Let’s talk about balloons though
It seems Buttigieg has been neglecting his job.
On the very day that DeWine was uttering these dire words [telling people to evacuate the area after the East Palestine train disaster], Buttigieg appeared on three Sunday news shows: CNN’s State of the Union, NBC’s Meet the Press, and ABC’s This Week. Remarkably, on none of these programs was Buttigieg asked about the ongoing East Palestine disaster—despite the fact that, as transportation secretary, regulating train safety is one of his responsibilities. Nor did Buttigieg feel it incumbent on himself to raise the issue and offer what guidance and assurances he could. Instead, Buttigieg’s ubiquitous TV appearances were taken up with the transparently hyped-up issue of a Chinese weather balloon that entered USA airspace—quite possibly as a result of unpredictable wind patterns.
Ask yourself, which is more glamorous, a train wreck in Ohio or a Chinese balloon that might be spying on us just in case Google Earth crashes.
It took Buttigieg a full 10 days to make a statement on the East Palestine disaster.
In a twitter thread on February 13, Buttigieg wrote, “I continue to be concerned about the impacts of the Feb 3 train derailment near East Palestine, OH, and the effects on families in the ten days since their lives were upended through no fault of their own.” The next day, Buttigieg followed up by writing, “We’re constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation (like the braking rule withdrawn by the Trump administration in 2018 because of a law passed by Congress in 2015), but we are using the powers we do have to keep people safe.”
This statement was only partially true. It’s undeniable that the Trump administration’s deregulations have been a problem. But Trump whittled regulations that had already been watered down by Republicans in Congress in 2015 thanks to railroad industry lobbying.
Equally important is the fact that the Biden administration and its transportation secretary have made no effort to remedy the situation. As The Lever reported on February 10, “In the aftermath of a fiery Ohio train derailment, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s department has not moved to reinstate an Obama-era rail safety rule aimed at expanding the use of better braking technology, even though a former federal safety official recently warned Congress that without the better brakes, ‘there will be more derailments [and] more releases of hazardous materials.’” In fact, under Buttigieg’s watch, the Transportation Department was contemplating stripping down brake safety rules even further.
I guess this is the arrangement they have. When Republicans have the executive branch they eliminate safety regulations, and when Democrats have it they do nothing. Activity on the one hand, passivity on the other. Heads they win tails we lose.
In a follow-up report, The Lever debunked Buttigieg’s hapless complaint that “we’re constrained.” In fact, industry watchers and union activists have suggested multiple ways Buttigieg could use his existing power to ramp up the regulation of the railroad industry. Buttigieg’s policy paralysis is a matter of choice, not structural barriers. It’s hardly surprising that Buttigieg, whose résumé includes time as a McKinsey consultant, is allergic to government regulation of industry. By both ideology and formation, Buttigieg is a thoroughgoing neoliberal.
And that’s the best we can do. The worst is Trump, and the best is…this.
I guess they don’t want to have the Republicans think they are heavy-handed and authoritarian. Because then some moderates might vote Republican.
The Dems always worry about what the Repubs will think. The Repubs never give the tiniest shit what the Dems will think.
Dem politicians view Dem voters’ votes as a given. Actually, it’s more that they see those votes as an entitlement, an attitude evidenced by phrases like, “holding your vote hostage.” The hostage metaphor only really makes sense under the assumption that the vote would otherwise naturally go to the Dem candidate.
The problem is that voting is framed as a one-shot, all-or-nothing game, so every election follows a loss avoidance calculus. That is, always vote for the lesser evil. Voting for the lesser evil every time, however, can lead to a race to the bottom, because candidates have no reason to become greater goods. It’s like the old saw about running away from a bear, not by being faster than the bear, but instead by just being faster than you. Dems have figured out that they don’t need to be liberal; they just need to be less conservative than Reps. And so we enter a loop:
10 In order to differentiate themselves from Dems, Reps shift rightward.20 In order to fight over the new "middle of the road" voters, Dems shift rightward.
30 Goto 10
Nullius, that seems to hit the nail right on the head. If we don’t demand better, we won’t get better. The problem is, last election cycle (presidential) we had a lot of choices and the voters went for the whitest, malest, centrist candidate. So it looks like the Democratic Party’s calculus may be correct.
So how do we keep the voters from continually moving rightward, or accepting a rightward shift? In a lot of cases, nearly every election I can think of since Reagan, most the Democrats I know focus on who they think can defeat the Republican candidate, not on who will make the best president. It might actually be a self-fulfilling prophecy, assuming all the voters are as ‘moderate’ or ‘conservative’ as the pundits claim they are.
The pundits scream at anyone who is the least bit progressive that they need to moderate their message. Anyone to the left of Biden will be dubbed a foaming at the mouth liberal. People may want more liberal policies (at least on the things that affect them) but the problem is, they are scared of what they want. They have been told it will cost tons. They are not often curious about the price of such things as military build ups, road construction, flying to other planets…it never occurs to them that single payer health care, for instance, would be cheaper than a lot of other things we do.
So they vote centrist because they don’t want to see their taxes increase. They don’t want taxes on the rich to increase, either.
If we could see beyond money, it might turn out that things that are more important than money might be important enough after all.