the vitruvian gentleman

politicalprof:

There’s a bit of a meme developing in American politics these days that the Democratic Party is in the midst of a resurgence, and that the Republicans are in serious trouble. I think this may well be true, at least in the short run, but this surge may turn out to be a lot less profound than Democrats suspect or hope it to be.

The sense of a Democratic resurgence is grounded on several points. A Democrat just won a special Congressional election in upstate New York, for example, in a district that supported John McCain in 2008, supported the shocking Carl Paladino for Governor in 2010, and has almost never elected a Democrat since the Republican Party was invented in 1854. Additionally, Barack Obama’s poll numbers have surged since Osama bin Laden’s killing; the swagger he showed walking down the hall to the East Room of the White House to announce bin Laden’s death has translated into a sense of “Obama’s the Man”—especially now that birtherism has been gutted and Donald Trump was eviscerated at the White House Correspondent’s dinner. And, of course, the fact that none of the Republican candidates for President—declared or not—seems very much like a strong contender has only increased people’s sense that the Democrats are back.

This is all true, and will probably sustain itself, at least in terms of Obama’s reelection, through 2012. (Interestingly, every recent President has had a scandal rock their administration in their second term. I can make a case that reelection is no gift to any politician.) I have repeatedly offered my prediction of Obama’s reelection even when times looked bad for the Democrats: most presidents who run for reelection win, and the gap between Obama as candidate and Obama as President is profound, as anyone who watched Obama’s rousing speech in Dublin could see. (Can you see Tim Pawlenty against Obama? With the $1,000,000,000+ Obama will raise in 2012? Neither can I.)

But there’s always a “but,” and in the Democrats’ case, it’s a pretty big “but.” Put simply, there’s no reason to presume that Obama’s likely success will translate into mass success for the rest of the party. Presidential reelections rarely cause big shifts to the president’s party, and it is important to remember that the Democrats will be defending far more Senate seats in 2012 than the Republicans will. This is in addition to having to try to keep many currently Democratic seats that are being vacated by retiring Senators. Some of these, like Byron Dorgan’s seat in North Dakota, are by no means easy holds for the Democrats. It’s going to be tough to sustain a true surge in this context.

But my “but” is about more that immediate short term tactics. It’s also about the nature of the times. We are in a period of political oscillation, not party dominance. In 2002, Republicans imagined riding the post-9/11 wave to the “permanent Republican majority.” By 2004 Bush was reelected by the lowest margin of any president ever reelected; the Republicans lost the Congress in 2006. Democrats saw their 2006-08 surge melt away in the midterms of 2010—especially at the state level, where Republicans now control much of the post-census redistricting.

We live in a divided nation where there is little consensus on what the nature of our problems are (too much spending? too low taxes?), or about what to do about them (cut spending? Increase taxes?). In these circumstances, winning elections is not the result of national mandates backed by broad public consensus. It’s about turnout and idiosyncrasies. In 2012, the odds favor the Democrats, at least at the presidential level. But these can change if the economy collapses, and in any cases presidential success does not necessarily translate into broad public consensus.

So a Democratic surge? Sure. For now. But a year is a long time in politics. Three years (til the next midterm) is an eternity.

Food for thought. (Shamelessly reblogging this to save it for later.)

mry:

torayot:

handingoutstars:

deliciously subversive: Where the fuck is all this mythical appropriation of genderqueer identity actually happening?

innerfatgirl:

cloveflowers:

delisubthefemmecub:

You know what I think is “appropriating genderqueer”?

When people take “genderqueer,” a word that literally opens itself up to the possibilities of infinite genders, and try to define it.

When people take “genderqueer” and use it to build communities of white, thin, FAAB, masculine-leaning young hipsters… and then accuse anyone who does not fit that image of “appropriating genderqueer.”

When people take “genderqueer” and make it a category with boundaries and borders in need of policing, instead of an expanse noun, adjective, and verb that has the potential to make those very borders irrelevant.

You want to worry about the supposed appropriation of genderqueer identities?

Look at your fucking selves.

