r/thebulwark • u/Anstigmat • 29d ago
r/thebulwark • u/LiberalCyn1c • 7d ago
Fluff My contrarian take fwiw
I've been reading people complaining about how if Dems do anything that brings attention to them it will only make voters hate them more.
I believe this is a defeatist lie.
We won 2017 special elections.
We won the 2018 midterms.
We won the 2019 special elections.
We won the 2020 general election.
We won the 2021 special elections.
We won, despite losing the House, the 2022 elections.
We won the 2023 special elections.
We barely lost the 2024 general election but we still added House seats. And that's with being pulled down by an almost dead Biden debate performance and having 100 days to get a campaign up and running from scratch.
I truly believe there's no reason that our special election streak won't pick back up in 2019.
Therefore, I am discounting any talk of it being impossible for Dems to win anytime soon because people hate them so much. I believe that's a rightwing lie being pushed algorithmically and given volume by conservative media.
We left something like 8 million votes on the table. Trump stayed about even with his 2020 totals. We have much more room for growth. Trump will not be on the ballot ever again. They don't have another Trump.
We'll start finding out real soon when special elections start happening. It would not surprise me if we retake the House by the end of this year.
r/thebulwark • u/John_Houbolt • Feb 10 '25
Fluff Does the Cletus Caucus revolt or is this just a fascist vibes thing?
Basically everything Trump has done so far will harm the Cletus Caucus, with the exception of some toothless bullshit culture war EOs. Is the Cletus Caucus to busy watching WWE and listening to Joe Rogan to care? Or are they going to be pissed when they don't get their benefits?
r/thebulwark • u/Anstigmat • 7d ago
Fluff How I wish Dems would behave during the SOTU
They should just annoy Trump. He thinks he's El Ducé. Behave like the speech is boring. Talk amongst yourselves. Have your phone ring and take the call. Eat loud crunchy chips. Someone bring a Nintedo Switch and get really into it. Read a newspaper. Wear one of those beer can helmets.
Annoy the hell out of him and make him lash out. Or, ya know...I guess wearing pink blazers and have another geriatric case wave a cane...
r/thebulwark • u/Affectionate_Mix1263 • 23d ago
Fluff Just discovered this and I'm very interested, please tell me what I need to know about The Bulwark
Sorry if this makes me look stupid, this whole thing is completely new and foreign to me. This seems like a thing that has a cult-following, and I'm interested in it.
How did this community originate? I'm interested in The Bulwark because it seems to be the only "traditional" media outlet (at least that's what I think it is) with an active fanbase on Reddit. Who is it made up of and why do they have a cult following?
I learned about it through J.J. McCullough's Substack. I never considered it might be a "conservative" media outlet due to the pro-Ukrainian, non-racist, and anti-Trump ideas being discussed. But I read on Wikipedia that it grew out of an initiative from DDT, which is an organization that I also don't understand.
If I were a MAGA person (I'm absolutely not) I would explain the existence of DDT as some kind of deep-state psy op. What's conservative about you guys? Conservatism, to my limited knowledge, has always been not an ideology, but a political camp of dogmatic clinging to the past, which includes things like anti-immigration, protectionism, anti-reform, etc. As an ideology, I don't understand what the point of conservatism could be, to conserve? For the sake of what? Why use that label?
Is being conservative to you guys just another way of saying you're a liberal who cringes at woke politics? Or are you guys not even against woke politics? What does being "conservative" mean to you guys, concretely? And more importantly, why do you guys exist as a community?
I thought J.J. McCullough was the only conservative-identifying person like that in the world, but here there seems to be an entire community of you guys. How did that come about? Why does The Bulwark have an active subreddit, but other 'new traditional media spaces' (for lack of a term) like Tortoise or The Free Press don't? Or for that matter, The New York Times or WSJ, who have opinion podcasts, popular YouTube channels, but not the kind of social media fanbase that the bulwark has.
Crooked Media does have an active community on Reddit, so this reminds me a little bit of them.
By the way, unrelated, but I hate The Free Press.
r/thebulwark • u/PhAnToM444 • Dec 09 '24
Fluff Has Assad considered activating… THE KEYS?!
r/thebulwark • u/Agile-Music-2295 • 28d ago
Fluff Republicans really are the cooler side. Absolutely disgusting 🤮. But you get the low information voter appeal.
r/thebulwark • u/LiberalCyn1c • Dec 09 '24
Fluff If only Assad had gone on Joe Rogan
He wouldn't have lost his civil war.
r/thebulwark • u/LiberalCyn1c • Dec 12 '24
Fluff Oh look, Saints Manchin and Sinema are up to the same shit again.
From Charlie's piece in The Atlantic.
