Manchin to oppose neera tanden nomination

[Morning in Atlas]

Biden should nominate John Kasich for the job

Never change, OSR.

[Morning in Atlas]

What exactly has she Tweeted? I can't find them.

The thing that pushed me over the edge was when she blamed Bernie not dropping out for a COVID uptick in Florida post-primary election. There was also some BlueAnon crap about how Bernie was a Russian agent as well.

If we want to get into associations, she associated with a lot of the toxic #NeverBernie types. This includes (but isn't limited to) Dane Weeks, a virulent anti-Semite, Ragnarok Lobster, who defended Heather Heyer's murderer because she was a Bernie supporter, and Candice Aiston, who attempted to silence a rape survivor for asking her not to use her rape to score political points. Neera Tanden isn't the nicest person, but the people she associates with make her look like Joe Biden in comparison.

[Morning in Atlas]

The double standard between the establishment and the progressive wing really is something to behold. If a supporter of yours with 100 followers tweets something mean out, it becomes local news. It makes you so unqualified that it provokes the Speaker of the House to break tradition and endorse your primary challenger.

If you willfully associate with the dregs of Twitter and you're part of the club, you can be anything. You can be the head of the largest government office in the United States. You can be MSNBC's rising star. You can even be Second Gentleman! After all, real life isn't Twitter, and they're just mean tweets.

The double standard is a huge part of why I feel alienated from the party. Moderate heroes are lauded and opposing Democrats from the right isn't a dealbreaker at all but if you even try to push leftward you're literally a Trump supporter.

[Morning in Atlas]

I can't wait until I try and get a job in the future LeBron James Administration and my nomination gets sunk because I "associated" with all these morons on Atlas who suddenly get their tens of thousands of posts combed through by Twitter detectives looking for some random bad take to pull out of context.

General MacArthur, a known associate of runeghost, who said "all conservatives are incels", and vitaNova, who declared mathematics "pointless and obsolete."  They used to hang out and chat together on the Talk Elections Web Blog.  Can we really have someone like this in charge of our nuclear silos?

Yes, thank you for explaining why the ridiculous standard you and your ilk held people like us to is ridiculous.

[Morning in Atlas]

Yes, thank you for explaining why the ridiculous standard you and your ilk held people like us to is ridiculous.

Call me when Neera runs for president, makes Candice Aiston her speechwriter, puts Ragnarok Lobster in charge of communications, and has Dane Weeks as her hype man at rallies.

Seriously, have you seen what Briahna Joy Gray is doing these days.  She used to have to pretend all the awfulness was some big unhappy coincidence and the campaign wasn't doing anything to incite/promote it.  Ever since then it's been 100% mask off.

You're the one who brought up Bernie, not me. I've already said that centering the Online left and running a base campaign was a huge mistake that Bernie paid for in the primaries.

I brought up Ed Markey, who made none of the mistakes that Bernie made and had all the expectation to police his lunatic supporters. He never put a #ForceTheVote nutjob in a high-visibility position, or anyone who wasn't equivocally Democratic. The Online left backed him, and he supported a lot of the positions of the Online left, but he never put the Onliners front and center. He doesn't even fall into bad messaging traps or criticize Democrats like AOC and the Squad do!

Markey's "bros" were never visible. Let's go back to the time Kennedy demanded Markey's condemnation for a supporter tweeting "bullying works". I found the tweet - dude has 1,000 followers, and is a random person. It didn't even go viral! It only had 8 likes to it, and only has a few. Like clockwork, more tweets from random, obscure people were dredged up by the campaign regardless of proof. Essentially, Kennedy had blatantly manufactured a "Markey Bro" narrative to paint him as too far left, and leaders in the Democratic House went along with it.

You're only bringing up Bernie because you know you don't have any defense for your behavior. You yourself have even acknowledged how ridiculous holding campaigns accountable for their lunatic fringe is. But of course, whenever the left does it, you're the first and loudest voice calling for immediate condemnation. It's one thing to engage in bro discourse, and it's a completely different thing to pretend to be above the toxicity that you and your side gleefully engage in.

But then again, everyone here knows you never cared about civility anyway. You defended a gentile Biden delegate calling Bernie a self-hating Jew.

[Morning in Atlas]

I'm surprised it's not Bernie who came out against her at first. While I often agree with Tanden on the issues, some of her tweets against both Bernie and some Republicans are problematic. Perhaps Uncle Joe should not have nominated her since she's just too controversial. Let's see what happens, maybe some Republicans save her with their votes, but it would be hilarious if it's Collins and Romney, whom she attacked as well.

Bernie isn't going to pick that fight and is more concerned about getting someone who's strong on policy in there. He'd rather spend his political capital, say, fighting for a public option rather than getting back at someone for talking crap on Twitter.

It's a cuck move, but I get it.

[Morning in Atlas]

It's a cuck move, but I get it.

I don’t think it’s a cuck move so much as a pragmatic one.  Non-Berniecrats should treat it as a reminder that as bad as the #RoseTwitter crowd can be, they’re not Bernie and people should stop acting as though they are.  Bernie made the mistake of surrounding himself with these folks in 2020 and it hurt him badly in the primaries, but he hasn’t done that as Budget Committee Chairman.  Bernie would be punching down - way down - if he threw a tantrum b/c of Tanden’s tweets.  Instead, he’s biting the bullet and trying to give as many progressives a seat at the table as possible in Biden’s administration.  

OTOH, Manchin doesn’t give a crap about Tanden, but he’s just flexing ahead of reconciliation.  I do worry about Manchin potentially voting against Haaland btw; she won’t get any Republican support and is probably gonna require a cloture vote as it is

Anyway, how long do we think until Tanden withdraws from consideration?

I understand that it's "pragmatic". Most of my support was extremely begrudging as-is, and was in the case of "at least she's not Bruce Reed or a deficit hawk." That being said, there's a Democratic equivalent to Rose Twitter out there. Not only did Neera amplify the worst actors of this clique, but you could have made the case that she was a part of that clique herself!

There's a difference between, say, attacking Bernie during a heated primary and knowingly and willfully amplifying and fraternizing with anti-Semites and Charlottesville apologists. There's proof of her interacting with, retweeting, following, and even calling the people I mentioned her friends. At best, she has negligently given her platform to bad actors in the party for years. At worst, she agrees with them.

It's still undeniably a cuck move to vote for someone who blamed you for COVID, or is friends with people who call you a fake Jew. I get it and my focus is the same as Bernie's, but it's still cuck energy.

[Morning in Atlas]

To be honest, I'm surprised her behavior at the CAP, which was infinitely more objectionable than her tweets, didn't come up. In a sane world outing a sexual harassment victim would be persona non grata to head any government agency.