There is a sea change happening in America. Americans, even in liberal places, are abandoning the leftist Democrats. There are many reasons why but the main issues revolve around education, crime, and Covid-19 authoritarianism.
From David Leonhardt (New York Times) blog:
Consider these election results from last year, all in politically blue places:
In Minneapolis, voters rejected a ballot measure to replace the city’s Police Department with an agency that would have focused less on law enforcement.
In Seattle, voters elected Ann Davison — a lawyer who had recently quit the Democratic Party because she thought it had moved “so far left” — as the city’s top prosecutor. Davison beat a candidate who wanted to abolish the police.
In New York, voters elected as their mayor Eric Adams, a Democrat who revels in defying liberal orthodoxy. As a candidate, Adams promised to crack down on crime. Since taking office, he has signaled his frustration with Covid restrictions.
In the Democratic-leaning suburbs of both New Jersey and Virginia, Republican candidates for governor did surprisingly well. Several postelection analyses — including one by aides to Phil Murphy, New Jersey’s Democratic governor, who narrowly survived — concluded that anger over Covid policies played a central role.
In San Francisco, one of the most liberal cities in America, the school-board recall sums it up. There, three separate issues drove the campaign to remove school board members:
-The school board had attempted to rename 44 schools, so that they no longer honored anybody deemed reactionary. Among the apparent reactionaries were Paul Revere, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Senator Dianne Feinstein and John Muir, the environmentalist.
-The board tried to scrap an admissions system, based on grades and test scores, for Lowell High School, which Mark Barabak of The Los Angeles Times calls “one of the city’s most sacred institutions.” A lottery would have replaced it.
-The board kept schools closed for months during the pandemic and showed little concern for the damage. One of the since-recalled board members waved away the ineffectiveness of remote classes, saying that children were “just having different learning experiences.”
Polling showed that many Asian and Latino voters oppose the current version of affirmative action, which helps explain why the changes to Lowell High School resonated in San Francisco. Many Black and Latino voters are to the right of Democratic politicians on abortion and crime.
Class seems to be at least as big a dividing line as race. College-educated Democrats — who dominate the ranks of politicians, campaign staffs and activist organizations — tend to be well to the left of working-class Democrats. By catering to its well-off base, the party creates electoral problems for itself, because there are more working-class Americans than college graduates.
Fran Bishop says
Yes we are sick of liberals especially news media liberals who try to control the narrative! We are fed up! Here in the south liberals don’t thrive because we see through their bs! The liberal hotspots need to be removed from the USA! Kooks, with no common sense are ruining our country!
Stuart Bell says
Ostracize and shun them in the communities where they sleep, or give them a chance to change.
Sorin Varzaru says
You make it sound like there is some sort of a wave of “anti-liberal” movement in the democratic party. Not really. These are just corrections. Some things got too far and got corrected. Since there are only two parties all the right wing extremists are voting republican and all left wing extremists are voting democrat. That doesn’t mean that the majority of either party is extremist.
Paul R Plante says
I like you, Sorin!
You have that cosmopolitan continental flair for bringing humor and levity to even the most serious sounding topics, and in gthese troubled tgimes, Sorin, the nation, and indeed the world, sorely need that talent and skill of yours now more than ever, Sorin, so make them laugh and you will make the world a better place!
In the meantime, as the sun sinks slowly in the west:
Associated Press
“‘The brand is so toxic’: Dems fear extinction in rural US”
by Steve People on 17 February 2022
SMETHPORT, Pa. (AP) — Some Democrats here in rural Pennsylvania are afraid to tell you they’re Democrats.
The party’s brand is so toxic in the small towns 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh that some liberals have removed bumper stickers and yard signs and refuse to acknowledge their party affiliation publicly.
end quotes
Any thoughts, Sorin?
Getting back to the plight of the liberal Democrat in America today, that article goes on as follows:
These Democrats are used to being outnumbered by the local Republican majority, but as their numbers continue to dwindle, the few that remain are feeling increasingly isolated and unwelcome in their own communities.
