Magaziner: Madam secretary, you promised America that you would go after the worst of the worst. But these people are not the worst of the worst. A purple heart recipient, a military spouse, the father of three Marines. And it’s not just veterans and military families. You are locking up and deporting children with cancer, mothers with babies in the NICU, United States citizens, you do. There are many problems with your leadership, but the biggest problem is this you don’t seem to know how to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys.

  • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    When you want a job only a sociopathic puppy killer would do, you hire a sociopathic puppy killer.

    Also

    Which Democrats voted to confirm Kristi Noem?

    Many of Trump’s cabinet picks have received significant backlash in the Senate, often from members of his own party. However Noem was passed with a comfortable 59-34 vote in the Upper House, even bringing seven Democratic members over to support the nomination.

    Those Democrat supporters were Senator John Fetterman (Pa.), Senator Maggie Hassan (N.H.), Senator Tim Kaine (Va.), Senator Andy Kim (N.J.), Senator Gary Peters (Mich.), Senator Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) and Senator Elisa Slotkin (Mich.).

          • TropicalDingdong@lemmy.world
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            5 days ago

            Heres the kym, though it could be updated.

            Any Blue Will Do / Blue Maga are a camp and cohort within the Democratic party who unapologetically advocate for supporting Democrats uncritically/ unwaveringly as a “brand”, who brigade and denigrate any criticism of Democrats, and who generally rely on an argument based in “strategic voting”. Systematically, they’ve been blamed for the rise of Trump, although this was a fringe view in 2016, its become a much more mainstream view after 2024. And to be clear, its several things. Its an electoral strategy, its a rhetorical strategy, and its a cultural movement.

            And here is Jon Stewart, in a longer form segment, explaining it further:

            The primary aspect of this group is the apologetics; their approach to rhetoric. Usually, they are approaching the issue with the argument “other side worse” as if thats an argument for their positioning, which is to just vote D no matter what. Examples are Joy Ann Reid saying she’d vote for Biden if he was in a coma. Its Whoopi Goldberg on The View saying she’d vote for Biden if he was shitting his pants on stage. And when one make these kinds of arguments, it results in candidates who are uniquely unqualified and either lose the election or utterly fail to represent any kind of Democratic voter constituency once elected. Often times you see the same people who make these arguments also making some kind of case for “centrism”, “moderation”, or “bipartisanship”. The Blue Dog Caucus would be considered unapologetically ABWD/ Blue MAGA at this point.

            The philosophy results in an approach to electoralism that excuses the consistent and perpetual failure of the Democratic party by trying to shift the focus to how bad the opponents are. Other side worse, orange man bad, etc… are caricatures of this, but the problems with this approach are manifold. The first and primary is that we can demonstrate here is that the ABWD selects for candidates who regularly often do not actually stand for anything (cyphers), fail to represent their constituents, who need to rely on PAC/ large dollar donations (because they have no base, and they have no base because they are cyphers). This selects for weaker than necessary candidates who often work directly against their voters interests (this example).

            A compounding problem with this approach to electoralism is the downstream or network effects of ABWD. Because ABWD selects for milquetoast candidates, very little if any material progress is made through their election. As a result, conditions worsen, and voters identify the conditions present with whomever is in office. This makes getting the reelected very difficult. The example that will become the classic example will be Joe Biden, and as a case study, I think could be used to represent the whole movement. Joe Biden was elected on being “Not Trump”, and governed in a way so as to appease a non-existent center. Instead of big bold movements and accountability, the administration slow-walked any kind of accountability for J6 or the multitude of Trumps crimes. As a result of their governance, Democrats disenfranchised their own base going into 2024, to obvious effect.

  • Kühlschrank@lemmy.world
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    5 days ago

    That’s a great line and the only way it could be better would be if he insinuated that she was one of the bad guys