#I have a fairly liberal stance on the age gap

[madamesmoke]

some of you might ask, Who is that?

That, dear creative people of tumblr, is the bulgarian actor Stanislav Yanevski.

That’s the guy who played Viktor Krum in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

why I post this now?

Well, I recently got back into reading Hp fanfiction. my primary focus is always on Hermione, one way or another.

When HPGoF graced the theatres, I was around seven or eight, I was not interested in the movies at all. Instead, I read the books and decided I wanted my own Viktor Krum. Not beautiful, but kind, a bit awkward, intelligent even if he didn’t know how to be open about it AND very clearly not scared of strong Women, or these that would become strong Women. 

When I was 12, at the mercy of puperty, I saw the movies, and I liked what I saw. Because even with the terrible hairstyle in GoF, Stanislav as Viktor looked fairly kind, at least to me.  And now, years later, at 23, I found several well written Stories, where Viktor and Hermione are Endgame, I love those. They are my OTP in terms of HP.

So I looked his instagram up, and holy Basilisk, is that guy hot. Now, at 35, the man has laugh lines, and I’m weak for those, and weak for Nice Beards... Which, of course, sparked a LOT new Ideas and Head-cannons, which I’ll surely Post soon...

[radramblog]

Who should I vote for in the WA state election?

Full disclosure, this is directly inspired by this article, by someone from my high school as part of a youth newspaper he was working on. Considering said newspaper hasn’t updated since, oh, 2017, I think it’s fine to step on a few toes.

According to the ABC there are 19 parties vying for votes in the 2021 Western Australia State Election, which is coming up on Saturday. Some of them are good, some of them are very very not. Let’s go through each!

Animal Justice Party

The Animal Justice Party is a single-platform party masquerading as a multi-platform party, and while they have bland but reasonable positions on common issues everything, and I mean everything, on their page circles back to animals. Mental Health? Animal therapy and volunteering are good for that! Foreign Policy? We only care about trophies and wildlife trade! Domestic Violence? Abusers kick puppies, not just spouses! You get the idea. They mean well, but I don’t think they’re even close to a top pick, especially considering some of their odder platforms (banning processed meat sales to minors like they’re cigarettes, sure ok).

Vote for them if you’re the epitome of the obnoxious vegan.

 Australian Christians

I mean, obviously I’m not religious, but I’m pretty sure these folks don’t speak for all Christians. They’re first on the list of whackjobs, anti-abortion and same-sex marriage, pro “sexual morality” (read: puritanism) and have out-of-context bible quotes on their statement of intents. Oh, sorry, statement of beliefs. Clicking on this webpage made my skin crawl- protip, if a person or party claims to support “family values” or “Christian ideals” 99 times out of 100 they’re just using it to justify bigotry.

Vote for them if you’d feel right at home in Cromwellian England.

 Daylight Savings Party

This one’s website was broken for me, so I couldn’t really get a hold of anything beyond the name and what was on their facebook page, which is pretty much just what their mission statement is- Western Australia but we have daylight savings time. Despite being ridiculously sunny all the time. But….but why though….

Vote for them if you enjoy changing your clocks twice a year, like a weirdo.

 The Great Australian Party

There are two really obvious jokes here screaming at me to be made. The GAP wants to make Australia great again, and despite the name it doesn’t involve jeans. These guys think taxes are bad but it would be good if they were instead handled by corporations, which is the most laughably stupid idea that itd be enough to bottom-vote them just on that- fortunately, their stance on firearms (we’ll get to it later) and immigration (withdrawing from UN treaties, seriously?) make it pretty clear they’re just a bunch of cunts. Their policy pages complain about political correctness and want to make fucking with a flag a crime like it is in the US, so the comparisons to a certain US party keep going.

Vote for them if you’re the proud owner of a red hat that your children will burn out of shame.

 Health Australia Party

The fact that these people have an entire page dedicated to going “no, we aren’t anti-vax, we just have a lot of concerns” answers any questions you could possibly have. They also advocate for “natural medicine” to be placed on equal footing with, you know, medicine, which is obviously not a great idea.

Also, that they spell it “anti-vacc” and that their policy list is in fucking Calibri bugs me to no end.

Vote for them if you’re on a lemon detox.

 Legalise Cannabis Western Australia

Take a guess. Take a wild fucking guess what single issue these guys are about. I don’t even have anything against this idea, their policies aren’t awful or anything, but it’s a heck of a hill to spend so much of your time on.

Vote for them if you’re high off your tits, I guess.

