As the invaluable Noah Berlatsky said: "It's like Ds are watching a murder across the street and say they can't intervene because they don't want to jaywalk".
I was glad to read your footnote (1)But there’s no Congressional Democracy Caucus1. No caucus for procedural hardball. No caucus for brawlers.
1.Note to self: There should be a Congressional Democracy Caucus.
Regarding Strength in numbers it is true you can disapprove of a party and still support it.
I am angry that in the last election they effectively took our money when we gave them support and ineffectively used and wasted it and avoided Hardball
Do you think the election results were true, not in some way ”fixed”?
Didn’t Trump himself hint at something like it?
I saw the energy and hope arising in Kamala’s campaign, as short as it was. It was damn hard to accept she lost.
What kept 90 million eligible voters from voting? Did some of them expect her winning?
The message in next elections to Democrats should be EVERY VOTE COUNTS and make it sure they are counted!
And to us to make sure that all our friends, family, neighbors check their voting eligibility and are prepared to vote. Regardless of their Party affiliation.
I have read a lot of things and I wish I could give a positive or negative regarding the results of the last election. I also knocked on doors leading up to the election and found people to be apatheic. Even when offered a ride to the polls to vote they indicated that they did not want to go were going to wait until election day. I agree Every Vote Counts. and we have to find a way to get everyone to vote and insure that their vote is properly counted.
Adding. I am part of a group which rally's every week in a red town and has been doing so since the beginning of January. I attend the majority of the rallies. My sign last week said "Find a Spot to Park and Join Us!" in addition to other things. We get honkers but have yet to have someone park and join us a steady group of between 30-40 people, larger when a SPECIAL RALLY is called for... This has to come from people. Eddie Glaude Jr. We are the leaders we are looking for.
Everyone has to do a part. Lesson 20 On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, Be As Courageous As You Can.
My tiny personal “campaign” has been to wear tee-shirts with the message.
I was amazed how many women actually approached me because of my “Moms Demand Common Gun Sense to America” tee-shirts in gun control issues. It happened in grocery waiting lines, parking lots, all kinds of public places and even on a mat in physical therapy.
Women affected by gun violence, grieving.
And they are not alone. Gun accidents and violence are a huge killer in US.
Now my shirts are worn and washed to threads and my orange SURVIVOR buttons given out.
I had much the same experience knocking on doors in my mostly red town. Many people were simply so tuned out that they didn’t know when Election Day was or even wanted to know. It is hard to explain to someone that by the time they realize that they can effect change that it might be too late.
There are 8000 Democratic voters in my county that voted in 2016 and/or 2020 who did not vote in 2024. The county Democrats are looking for volunteers to canvas these voters and ask them why. Each volunteer is being assigned 10 voters to canvas and build a relationship with. I have volunteered.
The general response I get when asking younger male voters (under 40) basically which side they're on is neither. They hate politics in this country in general. They've hated it their whole lives. It's hard not to agree with them. Our lives (I'm older male--68) have been mostly crap in terms of what this country has managed to do politically over the past 50 years. The prospects for under 40 males are worse than ours were. They don't care if, or look forward to the country falling apart and breaking completely. And once again, from my perspective since I won't be around to have to survive the consequences, it makes sense to let it go. Let them, let the politicians fuck it all up in the hopes they'll bury themselves along with the rest of us and the rest of it. I suppose the theory is that then there'll be a chance for something new to begin.
So it's come to this. We hit the iceberg a year ago. Now it's just a question of how / who to save before the ship sinks and the rest go down with it. And like the Titanic, it'll take a while. Another ten, twenty years. Maybe longer. I'm a lifelong Democrat. Voted in every election always for Democratic candidates. I'll continue to do so but my vote has never mattered much. It's been taken for granted, over and over and over again by cowardly politicians. Both the Clinton and Obama administrations were basically Republican-lite. Biden was pretty good but too old, I guess. He was an old-fashioned Democrat (the ones that made America pretty great during the mid-20th century when I was born), but just too old I guess for people to care about the actual results of his administration. (Beutler here is a good example of those on the bandwagon to bury Biden--and they got what they wanted.)
Anyway, like the younger guys I've spoken with, I don't really care any more. It's been a crap ride and there's clearly no way to save it. Lucky me, I won't be around when the old tanker goes down.
So, maybe the Democratic Party should get on board with the rest of us and do everything possible to blow the whole thing up and get it over with. It would be kind of exciting. It would get lots of attention. Might even win some votes. Let the kids try to figure it out.
