In reference to:
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lissandravilla/young-house-democrats-leadership-struggle
By Lissandra Villa, 15 October 2018
WASHINGTON . Ambitious, young House Democrats have a problem: At a time when the party is calling for generational change, there are few opportunities to advance.
Leadership has long been static for Democrats in the House. Reps. Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and Jim Clyburn, the top three Democrats, respectively, have all been at the top of the House Democratic ladder for more than a decade. And none have shown any signs of leaving; Pelosi has said she expects to be speaker if Democrats retake the House in November.
Nancy Pel-Zombie. I feel better about those fat Congressional pensions, seeing how few of our Congressional liches are willing to actually use them. Looks like they simply didn’t want to risk trusting their families to care for them in old age.
That stagnation has some Democrats worried that their caucus is bleeding talent, and it has left two options for the party’s rising stars . try to work their way up outside of the traditional leadership structure or head for the exits. .
The House of Representatives has always been seen as a training ground for higher office, and it’s hardly surprising that members would leave for positions where they could punch higher at a time when Republicans control Congress and the White House. And while the number of Democrats exiting the House this year isn’t much different than in previous congresses, the departure of some of the caucus’s rising stars is particularly striking at a time when Democrats may be poised to win back the House in 2018.
This cycle, Reps. Beto O.Rourke, Jacky Rosen, and Kyrsten Sinema are all running for Senate seats. Reps. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Jared Polis, and Tim Walz are running for governor in their states. Rep. Keith Ellison, the number two official at the Democratic National Committee, is seeking the Minnesota attorney general position (a decision he announced months before an ex-girlfriend accused him of abuse). Rep. Colleen Hanabusa also made an unsuccessful bid for a gubernatorial seat. Rep. John Delaney is running for president.
New York Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney also took a stab at becoming New York attorney general, but is running for reelection to his House seat after losing that primary.
Those departures come after two lower-level members of House leadership, who were seen as potential heirs apparent, also left the House. Chris Van Hollen ran for Senate in 2016 and won, while Xavier Becerra left the House in January 2017 for a post as California’s attorney general.
Sigh, hopes dashed. Hopes for that magical .I.m leaving politics to try my hand at honest work. oh God, what have I done to my country?. moment of clarity. Instead, Democrat Representatives are.the horror.leaving their junior coffee-fetcher offices in Congress to be senior executives at the state level. Exactly what any of us would do in their position. It’s no loss to the Party if a rising star spends a term or two as California’s Attorney Fricking General. Why is this Buzzfeed twat wasting our time with this story?
Politics 101: Absent a big scandal, incumbents win reelection 90% of the time. It’s a huge advantage. The problem with all these sitting Reps leaving the House is the Dems can’t run an incumbent for that seat, which in turn means they have to thwart the Trumpslide in a fair contest.
Yep. Trump Derangement Syndrome again.
Also, old-guard Democrats believe in totalitarian control of society. Their vision for the future is that state governments will be merely the implementers (and probably fundraisers) for the grand Utopian visions of Elites so old that they might have been in the mob that crucified Jesus. From that perspective, losing control of Congress to gain control of ten state governments is a net loss. The new guard believes in identity politics and from that perspective, local control is preferable to distant control.
Dems have long been the Party of Greed. How fitting that in their last desperate grab for centralized control of USA, many of its members have put their personal agendas before that of the Party Necromancers whose only use for allies is headcount at voting time.
So, not an interesting article. But VD.s blog comments have some gold to be mined. Just semi-random thoughts on Boomerism and the direction of the working world.
9. OGRE October 16, 2018 11:27 AM
I.m surprised they haven’t gone full on head-in-a-jar yet, because if anybody would do that it would be the Boomers.
More likely, the Deep State would suppress the death reports, embalm the bodies and apply robotics to create a literal puppet government. Remember Hillary’s seizures? That reeked of beta testing and formaldehyde.
24. DonReynolds October 16, 2018 12:10 PM
For most of my lifetime, we used to point and snicker at the ruling Soviet Politburo, because their average age was…gasp..about 70. That was supposed to be a valid criticism. (Hillary Clinton will turn 71 a week from Friday.)You can compare that to Japan where the MANDATORY retirement age is 55!
27. kurt9 October 16, 2018 12:13 PM
As some else pointed out here, a lot of these 60.s ex-hippy types are actually late silents (born around 1940), not boomers, although the boomers followed them right over the edge. So these people are actually in their late 70.s. Nancy Pelosi is definitely experiencing age-related cognitive decline.The thing about these people is that they are second-raters (the FDR New Deal Democrats were first-raters) and we know from the .Entrepreneur’s Manual. (Richard M. White) that second-rates tend to hire third-raters (guys like Keith Ellison) because they do not want to hire anyone competent enough to threaten their own job security.
This is why the Democratic party reads like its from the Onion these days.