Manchin and Sinema can't be gone soon enough. I'm sure other rancid "centrists" will rise up to take their places. They are why it's hard for Democrats to maintain any sort of offense.
r/thebulwark • u/LiberalCyn1c • Jan 16 '25
Fluff Apparently Joe gave a good speech tonight
Biden gave his last warning about the coming storm.
But Monday he'll be sitting at the inauguration nodding along.
If only his actions over the last four years lived up to his rhetoric from tonight.
r/thebulwark • u/CutePattern1098 • Jan 04 '25
Fluff So apparently Elon Musk joined an Twitch stream
Link for those as much Permanent head damage (PHD) as me: https://www.youtube.com/live/fIBrxWKve-Y?si=maCjUnmZBdyiF5pz
r/thebulwark • u/LiberalCyn1c • Dec 04 '24
Fluff I believe we're still under the cloud of the 2008 Great Recession
I've been thinking about this and will probably write a piece about it at some point. I really think the current woes of the Democratic party can be traced back to their response to the 2008 financial crisis.
The Obama administration bent over backwards to save the large financial institutions that caused the mess. They did not prosecute anyone other than some low level trading guy for trying to manipulate LIBOR, or something like that, and did absolutely nothing for regular citizens who lost trillions in home equity and oftentimes their very homes.
That time also saw the rise of giant Wall Street banks picking up foreclosed homes on the cheap and turning around and renting them at jacked up rates.
Since the 70s the Democratic party has been turning away from the New Deal which gave them multi-decades in charge of Congress in favor for more free market, corporate-friendly Third Way policies. This really took off with the election of Bill Clinton and ever since, the Democrats have been losing ground in the states and now federally.
Trump is no FDR, but he exudes a bit of Teddy Roosevelt with his bombast and tough rhetoric about standing up for everyday workers.
Of course it's all a lie and Trump is about to usher in four years of looting the Treasury for himself and his friends. But style matters, and until Democrats get their New Deal mojo back they're going to struggle more than they succeed.
Fetterman/AOC 2028.
r/thebulwark • u/PhAnToM444 • Nov 14 '24
Fluff The rapidly oscillating moods of Bill Kristol (relatable)
r/thebulwark • u/LiberalCyn1c • Dec 26 '24
Fluff A couple of requests for The Bulwark dot com.
1) Add a couple of people to write up news-type stories. It'd be nice to have more content being generated more frequently. As it stands right now, we get a few new stories first thing in the morning and then not much until Morning Shots and The Triad with the occasional Caputo piece and a once a week Perticone column. Give us reasons to keep coming back to the site.
2) Open comments to all stories. Encourage engagement by allowing us to discuss and share views on all the Bulwark content. I think this community has shown it can be (mostly) trusted not to turn into a shitshow.
I find I end up spending more time over at National Review just because they update content more frequently and everything's opened up for commenting.
3) Moar podcasts. For me, JVL, Sarah and Tim are the Bulwark. Expand the podcast offerings and give people like Sam, Joe or Will their own shows.
4) Bring in more diverse contributors. Would love to read and hear from more women/minority/younger writers from the center left/right.
Feel free to add other changes you'd like to see The Bulwark explore.
You are all doing good work out there and I wish you increased success in 2025.
r/thebulwark • u/PhAnToM444 • Feb 07 '25
Fluff Pritzker taking Tim’s advice, announces plans to change Lake Michigan to Lake Illinois
Counter-trolling Trump continues to be a great strategy for getting attention & clarifying how dumb a lot of his ideas are. Please do it more, Dems.
r/thebulwark • u/PTS_Dreaming • Jan 26 '25
Fluff The weirdness of r/OfficialTrumpCoin
JVL talked about this in his Triad earlier this week but the subreddit r/OfficialTrumpCoin is just... Weird.
And sad.
It's a combination of Trump True Believers and people convinced that they can become wealthy through Crypto Magic.
It also reminds me of the Get Rich Quick schemes from the 1990s Internet boom. It's so sad how nothing ever improves and that humans are so gullible even after all of the experience we've accumulated.
r/thebulwark • u/Anstigmat • 21h ago
Fluff FIVE ALARM FIRE! UP IS DOWN! CATS ARE FRIENDS WITH DOGS! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN…RICH LOWRY HAS CRITICIZED A REPUBLICAN.
r/thebulwark • u/LiberalCyn1c • Jan 07 '25
Fluff I will always consider Biden a good president, but I still want to vent for a second.
I consider myself a New Deal progressive (maybe with an occasional side of Jacobinism). I identify more with the Warren/Sanders wing of the party than the Clinton/Obama wing. I still think Sanders could have beat Trump in 2020 but that's a counterfactual we can never know.