“The hatred for Democrats is just unbelievable,” said Tim Holohan, an accountant based in rural McKean County who recently encouraged his daughter to get rid of a pro-Joe Biden bumper sticker.
“I feel like we’re on the run.”
end quotes
That, Sorin, is what Nancy Pelosi, Charley “Chuck” Schumer, goofy Joe Biden, AOC, Ilhan Omar, the foul-mouthed and ignorant Rashica Tlaib and their ilk have done for the Democrat party – they have turned it into toxic poison.
But’s let keep following the decline and fall of the hated Democrat party, shall we:
The climate across rural Pennsylvania is symptomatic of a larger political problem threatening the Democratic Party ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.
Beyond losing votes in virtually every election since 2008, Democrats have been effectively ostracized from many parts of rural America, leaving party leaders with few options to reverse a cultural trend that is redefining the nation’s political landscape.
Meanwhile, the Democratic Party continues to devote the vast majority of its energy, messaging and resources to voters in more populated urban and suburban areas.
The Democratic Party’s struggle in rural America has been building for years.
And it’s getting worse.
Barack Obama won 875 counties nationwide in his overwhelming 2008 victory.
Twelve years later, Biden won only 527.
The vast majority of those losses — 260 of the 348 counties — took place in rural counties, according to data compiled by The Associated Press.
The worst losses were concentrated in the Midwest: 21 rural counties in Michigan flipped from Obama in 2008 to Trump in 2020; Democrats lost 28 rural counties in Minnesota, 32 in Wisconsin and a whopping 45 in Iowa.
Democratic Rep. Jim Cooper of Tennessee, who recently announced he would not seek reelection to Congress this fall, warns that the party is facing extinction in small-town America.
“It’s hard to sink lower than we are right now.”
“You’re almost automatically a pariah in rural areas if you have a D after your name,” Cooper told The Associated Press.
end quotes
I won’t quibble with him on that.
Sorin Varzaru says
Interesting, that is not my perception. What I see is people moving from cities to rural areas and taking some of their democratic inclinations with them. Like in cape Charles for instance… 🙂
Paul R Plante says
The autocratic, tyrannical, dictatorial Democrats are moving from cities to rural areas and taking some of their democratic inclinations with them?
HAW HAW HAW!
My goodness but that is rich, Sorin!
What democratic inclinations do autocratic, tyrannical, dictatorial Democrats have?
Other than do what they say or else, what other democratic inclinations do you see them having?
Think the way they say we must think, or else?
Have I missed any?
Publius Americanus says
Where’s my free work, Sorin? You have no problem giving away the fruits of others labor, why not yours?
And if you are indicative of the middle of the left, baby we are in real trouble. You are as lunatic left as a Beria, Stalin or Lenin.
Sorin Varzaru says
No idea what the hell you are talking about.
Publius Americanus says
I want free photography. If you get to demand that medical doctors give it up for free, I want the fruits of YOUR labor for free.
Seeing as how you ARE a supporter of slavery I figure it’s no biggy for you.
BTW, you misspelled “socialist” in your post above…..”Democratic inclinations”
You mean fascist totalitarianism.
You racist war monger who demands women pay full freight for their mistakes in love.
Support the man, support his policies and that makes you a Racist, War monger misogynist.
Go away, slaver.
Sorin Varzaru says
“I want free photography. If you get to demand that medical doctors give it up for free, I want the fruits of YOUR labor for free.
Seeing as how you ARE a supporter of slavery I figure it’s no biggy for you.”
You are insane. You do realize that US is the ONLY country in the industrialized world where it’s citizens are afraid to go to the doctor for fear of getting bankrupt. The way it works there, taxes pay for things like police, military, roads , etc. And medical care. Doctors get paid. But I can’t imagine you got the comprehension skills to understand that.
Publius Americanus says
Nahhh, I wasn’t engaged in assisting Warren in her medical bankruptcy fantasy where she was eventually caught cherry picking petitions to fit her hypothesis.