I back this so hard.  I remember reading this article in winter and discussing it with my housemates (all of whom agreed with most of it.)  Of course it’s not okay to use being genderqueer as an excuse for being oppressive or denying privilege, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to go around telling people their identity is invalid!  It’s so fucking stupid, if we recognize gender as something that is socially constructed and reject essentialized notions of what man and womyn, then we know that gender is something each persyn has to define for themselves.  Being out as genderqueer is so difficult for a huge variety of reasons, and feeling like you could be kicked out of the trans community should they deem you “appropriating” at any minute is one that no one should have to worry about.

In my experience I’ve had way more problems with one persyn trying to turn genderqueer into an exclusive club by telling everyone that people they don’t like are appropriating identities (and pressuring people they do like into identifying as trans), than feeling like people are appropriating my identity.

WHAT WHAT

all of this

YES. Thank you so, so, so much for this! I read that Questioning Transphobia article too, and it made me feel terrible but I felt too vulnerable and unsure to speak up for fear of disclosing my possible “appropriation” of genderqueer identity. Which is of course a lot of bullshit, because the idea that there is some benchmark of “trans*enough” is bullshit.

Last time I checked, ‘genderqueer’ was made up of two words: ‘gender’ and ‘queer’, basically saying that the person identifying as ‘genderqueer’ is a person, who is ‘queer’ regarding their ‘gender’. That’s it. Jaysus. I’m so tired of these attempt on making some sort of ‘requirements’ for calling yourself for ‘genderqueer’.

can we agree that while language policing sometimes has its place, it’s often a tool for divisive clique-forming and often undermines the word’s original intent? case in point, see above. girlfriend and i are consistently and constantly appalled at some of the language policing that takes place across Tumblr discourse. 

politicalprof:

Bruce Ackerman and Oona Hathaway have a nice op ed in today’s Washington Post examining the United States’ on-going military operations in Libya and the War Powers Act.

As a quick primer, the War Powers Act was passed in 1973 over President Nixon’s veto. it provides that, at most, the President can send US forces into harm’s way for 90 days without seeking Congressional approval of the operation.

Notably, every president since Nixon has rejected this act as unconstitutional. However, every president since Nixon has worked out an agreement with Congress regarding the use of US forces before sending them into danger or before keeping them there for very long—all while claiming that this agreement was not the Congressional consent required by the WPA.

Notably, Congress’ only real power to enforce the WPA is to cut off funding for military operations it opposes. No Congress has ever wanted to be accused of cutting off money for troops in battle, so no Congress has ever invoked the WPA. Likewise, no President has ever wanted to go to war or get into a conflict without at least some semblance of political support behind him. Accordingly, Congress and the President have always just worked a deal.

Well, Friday is day 60 for our operations in Libya. The President has either 30 days to get out, or 30 days to get Congressional consent to continue the bombing campaign there.

But we are hearing nothing about the WPA. No plans seem to be afoot either to draw down our operations in Libya—indeed, the trend seems to be the other way—or to have Congress consent to operations there. It’s as if the WPA doesn’t exist.

I’m not saying the WPA is good law. It actually isn’t. I’m just saying that it is the law, and typically, if you don’t like a law, you’re supposed to change it. Instead, we may be inventing a new way to kill a law: just ignore it, and hope that all of the parties involved find it in their interests to just let it fall into dust.

cnnmoneytech:

Screenshot: Google

It can be tough having a very common name like David Goldman, especially when I try to Google myself (I’m not that David Goldman, above).

I mentioned this to Vic Gundotra, Google’s SVP of Engineering today, who let it slip that Google has a soon-to-be-announced solution to that problem. 

Hmmm… is this the social product we’ve all been waiting for? Google’s been trying to make search more personal forever. Maybe it’s finally discovered the secret sauce.

So John Smiths of the world, rejoice! You may soon be able to Google yourself with ease. -David

Could it have anything to do with their recent campaign to make search local rather than global? Find all John Smiths in your area maybe? Hmm. Watching this. Google’s fun.