#npr politics podcast

[phoenixyfriend]

Someone come have angry anxious frustration with me about the Biden campaigners being quoted in this cast.

(Not the reporters themselves, they're fine.)

I cannot emphasize how important it is to call your reps.

Threaten not to vote. Remind them that every Uncommitted vote in Michigan is another seat that may not vote at all. Trump does not need people to vote for him so long as they don't vote, especially in Michigan.

This is the swing state of this election.

Leverage Michigan, leverage Bushnell, leverage everything you can.

Leverage that Netanyahu has directly credited US support for Israel's ability to continue massacre Gazans.

Do not let them brush this under the rug.

[mypoliticssideblog]

I really respect the NPR Politics Podcast for interviewing Vivek Ramaswamy and not absolutely laughing in his fucking face. I could never.

[waitineedaname]

calling all Canadians that follow me: what are good news sources for Canada

[thelifeelsewhere]

Dr. Kampmark's Startling Opinions. New Music By Semi Precious

“Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of…

[opens-up-4-nobody]

there are so many rpf fics written about this american life... neither makes ANY sense but the pod save america fic isn't the first podcast rpf and it wont be the last

So strange. Like, what is going on in the head of someone who writes rpf about national public radio broadcasts or American political correspondents?

[theleanbean]

I want to start listening to podcasts at work, but since we can't wear headphones I'm too shy to play anything that I haven't already listened to because I'm afraid of it being too weird or graphic

[steorn]

oh man. Yuval's bit in his interview on Freakonomics about it being less important what politicians (and public figures) say in private and far more important what they say and the image they put out to the public?

yesyesyesyesyes

[frogeyedape]

Is it a conservative mindset?

See, I was just listening to Hidden Brain (thank you Shankar Vedantam) US 2.0 episodes (aired Jan 29-Feb 26, 2024) and it seems like it's not conservatives-only mindset--"this is also more broadly a problem in leftist spaces in general," as you yourself said. What if it's a problem of political polarization instead? What if it's a problem of strong commitments to *any* political or ideological stance, rather than just a conservative problem?

US 2.0: Not at the Dinner Table presents the radical notion that the extreme political divide in the US today is not actually a matter of Democrat vs Republican, or left vs right. It's a matter of *strong political feeling, identity, and action* vs *a majority of Americans who don't live & breathe politics every day.* See, the voices of people who are strongly engaged in politics--be that queer politics or otherwise--dominate news media & social media, leading to a feeling that anyone who is politically involved must engage with politics at the same intensity. Yet the majority of Americans don't have the time, energy, and/or interest in engaging with politics every day, for every minor local election--so they think they're the minority, and perhaps deprioritize politics even more. Meanwhile, the very vocal minority of strongly engaged people are very good at yelling at people who disagree with them, and so strongly opinionated that they often don't even agree with people who hold their same basic stances. "Yes we're both on the right/left, but you perform the wrong right/left viewpoints/reasoning." So the minority is loud, strongly divided along political lines, critical of nuance, you might say reactionary...and this is true on both the right & the left.

what's so striking to me about younger queer generations rn isn't the lack of knowledge about queer history, but the complete unwillingness to engage with it, when confronted with an identity or history they haven't heard of before they react with disgust rather than curiosity. (for example) instead of asking where the leather pride flag came from and what the leather community is and represents they immediately question the need for something like that to exist, not even willing to listen and learn from both elders and peers. this is also more broadly a problem in leftist spaces in general, being reactionary is somehow the default now, and anything that's different or unknown must be an attack and bad. really hoping y'all manage to grow out of this deeply conservative way of interacting with the world.

[npr-stan]

Listen to: Make America Male Again? Fifteen years of aggrieved men

Listen to: Make America Male Again? Fifteen years of aggrieved men - https://one.npr.org/i/1214051397:1262526836

[aveline-shepard]

That’s…not what happened, even a little bit. His debate performance was so alarmingly bad that major donors and political figures (including current members of Congress and most importantly, long-time allies like Nancy Pelosi) launched both public and private pressure campaigns urging him to step down that have been active for weeks and gaining increasing support. He has since endorsed Harris, but it’s technically an open field and the pledged delegates at the DNC will vote on who gets the party nomination. If no candidate wins a majority of delegate votes in the first round, then a second round of voting is held and the superdelegates are allowed to vote. They continue to hold rounds of voting with the full body of delegates and super delegates (a bit more than 4,600 people total) until someone wins a majority and becomes the party nominee. So voters actually get even less say regarding who the Democratic nominee is.