$250,000 in CC bills, and a $100. Doctors bill became a “Medical bankruptcy”.
Sorry, chump but its been illegal to deny medical care due to ability to pay in America for about 45 years now, and prior to that religious hospitals did it WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION.
But, without subservience and compliance via government force, you lefties just ain’t happy.
Go sing your song someplace else. North Korea is lovely this time of year.
Sorin Varzaru says
but its been illegal to deny medical care due to ability to pay in America for about 45 years
now,
For “emergencies”. If you have cancer, you’re fucked.
But I can’t imagine you’d ever acknowledge that.
Publius Americanus says
Me, whose wife has had 2 bouts with breast, and a father who died of blood cancer?
Still say keep government out of healthcare.
You are a fool, Sorin and a communist. But I repeat myself.
Sorin Varzaru says
“Me, whose wife has had 2 bouts with breast, and a father who died of blood cancer?
Still say keep government out of healthcare.
You are a fool, Sorin and a communist. But I repeat myself.”
Because having a for profit insurance company deciding what treatments to pay for and what not to pay for is the superior alternative. How dense are you? Look up the cost of medical care and the results and compare them with other industrialized (not communist) countries and see who’s doing better.
You can call me a communist until the cows come home. That only shows how clueless you about communism. Unlike you, I actually lived in communism and I know from 1st hand experience what it is and what is not. While communist countries generally had universal healthcare, having universal healthcare does not make a country communist. Because if it did, most countries in the world would be communist.
You are like a child, seeing the world in black and white. When children grow up, they generally get smarter and start understanding shades of grey, compromise, cost/benefit analysis, science, etc. You missed that boat eh?
Publius Americanus says
Piss up a rope, Sorin and scuttle back to your commie home.
No, I went into MY pocket to take care of MY wife.
Like a grown up.
Not a whittle baby who needs Daddy Gummint to make his decisions and p[ay his bills.
Varazu delenda est, for the good of the Country.
Sorin Varzaru says
“Piss up a rope, Sorin and scuttle back to your commie home.
No, I went into MY pocket to take care of MY wife.
Like a grown up.
Not a whittle baby who needs Daddy Gummint to make his decisions and p[ay his bills.
Varazu delenda est, for the good of the Country.”
I am glad you had the means to pay for your wife’s treatments. So, people who are too poor to pay hundreds of thousands of $ should just die, right? Got you, great vision.
Paul R Plante says
It’s America, Sorin!
And yes, you got that exactly right.
Especially if you don’t vote Democrat and contribute to the party in exchange for protection and thank you on behalf of a grateful nation by making that point so clear as you have done here.
Publius Americanus says
Vile human that you are, you must not be aware that before your God Government got involved, we had religious charities that took care of that issue.
Go back to your country, Sorin and ruin that one, leave America alone.
Sorin Varzaru says
“we had religious charities that took care of that issue.”
Nothing like having to beg people to cover treatment costs. Fantastic. Great plan. You sir are an idiot.
Publius Americanus says
Being involved in a community based on a church is begging?
You sir are a communist, and a fool.
PLEASE go away. America is suffering badly with vermin like you here.
PLEASE leave.
Publius Americanus says
You sir, are a long, long ways from home.
Sorin Varzaru says
“Being involved in a community based on a church is begging?
You sir are a communist, and a fool.
PLEASE go away. America is suffering badly with vermin like you here.
PLEASE leave.”
If Trump comes back and follows in his idol footsteps Putin, you may get your wish. Chances are he is taking notes on how genius Putin is cracking down on dissent in press and elsewhere. When that happens, I will be glad that I have dual citizenship and I will be glad to leave.
As far as “church based based community”, you can’t stop trying to shove your religion down everyone’s throat, do you? I don’t share your belief in the great man in the sky, I don’t pray to an imaginary being and I absolutely don’t want a bunch of religious people deciding if my treatments should be paid for.
You keep calling me communist. I am curious, do you think UK, Germany, Japan, etc are all communist?
Paul Plante says
The UK, which has a long history of being pink, would be!
