Try Hard

So, a little over two years ago, I made the following observation:

But the problem with capitalism, especially as it's practiced in the United States, isn't that it's necessarily rapacious. Oftentimes, it's simply needy.

And I still believe this. Mainly because I can. I don't live in a part of the world where capitalism, even so-called "late-stage" capitalism, comes across as being actively, let alone competently, rapacious. But also because this is how it tends to present itself to me. Consider the following...

I've been the person who summoned, and paid for, a ride from Uber twice. I was on a business trip, about two and a half years ago, and needed to get to the office. It was raining, and pretty heavily and to walk would have taken more than an hour. Not having traveled outside of driving distance of home in some time, I did what I usually did; I went to the front desk, and asked if they could call me a cab. They couldn't. It seems that the rideshare operators had pretty much demolished the local taxi companies, but couldn't themselves be relied up on to turn up when the front desk summoned them for a guest. So I was on my own. With the clock ticking, I quickly set up Uber and Lyft accounts.

I wound up using Uber twice on that trip. That morning, to get to the office, and a couple days later, to get to the airport. That was it. I haven't used Uber since. This is what my "Promotions" section of my inbox looked like today.

This is what automated e-mail marketing does...

Like I said, it's been two years. So long, in fact, that when I logged into Uber today to check the dates, they weren't there. Yet Uber has been constantly attempting to get me to hail a ride or use them to order in food.

A constant stream of marketing messages, apparently in hopes that something will happen to my car, and I'll be in desperate need of something. Which, to be fair is possible. But in that case, both the nearest grocery store and my favorite Chinese restaurant are within walking distance...

One would think that after more than two years, Uber would have gotten the point that I don't need anything from them. But it's not in their interests to do so. They need growth, and that means more rideshares booked and more food delivered. And so I suspect that every couple of days, I'm going to receive another e-mail or two. Maybe forever. After all, it's been just over twenty years since I last donated to a political campaign. Another fundraising pitch hit my inbox today...

Round and Round

Here we go again. Centrist and Progressive Democrats are each blaming one another for Vice President Harris losing this month’s election. Or, are they?

Some liberals are already blaming “dumb workers for not knowing their own interests.” But sneering won’t revive the fortunes of a party that desperately needs to rebuild its bond with “the common man and woman.” There is no quick fix, said Alex Gabriel in The Hill. But the first step, clearly, is to accept that the “progressive agenda, while vital in many ways, has become increasingly untethered from the concerns of the average voter.” “Progressives aren’t the problem,” said Bob Hennelly in Salon. On issue after issue—health care, climate, gun control, housing— working-class voters prefer progressive policies to Republican ones. Those millions of votes were there for Harris’ taking, until she decided to campaign with former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney and run as a Glock-wielding, pro-business centrist.
Controversy of the week: Democrats: Where does the party go from here?

Media outlets love a good conflict story, and The Week is no exception. And it’s true that it seems that every four years, the Centrist and Progressive wings of the Democratic Party turn their attentions to attempting to blackmail one another into “unity.” But if one actually reads the entirety of Alex Gabriel’s and Bob Hennelly’s columns, they're both pretty much saying the same thing: that the Democrats ignored the interests of poor/“working class” voters, and paid for it in the election. Where they differ is in their perception of the Democratic “élites” that they have each set out to criticize; Mr. Gabriel thinks that they're too Progressive, while Mr. Hennelly’s convinced that they’re too Centrist. What I’m curious about is whether they're referring to the same group of people.

But maybe that’s where the solution lies; in being able to talk about, and to, different groups of people at the same time. Both Mr. Gabriel and Mr. Hennelly are more or less convinced that the answer lies in the entirety of the Democratic Party moving either more towards the Center or father to the Left. Possibly, however, what’s needed are simply different strokes for different folks, as the saying goes.

I suspect that part of the reason why Donald Trump was able to win again was that he’s able to be what people want him to be. The Trumpists I know don’t all seem to have voted for the same person; each of them has a different priority, but all of them feel that the second-time President-Elect is the person who can make it happen.

