Famous Sayings: #100 — ‘Didn’t You Get the Memo?’

February 4, 2018

Bro, you can start some sentences with a conjunction. Didn’t you get the memo?

This week, I wanted to go with a theme that either pertained to the Super Bowl (which already happened as of the time this post was published) or current events. Guess what I went with.

As you may know, the word “memo” has made the rounds since the middle of January because the Republican Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee, Devin Nunes (who hails from my state, California), spearheaded a secret memo. That memo contained notes about the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice, which the Republicans in the Intelligence Committee alleged were conspiring against President Donald Trump and his associates. Reactions to the release of the memo were definitely mixed, but the prevalent response was overwhelmingly negative and Nunes received the brunt of it.

There was a lot of ribbing going on even before the memo was released on Friday, like this February 1, 2018 article from USA Today:

“OnPolitics Today: Did Trump get the memo on changes to the memo?”

On a lighter note:

The phrase “did you get the memo” may have been popularized from a comedy from the 1990’s, but I wanted to do a little bit of extra research to see when memos were first used.

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Democrats: Clinton, Feinstein, and the ‘Process’

The guy on the right is Ben Ray Lujan, the chair of the Democratic Congressional Committee. I don’t really discuss him in this post, but his DCCC is responsible for giving new candidates a questionable memo.

In the previous posts in this series, I talked about current congressional candidates who are running as Democrats (with or without the party’s backing) and some possible presidential candidates. And in each post, I hinted at my displeasure of the party’s process (with regards to promoting and supporting candidates).

The party is still crowing about taking a seat in a red state which last elected a Democratic U.S. senator 25 years ago, but there is still much to learn. Sure, Black voters in Alabama were rightfully praised for showing up and largely supporting Jones, but there were several lessons that race the party needs to take to heart.

Instead, the Democrats are taking all of the wrong lessons from Doug Jones’ victory. Doug Jones himself is taking the wrong lessons from his victory. In particular, some people screamed from the rooftops to tell everyone that centrism worked. They felt that they found a recipe for winning in the age of Trump. But they conveniently ignored other factors in the race.

The truth is Jones barely beat a child predator who refused to be part of a debate. And Jones didn’t even earn a majority of the vote at that.

If the allegations against Roy Moore had never surfaced during the race, Jones would have lost by at least 20 points. Think about that for a minute.

Could Jones have pulled off a more convincing victory under the same circumstances? I honestly don’t know, but the Democrats will need to have stronger showings across the country, but Democrats are doing a lot to mess that up.

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What Does This Have to Do with Hillary Clinton and Dianne Feinstein?

There is a connection to Jones, Clinton, Feinstein, and its name is centrism. The party’s leadership and donors prefer centrists, repeating the “consensus” belief that centrists won’t alienate conservatives.