As for Germany, if you remember from your Modern European history course in high school, Hitler put paid to the Commies there back in February of 1933 with his Reichstag Fire Decree which gave Hitler the power to kill the Commies or put them in concentration camps, which he had Hermann Göring, his Minister of the Interior, do for him.
The Romanians were fascist, Sorin!
Were you taught Hermann Göring, Hitler’s Minister of the Interior, was a hero?
Or were the Commies in power then so he would be a bad guy in that case?
Anyway, hard to say whether Germany would be fascist or Commie today, given it was both for so long after WWII, and incidentally, you dudes over there in the Old Country in Romania allied yourselves with Nazi Germany on July 5, 1940.
And Japan is a closed and insular society that takes care of itself, so neither label probably fits with them.
Paul Plante says
Sorin, you highly indoctrinated Biden cultists are always going on about Trump and Putin with your inane blather above about Putin being Trump’s idol, as if the only American to ever think favorably of Putin was Trump.
What about Bill Clinton?
What about the “weak sister” Hussein Obama?
Why do you leave them out of the equation?
What are you trying to hide, as if you could among people with working memories longer than a half a TWEET from Nancy Pelosi?
You’re usually right on top of your facts, Sorin, except when you try to whitewash American and world history to keep alive the illusion that has been firmly indoctrinated into your mind that the Democrats are good people, good people, and as such they would never mingle with the likes of a Putin,l which is so just not so it isn’t funjny, and here I am taking us back to that Washington Post story you are trying to bury titled “President Clinton’s first meeting with Putin: Dress to impress” by Colby Itkowitz on June 7, 2014 where we had the truth you and Joe Biden are trying to suppress, to wit:
Ahead of President Bill Clinton’s first meeting with newly elected Russian President Vladimir Putin in June 2000, a Clinton national security adviser and scheduler suggested that he dress to impress for his face-to-face with Putin.
end quotes
In other words, Clinton needed to get Putin’s respect and had to work for it, not vice versa.
The fact that Bill Clinton, a soft man, was an American president meant absolutely nothing to Putin, because American presidents come and go with regularity while he endures, which takes us back to the Washington Post as follows:
“The pictures of your first encounter will be important, and we recommend business attire,” they wrote in a memo.
“We want to convey ‘getting down to business’ and avoid the inaccurate charge that we’re embracing Putin without question.”
According to a Washington Post article at the time, the two leaders ate “cabbage soup, spicy boiled wild boar, trout, goose, baked stag ham and rich ice cream dessert” at the Kremlin, and “there was a very easygoing nature to the conversation.”
Putin also showed off his workout room.
Afterward they attended a jazz concert.
end quotes
Whether or not they took a shower together afterwards has never been confirmed.
And check this out, Sorin:
One purpose of the meeting, according to a memo made public Friday as part of a larger release of secret Clinton White House documents, “was to stress the importance of continued engagement with Russia and the newly independent states.”
Clinton also visited Ukraine on that trip to show other nations that emerged from the Soviet Union that U.S. foreign policy is not just “Russia-focused.”
As President Obama now knows well, dealing with Putin isn’t easy, and Clinton may have needed to decompress after several hours with Vlad.
His chief of staff, John Podesta, suggested in an interview with Runner’s World just last month that they indulged in some Russian vodka after the dinner meeting:
“We saw Putin and then we had the evening free.”
“We went to the Cafe Pushkin in Moscow, and as is habit in Moscow, we started drinking vodka shots.”
“I’m not much of a drinker, but I had plenty to drink that night.”
“I was supposed to meet Gene Sperling, who is now Obama’s economic director, for a run the next morning before going to see Boris Yeltsin, with whom Clinton had become quite close, at his dacha; so we needed to get up and out early.”
“I don’t know how I managed to get out of bed.”
“I wouldn’t even describe myself as hungover; alcohol was still pouring out of my pores.”
Podesta did not make clear if “we” included Clinton, but for the sake of fun visuals, let’s assume so.