Perhaps what the Democrats need to do is stop having two wings of their party that unnecessarily position themselves as mutually exclusive. This could go a long way towards allowing candidates to avoid needing to walk a tightrope that’s mainly geared at not offending critical groups to the degree that they “stay home” on Election day. Because it doesn't seem necessary.

It means speaking to the issues that matter most: the rising cost of living, access to quality healthcare, economic mobility, and a future that feels within reach.
“Why Democrats must seriously reconsider the progressive strategy”

“Saving the democracy must be a Third Reconstruction where people are paid a living wage—where people have health care—where public education is fully funded and where voting rights are protected and expanded.”
“Progressives aren’t the problem in the Democratic coalition”

These don’t seem as if they’re that far apart. There doesn’t appear to be an intractable conflict here. Maybe the focus on who Messrs. Gabriel and Hennelly feel are calling the shots is resulting in them, like a lot of other Democrats, talking past one another, and giving observers the opportunity to play up a conflict where there needn’t be one.

Reflections

It’s a lot easier to look outward, to blame and demonize other people, instead of looking in the mirror and seeing what we can do. It is not fun to feel accountability. It requires a mental flexibility that’s painful.
Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Washington)

A WA red-district conqueror wants fellow Democrats to look in the mirror

I was speaking to a Republican the other day, and I've come to realize why it's so painful. Washington State is the only state in the nation where Donald Trump received a lower percentage of votes cast in this most recent election than he did in 2020. Here, he slipped by about half a percent. As one might expect from what now seems to be the "bluest" state in the nation, the race for Governor wasn't particularly close; with Governor-elect Ferguson winning nearly 56% of the vote. Not a blowout to be sure, but not a nail-biter. Still, the person that I was talking to didn't seem to be particularly interested in looking in the mirror, and asking why voters in and around the Seattle area were disinterested in having Dave Reichert as Governor. Instead, it was all about how those voters were simply bad people, who didn't care about "the real issues" facing the state of Washington (those "real issues" turning out to be a series of Trumpist talking points).

It was about blaming voters, rather than taking a genuine interest in what they felt their problems were, and offering solutions that fixed those problems on the voters' terms. Which, it occurred to me, is something that is never asked, let alone demanded, of the winners in an election. Representative Gluesenkamp Perez' message was intended for national Democrats, not local ones, where their control is secure. There have been a lot of recriminations concerning the performance of the Harris campaign, but it's not like she lost across the board. Blue America was solidly in her camp; and no one expects President-Elect Trump to see what he can do to address their concerns. Quite the opposite, he's widely expected to adopt a punitive stance towards those he sees as his (and his supporters') enemies.

And this is the problem with "looking in the mirror and seeing what we can do" and why "it is not fun to feel accountability." The "mental flexibility that’s painful" is required because it demands seeing oneself as a loser. The Republican I was speaking to was more than happy to "look outward, to blame and demonize other people," because the alternative was to be a supplicant, coming to the electorate hat in hand, and asking what their votes would cost. And that's a sign of weakness that neither party's activist class (or donor class) is very inclined to tolerate. And so the parties can't really go there. Representative Gluesenkamp Perez can call the Democratic party out, because her district is primarily Red; aligning herself with their general dislike of national Democrats is going to pay dividends for her. But I suspect that if Representative Suzan DelBene were to do the same, she'd find herself with a Primary election challenger to her political left in her next election cycle.

To be sure, I suspect that Representative Gluesenkamp Perez is correct. If the narrative of this election, which is that the voters that Vice President Harris needed to turn out for her stayed home, it will be, in part, because they didn't feel that having her in the White House was going to do for them what they needed done. But the nature of modern partisan politics has created a Catch-22 in that regard. One that neither party is well-equipped to find a way out of.