 Liberal Democrats

What is this, libertarians? I’ll be frank, most of their policies are rooted in economics stuff I don’t really understand, but they’re against COVID lockdowns. You know, despite how effective they’re shown to be around here since we don’t fuck them up (mostly).

These guys seem to be one of the bigger of the small parties but their website is super unhelpful so ???

Vote for them if… I dunno?

 Liberal Party

The first of the two major parties. They lost power in the last state election, and I couldn’t be more thankful- they’d been doing nothing but cock up for years at that point, and the premier was a fucking joke. Considering that their leader has apparently already conceded defeat, I suspect they aren’t looking to repeat the process.

The Liberals seem to be the default for a lot of people, thanks to their incalculable media bias and being one of the big two. I suppose if you’re reading this, you aren’t voting for them anyway.

Vote for them if your mum voted for them and you’re proud of that for some reason.

 Liberals for Climate

If you voted in the last election, you might remember a party called the Flux network, which was a party where their policy was just online voting for everything. This is, uh them again? But they seem more concerned about climate than last time.

Vote for them if you haven’t watched this video.

 No Mandatory Vaccination Party

…no. just no.

Antivaccination is an opinion that makes my skin crawl. The fucker that effectively started the movement, Andrew Wakefield, effectively did so for the money, and as such is indirectly responsible for thousands of deaths. The people who believe this shit know nothing of chemistry or medicine but hear a few buzzwords and do a google or two and think they’re the greatest geniuses of our time. They think they’re soooo fucking smart. Confident incorrectness can be funny at times, but not when such a huge issue is at stake.

Vote for them if you want me to call you out on twitter dot com.

 Pauline Hanson’s One Nation

Oh christ she’s still trying this shit? For reference, in the last election these xenophobic cunts were rightfully punted out of our state, despite massive campaigning, proving that we aren’t the bogan capital of the country quite as much. Their policy pages make me want to vomit, but who the fuck voting for One Nation reads the fucking policy page?

Pauline Hanson was a fish and chip shop owner who made a political party to get her xenophobic bullshit out on the national stage, and was arrested for election fraud, yet still is allowed to run a party for some reason. She’s switched the target of her ire from China to the Middle East to reflect modern bigotry better, but it’s the same old shit. The only good thing ever to come about her was the Pauline Pantsdown song, and she obviously wasn’t involved in that.

Vote for them if you’re interested in joining the Proud Boys.

 Shooters Fishers and Farmers

Oh and the hits just keep coming. Funnily enough I don’t have an issue with their fishery policy, but that’s not the main one, obviously. Australia has harsh gun control laws on account of a mass shooting back in 1997, and we’ve stayed that way for 23 years with, shockingly, no further mass shootings (that I’m aware of). You can disguise your policy by saying its for the sport all you want, but I’ve got no interest in bringing guns back to WA.

Vote for them if you think the NRA having massive political sway in the USA is a good thing.

 Socialist Alliance

Full disclosure, I consider myself a socialist, so I’m probably a little biased here. But yeah, these look like good policies. They want to remove the USA military presence in Australia which I am personally very for, they support royal commission into the big banks which should have been done a decade ago, and they want to lower the voting age to 16 which considering that the youth are generally more politically minded these days seems fair enough to me. I’m for it.

Vote for them if you would have voted for the Greens, and don’t know which to put higher.

 Sustainable Australia

Despite the name, the policy of this party is more concerned about population than climate, an issue I’m not sure is especially pronounced in this neck of the woods. I’d put them fairly middle of the road, seeing as they have some policies I’m for (no new coal mines or fracking) and some I’m very against (increased police funding, lowered immigration).

Vote for them if you too don’t know the common usage of the word Sustainable in modern times.

 The Greens

Why everything is alphabetical until this and the next one are beyond me. Regardless, I suspect you already know if you’re voting Greens, but bluntly: They’re basically the only ones with a real, functional plan about Climate Change. And considering that’s the biggest problem facing humanity at large right now (yes, including COVID), that’s a pretty solid claim.

Vote for them if THERE IS NO PLANET BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

 The Nationals

The nationals end up in coalition with the Liberals basically all the fucking time so if you’d vote for the Libs you’ll vote for the Nats. They’re basically the liberals, but they pay lip service to caring about poor rural areas while continuing to suck big buisness’s cock like a kid with an icy-pole.

Vote for them if you’re a genuine country bumpkin.