29. kurt9 October 16, 2018 12:18 PM
The other factor is that, starting in 1993, the Clintons treated the party as there own personal fiefdom. They tended to purge anyone competent in a very Stalinesque fashion because they did not want any possible competition to Hillary to emerge in the party. This, combined with the narcissism of the 60.s generation as well as them being second-raters hiring third-raters, is the reason why the Democratic party is in such disarray these days.Obama made it in .08 partly because he created his own organization outside the party and because he was the ideal minority dream candidate that the left has dreamed about for 2 generations.
54. Mister Excitement October 16, 2018 1:08 PM
It baffles me why these Boomers continue to hold on the way they do.Just look at Rex Tillerson. The man is well into his older years, but before he got tapped for Sec of State, he was the CEO of a huge corporation and had been for years.
He.s just one example. Look at the CEOs at a lot of the major corps. in the US. These guys are elderly, yet are still dragging themselves out of bed every day, putting on a suit, and going off to work.
How much more money do these people need? Enjoy yourselves, Boomers. You’re not going to live forever.
It.s undeniably true that Boomers refuse to retire even when they can easily afford to and refuse to train their replacements, preferring to hire total incompetents from attractive young girls (understandable) to Third Worlders who don’t even speak English (utterly inexplicable). I don’t have a theory on why they feel so insecure; it was, until Carter, a great time to be alive. I can only point out Boomers were the first to grow up with television and the Church silently died during their youth. Also, this comment:
81. berb2000 October 16, 2018 2:55 PM
I suppose my only idea of boomers is my parents and their buddies. When I look back at how I was raised I think the main thing that aggravates me is how all the women seemed to degrade their husbands at every turn. It was like a “thing” for women in the 1970.s. Then most of them would get hateful when their husbands stepped out on them or turned into drunks or whatever. I am not so sure that it is a total boomer issue as it is feminist hijacking so many minds and trying to recreate nature with false narratives. My dad always spent as much time as he could with my sister and I while he worked his ass off building F-4.s to kill communist in Vietnam. My mom stayed in bed when she wasn’t working and complained about everything all the god damn time. She has since reverted to reality and is loving and a very good woman, but man for my childhood she was a pain in the ass.
In Scripture, the best way to corrupt Israel was to corrupt the women first. Female Boomerism is probably the place to look, for researchers more savvy about women than me.
49. Richard Holmes October 16, 2018 1:00 PM
Back in the 60.s, the saying was “Never trust anyone over 30.. Just add 50 years to that, and that’s what the boomers are saying now.Yeah, I know. I am a late boomer. I have never said that stuff. I never bought into their BS. But I have been blamed for everything they did. Perhaps I could have done something. I wonder if anyone who has had computers and internet their entire life understand that we really wasn’t exposed to the baby boomer bs like they were in the 90.s and later. I was taught to stay away from they hippies, my friends and I considered them very bad. We were actually scared of them. We got our modern information from the 5 o clock news. And 75% of the time we were too busy to watch it.
I am unsure how to take this boomer bashing. I agree with it, but I’m a target. I wouldn’t mind being a target if I bought into their BS. I don’t know what to do about it. Maybe I can.t. No one under 40 trusts me. Heh, ironic eh?
60. Damelon Brinn October 16, 2018 1:19 PM
I am unsure how to take this boomer bashing. I agree with it, but I’m a target.The key is to avoid solipsism and realize that you are not the same as a group you happen to be in, so when the group is criticized, you as an individual are not the “target.” Whether the criticism applies to *you* should be completely separate from whether it’s true of the group. This seems nearly impossible for Boomers to do, but it’s worth a try.
If you criticize Xers, on the other hand, the loudest agreement will come from other Xers. That’s probably not the best way to be either, but at least it’s not Boomer.
I face this challenge myself, being a Californian. Too many Netizens can’t believe there are still nice spots & people in it.
58. Azimus October 16, 2018 1:18 PM
The real problem with the boomers is that they didn’t breed. I am in SE Wisconsin, and EVERY manufacturing plant is experiencing catastrophic turnover with no backbench in the next 5-10yrs. A little more than half my plant’s workforce is Boomer, almost 3/4 of the skill positions. There is no one out there to replace them except revolving door blockheads. The best recruits we’re getting right now are from Venezuela in terms of employable, good attendance hard working good attitude . but they speak 50-100 words of English. It’s a tough time and we’re begging the boomers to stay longer because, basically, they aborted or failed to appropriately raise their children and there’s no one to replace them with.63. Lurker October 16, 2018 1:28 PM
.The real problem with the boomers is that they didn’t breed..The ones that made it, (Xers) raised themselves.
.A little more than half my plant’s workforce is Boomer.
And still not mentoring. Big surprise! But plenty of time for vacations and ignoring the grandkids.
