It seems to me that we also have a complexity problem. It is a fact that fixing the dysfunction of the federal government would be complicated and take a long time. The MAGA movement claims they can fix things and do it quickly. To the extent this message is believed by voters, it is the simplistic, clear answer they desire, never mind that it is based in lies, bad faith, grift, and greed. Those currently in power are following the old tech edict to "move fast and break things." They are absolutely correct in thinking that Congress and the courts move at a glacial pace and have no hope of keeping up with the blizzard of (blatantly illegal) acts that Trump, Musk, and their minions are foisting upon us.
In short, Republicans understand how to game the system far better than the Democrats and they use it to abuse their power. Meanwhile, lives are lost and harmed because of Democrats' reluctance to break from old norms.
The Republican attack on government is unprecedented; the Democratic response must be equally unprecedented if there is to be any chance of restoring democracy and upholding the Constitution.
The Dems just won't get their old leaders to step aside. The old etiquette norms should be thrown out and Dem leaders to be total obstructionists and fighters like McConnell and the R's were to Obama. The heads of Indivisible sent out the McConnell playbook last weekend on how to stonewall as much as possible. Schumer needs to step aside. He has no ability to deliver what we need from Dems in the Senate!
The Democrats need to select and support a spokesperson. I suggest Pete Buttigieg, but someone younger, smart, and well spoken who is prepared to take on the onslaught of attacks. The task requires daily appearances before the public on all media repeating the relentless message and supporting it with examples. Fox News visits are essential. People have to hear it regardless of their biases. The Contrarian is great, but not everyone views (or would view) the wonderful articles and videos. The whole country has to hear the message, not just those of us who are already convinced.
AOC just put a YouTube video tonight. Everyone should try and check it out. Her authentic self. Even if she’s not your cup of tea. It’s over an hour long. She speaks truth to power. Contrarian should interview her.
How many have called for Democrats to stand up to Republistupids and just TELL THE TRUTH!!!?Why doesn't that happen? Because the Democrats are just as guilty of corruption as the Republishits and nothing will change until the current leadership of the Democratic Party is recylced, overthrown, and completely changed. Just TELL THE TRUTH and RESPOND TO EVERY REPUBLidiot's lies with the TRUTH. Oh, and do not stop once the election is won. Continue UNABATED with just as much intensity as during the election to TELL THE TRUTH.
These current Democrats are too worried that they will be exposed as lying hypocrites if the TRUTH BE TOLD!!! Republidumbasses never care about any of that anyway but Democrats still believe that integrity matters. So do most Americans. For most of us it is: Keep on Truckin!/ Keep fighting the good fight! Don't let it die and neither will I. And remember: "Rock and Roll Never Forgets" (Bob said that, (Seger, not Dylan or Marley))
Vote Schumer out, vote Durbin out, get rid of these people!! Time to rebuild the Democratic Party that will no longer reach across the aisle. Those days are gone!
Elon Musk and Trump are treating this presidency like a corporate takeover, as if they have the unbound power of a new CEO and a single profit-driven mandate to deliver change. Of course, it doesn't matter that neither one of them is particularly good at this in the business world. Or that it's an inapt approach to government reform. But they are convinced that the "business" mindset is the only appropriate problem-solving mindset in the world. This is also why everything is always up for negotiation (like resettling Gaza), diplomacy be damned. In their minds, this isn't a dangerous departure from decades of policy that threatens to unsettle regions and upset allies. It's creative C-suite think.
This is important because combatting their approach means we have to understand the thinking behind it, and also its appeal to the public at large. Pointing to corruption doesn't directly confront their main line of argument: that successful billionaires ARE the people best positioned to reform government, because they have this business mindset that gets things done and brings fresh ideas in. Any attack on this approach has to demonstrate that it's not just corruption, it's the powerlessness that these guys are used to imposing on ordinary stakeholders. They think they own it all.
"Don’t defend “the Government” at all costs. Many Americans understandably believe government is badly broken and harbor deep resentment toward institutional bureaucracy. MAGA, meanwhile, has successfully cast Democrats as defenders of a rotten status quo. As Trump and his cronies take a wrecking ball to our government, Democrats can’t keep reflexively defending it as if it’s working. They must acknowledge government dysfunction and offer a vision to make it accountable and responsive to everyday people."