 WA Labor

I’ll be frank, I don’t think there’s a single way Labor doesn’t win this election. Mark McGowan has developed a minor cult of personality, and they’ve handled the old COVID situation remarkably well. I don’t agree with everything they’ve done in the past 4 years, but their track record is certainly better than the Liberals. Still, they’re not going to be the top of my preference sheet.

Vote for them if you don’t know what small parties to preference first.

 WAxit party

I’ve admittedly entertained the idea of a Western Australian Secession, and provided it is handled well am not entirely against it. It does make me feel vaguely Texan, though, and that’s not a position I enjoy being in. This party wants to massively invest in defense so WA can protect itself from an invasion- one that will never, ever come, and I really don’t expect to eat those words. We don’t matter enough to target.

Vote for them if you think Brexit 2 sounds like a good idea.

 Western Australia Party

Look at this point I’m fucking sick of all these parties. They have Family Values on their policy list so I’m just taking that as a red enough flag not to vote for them.

Vote for them if you actually read their shit and were a fan of it.

 And that’s…everyone. Wait no not everyone hang on.

Independents

I must confess, I basically always forget to read about the independents prior to an election. This is going to be different in every district, so do your research- or just do what I do and stick them all smack bang in the middle between the parties I like and the parties I don’t like.

 Ok now that’s everyone. This took a long time and a lot out of me, so I hope you appreciate this shit. Hopefully you are now prepared for what may come on Saturday the 13th, and won’t be too disappointed when your minor party of choice doesn’t win the seat because everyone in your area votes Liberal for some fucking reason.

[theconservativebrief]

If you are not a fan of the critically acclaimed NBC sitcom The Good Place (which you should be! Why aren’t you watching it??), then you may not be familiar with Jameela Jamil.

Jamil plays Tahani al-Jamil, an image-obsessed socialite who lives in her accomplished older sister’s shadow. Recently, however, the actress has also become known as a vocal feminist and body positivity advocate. In the last month alone, Jamil has come after everyone from Cardi B to Iggy Azalea to Khloe Kardashian for advertising “detox teas,” or beverages that are purported to help you lose weight, on Instagram.

For the most part, the media has embraced the portrayal of Jamil as an outspoken advocate for feminist empowerment, a 2018 version of a 2014-era Jennifer Lawrence or a 2016-era Chrissy Teigen. “In an industry that reproduces so many limiting ideas of how women should look, speak, dress and think, it is so refreshing to see an actress speak her mind,” Paper magazine wrote in a profile of Jamil.

Recently, however, that narrative has gotten more complicated. This week, Jamil generated backlash for a BBC op-ed she wrote, along with a series of tweets, which called for Photoshop and airbrushing to be made illegal.

Jamil’s tweets started out innocently enough, pointing out how often magazines airbrush photos of female celebrities in their 40s and 50s while leaving male celebrities untouched. (Jamil has famously refused to let any publications Photoshop images of her.)

An example of Photoshop being weaponised against women: This is how we portray men in their 50s on magazine covers and women in their 50s. Look at the difference. Men who age are sexy in HD. Women mostly just shouldn’t dare age. Men can celebrate the inevitable, we must fear it. pic.twitter.com/XKykaZuiYf

— Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) December 2, 2018

One of her anti-Photoshop tweets, however, featured a photo of a glowing Jamil wearing what appears to be makeup, while simultaneously enjoining women to “say no to airbrushing” — a message that many interpreted as a statement that self-love is liberating, provided you’re super hot. Others accused Jamil of exhibiting Tahani-esque levels of privilege and lack of self-awareness. (Jamil has since deleted the tweet.)

Jameela Jamil posting a picture where she looks luminously beautiful with the captain “say no to airbrushing …. I want to look like a person” is so extremely Tahani

— Festive Winter Sea Witch (@theKatriarch) December 2, 2018

Jameela Jamil’s “airbrushing should be illegal” essay reminds me so much of Alicia Keys’s “women should be makeup free” campaign. It’s like they forget they inhabit the very bodies upheld as ideal. pic.twitter.com/zBHdP2YXIL

— Evette Dionne ‍ (@freeblackgirl) December 3, 2018

Some even questioned Jamil’s motives for making body positivity such an integral part of her platform. The response may signal an impending backlash — not just against Jamil, but against celebrities who have used body positivity and female empowerment as a self-branding tactic.

