It irks me though that most PBS/NPR videos or podcasts never open their broadcasts up for discussion. It is with discussion that we hear what others are thinking and the questions they ask. Discussion is healthy for democracy, when people take it seriously.
California the richest state in the union.
Where the average citizen still has it better than in any red state, hands down.
If this is ruined, than I am enjoying it immensely.
All you can do is follow Newt Gingrich's playbook ...
GOPAC Republicans Playbook: https://uh.edu/~englin/rephandout.html
The following is taken from Language: A Key Mechanism of Control, a pamphlet which was sent to Republican candidates running in the 1990 elections. The pamphlet was developed by Gopac, a conservative group headed by the then House Republican Whip Newt Gingrich. This excerpt appeared in the November 1990 issue of Harpers Magazine. From the rhetorical analyst's position it constitutes a pile of examples of loaded diction (see RT&C). You might want to have some fun with this by thinking about wether there would be differences between this 90 and a possible 96 list. Consider, in this regard what the implications are for the "absoluteness" of the terms "negative" and "positive."
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Instead of writing candidates checks, Gingrich sent them information--and lots of it. He used GOPAC to recruit and train a generation of candidates who would talk and think like him. GOPAC distributed thousands of cassettes and videotapes to potential GOP candidates, teaching them to speak “Gingrich.” Gingrich also used GOPAC funds to travel around the country recruiting training and campaigning for candidates. He hired marketing professionals to identify issues--”65 percenters”--that would resonate with a majority of the public. “We are on the way to becoming the Bell Labs of politics,” he bragged.
For Gingrich, language was the key to securing a new Republican majority. The GOPAC tapes were designed to develop a vocabulary of positive words to use to describe Republican initiatives --liberty, freedom, truth, opportunity--while using “bad’ words to label the Democrats--decay, corrupt, permissive, and pathetic. Gingrich produced a list of 133 words candidates should use to demean their opponents and elevate themselves. “The words and phrases are powerful,” a GOPAC memo instructed candidates. “Read them. Memorize as many as possible. And remember that like any tool, these words will not help if they are not used.”
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You all piss and moan and whine and insult Liberals, meaning Democrats and how bad they are, but all the Blue States do better than the Red States ... every one.
Also, all the changes past that have gotten us to this point came from Republicans and their plutocratic puppet masters. Tripling down on that is just making things worse.
Um, all blue states do better than red states?? Look no further than California going down the toilet thanks to Newsom and it's because of this, that he stands 0 chance at ever being President of the U.S just based on that alone and no amount of slicking his hair back like Gordon Gecko from WALL STREET will change this
Well, you are proud racists ... very good people as you call them.
You can't deny that.
But moreover, you actions speak louder than your racist words. Locking black people out of voting ... Kemp in Georgia. That's racist.
Always lying about trans people who are not even an issue until you either find one case of a trans person in sports, or you just lie about it.
Watch the John Stewart show from about 2 weeks ago talking to the Texas Attorney General ... in her own words?
You are a racist, but you are so much more ... stupid, liar, greedy, hateful ( you constant name-call in every post you make and you are hear doing that every day all day. What a life you must have. No wonder you know nothing of the world other than what Republican central command programs you with.
You're the name caller, imbecile. You call me a racist, tell me what I do when you have no idea, call me greedy (WTF!?) when you know nothing about me. Show me ONE SINGLE post where I've said anything racist, LIAR!
Like I said, and you've proven it; your go-to is to call people racists, etc., etc., etc., when it's TOTALLY baseless, which is one of the MANY reasons you're not worth my time debating.
Your ideology is a failure, your life is a failure and you're a failure, and fyi, my life is wonderful and happy, unlike yours.
When racism is an issue I have no problem pointing it out.
You couldn't debate if your life depended on it.
If you defend the Republican order, you are a racist.
They have used racism to activate their base, and use racist policies to keep minorities down and from voting.
Hahaha, a world destroyer? Yeah your racist world.
... And it was all about weaponizing race—specifically, white racism against African Americans—as a way to rally the Republican base. Back when young Donald Trump was working for his dad marking “C” for “colored” on rental applications, Republican politicians were also ruthlessly exploiting America’s racial divisions. For example, it was widely recognized that Nixon’s “silent majority” was a reference to white people, and Reagan’s first official presidential campaign speech was at a county fair near the Philadelphia, Mississippi (population 7,500), site where three civil rights workers (Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner) were brutally murdered in June 1964.37 The story of the murders was told in the Oscar-winning movie Mississippi Burning.38 Reagan often referred to Black inner cities as “jungles,” joked publicly about Africans and cannibalism, and, referring to housing discrimination, said, “If an individual wants to discriminate against Negroes or others in selling or renting his house, it is his right to do so.”39 George W. Bush was less willing to used naked racism to campaign, but in the 2000 election, which put him in the White House, his brother, then–Florida governor Jeb Bush, directed a program executed by Florida secretary of state Katherine Harris that removed the names and voting eligibility of 57,700 registered Black voters in that state.40
Hartmann, Thom. The Hidden History of American Oligarchy (pp. 88-89). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.
All over the country, through the 1990s, Republican politicians proudly memorized his list and used his words as often as possible in speeches, writings, and media appearances. They also began to refer to the Democratic Party, founded and named by Thomas Jefferson, as the “Democrat Party.” (There is, of course, no such thing as a “Democrat Party,” but in the 1950s Joe McCarthy told Republicans that “Democratic” sounded too nice and they should instead always say “Democrat Party with an emphasis on the rat!”4) The entire Republican Party, along with Fox News and right-wing hate radio, adopted this usage in 2009 after Barack Obama was elected, and now the phrase even makes its way into mainstream news reports written by young reporters who apparently don’t know the correct name of the party.
Hartmann, Thom. The Hidden History of American Oligarchy (p. 116). Berrett-Koehler Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Republicans spend their entire lives' energy to weaponize hate and whip it up in others. That includes racism.
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I don’t challenge the substance of your criticism of Gingrich's strategy because it’s meaningless to a debate — 32 years later — about how great California is for its citizens under invulnerable state Democratic rule. I’m an outsider but I certainly question the future of a government in the post-pandemic era with no viable opposition. I find it compelling that California, which had a growth streak dating back to the gold rush, saw it broken in 2020 when the population shrank by ~185,000 people causing a first-ever loss of a congressional seat. And even more impactful, that 265 companies moved their headquarters out between 2018 and 2021, with the rate of flight doubling just during those years.
There is plenty of opposition, it's just totally corrupt and under the control or developers and corporations.
What is the big deal about people leaving the state. It's nothing. I might leave the state at some point. Probably not, but it is not about being driven out, or homeless drug addicts on my doorstep. I've been to other states and other countries, the CA, and the Blue States in general are just better places for everyone to live.
A lot of people can sell their homes in CA and buy homes in other parts of the country for 20% of the price and live like the rich. And same with corporations. If it was not for corporations leaving CA and going to other states, specifically TX, Texas would be even more of a s-hole than it is now.
Just because you Republicans make a loud and obnoxious complaint does not make it true, and in all likelihood it's total BS.
Well I didn’t mean to sound loud and obnoxious. I thought my comment was respectful and factual. Your OP talks big about “discussion is healthy for democracy” but every exchange I can recall with you devolves into abuse or vilification.