This argument makes no sense. Aronson says Democrats should not defend "government" from Trump and his cronies who are taking a wrecking ball to government. How can they defend government without defending government? No they should not go to the agencies being shut down and say, "Defend Government" but they need to show that real people are being hurt by Musk and his Teenage Flying Monkeys at the behest of Trump and this is going to affect them all.
People may not like "government" as a vague concept but they sure as hell like their Social Security payments, their Medicare, their interstate highways, bridges, ports, etc., their school funding, their evidence-based health care, safe food and water supplies, safe air travel, and all the other things government does which aren't visible until you need them. And they don't like their personal information being given to pimple popping techbros or ketamine-addled, unelected billionaires. None of what Musk/Trump are doing is going to bring down prices of groceries or housing and lots of what they are doing is going to raise them.
Democrats need to focus on Trump's lies and Musk's criminal recklessness. They need to show real people getting hurt. Musk and minions are committing crimes, illegally accessing people's personal data and computer systems for which they do not have clearance. Trump's pardon power only covers federal criminal acts, not civil liability or state crimes. These clowns may be breaking state laws if they are mucking around in people's personal files. Even if they just make a mistake they may end up hurting or killing someone. It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.
Perfect example. Trump/Musk shut down USAID freezing purchases of crops from US farmers that go to foreign aid. "Wait, I voted for you to hurt coastal elite woke liberals, not me!"
It should probably be noted that Musk has extended his political interference to other nations: Germany in his support of AfD, Italy with almost a courtship of PM Meloni, and in his comments on X about the British PM Starmer to the extent that he was told by the PM to back off.
HOW did Musk and his band of rotten tech nerds gain access? No one has answered this question. Did they just walk into Treasury and tell the security guard, "let us in"? Did some trumpster employee share his password so that Musk et al could gain access? HOW? HOW?!!
The context of constant R lying (forget niceties like disinformation), fox, elected Rs, CONSTANT, makes messaging very challenging. This corruption idea is about messaging and it seems that is a basic Democratic party problem. Fact checking is in the weeds. Ds need a big picture message but they also need to be out there speaking it daily, loudly, in front of the mics and cameras, on the streets. They need to take on the legacy media lying and lethargy instead of allowing NYT, LA Times, and Washington Post to sanewash trump and his techbros.
Yes. It's all about the money. Trump wants to grift his way to becoming a multi, multi billionaire this term. And Musk wants control over all our personal, confidential data so he can turn X into fee for service business for all access to the administrative state. You want your social security check? Get it through X with a processing fee. WOW. Great business.
And the Trump right wing security state can use your data for full time surveillance. Welcome to Modern China in America.
I think perhaps a more nuanced message is warranted. I'm just spit-balling, so don't pummel me just yet. There are kernels of truth to what Elon is saying, as much as I hate the man (because of his character, or lack thereof). At its core, updating the government's computer systems is a good idea. Denmark's healthcare is incredibly efficient, as is its government generally, in part because everything is computerized and connected. An expert review of our nation's payment systems, data systems, etc is not, in itself, a bad thing.
It may even be that putting the payment systems on the blockchain is an idea worth considering because it is impossible to cheat. Every transaction is algorthmically verified and public. I have security concerns about making the details of who receives payments public for privacy reasons, but again, the ability to audit and verify payments is a good idea.
My problem with what Elon is doing is not that the idea of it is bad, it is that the execution of it is illegal. He should be subject to Congressional oversight so that the use of the data he is harvesting can be verified and he can be held accountable for its potential misuse and potential leak, even if only accidentally.
There may be more support outside of "our side" if the message were not "attack Elon full stop" but simply, "We support auditing the systems, we want accountability for who has access, what they do with that access, and what happens if someone makes a catastrophic mistake".
If Dems are seen simply as opposing what many consider common sense, good ideas - auditing the systems and the transactions - then we will win over nobody.
I know you are just spitballing but take a moment to construct your wad before launching it.
Yes, systems need updating. But the GOP isn’t interested in that. Dems tried to allocate money to do that at the IRS and the GOP took it away. Anything that makes existing departments more efficient is not on their agenda.