I am sorry that you are so pessimistic. I am 63 and on SSDI and Medicare and I'm fighting back. As a black female in the South, there is a lot to lose and I'm not going back.
This is the most brilliant explanation of why the Democratic Party is so poorly thought of even by democrats. The leadership is cowed, owned by big money and too entrenched and in love with their power (even though there is none) that they eat their young (AOC Crocket etc etc). Quite simply: IT’S TIME TO CHUCK SCHUMER.
Thank you for this explanation and putting into clear concise words what is wrong with democrats. You might also have just said “they have no balls”
I think there are actually three tiers of elected Democrats right now: the fighters (AOC, Bernie, Crockett, Mamdani, a lot of the House Progressive Caucus, etc.), the folders (Schumer, Jeffries, Slotkin, a lot of the "moderates"), and then a middle ground in which the electeds want to fight but just have no clue what to do. I live in Yvette Clarke's district—she's the current chair of the Congressional Black Caucus—and she held a town hall maybe 6 weeks ago that I attended. She said all the things the audience wanted to hear: Trump is authoritarian, what he's doing on immigration is outrageous, we have to fight back, etc., etc. But when asked what she had done to fight back, her answer was, basically, "I've written over thirty letters to the administration!" I told one of her staffers that sternly worded letters wouldn't do jack in this situation, but I got the impression Clarke truly had no idea what else to do, and I'm guessing there are other electeds like her, which to me is a leadership failure.
Democrats need to abandon the rusted old political machinery that cost them the election. The vehicle spits out black smoke, consumes too much gas, backfires and gets us no where.
I buy all of your arguments and also wonder if there's a longer-term problem for the Democrats. At various points in my career I've worked for both centrists and progressives on the Hill and in philanthropy and as an LGBTQ activist. I worked hard as a volunteer on the Clinton, Obama, and Biden campaigns. I'm trying to be as objective as possible. Looking back to the trade deals that shuttered factories and hollowed out communities; an approach to globalization that helped turn China into an economic and military juggernaut; financial deregulation that set the stage for a global economic meltdown; bailouts that left taxpayers holding the bag while bankers took bonuses; endless wars with no strategy for victory; and looking the other way while Big Tech and Big Pharma turned Americans into addicts. Each of those was a count in the indictment Donald Trump used to crush the GOP establishment and beat centrist Democrats in two elections. Together they caused tens of millions of voters to flee life-long commitments to the Democratic Party. They prompted the rise of the Tea Party which morphed to become the MAGA base. Whole states and regions were moved off-limits to Democrats. Each of these counts can be laid at the feet of “centrists” and “moderates” in both parties. Progressive Democrats layered on purity tests, condescension, maximalist demands, and punishments for anyone willing to compromise to get stuff done. The GOP has had its reckoning. The Ds haven't and we're paying the price. What am I missing?
How can us plebs affect change here? I think the No Kings march made it clear there is an appetite for a Democracy caucus. Do we just have to wait and hope congress will make one?
For us plebs in Red states, the answer is trying to revive a local Democratic Party presence without DNC backing. It is something we can do that will have a massive impact on our immediate well-being.
On a related note, Cory Booker and Hakeem Jefferies have been down in Austin to meet with Texas Democrats and presumably coordinate some kind of political action to counter-act Trump's Redistricting Hornswaggle.
I think We, the People, have to keep up the protests and calling our congresspeople frequently. It gives Dem politicians the backbone to stand up, and history has shown the people powered movements are the predecessor to legislation and court rulings.
DNC - too old, too passionless, too protective of special interest groups. Bernie seems like he's one of the few who cares - and he's not even a Democrat.
I don’t believe Dem base is upset about inner workings. Dems need to do modern media and I can’t get over the horrible Slotkin interview at Breaking Points. It made me realize Dems are doomed and they can’t do new media and get attention. Slotkin did get attention actually 4 million views on X and over 500 K on YouTube and it was a rough watch. Bad attention
The Breaking Points piece with Slotkin is only bad in that more Dems aren't out there doing more of these shows, trying to reach more people in an authentic way. Even though it was kind of shitty to give bad-faith actors more play, I give credit to Gavin Newsome stress-testing his ability to defend said bad-faith talking points and express some of the authentic, righteous outrage that we all feel. That kind of training is necessary for cultivating leadership that is capable of understanding the moral vacuum of the right and doing whatever is necessary to fight back.
