Governing the Ungovernable

Observations by David Horsey in the Seattle Times yesterday worth pondering:


Even with so much evidence to the contrary, some media commentators cling to the creaky shibboleth that the “wisdom of the American people” is expressed in every election. Wisdom is not the word that springs to mind when contemplating what drives this country’s citizens to cast their votes the way they do. At best, an election is a collective gut reaction that is derived as much from deep-seated biases and misinformation as by rationality and serious research.

We may be sentient beings, but we are no geniuses when it comes to politics.

[…]

Voters on the left complain that Biden has not done enough, as if it is not a political miracle that he has accomplished so much in less than a year, given the razor-thin Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate. Voters on the right see Biden through the distorted lenses provided by Fox News, Alex Jones and QAnon and await the imminent restoration of Donald Trump’s regime, either through the Pillow Guy or the ghost of John F. Kennedy Jr.

Perhaps most dispiriting of all, the middle-of-the-road, suburban swing voters seem to be swinging away from Biden. Ask them why, and they cannot really tell you. If their comments to the media are a true indication, they have no clue what Biden has been doing for them. They know more about who Kim Kardashian is dating or where to get the best Black Friday deals.

Yes, the voters get it right now and then, but it is not wisdom. It is dumb luck.

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22 thoughts on “Governing the Ungovernable”

  1. in honor of Hannukah starting Sunday 11/28 thru Monday 12/6, something different. here’s an early Christmas greeting from Randy back in 2013:

    Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from your fave gay Jew!

  4. from ms petri with tongue in cheek, of course

    Opinion | School boards should ban all books. They’re just too dangerous. – The Washington Post

    I regret to say they are putting the books back on the shelves now in Virginia, the threatened books, the banned ones. They have evaluated them and found them to contain no threat. (Reports of their containing pornography were greatly exaggerated, or perhaps adjudicators were simply not flipping fast enough.)

    This is no good. Such books are bad. Maybe all books are bad, not just the challenged ones. Books follow you home and pry open your head and rearrange the things inside. They make you feel things, sometimes, hope and grief and shame and confusion; they tell you that you’re not alone, or that you are, that you shouldn’t feel ashamed, or that you should; replace your answers with questions or questions with answers. This feels dangerous to do, a strange operation to perform on yourself, especially late at night when everyone else in the house is sleeping.

    They are an insidious and deadly poison. Years after you read them, they come back and bother you late at night. They clang around inside your skull. They make strange things familiar to you and familiar things strange again. They have no respect for the boundaries of your dreams. They put turns of phrase into your gut where you digest them slowly and regurgitate them where they are least expected.

    [continues]

  5. Messaging is important. Somehow, folks need to be made aware of what the infrastructure plan will and will not do.

    REPUBLICANS seem to win on messaging because they LIE SO LOUDLY.

    Heck, Mother Nature even has a messaging deficit. Until some folks are actually drowning, starving or on fire, they won’t believe in climate change.

    Still, if enough believe (enough with power), we may survive. We’re very good at messaging about little things.

    With messaging and a little innovation, we saw a fairly rapid change with things like styrofoam and aerosols and plastic straws.
    Even without social media, the word got out about styrofoam and aerosols. However, the speed at which plastic straws were replaced was amazing. This doesn’t mean that social media can only be used for good, of course, but that it can be extremely effective.

    Also a loud-talker: money.

    ‘Green Infrastructure’ for Clean Water Proves Itself in Washington D.C.

    “Next to Washington D.C.’s Piney Branch Parkway, right across from where that road intersects with 17th Street NW, CSO-049 serves the Rock Creek Sewershed, a 2,329-acre area of Washington D.C., with a diverse, mixed-income population of close to 90,000.“

    “The acronym “CSO” stands for “combined sewer overflow…”

    “In the end, the green infrastructure D.C. Water built for its Rock Creek area pilot project performed as expected, which meant there was no performance-based payment going either direction. D.C. Water repaid the investors the $25 million earlier this year, having paid only a market rate of interest for tax-exempt municipal bonds in the meantime.”

  6. As for elections, it’s much clearer when voting for/against a proposition than for a person.  After filtering through the ridiculous ways in which some propositions were worded, it was very clear how I would vote this month. There were no pesky humans on my ballot.

    Humans are always a bit of an unknown entity, so their messaging needs to be very clear. The best communicator, IMO, is Jon Ossoff.

  7. Sadly, messaging isn’t easy if the receiver is isn’t compatible. The filter affixed to each and every brain judges the message as helpful or hurtful, truth or lie, important or inconsequential.

    Apparently, the rest of my family who are scattered around the country are fearing something they call “wokeness.” They are afraid of people who don’t look like them. They complain that balloons will no longer be released at football games and joke that the only emissions of concern are standing next to someone in a packed stadium. I suspect that the imagined “war” on Christmas will start popping up in conversation, now that Thanksgiving is over.