(Jameela Jamil is the Matt McGory of 2018)

— Caroline Moss (@CarolineMoss) December 3, 2018

Although she’s been famous in the UK for years, Jamil has become well-known in the US media fairly recently. A former British “it girl,” she first became famous as a presenter (that’s British for “TV host”) for the TV program T4, as well as the breakfast show (that’s British for “a show that airs in the morning”) Freshly Squeezed. Three years ago, she moved to Los Angeles, reportedly with no intention of starting an acting career, and landed the lead role of Tahani on her very first audition.

Jamil has spoken publicly about body positivity throughout her career. She’s been open about her own personal struggles with body image, such as an eating disorder she grappled with in her teens and her experience being body-shamed by the British press after gaining weight from using steroids for asthma. She has said that her difficulty finding clothes in her size during that time prompted her to launch a size-inclusive collection in 2016 with the UK brand Simply Be, which included sizes 10 to 32 (or US sizes 6 to size 30).

In a 2015 interview, Jamil said she wanted to provide more options for larger women, while simultaneously refusing to call them “plus-size”: “The concept of plus-size is so derogatory and weird. What does that mean? Plus the normal size? It shouldn’t exist anymore,” she told Femail at the time.

In March of this year, Jamil launched the Instagram account I Weigh. In the caption on the inaugural post, Jamil wrote that she was “fucking tired of seeing women just ignore what’s amazing about them and their lives and their achievements, just because they don’t have a bloody thigh gap.” The account now has more than 249,000 followers and features more than 2,000 user-submitted posts from women.

Since then, Jamil has publicly weighed in on a number of issues related to body positivity and cultural beauty standards. Last June, she announced her no-Photoshop policy; in October, she reiterated this stance, sharing unretouched photos from a Marilyn Monroe-inspired photo shoot in which stretch marks on her breasts were visible. Like Teigen and Padma Lakshmi before her, who have also shared photos of their stretch marks, Jamil posted the images along with a message of self-acceptance.

Since she started building her US brand, Jamil has taken aim at celebrities and social media influencers for promoting what she says she views as toxic, body-shaming narratives.

Arguably her highest-profile target has been the Kardashians, most notably Kim Kardashian, who promoted appetite-suppressing lollipops by the Instagram weight-loss company Flat Tummy Co. “No. Fuck off. No. You terrible and toxic influence on young girls,” Jamil wrote on Twitter back in May. (Kardashian did not issue a public response.)

In an August interview with podcast host Krishnan Guru-Murthy, Jamil slammed the Kardashians again, referring to them as “double agents” for the “patriarchy.” “It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing: Just because you look like a woman, we trust you and we think you’re on our side, but you are selling us something that really doesn’t make us feel good …. You’re selling us self-consciousness,” she told Guru-Murthy.

While some criticized Jamil for taking issue with the Kardashians rather than the patriarchy itself, Jamil attempted to clarify her comments on Twitter, specifying that she wasn’t criticizing the Kardashians specifically, but the beauty-obsessed culture they were endorsing.

No. Fuck off. No. You terrible and toxic influence on young girls. I admire their mother’s branding capabilities, she is an exploitative but innovative genius, however this family makes me feel actual despair over what women are reduced to. pic.twitter.com/zDPN1T8sBM

— Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) May 16, 2018

MAYBE don’t take appetite suppressors and eat enough to fuel your BRAIN and work hard and be successful. And to play with your kids. And to have fun with your friends. And to have something to say about your life at the end, other than “I had a flat stomach.” pic.twitter.com/XsBM3aFtAQ

— Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) May 16, 2018

Last month, Jamil publicly lambasted Cardi B, whose latest Instagram post had endorsed another detox tea; she also criticized Iggy Azalea, Amber Rose, and Khloe Kardashian for promoting similar weight loss products. “GOD I hope all these celebrities all shit their pants in public, the way the poor women who buy this nonsense upon their recommendation do,” she wrote.

(As Vox previously reported, many of these teas have a laxative effect; taking laxatives can lead to cramping, indigestion, and dehydration, which makes them an unsafe and unhealthy means of losing weight).

They got Cardi B on the laxative nonsense “detox” tea. GOD I hope all these celebrities all shit their pants in public, the way the poor women who buy this nonsense upon their recommendation do. Not that they actually take this shit. They just flog it because they need MORE MONEY pic.twitter.com/OhmTjjWVOp

— Jameela Jamil (@jameelajamil) November 24, 2018

Cardi B, for her part, told Jamil, “I will never shit my pants because there’s public bathrooms….and ooh, bushes.” Emboldened by Cardi’s response, Jamil leaned into the joke further, posting a video of herself pretending to chug a detox tea, then rushing to the bathroom.

