@jayrosen_nyu I remember Ornstein appearing on Comedy Central to read from Marilyn Quayle's book back in 1992. I knew then he was not a typical AEI type...

Speaking of attacks, the Democrats should now exploit the "one person threshold" and move to vacate the chair every morning of every day until this Congress goes sine die...

@jayrosen_nyu Thank you. Describes the problem, best media response, best voter response, and "Otherewise, our politics will get worse before it gets better." From 2012, great foresight, but then I remember both names as linked to serious thinking.

Here in Oz, had missed this bit:

"Norquist, meanwhile, founded Americans for Tax Reform in 1985 and rolled out his Taxpayer Protection Pledge the following year. The pledge, which binds its signers to never support a tax increase (that includes closing tax loopholes), had been signed as of last year by 238 of the 242 House Republicans and 41 of the 47 GOP senators, according to ATR. The Norquist tax pledge has led to other pledges, on issues such as climate change, that create additional litmus tests that box in moderates and make cross-party coalitions nearly impossible. For Republicans concerned about a primary challenge from the right, the failure to sign such pledges is simply too risky."

@jayrosen_nyu

I thought the point of the KM Tormentors show was that it gave the mainstream media the chance to portray the wingnut crazy KM as a normal republican
and the media fell for it

also pushed Jan6th anniversery off the front page, and people like Boebert got interview on TV
overall win win for GOP

@jayrosen_nyu

The usual reminder that however "whacked" Rs are on social policy, the Ds are no respite. We keep suffering the "ratchet effect" where Ds compromise something away, and are never 'rewarded' by the Rs for it, so things continue to slide right.

What the Ds need is a genuine Socialist opposition, but then nobody would see a reason to vote for Rs OR Ds, which is why the emergence of a Socialist opposition is so firmly resisted.

@jayrosen_nyu

The press still doesn't want to know. Many of the larger outlets are hiring center-right to right-wing pundits in the name of "both sides", playing right into the hard-right'shands

@jayrosen_nyu Wow! "The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition."

However true that was in 2012, it is doubly so in the post-Trump era.

@jayrosen_nyu "Since the Clinton presidency, it has hewed to the center-left on issues from welfare reform to fiscal policy. While the Democrats may have moved from their 40-yard line to their 25, the Republicans have gone from their 40 to somewhere behind their goal post."

Interesting how little the wind direction has changed.

It left out a similar bit about the Koch brothers primarying a couple of climate-aware Southern GOP reps to intimidate them all into denying climate change.

@jayrosen_nyu Yep.
“‘Both sides do it’ or ‘There is plenty of blame to go around’ are the traditional refuges for an American news media intent on proving its lack of bias... Many self-styled bipartisan groups, in their search for common ground, propose solutions that move both sides to the center, a strategy that is simply untenable when one side is so far out of reach.”

Not seeing any lies.