Night Owls, a themed open thread, appears at Daily Kos seven days a week
Excerpts from the December edition of Harper’s Index:
- Hypothetical median income of full-time U.S. workers if income were distributed as evenly as it was in 1975: $92,000
- Actual [2020] median income of full-time U.S. workers: $50,000
- Percentage change since last year in the number of U.S. homes for sale: -35
- In the median home price: +11
- Percentage of Americans aged 18-29 who live with one or both of their parents: 52
- Rank of this percentage among the highest ever recorded in the United States: 1
- Percentage of Americans with symptomatic COVID-19 who deny having symptoms when asked by others: 34
- Who try to conceal their symptoms: 55
- Percentage by which men are more likely to try to conceal their symptoms than women: 32
- Percentage of Americans who think climate change poses a risk to people living in the United States: 61
- Who think it poses a risk to them personally: 43
- Portion of Democratic or Democratic-leaning Americans who are trying to “tune out” coronavirus news: 1/5
- Of Republican or Republican-leaning Americans who are: 2/5
- Percentage of U.S. Black Lives Matter protests in which no people were harmed and no property was damaged: 93
THREE OTHER ARTICLES WORTH READING
“We don’t live in a world that suffers from doubt, but one that suffers from certainty, false certainties that compensate for the well of worldly anxieties and worries.”
~~Les Back, The Art of Listening (2007)
At Daily Kos on this date in 2003—The battle for the soul of the Democratic Party:
Divisions over ideology can be easily accepted in our party. We do have a big tent, and policy divisions are a reality we can learn to live with. Indeed, we have to live with them. Electoral realities mean that Democrats in the South have to be more moderate or conservative than those in the West Coast or in New England.
But the hatred the establishment feels against Dean has nothing to do with ideology. Dean hasn't paid his dues with the establishment. Dean campaign manager Joe Trippi has made his name working the campaigns of insurgent (hence anti-establishment) candidates like Jerry Brown. He is not part of the chummy inside-DC club of Democratic Party consultants.
If Dean wins the nomination, he becomes the head of the Democratic Party. He gets to replace McAuliffe and fill the top ranks at the DNC. Suddenly, a "DNC Chairman Joe Trippi" is a real possibility, and for an establishment that has spent the better half of the last decade laughing at Trippi's antics and dismissing him as a kook are suddenly standing on shaky ground.
I always knew about the "establishment" distaste for Dean and Trippi, but Lizza's piece puts the blame squarely on the Clinton crew.
As the party's split into Deaniacs and anti-Dean Clintonites unfolds, one of the most intriguing subplots concerns the machinations of Gore. Immediately after the Florida recount was decided in 2000, Gore's senior aides were purged from the DNC and Clinton's were installed. Some ex-Gore staffers are still bitter about the coup, and several express admiration for what Dean is doing.
And Gore himself seems to be modeling his resurgence on the Dean phenomenon.