The Definition of Insanity. . . [Updated]
[guest post by JVW]
. . . is doing the same thing over and over again yet somehow expecting a different result.
Sure it’s a cliché, but in this case it is entirely apt no matter how much it might cheese off the creeps over at Salon.
Thanks Democrats. The party of the young and the multicultural is now led by a 76-year-old white woman and a 66-year-old white man. You can’t make this stuff up.
UPDATE:
The number two House Democrat? Seventy-seven-year-old white male.
The number two Senate Democrat? Seventy-two-year-old white male.
UPDATE II:
Fixed the bad first link as reported by Patricia. Thanks for pointing that out.
– JVW
All that’s left is for 68-year-old white male Howard Dean to once again become the head of the DNC. Fingers crossed.
JVW (6e49ce) — 11/30/2016 @ 11:12 amYou gotta admit it’s diversity; Pelosi’s originally from Baltimore, whereas Schumer and Dean are both native New Yorkers!
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 11/30/2016 @ 11:30 amI know! Right?
Tillman (a95660) — 11/30/2016 @ 11:39 amWhat’s to worry? The progressive heart and soul of the party is still embodied by 75-year-old white male Bernard Sanders and 67-year-old white* female Elizabeth Warren.
——
JVW (6e49ce) — 11/30/2016 @ 11:40 am* Don’t try to tell me otherwise
there’s a parallel here with the electoral college debate
happyfeet (a037ad) — 11/30/2016 @ 11:43 amUPDATE:
The number two House Democrat? Seventy-seven-year-old white male.
The number two Senate Democrat? Seventy-two-year-old white male.
JVW (6e49ce) — 11/30/2016 @ 11:52 amAnd to think, they were only like 120,000 votes in three different states away from electing a 69-year-old white woman as President.
JVW (6e49ce) — 11/30/2016 @ 11:59 amThe Democrats used to have a guy in the Senate named Robert Byrd. I hear his friends used to call him a wizard or a kleagle or something like that. I wonder what that was all about.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 11/30/2016 @ 12:03 pmIts like a scoutmaster of sorts,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/30/2016 @ 12:17 pmI don’t think it was really ever in doubt. I know someone who is hard-wired into Ohio politics, and he said this was never about Ryan winning. He’s going to leave Congress after this term, and run for Gov. of Ohio to replace Kasich whose not expected to seek another term. This effort got Ryan a bunch of national media attention, and lifted is ID in Ohio, while at the same time taking on the old-school coastal elitists running the Dem. party, which is out of step with Ohio Dems.
shipwreckedcrew (56b591) — 11/30/2016 @ 12:30 pmIf this is a competition, I don’t think that the Democrats can match Strom Thurmond. They kept wheeling him into work as a Senator until he was 100. That’s ridiculous.
Tillman (a95660) — 11/30/2016 @ 12:31 pmParty misses the point with a photon torpedo, shocker!
narciso (d1f714) — 11/30/2016 @ 12:43 pmIf this is a competition, I don’t think that the Democrats can match Strom Thurmond. They kept wheeling him into work as a Senator until he was 100. That’s ridiculous.
Yeah, but the GOP had the good grace to keep him out of party leadership except for the ceremonial stuff. Thurmond was no more brain-addled and confused than was, for example, Ted Kennedy, and he was in a hell of a lot better physical condition. Remember how Thurmond would be doing push-ups into his early 90s, just to demonstrate his vitality?
JVW (6e49ce) — 11/30/2016 @ 12:44 pmNo, they’re going to introduce youth and diversity of thought….with young radical Islamist Keith Ellison! LOL.
BTW I don’t understand where your first link goes.
[Yikes! Thanks, Patricia. I fixed it. – JVW]
Patricia (5fc097) — 11/30/2016 @ 12:47 pmThey’ll always have Tippecanoe and Tyler too!
Colonel Haiku (fa3dba) — 11/30/2016 @ 12:49 pmI don’t doubt what you’re saying about Strom JVW, but I don’t remember that – it must’ve been way back in the 80’s.
Tillman (a95660) — 11/30/2016 @ 12:55 pm“Remember how Thurmond would be doing push-ups into his early 90s, just to demonstrate his vitality?”
Yes! All while Admiral Oldsmobile and Chris Dodd were doing their fatman waitress sammich schtick.
