Biden (50%) At this point, [5/2/2019], preliminary voters are presented with a choice: Joe Biden, or somebody else? It is very much Biden vs. the Pack, and if Biden is the nominee, he’ll make it very clear that it is actually TheObamaLegacy vs. EverythingNotObama. Without an Obama endorsement, that’s a tough one to pull off. Frankly, I don’t think Joe Biden is the strongest candidate, and I don’t think he will make a great president. But he’s also not going to go away until the very end of this, and if he loses, it will be because everybody else decides to unite behind another candidate.

There’s this fiction that Biden is the most “electable” candidate. He’s not, he’s the third-most electable. The second-most electable is Michelle Obama. She is a sure-fire nominee and general election winner, pulling southern states, the female vote, Florida and Michigan away from Republicans and guaranteeing there is no red path to 270. Does Biden do any of that? Probably not. He’s not Bill Clinton, with charisma to go with midwestern history. He’s not Obama himself, with a genuine melancholy and a realist outlook. He’s a meme more than a politician since 2008.

But let’s get straight what matters about Biden and what doesn’t. Nobody really cares about what he said to Anita Hill or his tough-on-crimes stance in the 90s. The media will keep dredging up these issues, and the fact that they’re having to dig this deep to find some pretty thin soil tells you a lot about Biden. He’s pretty hard to object to, and Trump is very easy to object to. There is no doubt that Biden will garner the vote of everybody who hates Trump. But can you win an election with just “Not-Trump?” Apparently not, if I remember the 2016 final tally. [But let’s not get started into how Democrats can bungle this thing, if they don’t learn from their “ignore the whites and the heartland, whine incessantly about the other guy, and then say that we should thank them for raising taxes” plan from 2016, they’re hopeless anyways.]

How can Biden win the nomination? The longer everybody else stays in, the more likely Biden wins. Let’s be clear: Biden is going to be the “least objectionable” candidate in both the Primary and the General. Biden’s chances also go up every time somebody else goes low, but his years of experience as Washington and his long, long list of friends, combined with strong association with Obama, make him the most resilient and easily-forgiven of the candidates.

How does Biden lose the nomination? The rest of the field unites behind one or two other candidates who pound Biden with policy expertise, passionate speeches, and a presidential air. Or, frankly, Biden himself disengages. The more time Biden has to prepare (and hire the best speech-writers), the more Biden is likely to be president. The more time the media spends showing his off-the-cuff gaffes (and there will be plenty), and we could see a Howard Dean scenario emerge, provided there is another strong candidate. The other danger to Biden is that the young vote deserts him in favor of another candidate, and the older generation stays apathetic for the days of Obama.

What to expect from a Biden presidency: First, a lot less headlines. Wouldn’t it be nice to open CNN on any day and see that the webpage’s headline was not about the President? That’s not a ringing endorsement of Biden, nor will it excite the often-raving-horde of young politicos. But let’s be honest... young politicos have always been a bit of a raving horde, and this generation really isn’t different. They just tweet instead of march and browse webpages instead of newspapers. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Biden establish a legacy as the “infrastructure President.” And that’d be fine with most Americans. I certainly would love to see some high-speed rails, because **** the airline companies. They’re terrible. The American Highway System is a wonder of the modern world, and improving it with a series of electrical refueling stations and solar-powered rest stops couldn’t hurt. Infrastructure is an easy win, and Biden’s going to take easy wins. As he should.

The Rabble Rouser: Bernie Sanders, 15% The Bern seems to be a better candidate on paper than he actually is; right now, he’s benefitting from the same early-momentum wave that carried Hillary to the Chair of the Anointed One at the Democratic Convention. Bernie’s always had bad timing though, and I’m not convinced this is any different. Had Biden stayed out of the race, I’d put Bernie’s chances at 30 or 40%. But with Biden in, I’m not sure there are enough Obama-era democrats who actually prefer the Bern. Sure, the young/gay/urban/unemployed/coastal [pick two] crowd who wants to reshape the country into a Scandinavian one loves him. But how many of us want to weigh our trash and be charged 6$ for each pound of it the garbage guy has to pick up? How many of us want to be told by a bank that they can’t offer us a loan, because we didn’t attend a prestigious enough university [coastal degrees only for investment bankers]? Let’s not even start on 55% tax rates for the middle class or subsidizing a 29-year-old’s NYC apartment as he trucks through a medieval literature degree one-course-at-a-time. This is obvious hyperbole, but “democratic socialism” starts with “democratic,” and that means “the beliefs of the people” are synonyms with “the will of the people.” Could some of the Bern’s policies work in America. Sure. But there’s no evidence that he can convince any except his already die-hard advocates that they all can, and a policy doesn’t make a system. I’m not convinced Americans, be they blue or red or the purple-murky-middle, are really excited about this sort of sea change.

How to Sanders win/lose the nomination? If the “woke” wing of the party fails to find a demographic-win in Harris or Buttigieg, and decides to yell loud enough to keep the Obama-era democrats from crowning Biden, or if Biden drops out as well as Harris/Buttigieg, Sanders could end up engaged in a rhetorical battle with Warren that neither of them want, but the country might need. At that point, it’s a coin-flip and a nasty convention, and lines in the sand may become tracks on the ground, separating the haves-and-have-nots in the Democratic party. Still, Sanders could emerge in such a scenario with a win, though I’d tip my hand towards Warren.

What to expect from a Sanders presidency: There’s a small chance we get a lot of everything, and a large chance we get absolutely nothing, depending on how Congress plays out. It is always amusing to me to watch candidates at this stage talk policy, because, you know... the President doesn’t write policy. Okay, he [or soon-to-be “she”] does, but not really. You’ve got to go back to the 70s/80s to find Presidents who were really able to institutionalize their policies in statute, and unless Sanders picks up a majority in both Houses, and even then, it is tough to see most of his ideas actually making it into law. I’ve critiqued Obama before as being “the Toothless President,” because his “signature accomplishment” of the AHCA is already mostly dust-in-the-wind, and it wasn’t even much of a victory to start with [he didn’t even get a government-based option!]. Sanders’ ideas are likely too big for any political reality, and remember, he’s been in the Senate for a LONG time. How much of his work do you see in your daily life?

The Best: Elizabeth Warren, 30% One of the strangest (and most chilling) realities of this election cycle is how dismal Warren is polling. What we’re seeing here is what I call “The Hillary Effect,” where an unlikable-older-white-woman is conjuring up all our memories of nasty assistant principals and that mean piano teacher who kept whacking our fingers. Warren is neither of those things, but her image is not, at this point, helping her. Warren needs the rest of the electorate to come to Warren-land, where what matters is your policy chops, and it remains to be seen if the Democratic party (no racism, no slander, no ableism!) allows itself to move past her white-and-rich appearance.

