What are we doing?
The more you pay attention to politics the less happy you become. Eventually, I’m going to come up with a catchy name for it, but there is an ever growing gap between what the public wants and what the government delivers. Some of this is due to representation and the nature of how our government is set up. Democrats in the Senate represent nearly 40 million more Americans than the Republicans and yet they are split 50/50.
The same phenomenon is true in the House to a lesser extent. Of course, they don’t have the same procedural issues as the Senate. That’s the other problem that gets thrown on top of the whole thing. So, you look up to see issues where the vast majority of the country agrees on both sides and yet nothing seems to be done.
At the center of it all is West Virginia senator Joe Manchin. Manchin is a Democrat officially, but the proof of his membership is sometimes difficult to pinpoint. He has been particularly hostile towards gun control and now is at the center of the controversy over the filibuster. Most Democrats either want it eliminated or severely curtailed. He is standing in the way. Considering the Senate is 50/50 that’s a particularly formidable threat.
Rumor has it that Manchin will not be running for reelection. So, the threat of primarying him is all but gone. His seat will be up in 2022. I don’t know that I would ever trust a politician to keep his or her word. The threat of retirement is always effective when someone becomes unpopular within their own party.
The proof of the pudding in terms of the gap can be seen in the overwhelming amount of legislation that the House has passed that has been stuck on the Senate’s desk. Before 2021, that could be blamed on one man. Unfortunately, that won’t fly as much as it did before. All people know is that they want stuff to be done and that stuff isn’t done. They don’t know whether to blame Mitch McConnell, Joe Manchin, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, or the tooth fairy.
This is why we see the yo-yoing in representation in Congress. One side gains control and nothing seems to change. So, they vote for the other side. Yet, one side has never been interested in passing popular measures. They really don’t want infrastructure. They really don’t want common sense gun control. They REALLY don’t want to expand voting rights and access. They don’t want to remove money from the political process and they don’t want to remove gerrymandering either.
So, voting for them only accomplishes that goal. Who in the heck knows why Manchin does what he does. Maybe he sees West Virginia as more conservative than other states. Maybe he’s a dedicated centrist that doesn’t like the progressive agenda. Maybe he’s desperate to keep some of these Republican senators as friends. It could be that he just likes the idea that people have to listen to him now. Whatever the case, I think he would find that even West Virginians are in favor of many of the aims of the legislative agenda. In that case, if their senator can’t find a way to get that agenda moving then they need a new senator.
The Democrats need to craft a strong message. They need to highlight everything the House has passed in the last few years since they have taken control. They need to highlight all of these things and show how the Senate is the one thing standing between Americans and lasting and systemic change. As hard as it will be, they need to explain how Senate works and doesn’t work. Maybe then Manchin will be pressured to move.
The Daemoncrats have done many good things thru time while the rePUKEians have tried repeatedly to destroy everything but the very rich & have now joined the EVILjellycals to realy make the country a nasty ugly place. But until the Deamoncrats grow their own spine and fight back we will get no where. And there are many lists that show the really good things the democrats have done but all the MAGAs will do is look and scream COMMUNISM!!!! Of coarse NONE of the MAGA even know what socialism is or what communism is as they have seen little or none actually being used.
1I have thought, and thus would posit, that critical thinking is paramount to happiness. to wit:
Kristi Noem, governor of South Dakota since 05/2019 had an epiphany about pipes being infrastructure while sitting on the commode.
Or did she? ~ mashup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJc7DNjv7mIhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJc7DNjv7mI
Therefore: Multiple kudos to critical thinking men and women everywhere, present and past in public office and across the nation.
2~ Happy Friday.
I live in the magical land of Texas where the GOP gets to pick their voters and once in office rule like Demi-gods. In November 2022, I will trudge to wherever I will be able to vote with my “approved” I’d and vote for Dems. but eve after the recent screw ups during the pandemic and February freeze, I expect the 2022 elections to miraculously return the same GOPers to office.