In the past, Jamil (who in her Twitter bio refers to herself as a “feminist-in-progress”) has been accused of harboring some anti-feminist views, specifically when it comes to women she appears to deem overly sexually provocative.

In the past, she’s called out Miley Cyrus for her “overt use of her sexuality and her vagina to gain a platform”; in a column for the UK website Company, she also criticized Rihanna for posing pantsless on Instagram, imploring her to “put away her minge” (British for female genitalia).

In a blog post, Jamil also accused Beyoncé of “behaving like a (Bloody amazingly beautiful) stripper” with her “buttocks spread apart by a pole…air-humping a piano” in the music video for “Flawless.” Following backlash, Jamil deleted the post — but an archived version is still viewable. Jamil was also accused of erasing the work of black women like body positive activist Stephanie Yeboah, who claims that Jamil once quoted her in an interview without attribution.

“She loves low-hanging fruit, especially when it comes to women who make a living by being sexual in any form”

In an October 2018 op-ed for Pajiba, writer Kayleigh Donaldson took aim at what she referred to as Jamil’s “diluted version of body positivity,” one that does not necessarily include all women of all different sizes: “She loves low-hanging fruit, especially when it comes to women who make a living by being sexual in any form,” Donaldson wrote, noting Jamil’s previous criticism of Beyonce, Cyrus, and Rihanna.

Donaldson also questioned whether Jamil, as a conventionally attractive, straight-size woman, is necessarily the best representative of the body positivity community. “It would be silly of us to pretend Jamil didn’t get where she is today if she weren’t astoundingly beautiful and the ‘right’ size for American TV,” Donaldson writes.

Jamil herself seems at least somewhat aware of her own shortcomings as a representative for the body positivity movement. In an interview with Marie Claire, Jamil bemoaned the fact that body positivity has “become a marketing slogan, and that’s not what it was originally for. It was supposed to be inclusive, and again now, it’s been taken over by very slender, often Caucasian women.”

Indeed, one of the most common critiques of the body positivity movement is that its primary representatives have very little in common with the vast majority of women. “For instance, a conventionally attractive Instagram model clapping back at her haters, or a literal supermodel who feels the need to publicly answer her anonymous, powerless social media critics. Or that supermodel’s cousin who is a hero to women everywhere for displaying one single fat roll,” as Amanda Mull wrote in a Vox piece.

Kristen Bell and Jameela Jamil in The Good Place. Colleen Hayes/NBC

To be fair, the body positivity movement has gotten (slightly) more diverse over the past few years, with women of color and LGBTQ women slowly becoming more visible. And as a woman of Indian and Pakistani descent, Jamil contributes a welcome perspective to a movement that, as she pointed out in Marie Claire, is still pretty damn white.

Still, it’s easy to see why a woman who doesn’t look like Jamil (or Teigen or Emily Ratajkowski, a literal bikini model) would be skeptical of their messages of self-empowerment and body positivity. If you look great without makeup, then it’s easy to say that airbrushing and filters and Photoshop should be illegal; and if the rest of your culture loves your body, then it’s easy to love your body, too.

In addition to building a brand as a body positivity advocate, Jamil has also garnered fans for her goofy, eminently relatable persona. She frequently refers to bodily functions in interviews and has referred to herself as a “potty mouth” and a “constantly inappropriate person,” filling something of the Cool Girl vacuum left by Jennifer Lawrence, who rose to A-list status in large part by talking openly about butt plugs and dropping F-bombs at awards shows.

(In a somewhat similar vein, Jamil also frequently insists to journalists that she was awkward and unattractive as an adolescent, a time-honored narrative of ugly-ducking-turned-swan right out of the Victoria’s Secret model playbook.)

It remains to be seen whether this strategy will backfire for Jamil, as it ultimately did on some level for Lawrence, who was subject to much debate over whether her frat bro persona was little more than schtick. If the backlash against Jamil’s anti-Photoshop tweets is any indication, it certainly seems like a possibility.

However well-intentioned celebrities may be, the privileges afforded by beauty and wealth and status are simply too great to allow most of them to retain a cool and relatable image for very long.

But for now, it appears that Jamil’s lean into Cool Girl feminism is still working: The media has lauded Jamil for her tweets and her “refreshing” take on celebrity and body image. More than one effusive reporter has gushed that they wish they could be Jamil’s best friend. So for now, that’s the pop cultural role she primarily occupies in the public consciousness — even if she arguably has more in common with the Kardashians themselves than she does with the women who retweet her takedowns.