Take primaries of incumbents seriously. Don’t back incumbents just because they’re “safe” and the party tells us we have to. It’s risky, but it’s the only thing Democrats care about from voters (contra donors).
Brian wrote, ". . . half the country is liberal, half the country votes for Democrats. The acute accelerant is the party leadership’s limp response to the abuses of the Trump presidency. Democrats are at a low ebb, because tons of their voters have lost faith."
This is the key. How feckless leadership affects the vote is that Democratic voters don't feel motivated, which suppresses the vote.
A grassroots looking for representation which will aggressively and effectively check Republican power-mongering must look to their local Democratic Party, i.e. themselves, not Congress. At this stage of the game as Trump and his Republican shock troops focus on rigging the mid-terms rather than governing, local is where the action is. And the battle is already joined here in Texas.
Hakeem Jefferies and Cory Booker (and maybe others) have been in Austin signalling their support for Texas Democrats. Besides the fact that bitter experience has taught Texas Democrats that National Democrats do not have our backs, there is a possibility that Texas Democrats who are fighting like sixty in Austin can lead the way for the DNC to get into the arena and mix it up.
Imagine if we took the private money out of politics. Imagine if the top Dems weren’t as beholden, if not more so, to their top donors and lobbyists than republicans. Imagine if the status quo didn’t benefit people like Schumer and Pelosi and Jeffries as much, if not more, than republicans. Top Dems might still have zero courage or convictions but maybe the cost of taking a chance wouldn’t feel so steep.
Going with the consultant-driven mantra of "we have to be FOR something, not just AGAINST Trump" will turn out to be the Democrats' most tragic mistake. There is a consultant- and media-driven machinery that relates to this in ways not easily identifiable, but very very real. I try to shine some light on it here: https://citizen99.substack.com/p/feeding-the-propaganda-machine?r=2sauq
Bernie and AOC did a tour and it was quite a success. We need a constant effort to do similar things. Who's gonna step up? (Despite the threat of being disappeared.)
As the invaluable Noah Berlatsky said: "It's like Ds are watching a murder across the street and say they can't intervene because they don't want to jaywalk".
Yeah, I'm quoting Noah Berlatsky to an embarrassing extent but he constantly just nails it.
Or, as someone else (I forget who) said, "The Dems think they're in a Wes Anderson movie, when they're actually in a Quentin Tarantino movie."
I was glad to read your footnote (1)But there’s no Congressional Democracy Caucus1. No caucus for procedural hardball. No caucus for brawlers.
1.Note to self: There should be a Congressional Democracy Caucus.
Regarding Strength in numbers it is true you can disapprove of a party and still support it.
I am angry that in the last election they effectively took our money when we gave them support and ineffectively used and wasted it and avoided Hardball
Do you think the election results were true, not in some way ”fixed”?
Didn’t Trump himself hint at something like it?
I saw the energy and hope arising in Kamala’s campaign, as short as it was. It was damn hard to accept she lost.
What kept 90 million eligible voters from voting? Did some of them expect her winning?
The message in next elections to Democrats should be EVERY VOTE COUNTS and make it sure they are counted!
And to us to make sure that all our friends, family, neighbors check their voting eligibility and are prepared to vote. Regardless of their Party affiliation.
I have read a lot of things and I wish I could give a positive or negative regarding the results of the last election. I also knocked on doors leading up to the election and found people to be apatheic. Even when offered a ride to the polls to vote they indicated that they did not want to go were going to wait until election day. I agree Every Vote Counts. and we have to find a way to get everyone to vote and insure that their vote is properly counted.
Adding. I am part of a group which rally's every week in a red town and has been doing so since the beginning of January. I attend the majority of the rallies. My sign last week said "Find a Spot to Park and Join Us!" in addition to other things. We get honkers but have yet to have someone park and join us a steady group of between 30-40 people, larger when a SPECIAL RALLY is called for... This has to come from people. Eddie Glaude Jr. We are the leaders we are looking for.
Everyone has to do a part. Lesson 20 On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, Be As Courageous As You Can.
My tiny personal “campaign” has been to wear tee-shirts with the message.
I was amazed how many women actually approached me because of my “Moms Demand Common Gun Sense to America” tee-shirts in gun control issues. It happened in grocery waiting lines, parking lots, all kinds of public places and even on a mat in physical therapy.
Women affected by gun violence, grieving.
And they are not alone. Gun accidents and violence are a huge killer in US.
Now my shirts are worn and washed to threads and my orange SURVIVOR buttons given out.