3Nick: Although I’m a solid atheist, I spent a summer as a teenager reading the Bible (and the loony-tunes fanfic versions like the Book of Moroni and Jehovah’s Witness screeds). So the first citation of the inverse relationship between happiness and knowledge is in Ecclesiates: “For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.”
We will now pass the plate around the habitues of the salon. Be sure to drop in all your wrinkled currency; coins show you don’t really love your soul. [In reality, the plate is JJ’s ActBlue site: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/juanita-jean-s-democratic-organization-1 so you can also chip in electrons in the shape of a credit card authorization.]
Grandma Ada: thank you for trudging (uphill both ways) to the polls in the off-years. I’ll do the same in the equally GQP-ridden state of Indiana (state motto: we’re dumber than Kentucky and proud of it!).
4I read an article where Manchin said he wants to return to the old days of filibustering — think Wendy Davis’ nearly 12-hour long filibuster in 2013 against a bill that would severely restrict abortion access: If you want to filibuster, stand up in the Senate and talk. Seems that these days, a politician can filibuster via email. No need to be present, no need to even be in town. Just dash off an email.
Manchin says that we need to enact changes that work both ways. What if one side enacts something that works great for them now, but works against them later?
While his idea sounds noble and fair and honest — and even correct, you have to consider the Republican party. They constantly enact things based on their current standing, as if the world will end when they are no longer in power. Like access to voting and healthcare and jobs and on and on.
It’s just damn hard to play fair when the other side constantly CHEATS!
Non-republicans of the Democratic and Independent faith, and even fed up Republicans, need to come out in a huge way in 2022 to turn Texas blue and get some good energy flowing back through our state!
ps… I have often said: There is bliss in ignorance! And I stand by that philosophy.
5Surly professor,
That’s interesting. I’m pretty sure I ran across that at some point during religious education. I’m a bit of science junkie. I’ll skip the science part and go to the conclusion and it’s interesting when science is able to show biological proof of something we already know. Plus, the English teacher in me can’t get past the irony of demonstrating definitively that ignorance is in fact bliss. Thus, acquiring such knowledge is guaranteed to decrease your bliss.
6“The more you pay attention to politics the less happy you become. Eventually, I’m going to come up with a catchy name for it, but there is an ever growing gap between what the public wants and what the government delivers. ”
Already got one: Ignorance is bliss.
Alternately, DUTI — Dangerously Uninformed and Tragically Ignorant
7(I coined this at work one day under the direst of circumstances.)
The bliss you get from ignorance is the same bliss you feel while lying on the ground semi-conscious after being bucked off a horse knowledge would have told you not to get on. Oh, it’s blissful, dreaming that you’re on it, and galloping over the fields…until you rise to awareness that the red and white vehicle is an ambulance, and someone crouched near you is asking how many fingers they’re holding up and if you know your name and what day it is. And you’re wrong on the day, what you ate for lunch, etc.
It’s a temporary, transient, fickle bitch of a bliss that burns away in the light of reality as your injuries make themselves known, as the ambulance trundles you to the hospital, where things hurt more and cost more (also hurting your budget, of course) and recovery will take days, to weeks, to months, to years, depending on details you lost control over when you said “Oh, what the hay, I want to ride that horse today.” (Been there, done that, in the third year of recovery from the most recent example.)
There’s no bliss in the ignorance that leads to your later shame about your vote given to a prime stinker. There’s no bliss in the ignorance that leads you to lose money on an investment opportunity that was a scam. There’s no bliss in not knowing there’s a hole in the roof until the deluge starts. There’s no bliss in not knowing your neighbor’s a psychopathic killer who’s putting together bombs in the garage until he’s blown up the local school.