So, let’s have that experiment. Let’s get past the appearance and the fact that she listed herself as 25% Native American in order to get a law school scholarship. What do you have left? What you have left is a woman who can be President. She’s been a far more successful politician than either Sanders or Biden, and she’s the candidate with the best touch to the realities of the parties from coast-to-coast. Warren’s policies, although a bit left-of-center, are clearly centered around the groups she wants to elevate: small businesses, Americans with children, and all of us who are willing to work for a living but want to be able to live like we want if we do. Warren’s the president who believes in exchange: you put in your time with her, and you feel like she’ll give you something back. That’s a big difference from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Look at the Clinton slogan: “I’m with her.” Compare that to Trump’s slogan (Make America Great Again), and we know which one won. On a slogan level, the second one SHOULD win. You want a president who is about making the country great. Warren’s the politician who gets that, and understands how Trump is appealing to people’s needs, rather than setting out for a list of “the world should be like this.” The fact that her policies are so well-defined and solidly based in the needs of Americans is what sets her so far apart from the rest of the crowd. I have no qualms in saying that of the current pack, I would much rather have Warren as my president than any other candidate, and it isn’t close.

How does Warren win/lose the nomination? Warren’s path to victory starts by convincing Obama-era democrats that she is more Obama than Biden is. That’s a tough sell, because she looks more like Hillary... who, let’s not forget, lost a nomination to Obama before she lost to Trump. Warren needs to separate herself from Hillary and align herself with Obama. Frankly, an Obama endorsement might be the thing that lands the race in her lap. Warren also needs the conversation to revolve around policy. She’s the best at that, and she needs to convince people that she can get her policies not just in front of Congress, but through it. The less talk is about policy, and the more it is about nebulous ideas or demographics or social media or broad philosophical stances, the worse Warren will do.

What to expect from a Warren presidency. We might get some high-speed rails, but we’ll likely see taxes go up on the rich, stay stagnant on the middle class, and see some supplement for popular welfare-type programs (college aid, family aid, etc.). I’m not convinced Warren can make a difference in healthcare, and I’m fine if she doesn’t; we’ve wasted 12 years on the topic now and it just may not be the window. But there are so many other issues that Warren can tackle that would make a difference to Americans. I’d love a tax credit for putting solar power on a roof, and Warren’s the one I see making that happen, not Sanders. I’d like to see university students get some more support federally [good job on Summer Pell!] and that is most likely to come from Warren. Generally, I think we’ll see the “B” versions of her stump-speech policies become realities. The middle-50% of Americans will pay 20-30% in taxes, not 15, and the highest-1% will pay 40%, not 50 or 70. Small businesses will get their health care burden for employees subsidized, but won’t be able to write off all debts for a decade. Farmers may again be able to make a profit off a cow, though we may all pay an extra 25c per gallon for milk and an extra 30c per pound of beef.

((My wish list for Warren: rein in credit card companies and payday loans. Nobody but a bank should be able to give you a credit card, let’s stop all this “Sears Card, Best Buy Card, Kohls Card” nonsense that keeps American families in debt from their late-teens to retirement. And banks need transparent policies about awarding credit cards and loans, and be forced to stick with them, not making nebulous decisions about eligibility based on who-the-lending-officer-is and the skin color of their applicant. /rant end))

Bernie 2.0 or Trump 2.0???: Buttigieg, 3% Buttigieg may have the most energy, but the primary process may be the most damaging to him. I mean, it let him get into the race in first place, and he does look a bit like a Kennedy, doesn’t he? And his charisma is first-rate, his qualifications trump Trump’s at this point in the last election cycle [low bar, right?] and he’s just non-white enough [because he has sex with men, so that counts] to keep some of the Democrat’s own bloodhounds off his back. The weaknesses are also glaring: he doesn’t have the policy of Warren, the political capital of Biden, or the funds and the rabid fans of Bernie. But he is from a Midwestern state, and the Democrats could do worse than considering that. The trouble here is that no one really sees the energy lasting for another year. But hey, it worked for Trump, right?

The trouble is that Buttigieg needs a Trump-like groundswell of support to carry him to the nomination, and right now, that base is going Sanders, and may squash any non-Sanders candidate who should appeal to them simply by virtue of them already having Sanders bumper stickers. To get it, Buttigeig may have to be the one who starts to go low, and he’s shown a reticience to do so. At some point, Buttigieg will need to argue that he’s the Midwestern candidate, and the Democrats need the Midwest. How he makes that argument, who he convinces, and if anybody can be convinced, will all dictate how long Buttigieg stays relevant.

How does Buttigieg win/lose the nomination? Frankly, I don’t see this happening without Sanders dropping out the race, and that likely means a Sanders health problem. That’s not an exciting prospect for anybody, but if Sanders drops out and then endorses Buttigieg, we could see a late-term surge for him past the other remaining candidates. He has to raise enough money to be in it for that long, and he’s got to continue to have great town halls and debates, which are two areas where he shines. I think Buttigieg is going to be a player in the democratic party for years to come, but I don’t think this is his race.

The Californian: Harris, 10% Harris is not likable. She wants to be Michelle, and she’s not. Oh yeah, earlier, when I said that Michelle Obama was the second-most electable person in America? That’s because she’s behind Beyonce. And let’s be clear, Harris is NOT Beyonce. That’s not a dig against either of them, it is a reality of the situation: there are a number of high-powered black women easily in the public eye (in addition to the above two, let’s not forget Oprah, Whoopi, and Stacy Abrams), and Harris is less-likeable than all of them. She comes across brusque, aggressive, and well... a little bit like Trump. That’s not what we want, right? Right? The point is, the Democratic party vilifies unlikeable women, and if Warren is struggling with this, Harris is absolutely going to drown in it. We can talk about feminism and compare waves all we want, but people are going to pay lip-service to that in public, and in private, quietly mark ballots for Biden. That’s always a concern of the Democratic party, and I’m not sure Harris is the one that cures it. I am sure that Harris does not carry the female vote away from Biden, Sanders, or Warren. She’s not a woman’s candidate.

What’s really difficult for Harris is that she’s not anyone’s candidate. California? Sure, why not, but any democrat carries California against Trump. Who cares? The black vote? Last I checked, it was what, roughly 8% of America and not enough to carry Pennsylvania or Michigan? Nor any of the Deep South (that Obama won) against a Trump campaign. The nice part of this is that Harris has the potential to make in-roads with a lot of groups. She’s a professional, she has a presidential air, and she has a prosecutor’s wit. She’s unashamedly intelligent and not afraid of a big moment, like we saw with the 13,500-to-teachers announcement or the recent Barr hearings. She’s less good in-the-moment, where she comes across as a lawyer and not a politician, appealing to the paper rather than the audience. And there’s not a good sound-byte here yet. But Harris could be all those things. Maybe.