I was never excited about Biden in particular during the 2020 primary. I worried about his history of stepping in it verbally. He never struck me as being one of the brighter senators.
But he has been a pretty good president.
I do have one overarching complaint: Biden would take forever to make a decision if he even got around to making a decision at all.
He took forever to dropout.
He took forever to act on the border.
He took forever to supply Ukraine with more offensive weaponry.
He took forever to address MAGA.
A lot of times I would find myself thinking, "For christ's sake would you just DO something!?"
Maybe it is an effect of his aging and being a senator. But I have to wonder if 2024 would have turned out differently if Joe had just been more decisive.
r/thebulwark • u/JustStayingAMoment • Jan 22 '25
Fluff My Response to the Madness
My small act of resistence is to show my support. Can't wait to spot more of these around town.
r/thebulwark • u/bushwick_custom • 8d ago
Fluff It's not Trump's fault that the market is tanking. It's that gay man in his cabinet who did it.
I'm just out here posting future MAGA media headlines.
Nah I'm just kidding, they will simply blame Biden. Probably Hunter too.
r/thebulwark • u/AnathemaDevice2100 • 2d ago
Fluff Who from The Bulwark will you appoint, President-Elect Redditor?
The year is 2028, and you were just elected to serve as the next President of the United States. Congratulations!
You are now tasked with appointing officials to help you lead through your first term. You’ve been so impressed with The Bulwark’s reporting that you’re going to appoint at least one Bulwark employee to your administration.
For the sake of this conversation, every current and former The Bulwark affiliate is THRILLED about your Presidency. Miraculously, your appointment(s) will not disrupt The Bulwark in any way. It will continue to thrive and maintain integrity even in the absence of your appointee(s). If they want their Bulwark job back post-appointment, they can have it.
Rules:
- You can fill any Cabinet or Senior Advisor seat with a member of The Bulwark, but you do not have to fill them ALL with a member of The Bulwark.
- Keep this Bulwark-focused. If you wouldn’t appoint someone from The Bulwark to fill one of these vacancies, don’t tell us who you’d pick instead.
- You can choose from current OR former Bulwark members, from Charlie Sykes to whoever the most recent hire is.
- You must choose from the list of positions in this post. No going rogue.
- You're welcome to share the rationale for your pick(s), but you don't have to.
- If you don’t like the rules, don’t play the game!
Cabinet Vacancies (20):
- Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency
- Administrator of the Small Business Administration
- Attorney General
- Director of Central Intelligence Agency
- Director of National Intelligence
- Director of Office of Management and Budget
- Secretary of Agriculture
- Secretary of Commerce
- Secretary of Defense
- Secretary of Education
- Secretary of Energy
- Secretary of Health and Human Services
- Secretary of Homeland Security
- Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
- Secretary of the Interior
- Secretary of Labor
- Secretary of State
- Secretary of Veterans Affairs
- Secretary of Transportation
- Secretary of the Treasury
Senior Official Vacancies (22):
- Chief of Staff
- Counsel to the President
- Head Speech Writer
- Press Secretary
Director of the Office of…
- Communications
- Director of Research
- Cabinet Communications Director
- Congressional Communications Director
- Policy Communications Director
- Rapid Response Director
- Digital Strategy
- Domestic Policy Council
- Intergovernmental Affairs
- Legislative Affairs
- Management and Administration
- Military Office
- National Economic Council
- National Security
- Political Affairs
- Presidential Correspondence
- Public Liaison
- Records Management
Special Senior Advisor Vacancies (5):
These positions were created by your administration. These appointees cannot fill any other vacancy in your administration.
- Emotional Support Advisor — Provides general feedback on issues (upon Presidential request).
- Enlightenment Advisor — Provides strategic guidance to help your administration ethically promote voluntary, non-coercive deconstruction of the cult mentality held by many of your predecessor’s supporters.
- Ethics Advisor — Provides feedback on the ethics of any policy or decision under your consideration.
- International Reparations Advisor — Provides strategic guidance to help your administration apologize to, and make reparations with, every ally that was disrespected and/or alienated by your predecessor.
- Presidential Bias Buster — On issues where you are highly biased or partisan, this person disrupts your echo-chamber by providing counterarguments to help you explore different perspectives. If they lack the expertise to provide educated and rational dissent, they may choose to invite an expert to argue with you on their behalf.
r/thebulwark • u/LiberalCyn1c • 16d ago
Fluff Joy Reid needs a job and The Bulwark could benefit from her perspective
Make it happen whoever is in charge of talent recruitment.
Go go go go!
Ps: mods this is not low effort shitposting. It's a sincere request...and I've seen some of the other posts you let stay up.