Clinton has said that he and Putin used to go at it behind closed doors, but had a mutual trust.
We wonder how he feels about Putin now that the Russian president suggested this week that his wife, Hillary Clinton, was “weak.”
Paul Plante says
Sorin, why does Joe Biden hate America and the American people?
Why is he trying to destroy us as a people and a nation?
Blue Hoss says
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/02/25/reparations-bill-congress-support/
I would not give them the sweat off my b@lls if they were thirsty.
Jim says
I’m a very conservative Republican and I voted for Trump both times, just to give you an idea of where I stand politically. Politics are a sewer, but I still vote.
Russia just invaded Ukraine. Let’s pretend Putin went a lot further, for whatever reason, and nuked Washington DC.
This is a serious question:
How many would cheer vs being angry?
We are so divided that I truly believe there are a lot on the Right, as well as a lot on the Left, that would be in the cheering category. I can’t honestly give you a true answer about where I stand, if this happened. This is a problem.
I think we all l need to really think about this. I’m to the point where I literally hate the political opposition and see them as enemies. This is bad. I know how we got here, but the road to this point doesn’t matter as much as the road we decide to follow moving forward.
I think we all need l to take a step back, take a deep breath, and realize that we each aren’t correct 100% of the time. This is a hard pill for me personally to swallow, I’ll tell you.
In the end, even though our political system many not work this way, WE can. Life and quality of life is about people, not politics.
Listen to me, or don’t listen to me, I don’t care, but I challenge you to just stop for a minute, take a hard look in the mirror, and reflect.
This is what I’m attempting to do. I invite you to join me, whatever your politics.
Paul Plante says
I’ve been taking a hard look in the mirror since I was in combat in VEET NAM in LBJ and Washington’s crusade to shove America down those people’s throats with B-52 strikes.
You ever watch a B-52 strike close up?
Washington. D.C. is NOT a part of the United States of America.
It is now the essence of a foreign occupying power here in OUR country.
Would we miss it if the Russians reduced it to glass?
Would the lives of us common folks be any different if the Russians bombed Washington into a permanent state of non-existence?
Would we finally get some peace in our lives?
And if the Russians did manage to nuke Washington, what with all of our vaunted security measures to prevent exactly that from happening would be quite a feat, in which case I think a lot of people would see it as a huge load of BAD KARMA come home to roost.
As to Russia and Ukraine, you make it sound like this is something new.
IT’S NOT!
Don’t you remember Joe Stalin, who Democrat Frankie Roosevelt was very enamoured of, wishing he had Joe Stalin’s power to simply have his political opponents “annihilated,” and his HOLODOMOR?
We are talking very basic high school history here.
The Ukrainian Famine and Genocide of 1932-33 known as the Holodomor was deliberately planned and executed by the Soviet regime under Democrat Frankie Roosevelt’s soul brother Joseph Stalin to systematically destroy the Ukrainian people’s aspirations for a free and independent Ukraine, and subsequently caused the death of millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933.
How is it that you have forgotten this?
And what is going on over there right now belongs not to Putin, but to Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Hussein Obama, all of who blatantly MEDDLED in Ukraine’s internal political affairs and flipped its pro-Russian government to a pro-Obama government so as to make Ukraine a safe place for Joe Biden’s wayward and ne’er-do-well son Hunter to get rich raking graft, along with Hillary, of course, who like Midas will never have enough gold.
If Putin drops as nuke down on Joe Biden’s head, I would have to say Joe earned it and it is none of my affair.
Publius Americanus says
One does not ‘find accommodation’ with Cancer. And make no mistake, the left are a cancer upon the body politic.
No, I will not meet them in the middle. That’s what got us HERE.
Paul R Plante says
Philadelphiensis IV
December 12, 1787
But probably, you will say, these are groundless conjectures, and we are perfectly convinced, that our new government, however it may be imperfect in some matters of an inferior nature, yet it must and will be powerful; yea, a government that will make its enemies tremble.