Real bliss (not the fake dreamy “nothing’s wrong because I don’t hurt yet” kind) results from knowledge and work to deal with the knowledge. That part is often not blissful. Hole in the roof: got to fix it (hot dirty job if you can do it yourself, expensive if you can’t). The bliss comes when it rains and you know it’s fixed: you stay dry. Real bliss comes after the unpleasant facts are revealed and you work on making something better. It’s supper after a hard day’s work, shaking your fingers out after finishing a knitting project, and no, it doesn’t last forever (no roof does) but it’s real bliss then…and real sleep, and real waking up the next morning, with yesterday’s problems settled.
There’s always new ones. The more you look for weeds in the garden, the more you find. The more you look for holes in your infrastructure, the more you find. But that’s why we have brains and hands…not to lie there on the ground daydreaming after the bonk on the head, but to learn, and know, and think, and work to avoid the bonks on the head.
And now back to work on the new book (very slow going thanks to the 2018 concussion) so I can pay my property taxes, which have jumped WAY up in this county. The re-re-revision is up to chapter 10 our of 28. Have a good day. It’s April in Texas and the wildflowers are lovely, even without enough rain. Take your bliss where you find it, but make sure it’s the real bliss, not the fake stuff in little packets.
8Elizabeth Moon @ 8 When I’m on my bike (my only transportation) and find myself to be drifting, O quickly say (out loud ) ‘PAY ATTENTION’
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“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.”
“I became aware of my destiny: to belong to the critical minority as opposed to the unquestioning majority.”
9~ Sigmund Freud
If ignorance is bliss, my state must be the happiest in the country.
10When on a school board in Texas, I tried to promote critical thinking skills into the curriculum. My favorite “prop” was a book of great cartoon drawings; the title was “If Ducks Had Guns.”
Nick, your question “ who the heck knows why Manchin does what he does” is pretty simple- this is his chance to be in power. He acts so self righteous and likes to think people respect him for his decisions to push back against his “party”.
11He’s from red west virginia and wants them to hold him up as a hero. It’s all about power. Might as well call him mitch manchin or joe mcconnel manchin. They are interchangeable in their lust for power while they can.
Ms. Moon, IMHO if that comment is any indication, your storytelling engine’s running like a well oiled machine.
12Nick, linda mentioned the critical thinking, and as I was reading your first paragraph, I was thinking about it as well. And how you’d talked before about how our educational system is failing miserably at promoting it. I believe that’s by design. Many things repugnantcans do are short sighted all right, because things like our educational system is an example of how brutally effective their long game has been for decades, and is still going strong. Their entire propaganda infrastructure is designed to take advantage of a populace who wallows in blissful ignorance, feeding a steady stream of self reenforcing crap that keeps the angry sheep angry. At anybody that threatens the fix of continuous reasons to be…angry. Journalists, scientists, family, or anybody else who kills their simple minded blissful buzz with dangerous things like facts that don’t reenforce the narrative they pump out.
And just like any other suppliers of addictive poison, the earlier they get you, the easier it is to keep you.
So intentionally conditioning our youth to NOT think for themselves makes perfect sense.
As long as you want a population of sheep that do what they’re told.
To clarify, repugnantcans do many things that are short sighted because they can, due to their ability to keep the angry sheep looking at whatever they come up with next. And their ability to manipulate said sheep into believing after the fact that everything they (repugnantcans) screw up was either actually Liberal ideas, or were great conservative ideas that got ruined by Liberals.
13And if that’s true, they’ve got nothing to lose. Throw it against the wall and what sticks was conservative genius.
What doesn’t is just more to blame us for.
Alternate reality done effectively is serious long game.
“It could be that he just likes the idea that people have to listen to him now.”
I think you just hit the nail on the head, Nick.
Manchin is proving the truism [once again]: Give some people a little power and it goes right to their head — and blows up their brains.
He just loves grabbing Schumer by the balls and twisting. Knowing that all he has to do is LOOK across the aisle and all the Democrats will give him anything he wants.
He is just one walking-talking example of why I’m glad I believe in karma. And he’s heaping his plate full.
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