Yes, our healthcare system is a mess. But the GOP doesn’t want to fix that. Same with immigration. Biden tried to streamline the asylum process and Trump ripped it out day one.
As for auditing and access controls, along with whistleblowing programs to prevent and detect fraud, those have been in place for decades. The GOP actually tore those up when they fired IGs, threatened employees with termination and gave Elon the keys.
As for blockchaining government payment systems, do you even know what you are talking about???
Thank you for the IRS example. I had thought of that also. I remember reading something not long ago that some departments were still using floppy and the smaller hard disks. Updating would take time and money. A lot of both.
And not for one minute do I believe Musk is doing this to provide better efficiency in the government. He knows if you can access the payments and personal details you can control who actually gets paid. It’s still about controlling the actual disbursement of funds.
Exactly. There is no goal of greater efficiency. It's all about a take over by extremist right wing christian nationalists and Trump who wants to be King isn't even the ringleader, he's the puppet doing their bidding (of course, a lot of their agenda he does agree with, but most things he really couldn't care less - for example, abortion).
Another example of GOP anti-efficiency campaign via Musk is the elimination of the free Direct File taxpayer tax return filings. I realize that there’s confusion over this but Musk posted that he had “deleted” 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as the IRS’ Direct File program. The only people who don’t like Direct File are tax prep companies. It appears to still be available for 2024 returns but will disappear after that.
It seems to me that we also have a complexity problem. It is a fact that fixing the dysfunction of the federal government would be complicated and take a long time. The MAGA movement claims they can fix things and do it quickly. To the extent this message is believed by voters, it is the simplistic, clear answer they desire, never mind that it is based in lies, bad faith, grift, and greed. Those currently in power are following the old tech edict to "move fast and break things." They are absolutely correct in thinking that Congress and the courts move at a glacial pace and have no hope of keeping up with the blizzard of (blatantly illegal) acts that Trump, Musk, and their minions are foisting upon us.
In short, Republicans understand how to game the system far better than the Democrats and they use it to abuse their power. Meanwhile, lives are lost and harmed because of Democrats' reluctance to break from old norms.
The Republican attack on government is unprecedented; the Democratic response must be equally unprecedented if there is to be any chance of restoring democracy and upholding the Constitution.
The Dems just won't get their old leaders to step aside. The old etiquette norms should be thrown out and Dem leaders to be total obstructionists and fighters like McConnell and the R's were to Obama. The heads of Indivisible sent out the McConnell playbook last weekend on how to stonewall as much as possible. Schumer needs to step aside. He has no ability to deliver what we need from Dems in the Senate!
I agree with this entirely. If you are a Dem member of Congress you should either be shouting at the top of your lungs 24/7 or resigning. Period.
it is disgusting seeing a democrat voting to support the republican nominations to any office......
The Democrats need to select and support a spokesperson. I suggest Pete Buttigieg, but someone younger, smart, and well spoken who is prepared to take on the onslaught of attacks. The task requires daily appearances before the public on all media repeating the relentless message and supporting it with examples. Fox News visits are essential. People have to hear it regardless of their biases. The Contrarian is great, but not everyone views (or would view) the wonderful articles and videos. The whole country has to hear the message, not just those of us who are already convinced.
I agree wholeheartedly. Mayor Pete would be perfect as the spokesman for ALL Democrats.,
but Pete B has a partner and children and unless the democrats protect him, I would worry for his safety
What does DOG-E stand for again? Oh yea, Department of Grifting Elon.
Hey! Somebody remembered that corruption is rotting the Supreme Court at its roots. Thank you.
AOC just put a YouTube video tonight. Everyone should try and check it out. Her authentic self. Even if she’s not your cup of tea. It’s over an hour long. She speaks truth to power. Contrarian should interview her.
She is consistently on-point
How many have called for Democrats to stand up to Republistupids and just TELL THE TRUTH!!!?Why doesn't that happen? Because the Democrats are just as guilty of corruption as the Republishits and nothing will change until the current leadership of the Democratic Party is recylced, overthrown, and completely changed. Just TELL THE TRUTH and RESPOND TO EVERY REPUBLidiot's lies with the TRUTH. Oh, and do not stop once the election is won. Continue UNABATED with just as much intensity as during the election to TELL THE TRUTH.