If you mean by its enemies the helpless widow and orphan, the hardworking husbandman, sunk down by labour and poverty, I grant it; but if you mean a foreign enemy, you insult your understanding.
Paul R Plante says
Joe Biden is not worth fighting for, Joe Biden is not worth bleeding for, and Joe Biden sure as hell is not worth dying for, no way, no how!
Nor is any of that pack of bottom feeders in Washington, D.C., nor is Washington, D.C., itself, for that matter.
Fooled me once, won’t fool me again!
“Cato” Essay
December 12, 1787
God knows that fools and knaves have voice enough in government already; it is to be hoped these wise prophesiers of evil would not wish to give them a constitutional privilege to send members in proportion to their numbers.
In the present crisis of our public affairs I confess with the frankness of a free man and the concern of a patriot, that I apprehend more danger from a licentious democracy, than from aristocratic oppression.
Paul R Plante says
Did I hear Joe Biden start WWIII by declaring war on Russia last night?
The New York Times
“NATO Countries Pour Weapons Into Ukraine, Risking Conflict With Russia”
Steven Erlanger
2 March 2022
BRUSSELS — The Dutch are sending rocket launchers for air defense.
The Estonians are sending Javelin antitank missiles.
The Poles and the Latvians are sending Stinger surface-to-air missiles.
The Czechs are sending machine guns, sniper rifles, pistols and ammunition.
Even formerly neutral countries like Sweden and Finland are sending weapons.
And Germany, long allergic to sending weapons into conflict zones, is sending Stingers as well as other shoulder-launched rockets.
In all, about 20 countries — most members of NATO and the European Union, but not all — are funneling arms into Ukraine to fight off Russian invaders and arm an insurgency, if the war comes to that.
At the same time, NATO is moving military equipment and as many as 22,000 more troops into member states bordering Russia and Belarus, to reassure them and enhance deterrence.
However proud Brussels is of its effort, it is a strategy that risks encouraging a wider war and possible retaliation from Mr. Putin.
The rush of lethal military aid into Ukraine from Poland, a member of NATO, aims, after all, to kill Russian soldiers.
Mr. Putin already sees NATO as committed to threaten or even destroy Russia through its support for Ukraine, as he has repeated in his recent speeches, even as he has raised the nuclear alert of his own forces to warn Europe and the United States of the risks of interference.
World wars have started over smaller conflicts, and the proximity of the war to NATO allies carries the danger that it could draw in other parties in unexpected ways.
While 21 of the 27 European Union countries are also members of NATO, the effort to move equipment and weapons rapidly into Ukraine from Poland is being carried out by individual countries and is not formally either a NATO or E.U. operation.
The French say that the E.U.’s military staff is trying to coordinate the push.
Britain and the United States are doing the same, setting up something called, deliberately blandly and neutrally, the International Donors Coordination Center.
It is doubtful that Mr. Putin will be fooled by the name.
In fact, even if no NATO soldier ever crosses into Ukraine, and even if convoys of matériel are driven to the border by nonuniformed personnel or contractors in plain trucks, the European arms supplies are likely to be seen in Moscow as a not-so-disguised intervention by NATO.
According to NATO, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Britain and the United States have already sent or are approving significant deliveries of military equipment to Ukraine, as well as millions of dollars, while other member states are providing humanitarian aid and welcoming refugees.
The United States alone has deployed 15,000 extra troops to Europe — 5,000 to Poland, 1,000 to Romania and 1,000 to the Baltic States — while committing another 12,000 troops, if necessary, to NATO’s Response Force, being used in collective defense for the first time.
Washington has also deployed more fighter jets and attack helicopters to Romania, Poland and the Baltic States.
Paul Plante says
Biden just cut off all Russian exports of oil and told us in his address about it that it is we, the American people, who are going to be hurt, and we have no choice but to accept it!
I don’t accept Joe Biden destroying America.
And I will be damned if I will accept Joe Biden destroying the lives of older Americans here in the cold country who are going to starve and freeze to death because Joe Biden hates Putin and wants to destroy him to protect corruption in Ukraine.