If we weren't living in interesting times, I'd say the Dems were going to get their asses handed to them in the midterms. While not everything that's gone wrong in the last two years is their fault, it has happened on their watch: supply chain problems, bungling covid response, everything to do with schools, Afghanistan, Ukraine, the list goes on.
The Mayonnaise left (mostly white, rich, thick, and oily. Apologies to Terry Pratchett.) are keeping their heads down nervously with every new development. The ctrl-left still screams at every blunder from Biden, knowing damn well they'll be supporting him and everyone else with a D after their name when the primary clears. Any more or less united GOP would mop the floor with the pack of 'em.
But that's not what describes the GOP. The Trump cult is awaiting his return about as eagerly as the death eaters awaited Voldemort, while the old grifters and wannabe libertarians are trying not to speak his name in the hopes they can get back to business as usual. Which is why you never hear from the latter, and only hear about the former when they're doing stupid shit: banning books, throwing their weight behind draconian antiabortion laws, suddenly giving a shit about women's sports, and the like. The old school playbook that gets the cult base excited but nobody else.
And it's a race to the bottom when it comes to schools. Everybody gave teachers the short end of the stick, from both parties to their unions to parents that suddenly had time to notice. Normally, accusing genuinely concerned parents of terrorism would be something we'd still be talking about today. But the GOP had to top that with every flavor of discriminatory bullshit we thought we'd ditched in the 90's.
Look, the idea that parents shouldn't have a say in how their kids are educated is such a bad idea you should be able to hear the whistle of the unintended consequences train just mentioning it.
I've said it before and I've said it again. Kids need parents, teachers, and cops in their lives. But when any of those three don't measure up, the problem gets worse because each one of those three suck at doing the job of the other two.
That said, parents? If your kid doesn't trust you enough to come out to you as LGBT?
That's YOUR fuckup as a parent. Own it.
Hiding behind fucked up mandatory reporting laws is cowardly bullshit.
Like I said, if we weren't living in interesting times, I'd say the Dems were due for a shellacking in the midterms.
Then yesterday, Biden extended the student loan repayment moratorium through the end of August.
Which gets me thinking...
Imagine over Labor Day Weekend, Biden stops being a tease and declares full student loan forgiveness across the board.
It would be a massive boon in a key general election demographic: suburbanite professionals.
People living well for themselves, but with student debt as an albatross around their necks.
Would that sway the numbers to the Dems?
Possibly.
Two factors complicate it.
One is inflation. Which the Dems denied was happening until even I was noticing the cheap shit frozen pizza in my shopping cart had gone up.
With the war in Ukraine still going on, spring planting is probably fucked both there and in Russia.
And there's already a fertilizer shortage.
Add in oil problems.
You can't run or hide from global commodity problems. We probably won't have no-shit famine within the U.S., but food prices aren't going down anytime soon.
And our suburbanite professionals will be experiencing that.
The second is that the immediate impact is already gone. The current moratorium is already two years old. Repaying these loans haven't been a part of a lot of budgets for two years. And they're STILL getting hit with inflation in commodities. In that respect, forgiveness won't make their lives noticeably better, just supposedly keep them from getting worse.
We live in interesting times, is what I'm saying.
Take care of yourselves out there.
The Mayonnaise left (mostly white, rich, thick, and oily. Apologies to Terry Pratchett.) are keeping their heads down nervously with every new development. The ctrl-left still screams at every blunder from Biden, knowing damn well they'll be supporting him and everyone else with a D after their name when the primary clears. Any more or less united GOP would mop the floor with the pack of 'em.
But that's not what describes the GOP. The Trump cult is awaiting his return about as eagerly as the death eaters awaited Voldemort, while the old grifters and wannabe libertarians are trying not to speak his name in the hopes they can get back to business as usual. Which is why you never hear from the latter, and only hear about the former when they're doing stupid shit: banning books, throwing their weight behind draconian antiabortion laws, suddenly giving a shit about women's sports, and the like. The old school playbook that gets the cult base excited but nobody else.
And it's a race to the bottom when it comes to schools. Everybody gave teachers the short end of the stick, from both parties to their unions to parents that suddenly had time to notice. Normally, accusing genuinely concerned parents of terrorism would be something we'd still be talking about today. But the GOP had to top that with every flavor of discriminatory bullshit we thought we'd ditched in the 90's.
Look, the idea that parents shouldn't have a say in how their kids are educated is such a bad idea you should be able to hear the whistle of the unintended consequences train just mentioning it.
I've said it before and I've said it again. Kids need parents, teachers, and cops in their lives. But when any of those three don't measure up, the problem gets worse because each one of those three suck at doing the job of the other two.
That said, parents? If your kid doesn't trust you enough to come out to you as LGBT?
That's YOUR fuckup as a parent. Own it.
Hiding behind fucked up mandatory reporting laws is cowardly bullshit.
Like I said, if we weren't living in interesting times, I'd say the Dems were due for a shellacking in the midterms.
Then yesterday, Biden extended the student loan repayment moratorium through the end of August.
Which gets me thinking...
Imagine over Labor Day Weekend, Biden stops being a tease and declares full student loan forgiveness across the board.
It would be a massive boon in a key general election demographic: suburbanite professionals.
People living well for themselves, but with student debt as an albatross around their necks.
Would that sway the numbers to the Dems?
Possibly.
Two factors complicate it.
One is inflation. Which the Dems denied was happening until even I was noticing the cheap shit frozen pizza in my shopping cart had gone up.
With the war in Ukraine still going on, spring planting is probably fucked both there and in Russia.
And there's already a fertilizer shortage.
Add in oil problems.
You can't run or hide from global commodity problems. We probably won't have no-shit famine within the U.S., but food prices aren't going down anytime soon.
And our suburbanite professionals will be experiencing that.
The second is that the immediate impact is already gone. The current moratorium is already two years old. Repaying these loans haven't been a part of a lot of budgets for two years. And they're STILL getting hit with inflation in commodities. In that respect, forgiveness won't make their lives noticeably better, just supposedly keep them from getting worse.
We live in interesting times, is what I'm saying.
Take care of yourselves out there.
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