  8. Omicron covid variant fears prompt New York Gov. Hochul to declare emergency – The Washington Post

    New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) declared a state of emergency in response to a winter coronavirus spike and the threat of the newly detected omicron variant on Friday, making her state one of the first in the country to impose measures against the mutation that was recently sequenced in southern Africa.

    As part of the emergency, the state’s Health Department will be allowed to protect hospital capacity by limiting nonessential and non-urgent care until at least Jan. 15. Hospitals with less than 10 percent staffed bed capacity, or those designated by the state, will be authorized to screen patients and restrict admissions to keep beds open for the most urgent cases.

    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday that omicron had not yet been detected in the United States, though Hochul said of the variant: “it’s coming.”

    […]

    Omicron has already been detected in Hong Kong, Belgium, and Israel. Eric Topol, the director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, told The Washington Post that omicron was the most concerning variant scientists had seen since delta. “It’s going to take a really high bar for something to take over for delta, and we don’t know whether this is going to do it.”

    U.S. health officials have already been on alert due to the rising number of infections, hospitalizations, and deaths sweeping through the country in recent weeks, triggered by the arrival of winter — a time when more people gather indoors. They also fear a surge in coronavirus cases during the holiday season as more people travel.

  11. So, you get your boosters, keep hanging on until therapeutics are perfected, and that’s life going forward.  We’re never getting rid of it because some people can’t play along.

  12. Oil prices are plummeting. I guess Republicans won’t be artificially inflating prices now, even though that was probably the continued plan despite the unnecessary release from the strategic reserve. Say ta-ta to your 401(k) gains, kids, since your pension is now nothing more than legalized gambling.

  13. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/11/08/texas-coronavirus-deaths-vaccinated/

    “Out of nearly 29,000 Texans who have died from COVID-related illnesses since mid-January, only 8% of them were fully vaccinated against the virus…”

    “And more than half of those deaths among vaccinated people were among Texans older than 75…”

    “In Texas, it literally requires a disaster — like a pandemic — before the state records precise information about vaccinations. As a result, there is a record for every single COVID-19 vaccine dose of the name and age of the person who received it plus the date it was administered. Normally, vaccination records are shown to schools by parents, but details of all vaccinations are not regularly kept by a state registry in Texas, unlike nearly every other state, because it’s a voluntary system.“

  14. For those keeping up on your favorite actors, George Jetson will be conceived this weekend.
    Full name
    George J. Jetson
    Species Human
    Gender Male
    Occupation digital index operator
    Family
    Montague Jetson (grandfather)
    Spouse
    Jane Jetson (wife)
    Children
    Elroy Jetson (son)Judy Jetson (daughter)
    Birthday
    August 27, 2022
    Catchphrase
    “Jane! Stop this crazy thing!”

     

  15. Governing the ungovernable appeared on my TV today.  It was at the end of “Babes In Toyland,” featuring a young Drew Barrymore, and, Keanu Reeves. Evil, Uncle Barnaby was banished from Toyland, along with the monsters he had created. He was afraid, because he no longer controlled the monsters.

  18. https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/27/health/new-covid-variant-omicron-b11529-wellness/index.html

    “The new Covid variant sent oil plummeting 13% on Friday as investors feared new government restrictions and slower economic growth. US crude finished the day at a two-month low of $68.15 a barrel, down 13.1% from Wednesday’s close. It was the worst day for oil since April 27, 2020, when Covid was spreading rapidly in the United States.“

    “Even as the pandemic nears its end and the coronavirus becomes endemic — meaning, it could have a constant presence but not affect an alarmingly large number of people — it’s still likely that new variants will continue to emerge. New variants are going to continually be generated by this virus, most of which will be inconsequential.“

    “Nears it’s end”? ??

    “Moderna announced in a statement Friday that it is “working rapidly” to test the ability of its current vaccine dose against the Omicron variant and data is expected in the coming weeks.
    If the current vaccine and booster shot are insufficient against the variant, one possible solution is boosting people with a larger dose, which Moderna said it is testing. The company is also evaluating two multi-valent booster candidates to see if they provide superior protection against Omicron. Both candidates include some of the viral mutations present in the new variant. Moderna is also evaluating an Omicron-specific booster candidate.“

    “There will never be a time when there is a zero COVID threat as the virus transitions to endemicity…”

    Happy New Year!

  19. Nothing better than a memory of holiday past, 2018.  I may give it a dose of brandy to perk it up.  I found it in my kimchi refrigerator a few minutes ago.  It does have a whiff of kimchi which makes an interesting fusion treat. Korean and fruit cake.

  20. Maybe it’ll give you immunity to Omicron if the booster doesn’t do it.  Can’t hurt. 

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