People like Susan Sarandon make more sense when you understand their real motives.

[BzaDem]

68. "the kinds of things that have been done subtly and via attrition, for decades"

What does that even mean?

If you are saying that Trump's deportation policy is similar to pre-Trump policy, except that pre-Trump policy was "subtle" and "done by attrition", I would take "subtle" and "by attrition" any day of the week.

If you are saying that Trump's healthcare policy is similar to pre-Trump policy, except that pre-Trump policy was "subtle" and "done by attrition", I would take "subtle" and "by attrition" any day of the week.

If you are saying that Trump's climate policy is similar to pre-Trump climate policy, except that pre-Trump policy was "subtle" and "done by attrition", I would take "subtle" and "by attrition" any day of the week.

If you are not saying any of those things, and you agree that there is a big difference between Trump policy and pre-Trump policy in these areas -- that is often the difference between bankruptcy and financial security, homelessness versus shelter, or life and death -- then your argument should include a defense of why the millions of citizens who are concretely better off under pre-Trump policy should not be considered, or should be sacrificed to bring us further along a supposed "trajectory" at a faster rate.

Because that's the problem with your general argument. The idea that current typical Democratic policy is even on the same planet as typical Republican policy (let alone the same "trajectory", a term that is hopelessly undefined and can be shaped to make any argument) is an idea that is self-refuting the second it comes in contact with any actual facts or examples. The argument is an exercise in obfuscation, which is precisely why Susan kept trying to change the focus of the conversation to something -- anything -- other than obvious and straightforward examples that absolutely shred the core premise of her argument.

You ask me to change my focus on whether her assessment of "trajectory" is correct. That presupposes that for a policy area, that policy can be neatly classified according to a one-dimensional line, and that policy always moves in one direction on the line (until everyone "wakes up&quot . It further assumes that once everyone "wakes up", that policy will return to an outcome that is better than the outcome prior to the awakening.

Both of these premises are false. To pick one example, look at campaign finance. The history of campaign finance in this country is not even close to a one-dimensional line. The last century is full of periods where the influence of money in politics increased, and full of periods where it decreased. Loopholes were found and closed, until new loopholes were discovered that were found and closed. Supreme Court jurisprudence went from more hostile to less hostile, and then back to more hostile (and then back and forth again).

Nader and Susan Sarandon complained endlessly about money in politics during election of 2000. Yet their argument was single handedly responsible for the reversal of a pro-regulatory majority on the Supreme Court in 2003, to the most anti-regulatory majority in the court's history in 2005 (which persists to this day, and will now likely persist for the rest of both of our lives). Rather than concede the error of her strategy, Sarandon has the gall to continue to complain about money in politics today -- a condition that her argument contributed to more than *anything* in the last century! -- as justification for *further* enabling of the right to stack the court with anti-regulatory justices.

If you look at this strategy from a perspective of actually trying to make progress on the problem at hand, it is clinically insane. But if you look at it from a perspective of ensuring that one will always be able to complain about/fight the influence of money in politics, by permanently ensuring that the political branches will not even have the option of doing anything about it, the strategy starts to make a lot of sense.

I respect and thank you for doing the right thing in November. I hope it is clear that your defense of her argument is what I am criticizing -- not you personally.