64. Stg58/Animal Mother October 16, 2018 1:40 PM
Refineries are the same way. Lots of turnover, with a gap where the next generation of workers should be. Engineers, technicians, etc. The problem doesn’t exist in midstream and upstream, though, because unions dont really exist in those segments of oil and gas. Refineries are old guard, hidebound, and ossified places. Midstream and upstream are more flexible and open to new ideas and ways of doing things. Lots of young guys there too.
Me, I wanted in. I tried to get in. I did all that was asked of me. I was unwanted by my own people and the realization scarred me for life. Now that I managed to become a peer of my industry’s leaders, I believe the schizophrenics are on to something with their idea that most people have behavior-controlling microchips in their brains. Industry leaders simply WILL NOT STOP hiring women and minorities. They won’t even talk about it and the times I forced the issue, I saw fear and frustration. The laws aren’t making them do it. Something else is, something they don’t understand and can’t control.
Original Sin is a Hellish mindfuck.
98. Cataline Sergius October 16, 2018 4:13 PM
None of those old Women’s Libbers will willingly give up a shred of personal power.Nancy Pelosi should have stepped aside years ago and she won’t until she’s either did or loses a primary.
DiFi, is nearly senile but she won’t give up her seat in the Senate without someone getting out the pliers and prying her claws out of it. She may have just thrown the election is her quest to stay in the Senate.
Then there is .It’s My Turn. Hillary. A woman who should have accepted the judgement of her nation and retired from public life. She’s still portraying herself as the leader of the opposition despite the fact that the rank and file wish to god she would just shut up and go away.
When it comes to these old Women’s Lib types, power is the all and the everything. It’s nearly a pathological obsession for them.
If you ever study female serial killers, you will see a variant on this need. It’s all about power there too. Male serial killers hunt but females gather.
99. Azure Amaranthine October 16, 2018 4:14 PM
.When it comes to these old Women’s Lib types, power is the all and the everything. It’s nearly a pathological obsession for them..That.s more or less the definition of a witch.
As a true-crime aficionado, I haven’t really seen this. Serial killing tend to follow sexual behavior: males prefer to kill total strangers and females kill as part of serial monogamy. But the insight is intriguing.
114. Dire Badger October 16, 2018 5:33 PM
Freddy wrote:
The abject disdain the controllers have for the controlled can be demonstrated in the following example: type illuminati into your browser backwards followed by “com” They laugh all day long at us hiding in plain sight.Dude, that redirect was done by a guy I knew in Provo as a Joke over a decade ago.
Get your head out of your ass. There are plenty of real conspiracies to get worked up about (Monsanto and the FDA, Big Pharma, and the globalist population-movers) without wasting your energy on practical jokes that STILL pick up suckers and thinking they are “laughing at you..
They aren’t laughing. They are deadly serious.
Yep. I only heed conspiracies that I can see for myself, too. There’s more than enough of those to keep me up at night.
109. Br.er Shaygetz October 16, 2018 5:03 PM
Nobody behind me can do my job. I’m a pattern maker at a foundry.no computer programs, just real woodworking. It’s a dying yet vital trade, even in the age of printed molds.120. Dirk Manly October 16, 2018 6:03 PM
@109 .Nobody behind me can do my job. I’m a pattern maker at a foundry.no computer programs, just real woodworking. It’s a dying yet vital trade, even in the age of printed molds..The U.S. Army (and i.m sure the other services, too) teach the following:
If you’re not teaching those behind you how to fill your shoes, you’re failing at your job.
What happens if you get hit by a bus tomorrow? If you haven’t prepared at least 2 people to step up, you’re not doing your part to continue the organization.
122. Off The Wall October 16, 2018 6:30 PM
[@Dirk Manly,]That.s military service. They pay you to do that and you get a pension.
In private industry you will just put yourself out of work, especially if the ones you are teaching are H1B types.
124. Dirk Manly October 16, 2018 7:01 PM
[@#122,]If you’re the ONLY guy who knows how to run the XYZ machine, then how can I promote you into some position OTHER than running the XYZ machine?
Training your replacement ALSO opens the door for your promotion.
.In private industry you will just put yourself out of work, especially if the ones you are teaching are H1B types..
Nobody said you have to train foreigners who aren’t supposed to even be here in the first place.
130. weka October 16, 2018 7:20 PM
What happened bus that apprenticeships and trade schools were destroyed.I have spent the last two.decades training the next generation. All that time I have been fighting bean counters who don’t care about sustainability.
Globalisation and managerialism have a lot to answer for.
Which is why I back the alt right.
A good exchange. Any highly skilled worker who doesn’t train the next generation is either a schizoid [extremely limited introvert] or heartless. One of Christ’s main examples was discipleship; that is not only for Church leadership.
It.s a sore spot with me. I have a long list of certifications and skills that I’ve been “educated” repeatedly yet I can’t do them in actual practice. I would be better off in ignorance than having a head full of untethered factoids. Book learning is no replacement for mentorship. In turn, mentorship is apparently no replacement for short-sighted returns on investment.