Sheltered

I live in the suburbs of Seattle, in a fairly faceless town that, like most suburbs, blends into the towns that border it. Not very far away, there used to be a shopping mall. It was in the process of dying when I first moved out here in the late 1990's but, like a lot of places of the sort, took forever to finally expire. It's a much smaller set of retail stores now, and the sort of big, upper-middle-class apartment and condominium development that the towns old-timers like to complain about. (Because, apparently, anything bigger than townhomes just destroys the "character: of everything within a 20-mile radius. But actually, I suspect because they fear that density will slow the growth of the equity in their homes. Housing shortages do that to people.)

In any event, there are still remnants of the old shopping district that have yet to be torn down and turned into multi-family housing, among which is an old hotel. Long abandoned, while it awaits replacement, it's become home to a number of homeless people. Which is, basically, what you would expect. While Seattle-area weather is mostly clement, the rainy season is in full effect right about now, and I wouldn't wish living out-of-doors on anyone. Sure, they may not freeze to death, as people were wont to do in Chicago winters, but staying dry is just as important as staying warm when one doesn't have reliable access to health care. The hotel, or rather, it's current occupants, have been a source of some consternation online, as a self-proclaimed "urban explorer" wondered why they hadn't been run out of the building already. "What are homeless people even doing in this town?" they asked.

Maybe it's just me, but I find it strange to ask why there are homeless people in a place where home prices routinely hit $1,000,000, and a family needs to be making in the area of a good $110,000 a year if they want to only spend a third of their take-home on rent. (Around here, utilities are almost always extra.) What I find surprising is that there seem to be so few homeless people in the immediate area. There was a person living out of their van around the corner for a while, but they disappeared over the summer, and never returned. I'd like to think they found something better, but I'm not holding my breath on that. It's not like it's difficult to find people like shop clerks or wait staff who are unlikely to be making the $25 or $30 plus an hour they would need to afford a nearby place.

And this is the thing about living in the suburbs, either here or in the Midwest. There's a set of people who believe that simply being some arbitrary distance from Downtown wherever means that none of the problems of modern life should trouble them. Rather, those problems should be bundled into the poorer urban neighborhoods, where they need never go. It's an insularity that renders people out of touch with what's going on around them, and what other people are reacting to.

I've spent enough time wandering Seattle and the suburbs with a camera to understand that the homeless are everywhere that they aren't routinely chased out of. And some places where they are. When I first came out here, I was genuinely impressed by the number of people who lived out of doors, And that was well before the burgeoning technology industry had brought enough high salaries into the area that housing was becoming scarce. (There's a lot to be said for living in place where the elements don't constantly conspire to kill one.) And I've talked to a number of these people. They're simply trying to get by, and, for the most part, stay out the way. Maybe they do a bit too good of a job of the second.

The Flavor Says...

The recalled 46,800 pounds of Kirkland Signature Unsalted Sweet Cream Butter and 32,400 pounds of Kirkland Signature Salted Sweet Cream Butter "list cream, but may be missing the Contains Milk statement," according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

80,000 pounds of Costco butter recalled for lacking disclaimer about milk

To me, this sounds like 40 tons of butter going to waste for regulatory reasons, but I suspect that it's indicative of, well, progress. Of a sort, anyway. I understand why some "social media users" were of the opinion that it's just "common sense" that butter has milk in it, but there is such a thing as vegan butter  (which I was pretty sure that we used to simply call "margarine"), after all. And so it's possible that someone could pick up some Kirkland Signature butter, and, if it wasn't on the label, not realize it was made from milk. Because most people don't need to know how their food is actually made.

For people with food allergies, what's in something is important, but the trip from raw materials to whatever it is they're examining on the grocer's shelves is another story. And that is progress, at least of a sort. Modern societies are built on division or labor and specialization, and what we're seeing here is a result of that; the concern that there are people who need to avoid taking in dairy products, but don't know what foods they might occur in if it isn't there on the labels. And maybe they shouldn't have to; that frees them up to concentrate on whatever their other tasks at hand are.

I'm sure that at some point, people not understanding where their food actually comes from will bite them in the butt, for one reason or another. Maybe it's because they find out that something taboo (but not actually harmful) is in their favorite dish, or Soylent Green does turn out to be made of people. But perhaps people not needing to know things that are basically just trivia to them is a good thing in the short run.