Original Source -> How Jameela Jamil built a brand around body positivity

via The Conservative Brief

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to FiveThirtyEight’s weekly politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

sarahf (Sarah Frostenson, politics editor): In early February, Democrats Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez unveiled the “Green New Deal,” an ambitious 14-page manifesto that outlines a number of different proposals to tackle climate change.

It wants to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions and create millions of jobs. It’s not just a plan to save the environment; it’s also an economic vision, focused on social justice. And depending on which side of the political aisle you sit, it’s either been touted as absurd or as a way forward.

Democratic 2020 contenders are busy taking positions on it –- even if they’re wary of it — so it’s safe to say it’ll keep cropping up, even if it’s as fodder for Republicans trying to paint Democrats as having moved too far to the left.

So is this bad politics for Democrats? Good politics? What do we make of the Green New Deal? And where do we think the conversation goes in 2020?

natesilver (Nate Silver, editor in chief): The Green New Deal is neither green, nor new, nor a deal. Actually, I take that back. It’s certainly green and it’s certainly new, in the sense that it represents a pretty big pivot in strategy from what Democrats had been trying previously.

clare.malone (Clare Malone, senior political writer): Well, we should also clarify that the plan doesn’t lay out policy specifics. So … people are kinda just taking stances on the ultimate goals it outlines.

perry (Perry Bacon Jr., senior writer): The video of school children confronting Sen. Dianne Feinstein about the Green New Deal, and the reaction to it, was super interesting. It showed how divided Democrats are on policy, but also how divided they are by ideology, age and tactics.

It reminded me of when speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, another longtime congressional Democrat, referred to the Green New Deal as the “green dream,” and also dismissed younger members of the party.

sarahf: Philip Bump at the Washington Post had an article about how younger Americans are more likely to view climate change as “very serious” problem compared to older generations, which might help explain why Sen. Feinsten, who has been in Congress for more than thirty years, didn’t see eye-to-eye with the students asking her to support the Green New Deal — some of what we’re seeing is a generation gap.

natesilver: Well, it’s young people who are going to have to live with the mess.

maggiekb (Maggie Koerth-Baker, senior science writer): Although you can’t count on that to be a trend where the next generation just cares more forever. One researcher I talked to looked at whether age cohorts are a factor that determines support for environmental policies. He found that political ideology and economics mattered more — meaning if there’s a recession and people are feeling economically insecure, that can trump support for environmental policies.

perry: Interesting. I wonder if younger Democrats are more liberal overall, and we are capturing that effect on this issue but would see it on other issues as well.

natesilver: But maybe young people are more liberal in part because of climate change?

maggiekb: Ehhh, that’s not what the social research suggests, Nate. For instance, there’s a study from Australia that found support for climate change follows FROM your political identity and who you voted for. Not the other way around.

natesilver: It seems like the Green New Deal raises two major tactical questions:

1) Incrementalism vs. swinging for the fences.

2) Separating climate change from other issues vs. lumping them together.

sarahf: In regards to your first point, Nate … why not swing for the fences? I’m thinking of Maggie’s piece on the Green New Deal where she pointed out that an incremental approach hasn’t exactly gotten Democrats the environmental change they wanted.

perry: I don’t know, Sarah. Other political movements have happened incrementally and have experienced success. I’m thinking of the civil rights movement, and various health care programs (Medicare, Medicaid, and, of course, the Affordable Care Act). So I see merits in a more incremental approach.

It’s not clear, at least to me, that incrementalism has failed on this issue — maybe it’s just taking too long and there is not enough time.

maggiekb: Yeah, that’s the really big question, Perry. Incrementalism can work. But can it work fast enough?

natesilver: And obviously a lot of scientists feel that unless action is taken immediately, the problem is going to become exponentially worse. The U.S. has somewhat curbed its CO2 emissions, right?

maggiekb: Yes. But the biggest drops coincided with the recession and have tapered off since 2015.

sarahf: But what do we make of the intentional choice to package it as the “Green New Deal.” Was it smart of Democrats to explicitly evoke President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal? Or a bridge too far?

maggiekb: Is it namby-pamby waffling on my part to say that’s probably really going to depend on what you thought about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the Democrats to begin with?

sarahf: Yes, Maggie

clare.malone: It’s better than “socialism” if you’re looking to sell it to a wide swath of Americans.