The current situation means that there will be at least one person on the ticket nobody voted for, or even had the opportunity to vote for (assuming Harris wins the presidential nom, her VP would have never been on a primary ballot; if Harris doesn’t win the presidential nom, then both the Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates are people who were never on a primary ballot and frankly, we also risk irrevocably splitting the party). If the party doesn’t come together behind Harris and whomever her VP pick is (my guess at this point is Shapiro) it’s going to be an even bigger mess. There’s enormous uncertainty and risk, even more so than with Biden because we literally do will not have a candidate and will not until August 5th at the absolute earliest (an early roll call was scheduled to be performed ahead of the DNC in mid-August because of Ohio’s candidate certification law. Ohio did pass a bill moving the deadline back from Aug. 7th to Sept. 1st so the DNC vote would be completed before their deadline, but Dems wanted to do an early roll call out of an abundance of caution because the law doesn’t take effect until Sept. 1st, so they’re rightfully concerned about litigation) or if they don’t do the early roll-call, until mid-August. That’s a HUGE amount of time and an enormous loss of important and valuable campaigning. Now, if the party solidifies behind Kamala and her VP and no one else attempts to run, that’s the best chance we have at party unity and scraping through. The other option is last-minute infighting when we most need to unite against the authoritarian candidate who is more powerful, more organized, and more ruthlessly bloodthirsty than he’s ever been before.

Let’s be clear here: I am not a fan of Biden and I didn’t vote for him in the primary, in the hopes of sending a message that was never received. This is not a defense of Biden or his politics, this is simply an educated explanation of how the system works and the causes and effects of what you’re seeing unfold (as well as some speculation informed by national political coverage and my experience working in campaign politics). The reason he’s no longer running isn’t because he’s listening to progressive voices, it’s because he’s listening to people who actually have his ear, and were specifically reacting to his debate performance. None of this information is secret; it’s been openly discussed for weeks, there have been interviews and public statements available on elected officials’ social media, and it’s been covered by all major news outlets. If you’re looking for reputable news sources to follow, I recommend the Associated Press (usually abbreviated to “AP”), their Headline News is a very short daily podcast of headliners, or NPR; Up First and The NPR Politics Podcast are two great short-form resources which will keep you up-to-date and produce content 5-7x a week and cover the top three news stories of the day, and latest US political news respectively.

that's so funny. we were like . im not voting for this genocidal, decrepit man. and you were like. well we HAVE to. but .. saying you won't vote has actually very little to do with what you'd do down the line. but it's a powerful reminder to the powers that be that they are still, in some ways, beholden to you. i think the sentiment literally just fucking worked. when massive amounts of progressives are saying they will not be voting for another biden presidency, even in the face of trump... that's scary . and now we don't have to vote for him. It literally worked LMFAO

[carcinized]

my toxic trait is that if you give me the aux on a roadtrip i'll put on the NPR politics podcast

[thelifeelsewhere]

Income Equality. Alive Information.

[markscherz]

Mark! They talked about your frogs on a podcast I was listening to! Very brief but as soon as I heard it, I said "I gotta tell Mark!". Time stamp 26:55

https://www.npr.org/transcripts/1210938238

Oh how funny. I did an interview for Short Wave, so I've been having quite a few messages from friends saying they heard me on the radio, but I didn't know it had come up on the NPR Politics Podcast, of all places! I wonder if it will make it to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me!

[phoenixyfriend]

Alright, got around to listening to the NPR Politics Podcast, 3/15/24 episode (transcript here). I'm still not satisfied with the coverage of both Schumer's intent and the larger ramifications, but it's the most I've seen so far.

I bolded the part I thought was most important, down towards the bottom. It does support my thoughts that Schumer may be speaking from a point of representing the Democratic party, and the party's hopes for November, more than necessarily his own thoughts. I do... think it indicates that public pressure is working on a national level.

GRISALES: This was a dramatic statement by Schumer, [...], to take this direct hit against Netanyahu. And symbolically, at least publicly, he's going it alone as far as Democrats go, really highlighting the level of crisis and concern that we've heard from other Democrats but in off the record kind of situations where they're not speaking out about it publicly. I spoke to one member, and they raised concern that if the U.S. keeps throwing money at Israel, how much do they know if that money is not going to be used for Netanyahu's war room, and how would it be used? And so this moment definitely disrupted one of the sessions at the Republican retreat. Speaker Johnson said there was a buzz in the room as soon as folks were getting alerts about it. They called to make a press statement to slam Schumer's remark, and by the way, I'm talking about Johnson and other Republican leaders.

[...]