I had much the same experience knocking on doors in my mostly red town. Many people were simply so tuned out that they didn’t know when Election Day was or even wanted to know. It is hard to explain to someone that by the time they realize that they can effect change that it might be too late.
There are 8000 Democratic voters in my county that voted in 2016 and/or 2020 who did not vote in 2024. The county Democrats are looking for volunteers to canvas these voters and ask them why. Each volunteer is being assigned 10 voters to canvas and build a relationship with. I have volunteered.
The general response I get when asking younger male voters (under 40) basically which side they're on is neither. They hate politics in this country in general. They've hated it their whole lives. It's hard not to agree with them. Our lives (I'm older male--68) have been mostly crap in terms of what this country has managed to do politically over the past 50 years. The prospects for under 40 males are worse than ours were. They don't care if, or look forward to the country falling apart and breaking completely. And once again, from my perspective since I won't be around to have to survive the consequences, it makes sense to let it go. Let them, let the politicians fuck it all up in the hopes they'll bury themselves along with the rest of us and the rest of it. I suppose the theory is that then there'll be a chance for something new to begin.
So it's come to this. We hit the iceberg a year ago. Now it's just a question of how / who to save before the ship sinks and the rest go down with it. And like the Titanic, it'll take a while. Another ten, twenty years. Maybe longer. I'm a lifelong Democrat. Voted in every election always for Democratic candidates. I'll continue to do so but my vote has never mattered much. It's been taken for granted, over and over and over again by cowardly politicians. Both the Clinton and Obama administrations were basically Republican-lite. Biden was pretty good but too old, I guess. He was an old-fashioned Democrat (the ones that made America pretty great during the mid-20th century when I was born), but just too old I guess for people to care about the actual results of his administration. (Beutler here is a good example of those on the bandwagon to bury Biden--and they got what they wanted.)
Anyway, like the younger guys I've spoken with, I don't really care any more. It's been a crap ride and there's clearly no way to save it. Lucky me, I won't be around when the old tanker goes down.
So, maybe the Democratic Party should get on board with the rest of us and do everything possible to blow the whole thing up and get it over with. It would be kind of exciting. It would get lots of attention. Might even win some votes. Let the kids try to figure it out.
I am sorry that you are so pessimistic. I am 63 and on SSDI and Medicare and I'm fighting back. As a black female in the South, there is a lot to lose and I'm not going back.
This is the most brilliant explanation of why the Democratic Party is so poorly thought of even by democrats. The leadership is cowed, owned by big money and too entrenched and in love with their power (even though there is none) that they eat their young (AOC Crocket etc etc). Quite simply: IT’S TIME TO CHUCK SCHUMER.
Thank you for this explanation and putting into clear concise words what is wrong with democrats. You might also have just said “they have no balls”
I think there are actually three tiers of elected Democrats right now: the fighters (AOC, Bernie, Crockett, Mamdani, a lot of the House Progressive Caucus, etc.), the folders (Schumer, Jeffries, Slotkin, a lot of the "moderates"), and then a middle ground in which the electeds want to fight but just have no clue what to do. I live in Yvette Clarke's district—she's the current chair of the Congressional Black Caucus—and she held a town hall maybe 6 weeks ago that I attended. She said all the things the audience wanted to hear: Trump is authoritarian, what he's doing on immigration is outrageous, we have to fight back, etc., etc. But when asked what she had done to fight back, her answer was, basically, "I've written over thirty letters to the administration!" I told one of her staffers that sternly worded letters wouldn't do jack in this situation, but I got the impression Clarke truly had no idea what else to do, and I'm guessing there are other electeds like her, which to me is a leadership failure.
Democrats need to abandon the rusted old political machinery that cost them the election. The vehicle spits out black smoke, consumes too much gas, backfires and gets us no where.
I buy all of your arguments and also wonder if there's a longer-term problem for the Democrats. At various points in my career I've worked for both centrists and progressives on the Hill and in philanthropy and as an LGBTQ activist. I worked hard as a volunteer on the Clinton, Obama, and Biden campaigns. I'm trying to be as objective as possible. Looking back to the trade deals that shuttered factories and hollowed out communities; an approach to globalization that helped turn China into an economic and military juggernaut; financial deregulation that set the stage for a global economic meltdown; bailouts that left taxpayers holding the bag while bankers took bonuses; endless wars with no strategy for victory; and looking the other way while Big Tech and Big Pharma turned Americans into addicts. Each of those was a count in the indictment Donald Trump used to crush the GOP establishment and beat centrist Democrats in two elections. Together they caused tens of millions of voters to flee life-long commitments to the Democratic Party. They prompted the rise of the Tea Party which morphed to become the MAGA base. Whole states and regions were moved off-limits to Democrats. Each of these counts can be laid at the feet of “centrists” and “moderates” in both parties. Progressive Democrats layered on purity tests, condescension, maximalist demands, and punishments for anyone willing to compromise to get stuff done. The GOP has had its reckoning. The Ds haven't and we're paying the price. What am I missing?