How does Harris win/lose the nomination? Harris gets 10% here because she may be the one with the most obvious route past Biden, if Sanders and Warren get out of her way. She needs to improve her on-stage performances (that Town Hall was dismal) and she needs to make sure her focus is where it needs to be, and not get caught talking about things like medical care or Yang’s tech-policies that are clearly not her wheelhouse. It is a matter of sticking to her lane, and then including as many people as possible in her car. She wants to pull people towards her, and the better she can do that, and avoid her lawyer’s instinct of defining boundaries of “Yes” and “No,” the better she’ll do. Harris has the real potential to use this race to grow up from prosecutor to politician, and if she does that, she could be a force. I don’t see her as a serious challenge to Warren or Sanders if it comes down to them as the final two, but I do see her challenging Biden if it ends up with the two of them. Harris needs to stay in the race, keep practicing her presence, and start avoiding troublesome questions like a politician, while maintaining a few key clear policies that people can tie to her name. The bump-for-teachers was a great start, and if she could become “the education candidate,” we might really have something here.

The Rest: 2% I feel like the rest of the field isn’t trying to be President, they’re trying to use the nomination process to make money/crusade-a-cause or just stir up feelings. I’m disappointed this is happening to democrats, because it keeps the five real potential candidates from offering powerful distinctions. Does the party want to move towards Bernie-socialism? Can we believe in Farmers? Do Democrats actually value the MIdwest (according to Hillary, no... does Biden change that narrative)? What is the role of the US internationally, specifically with regards to China and a post-Brexit UK? Was is the reasonable path towards renewable energy, and how does it help me lower my energy bill next January? Will I be able to claim Social Security, and if the system is poor, how do we fix it [or incentivize workers and companies to start doing a better job with retirement plans]? What does a rising interest mean for American home-buyers, and do we want Americans to buy homes? There are so many questions that the candidates differ on, and I worry that we won’t be able to hear from the important candidates on them, because we’ll be hearing somebody’s own hot take on Putin or how Universal Basic Income is something we should pretend to care about for the next 12 minutes. That’s a disservice to the party and the voters, and I hope the debate moderators, pundits, and press over the next 12 months give us a clear view of where the candidates stand and the differences between then.

The afterthought: AOC. Well, we’ve got to talk about her, right? The thing is, we don’t. She’s not a political force, she’s a social one. So, let’s get the obvious out of the way: she’s not eligible to run for President now, though she might be in four years (I’m actually not clear on where her birthday lines up with inauguration day, and I don’t think she’s important enough to check). The very real flaw here is that AOC is not representative. No person is. Yes, I get that she’s non-white and female. Guess what, our country is about 50% male and somewhere around 50% white. So by virtue of being not, it is impossible to argue that someone is. However, the real problem with “representative” is that AOC is coastal and urban, and her perspectives are entirely based on those realities. This is a shame, because for all that people can tout her LatinX heritage, she is very much out-of-tune with high-LatinX states like New Mexico, Texas, and even the non-coastal parts of California. Does that matter in an electoral college world? Maybe not... no Democrat is expected to carry Texas, and no Democrat will fail to carry California. But she’s not a candidate (like Harris, or Obama) who can expect to pull a huge amount of votes simply based on her demographic information. That math has never worked out as well as pundits want it to... remember the Palin experiment? That certainly didn’t persuade the female vote to go Red. And this is one place where I think the American electorate is sadly underestimated; it is assumed we vote for people who look like us, and I find American voters quite a bit more savvy than that. AOC doesn’t pull the LatinX vote as a block, and she certainly doesn’t carry Texas. Alongside the coastal-based policies and city-only mentality she carries, there is no reason to nominate AOC in four years.

#politics #democratic presidential nomination #nomination

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thecounterplan · 5 years

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You Can’t Change the Mind of Steven Crowder, and It’s Not Worth Trying

by Brice Ezell

If you know Steven Crowder, it’s likely for the meme seen above, derived from his “Change My Mind” series on his YouTube channel and CRTV show, Louder with Crowder. In this series, Crowder places himself in various locales — typically university campuses, though he also took the streets of my own Austin, TX for one installment — and invites people to challenge him on his deeply held views, which thus far have included, to name a few: “There are Only Two Genders,” “Hate Speech Doesn’t Exist,” “I’m Pro-Life,” and “Trump is Not a Fascist.” Each one of these “Change My Minds” is equal part provocation and, ostensibly, invitation to debate: rather than sit in his CRTV studio 24/7, addressing a paying audience who largely shares his views, Crowder does attempt to get his viewpoints out into the public, subject the scrutiny of any passersby.

Yet it’s not long into any one of these “Change My Mind” segments — to say nothing of his other YouTube videos — that the veneer of respectable debate, well, starts looking a lot less respectable. Like Nathan J. Robinson, I hold the view that debates between the political left and right, when done well, are important and can advance civil discourse in helpful ways. So when I first heard about Crowder and saw that, unlike a cheap shock jock, he actually invited anyone to debate him, I thought for a (fleeting) moment that he might be someone invested in actually facilitating substantive debate on the important issues of our divisive political times.

Crowder, it turns out, is not that person. Above all else, he occupies the role of comedian/pundit for the right wing, so his primary responsibility is to entertain and, as a result of the directive to entertain, sensationalize. His YouTube video titles include things like “OMG GENDER POLITICS GAP!” and “TOP 5 Reasons Elizabeth Warren’s a RACIST FRAUD!” The seeming invitation into debate that is the “Change My Mind” title quickly morphs into a presumptuous imperative when you read video titles like “Why the Left HATES Successful People.” (The latter is a curious notion, given that Crowder, like many right-wingers, calls out “SJW” corporations in Silicon Valley and elsewhere for their supposed “identity politics,” and those companies are nothing if not successful.) As a pundit, Crowder’s mandate is to make arguments, but not really to debate. Debate requires fairness, some mutual understanding, and above all else clash, i.e. arguments which interact in some kind of competing form. Crowder has a segment on his channel called “Devil’s Advocate” in which he, playing a quasi-hipster character called “Skyler Turden,” performs the classical fallacy known as the straw man, which a textbook example of bad debating, where no real clash exists.

The appeal of a segment like “Change My Mind” hinges on the very possibility hinted at by the title: that the person making that request is actually open to having their mind changed. On his show, Crowder gives little impression he is open to a serious challenge to his political views. Normally it would be just enough to say that Crowder is a pundit, not a politician or a researcher, i.e. people who make discursive arguments as a big part of their living. As a pundit, Crowder need only say his opinions and successfully monetize them by building an audience, and that he has done. But with “Change My Mind” and other segments on Louder with Crowder — for instance, his trotting out of the oft-repeated right wing claim that lefties can’t handle debate, which is why they shut right-wing speakers out of universities — Crowder appears to show great concern for debate and discourse. To those unfamiliar with his history or his style, then, Crowder seems to be someone who actually cares about discursively defending right-wing views, rather than simply being, well, louder about them.

This rhetorical move on the part of Crowder, as I undoubtedly have already made clear, is thoroughly disingenuous. However, instead of merely calling Crowder a pundit and moving on, I want to analyze an example of his argumentative style, through which I will show that Crowder is not interested in debate, and has no meaningful argumentative strategy that would actually produce a debate worth having.

