Will Cooling

@willcooling.bsky.social @ohwhenthenotts.bsky.social

I think in general a big danger is that such a defensive crouch is demotivating/disengaging. I do think it's hard to escape some moderation on hot button topics. I think the key is to draw a genuine line that reassures people they're not giving away the farm

Isn't it also a bit of a Scottish thing as well?

That's not first past the post because the second (or sometimes third) past the post can win on the second round. It's therefore a run-off/preferential system

French seemingly concerned that after the Americans beat them to electing a fascist government, we might be next to leapfrog them

Thanks! And yeah this is why I think Yglesias was right. You don't want to elect long-shot idiosyncratic candidates in deep red states because they won't be reliable votes on partisan legislation. You need to shift the party to the right on key issues so normie Democrats can win in more states

This is excellent, dry and funny but also insightful. There's a pathway to rebalancing things, but it's extremely tenuous, requires the Dems to do a lot of hard things right, and involves things falling their way over which they have limited control at best

It Could Be Said #74 Democrats Are Losers Because They Lost. Can They Win Again? Will Cooling argues that the battle for American democracy is in The Senate

itcouldbesaid.substack.com/p/it-could-b... Why are leading Democrats calling for the party to moderate in the face of President Trump's fascism? Well it's all to do with the party's terrible position in the Senate

wrote this line yesterday:

"If President Trump were, in other words, trying to instigate some kind of national divorce, it is hard to imagine what he would be doing differently than this."

It Could Be Said #74 Democrats Are Losers Because They Lost. Can They Win Again? Will Cooling argues that the battle for American democracy is in The Senate

itcouldbesaid.substack.com/p/it-could-b... The more you look at American politics the more you realise how thoroughly cooked the Democrats are by the Senate. That makes it so much more difficult for them to fight back against Trump without making some really compromises

And no mater how much some in Labour may want it to be one, no one on the right will accept Labour as a centre-right party either

At least in the short term, if the Tories die then Farage/Farageism gets somewhere between 30% and 40% of the vote. That's the choice.

Thanks!

I would strongly argue that (as you would expect) the membership being involved in electing the leader has actually increased the leader's authority over the voluntary party and so made the parliamentary party more powerful

Really good thread this!

It Could Be Said #68 Father Time Rather Than Woke Keeps Beating Old Men Will looks at why the passage of time waits for no man, not even Rupert Lowe

I wrote about how Rupert Lowe complaining about not being able to make WW2 jokes was a good example of this; maybe that's not woke but changes in actual football (England beat Germany more often, Germany a more likeable side, greater German role in EPL) itcouldbesaid.substack.com/p/it-could-b...

I also think what we don't know is whether British voters are small-c conservative or big-R right-wing. That outside William Pitt the Younger and his proteges, the Whigs and Liberals tended to be dominant party and the Tories decidedly moderated after WW1, makes me think its very much the former.

What do we want?

For everyone to touch grass!

A lot of parties are acting as if the election is tomorrow as opposed to likely 2029 after which either Trump is out of office, or more concerningly, still in office.

Thanks!

As Norman Tebbit said “we started and finished on the ground where we were weak and all our opponents were strong, just as we planned”. Wait, no, sorry, NOT that.

A politician who embodies the current direction of the Tory party: a supporter of all the big policy shifts of 2016-24, who literally worked in Downing Street, who has decided oh, no, it is actually the fault of the immigrants. No, it’s your fault!

@willcooling.bsky.social

And some people still say that THIS IS FINE

Ooooooooh

It took me over two decades living on the internet to realise this, but that doesn't make it any less true or important, in today's world the golden rule to being a kind person is as follows:

grace is not raising to the bait

*other segregationists* thought he was a raving racist

Anyone who thinks promoting a vicious racist conspiracist like Robinson is good for Jews has lost any grip on reality

Sorry...I was responding to you, but I meant to add to your point to the OP. You can agree or disagree with antisemitism as a phrase, but its clearly always been broader than religious hatred. I mean semite isn't even a religious term, but a geographic one.

You can, between his dad's and his!

*CASE CLOSED*