perry: Making climate change part of a big comprehensive proposal helped me connect it to other issues. It isn’t just an environmental issue — it’s something that requires a “New Deal.” I thought connecting climate change to a broader policy agenda was smart.

clare.malone: In general, I think the Democratic Party calling back to the era of FDR isn’t too controversial. He’s sort of seen as generally “good” through the mists of history.

maggiekb: I was surprised to talk to an environmental scientist and some science policy people who thought the branding WAS an overreach. I had expected them to be more on the “YEAH LET’S GET THIS DONE HOO-AH” side of things. And, instead, they were criticizing it for trying to tie itself to issues that had lot stronger levels of unified public opinion.

perry: The way Pelosi and Feinstein have reacted is significant. They seem to think this broader packaging is bad — and they are not against climate change legislation.

natesilver: Swinging for the fences is good, in large part because that’s maybe just what this particular issue necessitates. But I’m much more uncertain about whether linking it to a broader leftist economic policy is good politics.

sarahf: I guess I thought it was a weird branding choice for Democrats to evoke the New Deal, because it opens them up to criticism from the right. I’d argue Republicans blame FDR for creating much of America’s current social safety net, but then again, maybe I’m conflating too much with Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society policies.

natesilver: For years, one of the Republican critiques of efforts to ameliorate climate change was that it was just sort of a liberal excuse to implement left-wing economic policies. Now, you have a framework that explicitly ties those things together. So it’s a big shift. And maybe it’s smart — you can make some arguments for it, certainly. But it’s a big shift.

maggiekb: So here’s the thing, though. Given the way carbon emissions and fossil fuel use is embedded in everything we do, it might be pretty wishful thinking to imagine that you can keep the role of government and the exact business-as-usual business world the same while actually making big cuts to carbon emissions.

And this creates a political stalemate. Because telling conservatives that we have to gravitate to a political/economic system they oppose in order to address the full scope of the problem is a tough sell.

perry: But if you think that politics is fairly polarized, and Republicans will oppose a Democratic-backed climate policy no matter what (and that’s basically what I think), then liberal policy activists’ goal should be to make the issue more salient among Democrats. And so, what we have with the New Green Deal is a useful litmus test for environmental activists to apply to candidates. Asking whether a politician supports the Green New Deal serves as a proxy to basically asking, “How committed are you to fighting climate change?”

natesilver: But some versions of the Green New Deal implement, for instance, universal health care. Others don’t because the Green New Deal is really more of a sort of … framework or rubric or rhetorical device than a concrete set of policy positions, and indeed, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other Democrats have sometimes been a little shady when people have tried to pin them down on exactly what the Green New Deal would do.

sarahf: Regarding Perry’s point about it being a useful litmus test, I think that’s right. And maybe because the environment isn’t the most important issue to Democratic voters (Gallup found it ranked fifth among voters behind health care and wealth inequality before the 2018 midterms), it does actually make a certain amount of sense to broaden the scope of the Green New Deal so it just isn’t about the environment.

natesilver: Couldn’t you argue the opposite? That if the environment isn’t a high salience issue, the last thing you want to do is to bury it in with a bunch of other stuff?

Instead, you want to raise the profile of global warming relative to other issues, arguably.

maggiekb: I’m not convinced you could do that, Nate. I mean, humans are more motivated by immediate things affecting us than big picture risks in the far-off future. How do you convince people to raise the profile of global warming relative to, like, whether they’re going bankrupt from medical bills right now?

Here’s a question for the political side: To my understanding, the Green New Deal is pretty clearly written as (and meant as) a rallying cry, “This is what we care about. Let’s move the ‘Overton Window’ kind of stuff.” So why are people treating it like it is (or was meant to be) a detailed policy proposal? It feels like going to an auto show to see “Car of the Future” designs, and then being pissed that you’re not looking at a 2017 Taurus.

clare.malone: That’s an interesting question. And I think it has a lot to do with the presidential campaign. Democratic candidates want to be able to point out that they’re on board with the new left-leaning litmus tests without having to get pinned down by policies that might prove controversial. I think that’s a learned behavior from the 2016 campaign: people don’t vote on detailed policy proposals, they vote on the good feelings evoked by broad goals.

natesilver: I’m wary of drawing too many lessons from 2016, And I’d think the architects of the Green New Deal might be, too.

clare.malone: Who, Nate, are the architects?

natesilver: The — I fucking hate this phrase — thought-leader types. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez certainly qualifies there. Sean McElwee.

clare.malone: Ok, and you’re saying they don’t think incrementalism works? Because of Obama’s legacy?

natesilver: I don’t think of most of those people as being anti-Obama. In fact, the relatively few anti-Obama Democrats seem to march in somewhat different circles. But I do think there’s an implicit critique of Obama in there. That he was naive to think the Republicans would go along with his agenda. And that taking half-measures doesn’t really get you anywhere. In fact, it might weaken your bargaining position relative to demanding a ***lot*** and then settling for half of what you get.