These current Democrats are too worried that they will be exposed as lying hypocrites if the TRUTH BE TOLD!!! Republidumbasses never care about any of that anyway but Democrats still believe that integrity matters. So do most Americans. For most of us it is: Keep on Truckin!/ Keep fighting the good fight! Don't let it die and neither will I. And remember: "Rock and Roll Never Forgets" (Bob said that, (Seger, not Dylan or Marley))
Vote Schumer out, vote Durbin out, get rid of these people!! Time to rebuild the Democratic Party that will no longer reach across the aisle. Those days are gone!
Elon Musk and Trump are treating this presidency like a corporate takeover, as if they have the unbound power of a new CEO and a single profit-driven mandate to deliver change. Of course, it doesn't matter that neither one of them is particularly good at this in the business world. Or that it's an inapt approach to government reform. But they are convinced that the "business" mindset is the only appropriate problem-solving mindset in the world. This is also why everything is always up for negotiation (like resettling Gaza), diplomacy be damned. In their minds, this isn't a dangerous departure from decades of policy that threatens to unsettle regions and upset allies. It's creative C-suite think.
This is important because combatting their approach means we have to understand the thinking behind it, and also its appeal to the public at large. Pointing to corruption doesn't directly confront their main line of argument: that successful billionaires ARE the people best positioned to reform government, because they have this business mindset that gets things done and brings fresh ideas in. Any attack on this approach has to demonstrate that it's not just corruption, it's the powerlessness that these guys are used to imposing on ordinary stakeholders. They think they own it all.
Trump and Musk are ALREADY out there claiming this line of attack: "we're rooting out corruption." That makes it "case closed." How do you beat that?
By showing they are and always have been lying. The evidence is there.
So far have they even said one thing about the so called corruption they have found and shown proof. Not that I would believe them if they did.
"Don’t defend “the Government” at all costs. Many Americans understandably believe government is badly broken and harbor deep resentment toward institutional bureaucracy. MAGA, meanwhile, has successfully cast Democrats as defenders of a rotten status quo. As Trump and his cronies take a wrecking ball to our government, Democrats can’t keep reflexively defending it as if it’s working. They must acknowledge government dysfunction and offer a vision to make it accountable and responsive to everyday people."
This argument makes no sense. Aronson says Democrats should not defend "government" from Trump and his cronies who are taking a wrecking ball to government. How can they defend government without defending government? No they should not go to the agencies being shut down and say, "Defend Government" but they need to show that real people are being hurt by Musk and his Teenage Flying Monkeys at the behest of Trump and this is going to affect them all.
People may not like "government" as a vague concept but they sure as hell like their Social Security payments, their Medicare, their interstate highways, bridges, ports, etc., their school funding, their evidence-based health care, safe food and water supplies, safe air travel, and all the other things government does which aren't visible until you need them. And they don't like their personal information being given to pimple popping techbros or ketamine-addled, unelected billionaires. None of what Musk/Trump are doing is going to bring down prices of groceries or housing and lots of what they are doing is going to raise them.
Democrats need to focus on Trump's lies and Musk's criminal recklessness. They need to show real people getting hurt. Musk and minions are committing crimes, illegally accessing people's personal data and computer systems for which they do not have clearance. Trump's pardon power only covers federal criminal acts, not civil liability or state crimes. These clowns may be breaking state laws if they are mucking around in people's personal files. Even if they just make a mistake they may end up hurting or killing someone. It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/us-food-purchases-foreign-aid-halted-despite-waiver-sources-say-2025-02-05/
Perfect example. Trump/Musk shut down USAID freezing purchases of crops from US farmers that go to foreign aid. "Wait, I voted for you to hurt coastal elite woke liberals, not me!"
It should probably be noted that Musk has extended his political interference to other nations: Germany in his support of AfD, Italy with almost a courtship of PM Meloni, and in his comments on X about the British PM Starmer to the extent that he was told by the PM to back off.