The example I’ve selected is a video response by Crowder to a Vox video entitled, “Admit it. Republicans have broken politics,” presented by Carlos Maza. I chose this video because I think Maza’s argument is a strong one — one I happen to agree with, though like any argument it is of course debatable — and therefore affords Crowder an opportunity to have a serious debate, rather than a pundit vs. pundit war where the only metric is who can shout their opinions the loudest and most creatively. What we get with Crowder, unfortunately, is punditry, not real debate, and it doesn’t take long for his “rebuttals” to Maza to start wearing thin.

Before I get into the specifics of this Crowder/Vox debate, an overview. It is important to know that there is a single failure of political thinking – one many of Crowder’s fellow conservative commentators like Ben Shapiro also commit – which muddles Crowder’s argumentation throughout all of his videos: he equates the terms “Democrat” and “leftist.” In this rather interesting video, Crowder answers a letter from a fan asking, “Should I marry a Crazy Democrat?” The fan writes in the letter that a newfound paramour is a Democrat, and worries “she might be a leftist.” To this, Crowder and his co-hosts reply, “She’s a Democrat, of course she is.” This is pure nonsense.

Plenty of folks – from the aforementioned Robinson to Elizabeth Bruenig – have effectively demonstrated the distinctions between Democrats and actual leftists, and those between liberals and leftists. But one doesn’t even need to wade into the theory in order to see the distinction between Democrats and leftists: one need only look to the 2016 Democratic presidential primary, in which the competition between a garden-variety leftist (Bernie Sanders, who ran for the Democratic nod despite being an independent) and an elite Democrat (Hillary Clinton) further widened the significant rift in the Democratic party between its center/center-right wing (i.e. Clinton) and leftists who actually want to make the Democrats a left-wing party. Even now, establishment Democrats are doing everything they can to prevent Bernie from becoming a name in the 2020 presidential election. Keep in mind that in most Western liberal democracies, Bernie would be little more than a boring social democrat; it’s only in the US, where the political compass is skewed far to the right, that he appears to be some Marxist ideologue to commentators like Crowder. For Crowder’s characterization of the Democrats as “leftists” to hang together at all, his definition of “leftism” would have to incorporate people – like most of the leading Democratic politicians – who without fail vote for every single increase in the military budget, think capitalism is good and fixable, and are more than happy to let major corporations like Apple and Amazon take over major cities. It doesn’t require much else to demonstrate the absurdity of such a definition.

If the Democratic party truly was “leftist,” Sanders wouldn’t have been perceived as some radical shock, and those at the heart of the party wouldn’t be doing everything they can to ensure that Sanders’ coalition doesn’t take over or gain prominence in the party leading up to 2020. What does this mean for Crowder’s argumentation? It means that when he attempts to argue against Democrats and “leftists,” he commits error after error in conflating the two. A good deal of his rebuttal to Maza’s Vox argument falls into this trap, and rather than parse out every single instance of this happening, I’ll note this broad issue here to further clarify why his rebuttal to Maza is deeply insufficient.

With that said: in going through Crowder’s video, I’ll break down the arguments as he presents them, where he shows a clip from Maza’s video and then replies to it.

Maza Claim 1: Based on research done by political scientists at UCLA, we can graph the political ideology of members of Congress. With this data, we can see that over time, both parties have moved away from the center, but Republicans have moved much further away than Democrats. Similarly, if you compare Republican and Democratic presidents since Truman, you find that Republican presidents have become more conservative, while Democrats have remained roughly level.

Crowder Responses: (1) “Uh, Bush is more conservative than Reagan? Obama is more conservative than Clinton?”; (2) Insinuates that Vox just made up the graphs itself; (3) Argues against extrapolating this data to suggest that polarization is bad, because if you’re moving in a non-polar direction toward “success” and “truth,” that is preferable; (4) Points out that “just days” before the release of this video, “noted Democratic activist Julia Louis-Dreyfuss” compared Trump to the Holocaust.

(1) These questions are meant to undermine the data, but it’s not obviously clear why either of these claims of the data – that Reagan can be understood as less conservative than Bush II, or that Obama was less liberal than Bill Clinton – are so absurd as to deserve the mocking tone with which Crowder delivers them. Off the top of my head, I can point out that Reagan’s decision to give amnesty to millions of undocumented immigrants would get him expelled from the post-2000s GOP, and Obama deported more people than anyone in recent US history. I could go on, but the point is: Crowder gives us little reason to question the charts.

(2) The graphs were not made up by Vox, and come from an extensive series of data gathering by the University of California at Los Angeles political science department. Not hard to figure this out.

(3) This is a point, actually, that Crowder and the left would be in agreement on: namely, that “centrism” or “meeting in the middle” is not an inherent virtue. Unfortunately for Crowder’s argumentation, this is a view where the Democrats and the left diverge, as Democrats trip over themselves to find ways to reach across the aisle. Hillary Clinton proudly owned the label of “centrist” (or “moderate”) in the run-up to the 2016 election. But this is skipping ahead to a later part of the argument; Crowder just flags this here briefly – more on that later.

(4) Julia Louis-Dreyfuss is a celebrity. She may speak out for Democratic-backed causes from time to time, but she is far from an activist, or anyone that could be said to speak for the majority of the party. But, most importantly, even if Crowder’s interpretation of the Louis-Dreyfuss video he quotes is accurate – and I don’t think it is – Crowder responds to meticulously gathered data by… pointing to one example, as if a single celebrity video proves that the Democrats are actually as far left as Republicans are far right. One example does not an argument make.

Maza Claim 2: Being a “queer, tree-hugging atheist with immigrant parents,” Maza knows that he’s a bit obvious in criticizing Republicans. So rather than just rely on his own argumentation, he turns to Norman Orenstein of the American Enterprise Institute to further establish the claims about polarization.

Crowder Responses: (1) Orenstein is a “token independent conservative who makes his living bashing the GOP”; (2) The use of Orenstein is a “lie” to hide the “subjective” opinion of Maza, and is the equivalent of saying “I have a black friend” to prove you aren’t racist; (3) Mitch McConnell “called Orenstein out” for being an “old fashioned far-left guy.”

I’ll group all of these together here, as they all in the same way signal Crowder’s unwillingness to engage the substance of the debate. Nowhere does Crowder actually show why Orenstein is a non-credible source; his tactic is essentially to just undermine the idea that Orenstein is actually conservative. We’re to trust the opinion of Mitch McConnell – one of the most ghoulish living politicians (here, here, and here are good places to start reading why that’s true) – in calling Orenstein “far left” because, uh, reasons? Crowder doesn’t give any, except to call McConnell “cocaine Mitch,” a name only true in that, like cocaine, McConnell should be illegal.