The thing that’s a little hard is that all of this is guesswork. My guess is that GND activists are right (politically) about the Overton Window stuff — wanting big, bold sweeping initiatives instead of incrementalism. But that they’re wrong (politically) about the strategy of lumping environmental policy along with a grab bag of other left-ish policy positions, instead of being more targeted. But I have no idea. It’s just my priors, and they’re fairly weak priors.

maggiekb: Do you see much of a political future for incrementalism, though? I mean, hypothetically, it can work. It’s worked on other issues. Realistically, we’ve seen a lot of attempts to do this that couldn’t pull bipartisan support necessary to get enacted, either. I mean, what is a candidate like Biden going to propose that COULD actually get through congress?

natesilver: I mean, it seems like we haven’t discussed the Most Important Thing yet.

The Most Important Thing is that *any* policies to curb greenhouse gas emissions are going to face huge challenges because the U.S. Senate dramatically inflates the power of rural states.

sarahf: This is a fair point, but I think some rural *coastal* states are more hip to climate change that we give them credit for:

clare.malone: All Democrats have to do is win the Senate then, right? That’s pretty easy.

perry: It will be worth studying at some point how much climate change policy you can do via the Senate’s reconciliation process, which only requires 51 votes. And this also ties into the progressive push to get 2020 candidates to support ending the filibuster.

natesilver: I actually think one of the better arguments for swinging for the fences in terms of the GND is that because the Senate is so resistant to change, you need some kind of paradigm shift.

A paradigm shift where even action that seems incremental is actually quite bold, just because the goalposts have shifted so much.

clare.malone: Do we think the paradigm shift comes through just political wangling/rhetoric like the GND? Or is something else needed too?

natesilver: I think the shift would just be a generational one. There’s a *lot* of evidence that people under about age 40 are willing to consider left-wing worldviews that a previous generation might have considered too radical.People under age 40 have also lived with two really unpopular Republican presidents, Bush and Trump (along with one semi-popular Democratic one). So I think there’s a decent chance that policy in the U.S. shifts significantly to the left as those young people grow older and gain influence and power.

sarahf: I don’t necessarily disagree, but I think part of what will limit the GND’s appeal is how easily you can dismiss it as a socialist overreach.You’re already seeing Republicans do this and I think that’s only going to be ramped up here leading into 2020

sarahf: It sounds as if, we’re on the fence for whether or not the GND will be good politics for Democrats?

natesilver: I’m not on the fence so much as I just have no f’ing clue. I guess the heuristic is “what we tried before didn’t work, so let’s try something new”, which I suppose on some level I agree with.

maggiekb: I second Nate’s take-away. With the addendum that I’m sort of skeptical incrementalism is going to do much better. So, what the hell?

natesilver: That’s an interesting argument, Maggie. Like, maybe the GND isn’t any more likely to succeed than incrementalism, but when it *does* succeed, there’s a much bigger payoff.

maggiekb: LEEROY JENKINS, basically.

natesilver: That even goes a little bit to whether you think climate change is a linear or nonlinear problem. If you think we’re all fucked unless there’s a massive paradigm shift, then you take whatever chance of a paradigm shift you can get, even if you also risk a backlash. If you think climate change harms are more adaptable and/or uncertain and/or solvable by technology and/or with international agreement, maybe you want a more incremental approach.

But I do think the particulars of climate change a problem are relevant here. The GND shouldn’t be taken as a stand-in for the overall debate about incrementalism vs. the big swing. You could very easily think that an incremental approach works for health care but is a disaster for the environment, for instance.

But then again, the fact that the GND lumps the environment together with so many other issues is complicated. Arguably it undermines the messaging that climate change is a *uniquely* urgent issue that requires uniquely bold solutions. Of course, the GND advocates might say that uniquely bold solutions necessitate a change from capitalism to a more mixed economy.

I’ve basically just typed out a whole American Chopper meme, so going to shut up now and revert back to “I have no fucking clue.”

maggiekb: When we’ve linked to Know Your Meme twice in 5 minutes, it’s time to go home.