Colonel Haiku (fa3dba) — 11/30/2016 @ 1:01 pmGeezeritis now inflicts both parties. Mitch McConnell is 74, Trump is 70. Sessions will turn 70 next month. The new Commerce Secretary will be a spry 79, if he is confirmed. Among other names being mentioned Romney is 69, John Kyl, being mentioned for Defense, is 74 and Harold Hamm, being mention for Energy is 70.
It’s almost as if the generation that once proclaimed Don’t trust anyone over 30 now refuses to trust anyone under age 65. If they had done a great job, it would be one thing. But the long march of the 60s generation and the Baby Boomers through the leadership of America’s institutions has been one sorry exercise in moral, intellectual, emotional and financial bankruptcy.
NC Mountain Girl (28b9a5) — 11/30/2016 @ 1:07 pmNC that might be true, just imagine a Kobach, Cotton, Hunter Jr. alone….
urbanleftbehind (5eecdb) — 11/30/2016 @ 1:22 pmR.I.P. Grant Tinker.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/30/2016 @ 1:43 pmNBC, MTM television legend.
Geezeritis now inflicts both parties. Mitch McConnell is 74, Trump is 70. Sessions will turn 70 next month. The new Commerce Secretary will be a spry 79, if he is confirmed. Among other names being mentioned Romney is 69, John Kyl, being mentioned for Defense, is 74 and Harold Hamm, being mention for Energy is 70.
Agreed, NC Mountain Girl, but unlike the Democrats the GOP doesn’t ostentatiously project an image of being young and multicultural. And, in their defense, the GOP has a Speaker who is 46, a House majority leader who is 51, and a majority whip who is 51. That ain’t so bad in terms of a new generation of leadership to replace the rancid Baby Boomers and their legacy of waste and self-dealing.
JVW (6e49ce) — 11/30/2016 @ 1:47 pmDon’t worry JVW, Democrats are “not going to exploit, for political purposes, [their] opponents’ youth and inexperience.”
Tillman (a95660) — 11/30/2016 @ 2:14 pmTillman, Strom Thurmond was actually a Democrat until he was 62 years old.
Cruz Supporter (102c9a) — 11/30/2016 @ 2:30 pmCuriously when we have a candidate which shows youth and vitality, we know how that goes.
narciso (d1f714) — 11/30/2016 @ 2:32 pmI know Cruz, but, so what?
Tillman (a95660) — 11/30/2016 @ 2:35 pmThe oldest Boomers turn 70 this year, the youngest 52. Part of the reason for the collapse of the Democrat Rust Belt Blue Maginot Line has to do with the natural die off of the union member Greates Generation cohort who came of age under and/or shortly after FDR.
We should all be sending congratulatory notes to Pelosi, urging her to work closely with Keith Ellison in keeping the Democrat Party sailing along on its current course.
Rick Ballard (d17095) — 11/30/2016 @ 3:18 pmWarren will be 71 when she runs in 2020.
And Dean may lose out to a radical black Muslim, who is only 53. He wants the 2nd Amendment repealed, opposed the surge and wanted Cheney impeached. He has gotten a lot of support from CAIR and possibly from the Nation of Islam (which he is not a member of).
Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/30/2016 @ 3:30 pmWell he actually met with quradawi deputy bin bayyah in 2008,
narciso (d1f714) — 11/30/2016 @ 3:37 pmRick–
The Census bureau lists “boomers” as born in 1946-1964, but the actual end is closer to 1959, when the birth rate began its long decline. Between 1946 and 1959, the birth rate was above 24/1000. Between 1959 and 1974 it dropped almost linearly from 24/1000 to 15/1000, where it’s been for the last couple of decades.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/30/2016 @ 3:44 pmTillman, Strom Thurmond was actually a Democrat until he was 62 years old.
But it was Nixon’s strategy of co-opting the Wallace voters that got him to switch, and cemented African-Americans into the Democrat Party for good.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/30/2016 @ 3:46 pmThey’ll always have Tippecanoe and Tyler too!
But Tippecanoe tipped over and drowned his first month in office, and Tyler was a disaster.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/30/2016 @ 3:48 pmGreetings:
Yeah, and Nancy Pelosi is still the First Female exSpeaker of the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States of America.
11B40 (6abb5c) — 11/30/2016 @ 4:07 pmA very poor move.
It bears repeating that a party which opened their 2016 national convention showcasing illegal immigrants as featured speakers to a national television audience is not a party with the best interests of the United States in mind this cycle. And with no leadership change, apparently for cycles to come.