Maza’s use of Orenstein isn’t “hiding” subjective opinion; he’s using another expert to back up his own opinion. Debate should operate in this way, and invoking an expert doesn’t necessarily mean saying, “I am right because this expert is infallible,” but because all of us should look to people who have extensively researched issues to back up our viewpoints. That’s all Maza is doing. Bringing Orenstein onboard doesn’t mask his argument, for it is part of his argument. The fact that Crowder first chooses to attempt to rubbish Maza’s source, instead of directly addressing the matter of Orenstein’s research, puts him on argumentatively thin ice from the outset.

Lastly: the words “far-left” and “American Enterprise Institute” are mutually incompatible. The Institute is widely regarded as a right-wing think tank, an experience I can confirm firsthand, having attended a conference there as an undergraduate. Just about every single proposal and speech I heard that weekend would not have made a single member of the current GOP bristle in the slightest. Nor would this description from AEI’s “About” page have anything in it with which Crowder would disagree: “We are committed to making the intellectual, moral, and practical case for expanding freedom, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening the free enterprise system in America and around the world.” AEI is nonpartisan, but its aims and research agendas are undeniably conservative – far from a place where a far lefty would find employment, let alone want to work.

Maza Claim 3: “There is no question” that the GOP’s goals have become more extreme over the past decade. George W. Bush talked about a “rational middle ground” for immigration policy, whereas Donald Trump is a hardliner who talks about “deportation forces.”

Crowder’s Response: Why compare Bush to Trump? Why not compare Obama to Trump, when we see in a pre-2008 election clip that Obama said that “those who entry the country illegally and those who employ them disrespect the rule of law?” Trump’s policy is just Obama’s policy put into full effect “for the betterment of the country!”

First off: congrats, Steven, you found another place where you and the left are in agreement! The left consistently called out Obama for his immigration rhetoric, and his hardline deportation policies. The Democrats undercut a good deal of their argumentation against Trump’s immigration views by the actions they undertook during Obama’s eight year term as president. That is true.

But Crowder’s move here is the classic “whataboutist” strategy that animates most right-wing punditry: “You don’t like this? Well the Democrats did something similar!” It’s a form of argument that doesn’t engage with the substance of the claim (i.e. the rightness or wrongness of a particular action) and instead diverts to hypocrisy gaming that advances the conversation very little. Additionally, it’s a strategy typically accompanied by false equivalency, as is the case here: Obama did not propose a giant wall on the US/Mexico border, nor did Obama enact a widespread policy of family separation (see here and here), though some family separations did occur under previous administrations, albeit never in the formalized way enacted by Trump.

In this case, Crowder ducks Maza’s claim: his point is that there is a marked difference between how Bush and Trump, both Republican, handled immigration. Pointing to Obama in between them does not disprove that. All it does is prove the opposite of a point Crowder tried to make earlier: that the Democrats, far from being left-wing, have moved to the center and even to the right on some issues, immigration being one of them.

And I question anyone calling the abhorrent family separation and detention camp policy on the border a “betterment for the country.” A sane person would call it a stain on this country’s history. Even if you’re an absolute hardliner on immigration, the logical thing would be to send illegal immigrants back to their country of origin, not to separate their families as a needless act of cruelty on top of it. (Not that mass deportation, a policy not justified by Crowder here, would be a better solution.)

Maza Claim 4: Richard Nixon, a Republican president, founded the EPA; now, Republicans campaign on abolishing it.

Crowder Responses: (1) So what? The EPA had a purpose, now it doesn’t. (2) The Democrats used to the party of the KKK, which brings out a contradiction between Maza’s video and another Vox video about the “southern strategy” in the mid-20th century: how could the Democrats have changed so much, if as Maza claimed earlier in the video that the Democrats have “stayed the same” while the Republicans have moved further to the right?

(1) For a conservative like Crowder, obviously anti-EPA is a fairly orthodox position. But Maza’s point is about the rightness or wrongness of the EPA primarily: it’s about Republican attitudes toward environmental protection. His point is that just about half a century ago, Republicans founded a major agency to enshrine environmental protections; now, with climate change-related externalities more pressing than they were in Nixon’s administrations, Republicans want to scale back environmental projections. That is, objectively, a more extreme, more right-wing view. People can debate the legitimacy of those views, of course, but Maza’s video isn’t about debating climate policy; it’s about charting the intellectual color of a party, and the EPA example is a fine one to illustrate the further rightward swing of the GOP.

(2) Crowder here willfully distorts and mishandles the comparison between the illustration of the Southern Strategy in the other Vox video and the graphs presented at the start of Maza’s piece. Maza himself said the Democrats have changed, and have drifted further from the center to the left (albeit not as far as the Republicans have drifted to the right, per his argument). Note that the graph Maza shows at the beginning of the video starts at 1960, right around the time that the Southern Strategy was being put into place; were the graph extended back to the 1900s, it would show a dramatic shift in the Democratic party.

For more on the Southern Strategy, and why despite Crowder’s skepticism it is definitely a thing, historian Kevin M. Kruse (Princeton University) assembled a useful Twitter breakdown of the Southern Strategy and how it manifested in the Republican/Democratic shifts in the mid-20th century.

Maza 5: The governing methods of Republicans have become more extreme and anti-compromise over time. Data shows that Republicans have used more filibusters than any other party when they are not in power.

Crowder Responses: There are two factors to consider in the filibuster graph: (1) Opposition parties are more likely to use the filibuster (2) Use of the filibuster correlates with a “sharp rise” in executive orders and “power grabs” unprecedented in modern history.

(1) Okay, well, even if it is true that opposition parties are more likely to use the filibuster, this does not take away from the fact that the two highest peaks – without any nearby competition – on the filibuster graph are Obama’s first two years, when he hadn’t even proposed much of his legislation yet. The point of Maza’s use of the graph is, “The Republicans excessively use the filibuster.” Crowder’s first response does not challenge that in any way.

(2) This argument, a popular one amongst the post-2008 GOP, is complete garbage. Have a gander at the graph below, which lists the number of executive orders (Eos) by president since Truman:

Obama has the lowest EO-per-year average of any president since Truman, and the lowest total for a two-term president in the post-Truman era. Having not completed his first (and perhaps only) term, Trump hasn’t built a fully representative sample size of EOs, but already his per annum average is 12 points more than Obama’s. Frankly, given the relentless obstruction Obama faced following the 2010 midterms, it’s amazing he didn’t use more EOs.

Crowder’s only evidence for the “unprecedented executive power” is the widely-disproven talking point (see here and here) that Obamacare was “rammed through” Congress, and several out-of-context soundbites where Obama talks about “using his pen” if Congress didn’t act. As the graph above shows, that was most likely a rhetorical move on Obama’s part, not a marker of policy, and at worst it was an empty threat. (And I find Crowder’s belief in “executive overreach” on this point a bit inconsistent, since I didn’t see any red alerts raised when Trump announced that he intended to repeal birthright citizenship through EO, a far more ludicrous and baldly unconstitutional than anything Obama ever did.) So even if it was true that the filibuster was necessary to counter a power-hungry executive, the facts of Obama’s administration do not square with Crowder’s claims about Republican use of the filibuster. His “argument” is just a talking point with no substance, a hallmark of punditry.

