To those who say the Dems do not need a fighter to beat Trump, they need just the opposite, I ask this:
It’s like taking a close relative to be committed to a mental institution, and hearing them ranting away as you leave about how wrong everyone is about everything and they’ll be sorry and they’ll etc. etc. etc. It’s not that bad because he’s just kind of a self-regarding jerk, not an insane relative. But it’s that same sense of sad futility about how wrong people can go when they start getting lost in their delusions.
This is the trap of the so-called “alpha male.” It’s somewhat different than Trump’s delusions; Trump is not a real “alpha male,” he is more like a pick up artist. The difference is a PUA goes to a bar and pretends to be a doctor or a lawyer so he can get his one night stand, an alpha male actually is a doctor or a lawyer or has some other social dominance and he uses that to his advantage to get his one night stand. Trump is a PUA bullshitter; Avenatti is (was) a legit alpha male, for what it’s worth.
The trap is sprung when the alpha male starts buying his own sales pitch. This is what happened to M.A. I believe. When you believe your own press releases, you can no longer evaluate your reality objectively, and you start making stupid decisions. Because you believe you are invincible, you are bullet-proof. A little humility goes a long way in the development of wisdom. This is why pride is one of the seven deadly sins. It’s not just because prideful people are assholes, but because of the negative impact it has on the prideful person. Pride goeth before the fall.
There was a comment by Bill Brown in Frank Bruni’s opinion article titled “What Kind of Democrat Can Beat Trump in 2020?”
He said a few of things that I’ve thought about for a while:
Trump isn’t the real problem for Democrats. It’s the 62 million people who voted for him. How do you get them to switch sides? Because of their desire to placate left wing of the party the Democrats no longer represent the working classes. The working class use to be the Democratic party’s foundation. Now they feel like we’ve abandoned them. And lets be honest we have. The left wing of the party is dragging us into culture wars we will never win. The left never stops mocking these people. You’re bad for eating factory-farmed meat, owning a rifle, & driving an SUV. You’re bad for speaking the language of micro-aggressions, patriarchy, & cultural appropriation.The left has become self-righteous & obsessed with trivial issues that have made Dems a national laughing stock. This is politically disastrous & just plays into the hands of Fox News. Democrats can’t win over working class swing voters if they persist in ridiculing their cultural values. The working class has legitimate concerns & we aren’t listening anymore. Remember when we stood for the dignity of hard work, family, faith & coming together around basic "kitchen table issues? Sadly, over the past 10 years the DP has abandoned those core values in a desperate attempt to please the strident advocates of identity politics. Trump wouldn’t have capitalized on the salience of race & ethnicity if the Democrats hadn’t exploited it.
I’m not 100% behind everything he wrote.That said, he did make some very good points. There were a lot of good comments in that article. I agreed with much of the most liked comment by Edward also. But with the exception that I think the ACA was a good pursuit for Obama. However, it should have been dropped when it became clear it was more of a Tom Daschle and the drug and insurance industry creation than Obama’s. Instead, I think if we had passed a law like Canada has about it being illegal to lie and mislead in the media while we had the votes to push it through, we would be a better country today.
Dropped? What would we be pointing to as worth defending now? It may not have been the ideal but it got a lot of people insured. And who decides what’s misleading and a lie? That doesn’t seem workable in a society with a First Amendment.
Hillary did beat him and that was before all the shit really hit the fan.
“I coulda been a contenduh!!”
It was stupid, but on the other hand, it’ll get up Spankee’s nose, so I will superficially enjoy it for the entertainment effect.
See ya, Mike. Keep in touch.
It want instant gratification, and I want it yesterday!
I do agree that Dems don’t micro-manage their micro-issues, so to speak.
Depending who you talk to, there are 100 issues which are supposed to be supremely important to every Democrat. This is crippling. Republicans have a terrible message, but it is clear and focused.
Seeing that Avenatti is going down in flames, I"m wondering about my chances… time to spend a weekend in Iowa to do some polling?
The reason we lost all those seats is because of the fearmongering by the GOP over the ACA. Personally, I don’t think it was worth it.
I did at one time, but in this past year I have come to think differently about the ACA. It started out great, but it’s tilted towards corporate interests in the long run. I know many people feel strongly about the ACA, I did too. After Trump’s win and losing so many seats across the country since 2010, I wish it had been dropped. We will never agree on this so let’s drop it. I defended the ACA for over seven years. I just can’t do it anymore.
Canada seems to do fine with their broadcast rules.
The whole problem is that these are not trivial issues (setting aside that half of them are strawmen placeholders for real issues, and also that he regards random Twitter activists as equal to the Democratic party, something people never do with the far-more-extreme right). Democrats don’t pick up on these because of virtue signalling like Bruni seems to think. These are all things that impact kitchen table issues. Ignoring the kitchen table issues of women and POC, and the massive economic impact of climate change that’s already starting to happen, is part and parcel of the centrist bullshit that got us into this mess.
I’m old enough to remember when “all Americans should have health insurance” was a sort of controversial notion. Now it’s not, it’s baked into public discourse and it’s never going away. Just like “all Americans should be financially able to retire” was once a controversial notion and is now pretty much universally accepted. We never completely achieve these things, but they’re now broadly accepted as societal goals.
Weird how the purity pity party brigade doesn’t think that’s worth celebrating. But they never do, it’s always on to the next self-flagellation. I’ll hand them a whip and pursue adult discussions with people with real ideas.
I am officially declaring a click boycott on all Avenatti articles. I am done worrying about what he says or tweets.
Like I said, I don’t agree with him 100%. He did make some valid points though. We just seem to be identified as a party by the GOP. Bruni did not write that, Bill from California did in the comment section.
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“Culture Wars” is a euphemism used mostly by the comfortable to diminish a movement whose one goal is to protect the rights of minorities everywhere (including in small towns!). Name one movement that doesn’t in one way or another also digress into some excess.
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There are lots(!!!) of people who would be dead or in bankruptcy if not for ACA.
Dude should take his 15 fame-filled minutes and go home.
Possibly he could beat Trump. And possibly, so could I or my feeble old tom cat. That doesn’t mean any of us would be any good at the job.
I personally would be taking anything he said right now tons more seriously if he had handled the accusations against Kavanaugh that were under his guidance more effectively.
Still think he deserves a lot of credit for Mueller bagging Cohen though.
I suppose the bar has been lowered so much with Trump’s “election” that every fast-talking huckster in America thinks he could also get elected. While I am certain that Avanetti has some talents –
– they don’t necessarily qualify one for the Presidency.
That’s especially apparent after seeing a sleazy “businessman,” con-artist, criminal give it a try.
One would think Avenatti would know his limits, * * * but apparently not.