Cameron and Nancy, Tolkein Legendarium reading order, a long response to a FB comment about our current state of politics, Daddy School does statistics
"I agree Joe has been self-serving his whole life, which is why he flip-flopped so often on so many consequential issues through the years: his moral compass was pretty f’d up in his younger years."
The way I think about it is that Biden is not, has never been, an ideologue. He's been through his career basically the median Democrat - which as you note, in his early days led to some gnarly positions, e.g., opposing school busing. But because he is not an ideologue he has *moved* with the party as it's become more diverse and open-minded. That's good! Lots of people want politicians who Have Always Been Right About Everything but that's not a) a kind of person that exists or b) a politician that will ever get elected. Politicians representing their constituency is *the whole point* and Biden has understood this very well.
I'll also just say that by my lights (someone who worked in politics when I was younger, has followed it too much ever since), the Democratic Party is infinitely and almost unrecognizably less-terrible than it used to be (even as recently as the Obama admin, where a Senate "supermajority" was rife with absolute, worse-than-Manchin dreck). Generational replacement takes time but the quality of electeds on that side of the aisle is just way, way better on average.
And yes +10000 to the "there has been no good time in the media." I am in fact working on a project about this very thing!
Man you are so right about the party. Also, of course, this commenter is in CT and NY, where the Blue has... well, let's just say boomer dems in one-party states were not always known for their moral rectitude.
Speaking of Tolkein...as a kid, my brother gave me 'Bored of the Rings' from 1969! Back when parody meant something. It's short and fun (and probably hard to track down).
"I agree Joe has been self-serving his whole life, which is why he flip-flopped so often on so many consequential issues through the years: his moral compass was pretty f’d up in his younger years."
The way I think about it is that Biden is not, has never been, an ideologue. He's been through his career basically the median Democrat - which as you note, in his early days led to some gnarly positions, e.g., opposing school busing. But because he is not an ideologue he has *moved* with the party as it's become more diverse and open-minded. That's good! Lots of people want politicians who Have Always Been Right About Everything but that's not a) a kind of person that exists or b) a politician that will ever get elected. Politicians representing their constituency is *the whole point* and Biden has understood this very well.
I'll also just say that by my lights (someone who worked in politics when I was younger, has followed it too much ever since), the Democratic Party is infinitely and almost unrecognizably less-terrible than it used to be (even as recently as the Obama admin, where a Senate "supermajority" was rife with absolute, worse-than-Manchin dreck). Generational replacement takes time but the quality of electeds on that side of the aisle is just way, way better on average.
And yes +10000 to the "there has been no good time in the media." I am in fact working on a project about this very thing!
Man you are so right about the party. Also, of course, this commenter is in CT and NY, where the Blue has... well, let's just say boomer dems in one-party states were not always known for their moral rectitude.
Speaking of Tolkein...as a kid, my brother gave me 'Bored of the Rings' from 1969! Back when parody meant something. It's short and fun (and probably hard to track down).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bored_of_the_Rings
I am going to have to track this down!