Maza Point 6: Some Republican procedure has not even been for intellectual disagreement; Republicans refused to vote on Obama’s 2016 budget proposal before they even saw it, for example.

Crowder Responses: (1) “No for the sake of no is sometimes okay; as in, 2 trillion more dollars? NOPE!” (2) Republicans refused to look at Obama’s 2016 budget because he failed to submit it on time, and in fact Obama followed budgetary procedure throughout his presidency “ZERO” times.”

(1) This amounts to little more than assertion, and it’s one I know about which Crowder is inconsistent. As far as I can tell, Crowder has never once railed against the US’s largest expenditure, its ginormous military, which is increased just about every year (it should be noted, with near-unanimous bipartisan consensus), nor has he weighed the enormous structural costs of increasing tax cuts for the upper strata of society. From what I can gather of Crowder’s view of government from this point and his previous claim that “polarization isn’t bad so long as you’re going in the direction of the truth,” Crowder’s political view seems to be: “If you’re right, you get to do whatever you want.” That sure doesn’t sound like the deliberative republic set up by the founding fathers so revered by Crowder and his ilk. Generally speaking, I don’t think it’s controversial to say that major issues in government should be debated between respectable adults who are willing to hear the other side out – or, if you rather, “have their mind changed.” Crowder’s vision of the Republican party in this video is a party that is always of the correct opinion, so anything it does must be correct. Seems to me a pretty untenable thesis.

For more on what is called “the deficit troll,” which Crowder uses here to depict Obama as exceptionally spendthrifty, this excellent piece by Adam Johnson shows its absurdity.

(2) Crowder responds to Maza’s claim about the 2016 budget by pulling up a fact about… Obama’s 2012 budget. The timestamp is right there on the screen: this is either a willful misreading or distortion of evidence.

Now, Obama did in his first and second terms submit late budgets. That obviously is a concern, though it’s worth noting that doing so was not unique amongst modern presidents, which further rubbishes Crowder’s claim that Obama was so problematic a president that Republican intransigence was required to keep him in check. Furthermore, while it is fair to point out Obama’s missed budget deadlines, discursively defending the claim that Republicans were therefore justified in rejecting a budget proposal before reading it is an entirely separate claim. “He broke the rules, so we get to do whatever we want” is not a legitimate standard of governance, particularly not for the rule-abiding “constitutionalists” that Crowder and his co-hosts christen themselves in this video and elsewhere.

Maza Point 7: Republicans claimed they would hold the late Antonin Scalia’s vacant Supreme Court seat open even if Clinton won the presidency. For Orenstein, this is not “normal behavior,” and it is rather attributable to a party “attempting to hold the levers of power” as it loses a majority nationwide.

Crowder Responses: (1) In 1960, Senate Democrats passed a resolution against election-year recess appointments; (2) Obama was a “lame duck” president when he appointed Merrick Garland to fill Scalia’s seat; (3) Democrats “initiated the behavior” of refusing to hold confirmation hearings with Robert Bork in the ‘80s.

(1) and (2) can be grouped together here, as they’re part of a similar line of argument used by conservatives about the behavior of the GOP toward Garland: Democrats would happily do the same in the GOP’s position (“Biden rule!”), and that Obama was basically on his way out.

There are several problems with this line of reasoning. First and foremost, the Senate did pass a resolution against election-year recess appointments in 1960, but Obama’s appointment of Garland was not a recess appointment. A recess appointment occurs when a president appoints someone to a federal office while the Senate is in recess, hence the name. The Senate was not in recess when Obama appointed Garland, nor was Obama a “lame duck,” as that refers to an elected official who is in office while their successor has been elected, and Trump had not been elected when Obama recommended Garland to the Court. Obama, like all presidents, gets elected to four-year terms, and 2016 was his fourth year, meaning he was acting within his legitimately elected powers as president. (And lest anyone say “the Biden rule” proves Crowder’s point: Biden never followed his 1992 suggestion, and later even said “there is no Biden rule.”)

So, yes, Orenstein is correct to say there is no precedent for this behavior, and it is clearly motivated by power. One little detail Crowder leaves out is that his friend “cocaine Mitch” said that the purpose of leaving the seat open was “so the American people could have a say” in the seat – despite the Constitutional structure of the Supreme Court, which is designed to insulate the justices from popular opinion – yet McConnell and other colleagues of his, like “reasonable Republican” John McCain, then said that if Clinton was elected, the GOP would stonewall any of her nominees. That’s about as brazen a declaration of “we don’t care what you think” as there has been in recent memory.

(3) I’m not sure Crowder should stake his case defending the legitimacy of GOP behavior in blocking Merrick Garland’s nomination on Robert Bork, who was rightly denounced for his racist, anti-civil rights political views, and his involvement in the Watergate Scandal, where he was doing Nixon’s bidding. Just a thought. Crowder thinks it’s okay to say “no for no’s sake” irrationally; I think it’s better that people say no when it’s right, and denying Bork a court seat was the right thing to do.

Maza Point 8: When in Obama’s second term Republicans refused to even hear out Obama’s lower-court appointees, Democrats made the “bad but necessary move” to lower the threshold to break a filibuster – the so-called “nuclear option” – from 60 votes to 51 votes. This was an ad hoc response to a problem “created by Republicans.”

Crowder Response: If the Democrats ended the filibuster, it’s their fault, and they have to own up to it.

This response is inadequate for at least two reasons. First, nowhere has Crowder made a positive defense for the Republican-led obstruction of Obama, nor has even attempted at a discursive rationale – apart from a bogus claim about Obama being an executive overreacher – as to why obstruction in general is a good idea. The tone of his view of the Republican party in this video is simple: they’re right, so they get to do whatever they want. Without a positive defense of Republican obstruction, Crowder can’t reasonably claim that lowering the vote threshold (which, to be sure, is a questionable strategic move that requires justification itself) is only the Democrats’ fault. A simple counterfactual: imagine the roles are flipped from 2008-2016, and Democrats are obstructing Republicans. Can anyone imagine Crowder saying, “Well, they’re obstructing, but that’s their right?” I sure can’t.

This leads to the second reason: based on the behavior of Republicans since Trump’s election, can anyone credibly claim that, in the same situation, they would have just lied down and taken it? The post-2010 GOP couldn’t reason with Obama, a boring centrist whose “tyrannical” healthcare plan was invented by Republicans in the ‘90s, and implemented in Massachusetts by a conservative governor and later GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney; a president who deported more immigrants than any other president in history; a president whose drone warfare in the Middle East should have made him a beloved member of the DC circles bent on spreading US imperialism by violence. In other words, Obama offered the GOP quite a lot of common ground. On strategic grounds, one can debate the choice to lower the vote threshold in the Senate from 60 to 51; an intelligent debate can be had there. But how we got to that point was not by the Democrats being hellbent on crushing norms; if that fact were true, they’d have lowered the vote threshold right after their crushing 2010 midterms defeat, rather than attempt to reach across the aisle for three years until the “break glass in case of emergency” option starts to sound plausible.