MONTANARO: [Biden]'s thought that he could exert his influence on Netanyahu and really hasn't been able to really change how Israel has conducted the war, which, you know, at this point, the White House really feels like they've gone too far. And Biden has said as much publicly. This is really - it feels like an attempt by a prominent Democrat like Schumer to be able to give some cover to Biden, to be able to clearly target Netanyahu, somebody who, by the way, is not very popular in Israel. So it's interesting for someone like Mike Johnson, the speaker, to say that they're the only party that stands with Israel when, you know, Netanyahu's approval ratings in Israel itself are not very good at all. So this is a really interesting dynamic that's happening here as the White House tries to sort of distance itself from Netanyahu and Israel's approach to try to win back some of those younger voters that Biden needs this fall. KHALID: I mean, I think it's hard for me to look at what's being said and not think that, to some degree, there are domestic politics at play here because, as you mentioned, Domenico, certainly there is the left flank of the Democratic Party that has been rather disenchanted with how Biden has handled the conflict in Gaza. And, you know, White House officials are aware of that. The Biden campaign is aware of that. You saw yesterday, the White House sent a group of senior officials to Chicago, which is important because it is the site of where the Democrats will officially nominate Joe Biden to be their nominee in the 2024 election. And the Chicagoland area has the largest Palestinian population in the country. And so, you know, they were meeting with officials there. But, you know, a lot of folks didn't want to meet with the White House. So I think they are trying to navigate these domestic politics. You know, at the same time, I was intrigued by what you said, Domenico, about Schumer's comments kind of giving Biden cover because Biden himself was asked this morning for a reaction to Schumer's speech, and he said, quote, "I'm not going to elaborate on his speech. He made a good speech. And I think he expressed serious concern shared not only by him, but by many Americans." MONTANARO: Yeah. It almost feels like Biden is telling Schumer, go ahead and make a speech like that, because that would be helpful. And Schumer, people have to realize, is somebody who kind of rose to power within Senate leadership because he was sort of the message whisperer to Harry Reid when Harry Reid, late senator from Nevada, who was the longtime Democratic leader in the Senate, would really rely on Schumer for his guidance and advice. They even at one point had a joint messaging office. So Schumer doesn't do these things unintentionally. He is very clear about what he is saying, what he wants to do. This is also somebody who used to run the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which helps elect Senate Democrats. So it's very calculated as far as what Schumer is trying to do. On the Republican side, also, a lot of what they're saying is really targeted toward white evangelicals who have a special interest in Israel, not so much at American Jews. They hope that it will have some effect in pulling some over. But Democrats have traditionally won about two-thirds of the American Jewish vote.

I feel like I need to look at a lot more analyses of the recent Chuck Schumer speech.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday called on Israel to hold new elections, saying he believes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has “lost his way” and is an obstacle to peace in the region amid a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Schumer, the first Jewish majority leader in the Senate and the highest-ranking Jewish official in the U.S., strongly criticized Netanyahu in a 40-minute speech Thursday morning on the Senate floor. Schumer said the prime minister has put himself in a coalition of far-right extremists and “as a result, he has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows.” “Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah,” Schumer said. The high-level warning comes as an increasing number of Democrats have pushed back against Israel and as President Joe Biden has stepped up public pressure on Netanyahu’s government [...]. Schumer has so far positioned himself as a strong ally of the Israeli government [...].

There are... I want to say four? possible interpretations, generally:

A moral shift in response to circumstance: The situation in Gaza has escalated to such a point that he feels morally obligated to change his rhetoric, whether for Palestinians' sakes or Israeli's own sakes.

A moral shift in response to persuasion: Fellow Democrats and Independents have successfully begun to convince him that a change in rhetoric is needed.

A pragmatic shift in response to constituents: Voters from New York State have been blowing up his phones to argue him into putting conditions on aid to Israel, and he felt this was a good 'middle ground' to appeal to them without losing his pro-Israeli base.

A pragmatic shift in response to national trends: Continued protest votes like Michigan are starting to worry him and fellow 'traditional' Dems.

Or, most likely, some combination thereof.

Ethically, I hope it's one of the first two, and the Schumer has realized how ethically barren Israel's government currently is.

...in terms of 'can we actually affect things,' though? I hope this is a pragmatic shift. We cannot predict how individual Senators will change up their morals and philosophy, but if this change is in response to pressure from voters, then that means we can push them farther left.

Anyway.

Call your reps. Here's some suggestions on what to say.

EDIT: To clarify, I am not saying that Schumer is concerned about his own reelection. He is old and he isn't up for reelection until 2029, so it's even odds if he'll even run again. However, as the Senate Majority Leader, he is at least in theory required to take his party's opinions into account, and to worry about what is going to happen to the executive branch in November. Whether or not Schumer has any real power come 2025 is very heavily dependent on who the president is, and he is very aware of that.

He may also be worried about his actions causing backlash against Gillibrand (NY's junior senator).