"High Horse"
Sure, ignore extremists. But otherwise let's take serious people we disagree with seriously—or else come across like the snobs they say we are. ALSO: the answer to whether '80s pop rules is Yes.
New formatting tweak!
Friday-ish let’s do the current events/politics commentary, and sign off by chatting about a randomly-selected song off the “Recollection Records: Music That’s Entered My Head Out of Nowhere” Spotify playlist as we’ve been doing.
Then maybe mid-week-ish we’ll have a CeeGee that covers some deeper analysis of a vintage rock album from my tape collection (as we’ve been doing) and…also mulling ways to spotlight musician-led causes.
So it’ll be less s#!t for me to write in one sitting and, more importantly, less s#!t for you to read in one sitting…
Manifesting Middle-Class Mind-Melds
My intention has always been for CeeGees to serve as a catalyst for finding ways for people who disagree to start working together.
Extremists on either side of the political aisle are probably an alien invasion or a Skynet-style A.I. takeover away from collaborating on anything. But non-MAGA conservatives and non-”Defund the Police” liberals, who all fall somewhere within the middle class, need to find a way to come together. Because they hold shared interests.
In my view, Americans who are not rich have no practical reason to vote Republican at this point. I certainly understand their wanting to remain true to their conservative values—which I can identify with as a Midwesterner from a conservative background. And I know Democrats are hard to root for when some, admittedly, come off like snooty elitists.
But it sure seems like Republicans in office usually vote against the best interests of the bulk of their everyday-folk constituencies—particularly when it comes to the big stuff that really counts. However, screaming at people to “just snap out of it”; to overcome intense DNA-level biases (which we all can’t help but have); to ignore their backgrounds and traditions and instincts…isn’t helpful. And it doesn’t work anyway.
Cool Mayor Energy
I really liked Megan Barry when she was Nashville’s mayor back in the mid-Teens. Yes, her left-leaning, but moderate-adjacent policies usually aligned with mine. But also…
Or, at least show up to concerts at places like my favorite venue, the Basement East, and look like she was having a legit good time.
And then she had an affair with her security guard, and had to step down, and pleaded guilty to an eensy-weensy felony for using taxpayer funds for a vacation or something-or-other. And then her only son passed away under tragic circumstances. So I didn’t see or hear much about her for some time.
Then I attended a fundraiser last summer for the Covenant School (who just marked a year since their campus was shot up by a troubled young person; three adults and three children dead). Barry was on the board of the charity putting on the event, and was in attendance. There was a bunch of music. She looked like she was still having a legit good time.
Now she’s running for the U.S. House out of Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, one of the three districts gerrymandered to high hell so that blue-dot Nashville could be split evenly between them. Each district extends out into the Tennessee countryside, giving rural folks the edge in numbers when voting to select who represents both them and Nashvillians in Washington.
Thought I’d share an interview Barry did recently with the excellent digital reboot of the Nashville Banner (excerpted below), which touches on a few concepts I feel are relevant to CeeGees’ all-around interests:
Banner: How do you win votes from people outside of Nashville, whether it’s on abortion or guns or immigration, who may not be 100 percent on board with you?
Barry: Actually, there’s a lot of common ground. ... There have been enough polls across Tennessee that say that Republicans and Democrats support access to women’s health, they support making sure that our children are safe with actively passing gun safety legislation. I think that we actually have a lot more common ground, rural and urban, than what our current representation in Washington gives us.
Banner: You’ve been visiting many of these communities outside of Nashville. What have you heard from people?
Barry: The issues of access to health care is a big one. And I don’t just mean access to women’s health care. I mean access to health care in their community. So many of these rural communities don’t have hospitals. We still haven’t taken the Medicaid expansion. That’s $22 billion. When [Barry’s GOP opponent] Mark Green was in the [state] legislature, he did not support passing that. You hear that in the communities: People want their children to have access to health care.
Banner: How would you convince someone who’s planning to vote for Trump that they should vote for you as well?
Barry: I had a conversation with somebody over the weekend because I was in Linden, which is in Perry County. And I walked up and I said, “Hey, Megan Barry, running for Congress, would love to earn your vote.” And he said, “Are you a Democrat?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “Nope.” And I said, “So I know who you’re gonna vote for at the top of the ticket. That’s pretty clear. But you might think about voting for me down the ticket.”
He was a vet. And so we talked a lot about my opponent. Even though he is a vet, and I’m grateful for his service, he at every turn has voted against veterans. Did I convince that guy to maybe push the button for me? I don’t know. But I think I at least made him think.