Maza and Orenstein’s main point is that situation was caused by Republican obstinance, and they are correct. Maza thinks the nuclear option was right; others can respectfully disagree. But no evidence can plausibly paint the picture that Democratic disregard for normal procedure got us to the stalemate that led to the nuclear option. Just to give two recent examples: many Democrats continued to vote for lower-court Trump nominees, even though in the senate they don’t have enough votes to block any nominees. That is to say, rather than signal opposition without costing them any political capital, Democrats continue to play ball with a party that is openly contemptuous of the will of the people. And what were some of Nancy Pelosi’s first words when the Democrats won back the House in the 2018 elections? Not, “We will deny the Democrats anything they want.” Once again, the “bipartisan” buzzword was trotted out, a fool’s errand in the face of a ruling party whose mantra is not the Constitution, but “our way or the high way.”

Crowder then ends the video with a litany of spurious claims, ones largely rendered incoherent by the prenominate collapsing of “Democrats” with “progressives” and “leftists”, including:

(1) The claim that Kavanaugh’s accusers were all liars; this, despite the fact that most commentators agreed Christine Blasey Ford’s testimony was credible (and if you’re going to care about “truth,” maybe don’t back an unrepentant liar like Kavanaugh himself – see here and here).

(2) The Democrats “have always been the party of the KKK and segregation”; the Democrats were this for much of their existence, but, yes, since the Southern Strategy, things have changed, and last I checked it wasn’t a Democratic president who said that a group of Neo-Nazis in Charlottesville who eventually killed a woman “were very nice people.”

(3) The Democrats have become “radically left and gone for power-grabs”; despite the fact that, for much of the past 20 years, Republicans have controlled most branches of government and most state houses across the United States; and that, as I said earlier, any party that consistently votes for more military spending, bank bailouts, and corporate takeovers of major cities and urban areas cannot be in any sane universe called “left.” Talk to an actual leftist, Steven: most of them do not like or outright loathe the Democratic party, and only vote for it when they feel it is strategically necessary.

(4) The Democrats have become “anti-free speech” and want to do away with private firearms ownership; this, despite that there is not a single policy proposed by Democrats remotely approaching this, and Obama famously received an “F” grade from pro-gun control groups. This is such transparent fearmongering it deserves no more response than that.

(5) The Democrats have gone from advocating “safe, legal, and rare” abortions to “abortion on demand”; this is again another warrantless claim, and one that doesn’t really square with the evidence, given that Hillary Clinton said she would be open to constitutional restrictions on late abortions so long as they included exceptions for the life and health of the mother.

(6) The Democrats “enable Antifa,” even though most majority Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi openly condemned Antifa and violent protestors, and even Vox – which Crowder wants to paint as some kind of far-left, progressive outlet (when in fact it’s a favorite of centrist wonks) – ran a piece expressly making a case against Antifa.

Crowder then argues that the right is only “polarized” in the sense that it is aligning itself with the truth against the open falsehoods of “the left”/Democrats/progressives, a nebulous group he clearly ill understands. Given how incapable Crowder is of articulating the basic beliefs of the Democrats and the left, and of owning up to the anti-governance of the GOP post-2010, I’m going to go ahead and give the win to Maza, who at least doesn’t misrepresent sources, make wild claims without any evidence, and seriously mishandle the evidence he uses to advance his own side.

So at the end of all of this, I find it hard to come to any other conclusion than this: if you see Crowder filming a “Change My Mind” segment near you, don’t go expecting a real debate. When presented with a reasonable (but, of course, completely debatable) video, Crowder does everything but directly clash with the argument at hand. Just because someone proclaims themselves to be invested in debate doesn’t mean that they’re worth engaging. Based on how Crowder characterizes the GOP in this video – ahistorical and evidence-deficient as it is – and his own argumentative methodologies, Crowder thinks that he and fellow conservatives know all the answers, and that presenting arguments against them necessarily means falling into the “false” side of a “true/false” binary. If that’s Crowder’s view of the world, there’s no debate, no changing of mind, no reasoned discourse. It’s the all-too-familiar mantra of “you’re with us or you’re against us.” Facing that worldview, you might as well debate the brick wall in front of which Crowder sits.

#Steven Crowder #politics #Vox #Carlos Maza #Republicans #Democrats #Change My Mind #Louder with Crowder

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takebackthedream · 6 years

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Donna Brazile, the DNC, and Democratizing the Democrats by Richard Eskow

Democrats are fighting again. The trigger this time is former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile’s forthcoming book, which says that Hillary Clinton’s campaign was given significant control over the DNC long before she became the party’s nominee.

It’s easy to be cynical about the tone Brazile adopts as she tells her story. She’s shocked, shocked, to learn that money and insider connections wield undue influence inside her party’s establishment. And she’s quick to pronounce the DNC innocent of actions, including her own, that are already widely known.

Still, Brazile is right on the particulars. And it’s hard not to admire her courage, book promotion or not, given the intensity of the attacks she knew she would face.

But the big question is, why are Democrats still fighting the Battle of 2016? Aren’t there better things to argue about? As it turns out, there are.

Claims and Counter-Claims

The weekend was filled with claims and counter-claims, revelations and counter-revelations. Here’s what’s known as of this writing: The Clinton campaign organization, Hillary For America (HFA) ,signed a Joint Fundraising Agreement and at least one other agreement giving it significant influence over the DNC’s hiring, budget, and strategy.

Claims that the Clinton team’s authority was limited to the general election appear to be false. While the document carried a legal disclaimer to that effect, attorney Brendan Fischer of the Campaign Legal Center commented that this clause is “contradicted by the rest of the agreement.” Fischer also pointed to a provision in the agreement that, in his words, meant “Clinton controlled every communication mentioning a primary candidate.”

Clinton’s defenders argued that the Sanders team was also offered a joint fundraising deal, but it was quickly revealed that the Clinton campaign executed a separate side agreement with DNC granting it oversight powers. As NPR points out, that agreement was executed while Joe Biden was still considering a run.

Sanders campaign manager Jeff Weaver denies it was offered the same veto power over staff. An email from an attorney representing the DNC, Graham Wilson of Perkins Coie, states only that “DNC staff would be happy to chat with the Sanders team and come to an understanding about the best way to use … funds to prepare for the general election at the DNC.”

The September 2015 email says that “the DNC has had similar conversations with the Clinton campaign and is of course willing to do so with all.” In fact, the Clinton deal had already been signed.

Perkins Coie represented both the Clinton campaign and the DNC when that email was written.

[Pause]

Some people will be outraged at this interpretation of events. In the progressive world, as in society at large, we seem incapable of sharing a common interpretation of facts and reality. The arguments will continue.

If I had the power, I’d press a “pause” button on the social media universe and ask everyone in this fight: What are we trying to accomplish here?