How can us plebs affect change here? I think the No Kings march made it clear there is an appetite for a Democracy caucus. Do we just have to wait and hope congress will make one?
For us plebs in Red states, the answer is trying to revive a local Democratic Party presence without DNC backing. It is something we can do that will have a massive impact on our immediate well-being.
On a related note, Cory Booker and Hakeem Jefferies have been down in Austin to meet with Texas Democrats and presumably coordinate some kind of political action to counter-act Trump's Redistricting Hornswaggle.
Oh, right...Hakeem "strategizing" with TX Dems...IOW, how to write "letters of concern" to tRump, Abbott, et al. Hopeless party.
I think We, the People, have to keep up the protests and calling our congresspeople frequently. It gives Dem politicians the backbone to stand up, and history has shown the people powered movements are the predecessor to legislation and court rulings.
DNC - too old, too passionless, too protective of special interest groups. Bernie seems like he's one of the few who cares - and he's not even a Democrat.
I don’t believe Dem base is upset about inner workings. Dems need to do modern media and I can’t get over the horrible Slotkin interview at Breaking Points. It made me realize Dems are doomed and they can’t do new media and get attention. Slotkin did get attention actually 4 million views on X and over 500 K on YouTube and it was a rough watch. Bad attention
Maybe the light will come on and Dem higher-ups will realize Slotkin isn’t the answer.
The more the fascists drag the Overton Window to the right, the more "centrist" does indeed mean Republican-lite.
The Breaking Points piece with Slotkin is only bad in that more Dems aren't out there doing more of these shows, trying to reach more people in an authentic way. Even though it was kind of shitty to give bad-faith actors more play, I give credit to Gavin Newsome stress-testing his ability to defend said bad-faith talking points and express some of the authentic, righteous outrage that we all feel. That kind of training is necessary for cultivating leadership that is capable of understanding the moral vacuum of the right and doing whatever is necessary to fight back.
Take primaries of incumbents seriously. Don’t back incumbents just because they’re “safe” and the party tells us we have to. It’s risky, but it’s the only thing Democrats care about from voters (contra donors).
Brian wrote, ". . . half the country is liberal, half the country votes for Democrats. The acute accelerant is the party leadership’s limp response to the abuses of the Trump presidency. Democrats are at a low ebb, because tons of their voters have lost faith."
This is the key. How feckless leadership affects the vote is that Democratic voters don't feel motivated, which suppresses the vote.
A grassroots looking for representation which will aggressively and effectively check Republican power-mongering must look to their local Democratic Party, i.e. themselves, not Congress. At this stage of the game as Trump and his Republican shock troops focus on rigging the mid-terms rather than governing, local is where the action is. And the battle is already joined here in Texas.
Hakeem Jefferies and Cory Booker (and maybe others) have been in Austin signalling their support for Texas Democrats. Besides the fact that bitter experience has taught Texas Democrats that National Democrats do not have our backs, there is a possibility that Texas Democrats who are fighting like sixty in Austin can lead the way for the DNC to get into the arena and mix it up.
Imagine if we took the private money out of politics. Imagine if the top Dems weren’t as beholden, if not more so, to their top donors and lobbyists than republicans. Imagine if the status quo didn’t benefit people like Schumer and Pelosi and Jeffries as much, if not more, than republicans. Top Dems might still have zero courage or convictions but maybe the cost of taking a chance wouldn’t feel so steep.
Going with the consultant-driven mantra of "we have to be FOR something, not just AGAINST Trump" will turn out to be the Democrats' most tragic mistake. There is a consultant- and media-driven machinery that relates to this in ways not easily identifiable, but very very real. I try to shine some light on it here: https://citizen99.substack.com/p/feeding-the-propaganda-machine?r=2sauq
Bernie and AOC did a tour and it was quite a success. We need a constant effort to do similar things. Who's gonna step up? (Despite the threat of being disappeared.)