So yeah, encouraging folks to think twice, and maybe even to investigate the voting habits of the politicians they’re perhaps supporting by default, is good. The former mayor seems to have the right idea on how to approach folks.
A couple other thoughts when trying to reach out to someone who’s on “the other side”…
Don’t Make Fun of Them
CNN’s SE Cupp is a conservative “Never Trumper,” and she’s right on the money with her commentary viewable via the above link.
Hillary Clinton calling Trump supporters “deplorables” back in 2016 might be the event that’s second-most-responsible for the rise of Trump. (I love Seth Meyers, but here’s the event that could very well be most-responsible.)
And as Cupp points out, it’s stuff like the clip she shows of MSNBC’s A-list network personalities that’s going to get Trump back in the White House. Snidely saying how silly it is for our southern border woes to be the #1 issue for voters in Virginia is unhelpful. You look like jerks.
We have to assume that, for now, MAGA devotees are lost to us. We’re not going to get very far at this moment in history by reasoning with extremists. But you don’t have to be a MAGA fan to think that the border crisis is, indeed, a crisis. We must take serious people seriously…unless we don’t care if anyone but our allies takes us seriously in return.
Blog Save ‘Pod Save America’
Lastly, I have a whole series of sub-titles like “Blog Save Pod Save America” for segments that take to task media figures I personally (usually) like, but who can also be ginormous buttheads and annoy the snot outta me.
This isn’t about the Pod Save America podcast specifically, but does single out the production company founded by the guys behind PSA, Crooked Media.
I read the Crooked newsletter “What a Day” almost every evening; it’s pretty much my go-to evening news roundup during the week. And the writers work in jokes and insults to politicians and other figures they think are morons. Which is usually fine.
But here’s another example of what I don’t think is helpful when talking about a serious subject like abortion, which serious people—even when they agree on the issue overall—can see in different ways:
In every election, ballot measure, and special where reproductive freedom has centered the race post-Dobbs, it’s won. As Crooked’s Erin Ryan says, when it comes to a vote: “Abortion is undefeated.”
I am 100% pro-choice. But I still find it distasteful—and much more crucially, incredibly unhelpful when the mission is to preserve women’s bodily autonomy above all else—to characterize abortion as if the specific procedure is something to root for. As if we want more abortions.
While I don’t think any woman should be restricted in any way in deciding whether she will remain pregnant…it sucks when one ends up being necessary, doesn’t it? Serious question: is it an important part of the fight for reproductive freedom to characterize abortion as no big deal?
I just think taking the subject lightly—and not respecting the fact that there are some serious people who aren’t MAGAns or super-religious, but still see abortion as extinguishing “life,” in some form—is only going to make those folks resentful, and feel insulted, and if they’re anti-choice, fight that much harder against the right to control what happens to one’s own body.
Pick a Number, Any Number
And for my next trick, I will once again ask A.I. to pick a random number between 1 and (now) 1,066 so we can dish about a song on my “Recollection Records: Music That’s Entered My Head Out of Nowhere” Spotify playlist.
That’s right, it’s been almost five years since I started playlisting the songs that randomly materialize in my brain for no apparent reason. And I’m up to 1,066 now. (And I’m just gonna ask Siri to pick the random number from now on…I don’t know why I was making things difficult and asking Perplexity or ChatGPT to do it when EVEN SIRI OR ALEXA can do that shit…)
Anyway. The number from 1 to 1,066 Siri selected IS…
492.
And the 492nd song on my “Recollection Records: Music That’s Entered My Head Out of Nowhere” Spotify playlist?
Oh geez. I mean…I did not care for Seger for the longest time. Growing up in Northwest Ohio, right on the southern border of Michigan, meant non-stop Seger on allllll the classic rock radio stations (or at least what would now be considered “classic” rock stations…back then he was just regular old time rock ‘n’ roll, I s’pose).
So I was so damn sick of “Mainstreet” and “Turn the Page” and “Against the Wind” and —even before the truck commercials—”Like a Rock” and…well I never got sick of “Night Moves.” That brand of cheese has always had just the right aroma, it transcends classic rock radio over-saturation.
But you give me what’s basically a Harold Faltermeyer pop rock tune, in 1987, that’s promoted with a video featuring a glance of a lady’s aerobicized butt and a flash of Brigitte Nielsen’s legs before the ramblin’ gamblin’ man starts singing? I was in.
DID YOU KNOW: This was Seger’s only No. 1 hit?!! I didn’t.
Thanks for reading!
Yours,
~Dean