Democrats keep saying, “Don’t re-litigate the past.” This time around, I couldn’t agree more. Let’s litigate the future instead.

Litigate the Future

Despite what some people claim, Democrats – and independent leftists who might vote Democratic – have real differences in ideology and values.

The Clinton/Obama wing of the party has historically leaned toward reducing government deficits, public/private partnerships, means testing for government services, and as global, interventionist military presence. Politically, it has sought to align itself (and raise money from) corporate interests, Wall Street, and the national security establishment.

Expediency, self-interest, and cynicism play a role in this thinking, but I believe it’s often based on sincerely held beliefs about how the world works — economically, politically, and in foreign policy. I think it’s wrong, but I think it’s sincere.

For their part, many Democrats in Clinton wing judge the left harshly. They’ve stoked false “Bernie Bro” memes, dismissed progressive proposals as unachievable “ponies,” and liberally thrown “Putin’s Puppet” accusations at those with whom they disagree. They’re dismissive of policies such as Medicare For All, a new Glass-Steagall, the breakup of big banks, an end to job-killing corporate trade deals, and the downsizing of our military and national-security complexes.

Democratize the Democratic Party

Many Clinton supporters back these progressive proposals, with more coming around every day, for example. But there are some big disagreements that need “litigating,” and that can’t happen in a party dominated by big donors and secret deals.

That means litigating the party’s organizational future, too. A reformed Democratic Party should:

Select Democratic nominees in a democratic way. The party’s candidates must be chosen democratically. Superdelegates should be eliminated. Primary winners should be selected by voters, not insiders.

Clinton’s near-universal support among superdelegates was used to manipulate press coverage of the primary and give her an unearned air of inevitability early in the campaign. That left lingering bitterness, casting doubt on the fairness of the primary process.

Clinton supporters who reveled in her advantage here were short-sighted. Their favored candidate may be the one who’s shortchanged by this broken process next time around.

Make primaries more open. The party should revisit its attitude toward progressive voters who aren’t registered Democrats. Open primaries — or, at a minimum, same-day registration as Democrats — could encourage millions of voters to participate in the party’s nomination process. Instead of seeing primaries as an “insider only” process, Democrats should see them as a recruitment tool — for activists, as well as voters.

The DNC has the power to penalize state parties who handle their primaries in an undemocratic way. That includes New York state, where voters who want to switch their registration for the June 2018 primary vote had to register as Democrats by last October 23.

Sanders supporters turned out for Hillary Clinton at far higher percentages than Clinton supporters did for Obama in 2008. But for those Democrats who are still angry at those who didn’t, perhaps this will help: If more Bernie voters believed that their candidate had lost a fair and democratic contest, more of them would probably have voted for Hillary. It’s hard to get progressive voters to turn out for, much less volunteer for, candidates who appear to have been handpicked by money-driven insiders.

Build a more progressive fundraising process. Joint Fundraising Agreements, even when well-crafted, are a way to evade campaign donation limits. They’re corrupt, morally if not legally, and they’re antithetical to the kind of campaign reform most Democratic voters support. In Clinton’s case, they were used raised a lot of money for her and very little for state parties. (That was reported in 2016.)

Another downside: These agreements tilt candidate and party fundraising toward high-dollar contributors. For a party that claims to represent ordinary working people, that’s proven fatal. It’s hard for party leaders to propose bold new economic policies when they’re hitting wealthy people up for contributions every day, as we’ve seen from recent experience.

How will the party raise money? Sanders raised nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in small donations. That’s the small-“d” democratic future, not a bloated party machinery dependent on big-money donors.

Focus on all races, not just the presidency. While the latest arguments concern presidential primaries, the DNC is also tasked with supporting local and state candidates. The party’s record there is downright dismal. Two-thirds of state houses and governorships are in Republican hands. That hasn’t just harmed these states. It has also allowed the GOP to engage in gerrymandering and engage in voter suppression that has changed the outcome of congressional (and very possibly presidential) races. The party’s entire apparatus, from fundraising to communications to campaign support, needs to focus more on these crucial down-ballot races.

Although Clinton’s fundraising arrangement nominally helped state committees, only about 1 percent of the funds raised actually went to the states. That may not be illegal, but with state Democrats in such bad shape, it’s criminal.

End secret deals and promote transparency. Democrats should never enter into secret agreements about the party’s governance or management. The party needs transparency if it is going to survive.

The arguments taking place today would not have happened if the party’s operations were better understood. As Brazile has pointed out, even party officials like her didn’t know about them. Dems don’t have to disclose each and every decision, agreement, or plan. But much greater transparency is needed, both internally (as the Brazile story affirms) and externally.

Build bench strength. If the Democratic Party seems overly Clinton-oriented, that’s not just a function of money or influence. The Clintons spent decades training and grooming operatives in every corner of the political process. No wonder it’s a Clinton-friendly party.

Granted, nurturing new talent is easier when you can raise large sums of money in a single evening. But the Democratic Party will need new generations of capable staffers to sustain it. Who will build that deep bench? The party should be exploring ways to recruit and build its professional ranks going forward.

My suggestion? Look to movement activists. They’re smart, they’re committed, and they get things done. But that means giving them a party they believe in.

Debate the issues, not the personalities. The last one’s more for voters. There’s no reason to keep arguing the merits of Bernie vs. Hillary. That race is over.

There’s a historical shift underway. Its outcome’s unclear, but there’s no turning back. We shouldn’t just ask our leaders, “Who are you?” or “What’s your story?” We should ask them, “What larger forces do you reflect and represent?”

THAT question should also be asked everyone that’s fighting to influence the Democratic party’s direction — a group that includes Sanders, Clinton, and Obama, as well as DNC chair Tom Perez, his former opponent turned vice chair Keith Ellison, as well as other DNC officials and party leaders.

Come to think of it, we should ask ourselves that question too.

Time to Move

In the wake of the Brazile flap, current DNC chair Tom Perez — himself the product of a controversial power struggle between the party’s wings — issued a statement promising major reforms in all these areas. That’s progress. But skeptical voters will need action, as Perez’s statement acknowledges.

Perez says he supports the party’s Unity Reform Commission, created in the wake of last year’s contentious primary, and that the DNC “will work with the Unity Reform Commission to implement their collective recommendations for meaningful change in our party.”

If Perez follows through, that will be a good start. But the party needs restructuring at all levels: organizational, political, and cultural. That will take a movement that acts in all 57 state organizations, where much of the power resides, as well as externally.

THIS movement must demand real reform. That call should be directed to all party leaders, including the hundreds of officials who will vote on the Unity Commission’s reforms in 2018. When reform is promised, the movement must demand a timeline for action. Accountability is key.

We’ve spent trillions on needless wars. The planet is being irreversibly damaged. Wealth concentration is now as high as it was in 1905 — so high that, as the author a UBS report on inequality points out, “even billionaires are concerned.”

Democrats have no time to lose. The world is teetering on the edge of disaster, and so is their party. Want to “litigate” something? Litigate that.

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