The 2024 GOP primary has kicked off, with Donald Trump attacking presumed rival Florida governor Ron DeSantis, and denying he ever called him “Meatball Ron,” and is instead sticking to his moniker of Ron DeSanctimonious, which is kind of an L.
Before I go any further, I strongly oppose the idea of banning honors/AP classes from the left in the name of equity and I oppose banning them from the right in the name of “wokescolding” as well, and I sincerely hope Ron DeSantis and his illiberal antics never make it to the Oval Office. The below tweet is highly accurate.
I’m on record saying that DeSantis is a bigger problem for liberals than they’re willing to admit because the reality is that he’s currently winning the culture war despite his extreme proposals since for one thing, most parents, including non-white parents, don’t want their kids to learn about radical Marxism or Black nationalism, and don’t really care if the College Board changes the curriculum for a pilot program for an AP elective that nobody has even taken yet. (
However, a whole lot of parents, especially in wealthy suburbs that DeSantis would be reliant on to win the Republican primary and presidency, will be FURIOUS if their kids can’t take AP English or AP Calculus in high school, and DeSantis is floating banning all AP classes in the state of Florida. (And no, the argument that International Baccalaureate programs will replace AP classes is just idiotic.)
That said, with this particular move, even DeSantis’ conservative donors are worried he’s gone too far, so there’s a good chance this “banning AP classes in the third largest state” schtick will not fly.
The 2024 Senate map for Democrats is grim, with Democrats defending seats in Ohio, West Virginia, and Montana, and our only potential pickups being in the major long shots of Texas and Florida. Plus, with Kyrsten Sinema going independent and Ruben Gallego running for Senate as a Democrat, a 3-way race in barely purple Arizona will absolutely hand that Senate seat to a Republican so we’d better hope that Sinema doesn’t run. All I’m saying is that I sincerely hope Jon Tester and Joe Manchin run, contrary to what they’re floating, even if they’re simply firewalls to suck up NRSC money that would otherwise be spent on Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada.
That said, this article from Split-Ticket, “How Has The US Senate Managed To Stay Competitive?” gave me more hope than I previously had. Like, Republicans don’t have to nominate freaks who can’t pantomime normalcy for an electorate that’s begging for a reason they don’t have to vote Democrat! They just CHOOSE to do that, and lose winnable races as a result.
A few lukewarm hot political hot takes:
Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) is very cool
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) is the hottest senator
Most Democratic senators are a lot more moderate than people believe on the filibuster and on issues and hide their positions so they won’t get harassed and followed into bathroom. It’s not just Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema!!
“The Debate Hugh Hefner Won and William Buckley Lost” made me [scream internally] and not in a good way.
I really think a whole lot of people, both men and women but especially secular men, are pro-choice not in the bodily autonomy way but in the sexual revolution way.
In other words, they vocally support abortion as a way of angering those who they deem to be puritanical arbiters of morality, which is how you get people insisting some abortions are eugenics and wealthy white women are somehow magically exempt from lack of access to healthcare. They’ve used their keen minds to come to the conclusion think the wealthy prudes are making prude laws against the cool groovy people.
I understand that with abortion banned in half the country and an election away from being banned in another third, we on the pro-choice side have to take what allies we can get, but that said, I really don’t want to be coalitional partners with Dave Portnoy.
I think that liberals/leftists massively underestimate how much Democrats being deemed “wokescolds” and naggy (which is of course rooted in misogyny) hurts us electorally. The crux of Americana is libertarianism to the extent we literally declared our independence from England over *taxes* and we don’t like being told what to do!
This is why Republicans overturning Roe absolutely makes them seem way more controlling than Democrats, which is also why their yelling at Dems about pronouns or whatever didn’t land during the 2022 midterms.
I don’t have a coherent thesis here but something notable about political polarization is that people expect senators to act like moderates and vote party line, which most of them do, but in a closely divided country, this makes it very difficult for one party to sustain continuous majorities, which they need to enact their agenda in a permanent way.
And, I’d posit the theory that political polarization impacts Democrats more than Republicans since Democrats want to change the status quo while Republicans’ agenda is mostly to maintain the status quo (and cut taxes) so Democrats require more sustained periods of being in the majority than Republicans do to accomplish their legislative goals.
Like, in 2006 and 2008, there were a lot of red state/district Democrats and they didn’t vote party line on all legislation but leadership votes were never close like the House Republicans are dealing with now, there was always a lot of wiggle room on legislation votes, especially in the House of Representatives, and despite all the Blue Dogs in the House/Senate, the ACA was passed, and it saved countless lives, and most importantly, it’s here to stay and hasn’t been undone no matter how much Republicans have tried.
That makes sense right?
I’ll end this with a text from a friend regarding intra Democratic party tensions:
There's a lot I could go into here, but I'm going to talk about your closing screencap. It's awful and offensive.
I understand you likely identify as Asian-American and a woman, which means that it's baffling that you see these demographics as groups that are "expected" to "lie down and take it". This expectation is shared by, possibly right-wing racists, but no one who has encountered the listed groups.
Great post!! Could not agree more that "DeSantis is a bigger problem for liberals than [we're] willing to admit." I feel like I'm shouting into the void sometimes warning fellow liberals that DeSantis is on the march towards an Orban-like hammerlock on power and would be an OVERWHELMING favorite in a general election.
His culture war attacks are authoritarian and often cruel - but he is an evil genius at carefully stage-managing these attacks so that he gets to posture against unpopular targets. We are never going to beat him on culture war, and especially not if we run against him as the defenders of, like, professors who want to teach CRT. And like his hero in Hungary, he has shown a clear willingness to use heavy-handed state power to impose conservative sensibilities on civil society. As president he would be a dangerously effective authoritarian.
I actually kind of disagree that DeSantis will be influenced by his donors into not overreaching with his curriculum bans - I think he will tell them "I win and stay in control with relentless culture war, and if you want tax cuts you support me." And I think they ultimately will, because a durable right-wing autocracy that keeps their taxes low sounds pretty good to most elite Republicans. DeSantis is not the kind of guy who sees really any kind of limits or need for restraint in exercising power.
His to-the-right-of-Paul-Ryan fiscal policy and his desire to ban all abortion are probably his only real weaknesses and we need to focus relentlessly on them.