Pro Bono - What we are doing to the planet really matters. What the US is doing matters a lot, because why should poorer countries restrain themselves if the US won’t.
There is that, and also the data suggests that the top 1% of the world are responsible for 2/3 of the warming measured since 1990, and we have over 900 billionaires in our country. China is next closest with 516, and only 3 other nation states have more than 100.
But then here is another shocker - to be in the top 1% worldwide, you need only to make $60,000 a year*, so I'd guess that most of us writing here are in that 1%.
*If we are talking income rather than wealth. Wealth is probably a better measure, but it's also a harder measure to come by.
2025-10-13 14:37:39
wj - As so often, we wonder just what definition of “elite” is being used here.
He covers that earlier: The real answer is that the most powerful liberal institutions – the Democratic establishment, major donors and the professional class around them – are captive to outdated etiquette.
It'sthe DNC and those with input into the strategy side.
2025-10-13 04:24:36
In line with this discussion, Ryan Powers' op ed at the Guardian:
In elite liberal spaces, the expectation is always the same: stay quiet, exit gracefully, never make a scene. Yet nonviolent unruliness has power precisely because it breaks the code of composure. Psychologists call this the “expectancy violations theory”: when behavior defies what’s anticipated, it commands outsized attention and carries significant weight. That impact is magnified when it comes from insiders with status or access.
This dynamic suggests that liberalism’s best strategy is to subvert its own norms. Critics may argue that spectacle undermines substance, or that breaking etiquette diminishes the credentials that lend Democrats authority. But in today’s attention economy, spectacle is often how substance gets noticed. Breaking strict decorum is not the enemy of liberalism; it may be the very tool that keeps it alive.
Worth a read. Someone will hopefully send it to Chuck Schumer.
2025-10-12 23:19:10
russell - I also disagree with nous’ thought that health care “codes” as a management issue. At the policy level, it does. At the level of “do I have to choose between health insurance and rent” it does not.
Then we agree, because that is what I was trying to get at with my: It doesn’t register for workers as a policy thing so much as it does a wages and benefits thing. The voters that the Dems are losing are going to tune out as soon as the conversation starts focusing on the details of health policy, same as rank-and-file union members start getting sore feet and shuffling as soon as the rep with the bullhorn starts babbling on about the importance of changing the language in Article 5 Part 3 of the CBA.
Keep the language focused on struggles and outcomes and whose side you are fighting on. And if there are cleavage lines over policy choices, focus on the need for solidarity.
2025-10-12 20:30:51
You can tell the difference between the Dems with close union ties and allies and the ones who have never been a part of a union and only have ties to people in management.
Healthcare codes as a management concern. It doesn't register for workers as a policy thing so much as it does a wages and benefits thing. Policy details don't land with working class voters because those decisions are made by other people. What matters is whether they are feeling like government is fighting for workers or for the big people.
I really think it's that simple. Low information voters don't listen to policy discussions, and they don't trust people who spend all their time talking about that stuff. It's a cultural divide.
Pro Bono - What we are doing to the planet really matters. What the US is doing matters a lot, because why should poorer countries restrain themselves if the US won’t.
There is that, and also the data suggests that the top 1% of the world are responsible for 2/3 of the warming measured since 1990, and we have over 900 billionaires in our country. China is next closest with 516, and only 3 other nation states have more than 100.
But then here is another shocker - to be in the top 1% worldwide, you need only to make $60,000 a year*, so I'd guess that most of us writing here are in that 1%.
*If we are talking income rather than wealth. Wealth is probably a better measure, but it's also a harder measure to come by.
wj - As so often, we wonder just what definition of “elite” is being used here.
He covers that earlier: The real answer is that the most powerful liberal institutions – the Democratic establishment, major donors and the professional class around them – are captive to outdated etiquette.
It's the DNC and those with input into the strategy side.
In line with this discussion, Ryan Powers' op ed at the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/oct/12/democrats-etiquette-dangerous-democracy
In elite liberal spaces, the expectation is always the same: stay quiet, exit gracefully, never make a scene. Yet nonviolent unruliness has power precisely because it breaks the code of composure. Psychologists call this the “expectancy violations theory”: when behavior defies what’s anticipated, it commands outsized attention and carries significant weight. That impact is magnified when it comes from insiders with status or access.
This dynamic suggests that liberalism’s best strategy is to subvert its own norms. Critics may argue that spectacle undermines substance, or that breaking etiquette diminishes the credentials that lend Democrats authority. But in today’s attention economy, spectacle is often how substance gets noticed. Breaking strict decorum is not the enemy of liberalism; it may be the very tool that keeps it alive.
Worth a read. Someone will hopefully send it to Chuck Schumer.
russell - I also disagree with nous’ thought that health care “codes” as a management issue. At the policy level, it does. At the level of “do I have to choose between health insurance and rent” it does not.
Then we agree, because that is what I was trying to get at with my: It doesn’t register for workers as a policy thing so much as it does a wages and benefits thing. The voters that the Dems are losing are going to tune out as soon as the conversation starts focusing on the details of health policy, same as rank-and-file union members start getting sore feet and shuffling as soon as the rep with the bullhorn starts babbling on about the importance of changing the language in Article 5 Part 3 of the CBA.
Keep the language focused on struggles and outcomes and whose side you are fighting on. And if there are cleavage lines over policy choices, focus on the need for solidarity.
You can tell the difference between the Dems with close union ties and allies and the ones who have never been a part of a union and only have ties to people in management.
Healthcare codes as a management concern. It doesn't register for workers as a policy thing so much as it does a wages and benefits thing. Policy details don't land with working class voters because those decisions are made by other people. What matters is whether they are feeling like government is fighting for workers or for the big people.
I really think it's that simple. Low information voters don't listen to policy discussions, and they don't trust people who spend all their time talking about that stuff. It's a cultural divide.