In British politics, after these repeated loses, she’d have been forced to resign leadership.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/30/2016 @ 4:47 pm“In British politics, after these repeated loses, she’d have been forced to resign leadership.”
To make room for another slightly less sclerotic nutball dependent upon Gramscian hiring and promotion practices to achieve the type of “progressive leadership” dying around the world. It’s really OK though, Gramscian practices have reduced the institutions through which they march to ruins anyway.
Rick Ballard (d17095) — 11/30/2016 @ 5:20 pm@17- “Admiral Oldsmobile”…
Spit-take on my coffee with that one.
Well played, sir.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/30/2016 @ 6:06 pmIn British politics, after these repeated loses, she’d have been forced to resign leadership.
Gingrich resigned in similar circumstances.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 11/30/2016 @ 7:01 pm@36- Yes but there were other issues in play around him- ethics issues and so forth– and a cabal in his own party were out to oust him anyway but the resounding loss made it an easy exit for him.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 11/30/2016 @ 8:49 pmIt wasn’t a “resounding loss” — they lost a couple seats. It was just that they had thought they were going to gain 20 as a result of the impeachment proceedings, but it didn’t work that way.
Kevin M (25bbee) — 12/1/2016 @ 9:41 amDCSCA (797bc0) — 11/30/2016 @ 4:47 pm
You may think so.
Most people do not.
This is threatening to become the great division between the parties, and the Republican party is very much in the minority on this issue. About 71% of the people support amnesty, especially for people who are working.
The Democratic party has humanitarianism on this issue, but no principles it can enunciate, and the Republican party has principles but no humanitarianism.
Because the Democratic party has no principles, they go around and accuse Trump and others of every other form of discrimination and heartlessness except the one that they really propose to do.
Sammy Finkelman (a784d8) — 12/1/2016 @ 9:50 am@38- Except it was– if memory serves they lost control of the House because of it– and along wit his other baggage he saw the exit and ran for it.
@39- You don’t showcase lawbreakers as featured speakers at your convention, Sammy.
DCSCA (797bc0) — 12/1/2016 @ 11:30 amSeveral House Democrats not quite at the top leadership level, have left the House. Just now Xavier Becerra has agreed to go. California Governor Jerry Brown just announced he wll appoint him state Atorney general to replace Kamala Harris. (In california apparently the Governor fills a vacancy) Becerra had declined an opportunity to run for the Senate, which I think would have meant giving up his House sat. Becerra was going to become ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee.
Sammy Finkelman (b38f8c) — 12/2/2016 @ 8:46 amDCSCA (797bc0) — 12/1/2016 @ 11:30 am @39- You don’t showcase lawbreakers as featured speakers at your convention, Sammy. They didn’t break the law, at least initially, . Their parents did, and it was a law they had no part in making.
You do showcase people in violation of the law if you want to argue the law should be changed, or not enforced. That was the whole point of it!
Except taht they didn’t really argue it. As I said, the Democrats can’t come up with a general principle that could encompass their individual cases, and the Republicans have only cold, cold, “principles” that can’t be justified in individual cases. The Republicans lie about the necessity and the value of the laws, and maybe what is possible to do within the law, and the Democrats lie about whom the Republicans want to harm and use every word to describe it except the truth.
They can only come up with good cases where the law is wrong. They can’t enunciate a general principle, for now and for the future (and there is no doubt there will be future cases similar to what we see today, so whatever principle applies must apply to people who immigrate illegally in the future, too)
Sammy Finkelman (b38f8c) — 12/2/2016 @ 8:57 amSome people may think they have this great principle of federal supremacy and the law must be enforced! or at least not offiicially abrogated by presidential policy. But they don’t seem to be complaining on the not cracking down on states that legalize marijuana.
The reason is because there’s a subtext – that the law is right or good, or at least rational. But to say that you have to lie: They’re bringing drugs; there are 2 millon dangerous criminals, including rapists; they constitute many or most of the criminals in U.S. jails (rather than the people in U.S. jails being disproportionately people with some of the longest ancestral presence in the United States.)
If one of them kills someone, that’s an argument against anyone in the same situation, a principle that is never used to justify any other kind of prejudice and discrimination.
Also – they’re bringing tuberculosis and even making U.S. government employees who guard them sick. Remember that one?
Oh, and they drive drunk.
And when and if you decide to target a subgroup of the “law breakers” you have to lie about whom you are targeting.
Sammy Finkelman (b38f8c) — 12/2/2016 @ 9:13 am