HOW did Musk and his band of rotten tech nerds gain access? No one has answered this question. Did they just walk into Treasury and tell the security guard, "let us in"? Did some trumpster employee share his password so that Musk et al could gain access? HOW? HOW?!!
good question! Musk and tech cronies obtained pass cards.
From whom? The person who authorized the passcards and the person/people who gave them to Musk et al violated the law.
New Treasury Sec Bessent. Some fury and impeachment inquiry need to be directed his way.
The context of constant R lying (forget niceties like disinformation), fox, elected Rs, CONSTANT, makes messaging very challenging. This corruption idea is about messaging and it seems that is a basic Democratic party problem. Fact checking is in the weeds. Ds need a big picture message but they also need to be out there speaking it daily, loudly, in front of the mics and cameras, on the streets. They need to take on the legacy media lying and lethargy instead of allowing NYT, LA Times, and Washington Post to sanewash trump and his techbros.
Yes. It's all about the money. Trump wants to grift his way to becoming a multi, multi billionaire this term. And Musk wants control over all our personal, confidential data so he can turn X into fee for service business for all access to the administrative state. You want your social security check? Get it through X with a processing fee. WOW. Great business.
And the Trump right wing security state can use your data for full time surveillance. Welcome to Modern China in America.
I think perhaps a more nuanced message is warranted. I'm just spit-balling, so don't pummel me just yet. There are kernels of truth to what Elon is saying, as much as I hate the man (because of his character, or lack thereof). At its core, updating the government's computer systems is a good idea. Denmark's healthcare is incredibly efficient, as is its government generally, in part because everything is computerized and connected. An expert review of our nation's payment systems, data systems, etc is not, in itself, a bad thing.
It may even be that putting the payment systems on the blockchain is an idea worth considering because it is impossible to cheat. Every transaction is algorthmically verified and public. I have security concerns about making the details of who receives payments public for privacy reasons, but again, the ability to audit and verify payments is a good idea.
My problem with what Elon is doing is not that the idea of it is bad, it is that the execution of it is illegal. He should be subject to Congressional oversight so that the use of the data he is harvesting can be verified and he can be held accountable for its potential misuse and potential leak, even if only accidentally.
There may be more support outside of "our side" if the message were not "attack Elon full stop" but simply, "We support auditing the systems, we want accountability for who has access, what they do with that access, and what happens if someone makes a catastrophic mistake".
If Dems are seen simply as opposing what many consider common sense, good ideas - auditing the systems and the transactions - then we will win over nobody.
I know you are just spitballing but take a moment to construct your wad before launching it.
Yes, systems need updating. But the GOP isn’t interested in that. Dems tried to allocate money to do that at the IRS and the GOP took it away. Anything that makes existing departments more efficient is not on their agenda.
Yes, our healthcare system is a mess. But the GOP doesn’t want to fix that. Same with immigration. Biden tried to streamline the asylum process and Trump ripped it out day one.
As for auditing and access controls, along with whistleblowing programs to prevent and detect fraud, those have been in place for decades. The GOP actually tore those up when they fired IGs, threatened employees with termination and gave Elon the keys.
As for blockchaining government payment systems, do you even know what you are talking about???
Thank you for the IRS example. I had thought of that also. I remember reading something not long ago that some departments were still using floppy and the smaller hard disks. Updating would take time and money. A lot of both.
And not for one minute do I believe Musk is doing this to provide better efficiency in the government. He knows if you can access the payments and personal details you can control who actually gets paid. It’s still about controlling the actual disbursement of funds.
Exactly. There is no goal of greater efficiency. It's all about a take over by extremist right wing christian nationalists and Trump who wants to be King isn't even the ringleader, he's the puppet doing their bidding (of course, a lot of their agenda he does agree with, but most things he really couldn't care less - for example, abortion).
Another example of GOP anti-efficiency campaign via Musk is the elimination of the free Direct File taxpayer tax return filings. I realize that there’s confusion over this but Musk posted that he had “deleted” 18F, a government agency that worked on technology projects such as the IRS’ Direct File program. The only people who don’t like Direct File are tax prep companies. It appears to still be available for 2024 returns but will disappear after that.
Blockchain, as currently done, has an issue. While the transactions are public the identity of the transactor is hidden. This is not what you want.