Is anyone in the party reading these informative and on the point takes at all? I feel like all the smart people (almost none with actual political power) are screaming in the wind and the actual people with power would rather crash the airplane because they are too comfortable to get out of their passenger seats and get into the pilot seat to land the plane.
The cowardly elected Democrats are literally doing the shameful opposite behavior of what the heroic passengers on Flight 93 did on September 11, 2001.
I've given up on convincing them to rise to the moment. They aren't capable of it. Someone like Schumer, in his soul, cannot lead the country, the party, or anyone through this moment.
If this were a video game boss called "save the country", he would sit there with the controller and be physically incapable of beating that level.
I have come to believe that the ONLY way for us to beat that boss is to metaphorically take the controller ourselves. Work in campaigns. Run for office. Change our careers to politics or political jobs.
Here is a hard truth for everyone reading this: at current trajectory, in 2029, most of us are going to be powerless, reading blogs, begging people with power to rise to the moment. They're not fucking doing it.
There is no solution except for putting ourselves, and people who really represent us, in those positions of power. NO OTHER SOLUTION exists. There's not a coherent vision of how our current leaders deliver us. It will not happen.
So, I don't think they're reading Brian's haze-clearing writing. I know they aren't. But we are and we know what our country needs in our leaders. The solution is staring at us in the mirror.
Outstanding argument as usual. Clear and compelling. It's frustrating that those with power to influence the party's strategy are not receptive to these ideas, and perhaps not even equipped to deal with them. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for you.
I think your point about how GOP-induced dysfunction and obstruction alters and worsens the intra-Democratic dynamic is a vitally important one.
For a long time, I've thought that Boyd's OODA loop (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) is a useful framework for thinking about the two party's strategy-action pipeline. The GOP is so far inside the Dems OODA loop that it is not a dogfight but a massacre. The Dem leadership is unimaginative, risk averse, and sclerotic. So many elected Dems (esp. the "centrists") seem to be fully enmeshed in abstraction -- pitting an abstract "left" with an abstract "moderation" (i.e., toward GOP positions) -- divorced from actual values, real-world problems, or practical and political effectiveness of policy. Only a few have been speaking and acting with real moral clarity.
You point out that we missed the last opportunity to make an impact (with filibuster reform). If we miss the next opportunity (democracy reform and reconstruction), another opportunity will not come for a long time. I fear that the Dems are not up to it.
We should add states and also combine the Dakotas into one, merge Wyoming with Montana, Idaho with Utah, Kansas with Nebraska, West Virginia with Kentucky, Oklahoma with Arkansas, and Mississippi with Alabama.
Would a strong executive with the right approach be able to strong arm crappy leadership into pushing court reform thru? Say Pritzker gets in as discussed the other day and for some reason Chuck Schumer is still in charge and doing what he does best (next to nothing). Could the President come and piss in Chuck's coffee every day till he see's the light? Kind of a Trump play but with a positive result.
Under Trump v United States the president has immunity for any official act he conducts, so if he can make “pissing in Schumer’s cereal” an official act, there is nothing anyone can do to stop him.
I love the deep thinking here. Frustration with Democrats is in the red zone--it's as if they have fingers crossed waiting on Republicans and SCOTUS to see the light. Democrats need new and renewed leadership. Every Democrat I talk to expresses their frustration with this party. It's time for major reform.
Sadly I don't think major reform is possible without throwing the bums out. We had a few bold primary challengers on the Democratic side but we need like 5X or more the numbers of interesting and innovative challengers we have gotten.
The party is still extremely stagnant, outdated, and just plain creakly old. Even if every interesting challenger wins in the House, more than half the Democrats won't be replaced. And the Senate is even more of a stagnant decaying swamp.
We are still many years away from a Tea Party revitalization of the party.
So, for the democrats filibuster is one of the many blockages they need to overcome to legislate. For republicans, it's one of the last barriers between them and total rule. I don't think democrats are going to successfully fight both filibuster and judiciary, and other obstructionist procedures, especially if they win big.
Why not keep the congress even more blocked and rule through executive only, with EOs, slush funds and such? With piss poor rating congress has, Americans seem more accepting for imperial type presidency. Instead of rebuilding the institutions of yesteryear, we need a left-populist leader, leading march on Supreme Court instead of trying (and failing) to pack it through, bills, congress, etc. In modern USA, a funny meme is stronger that law.
Without new leadership I don’t think there’s even a small chance that enough Democrats will come around on court reform before the 2028 elections. They tend to come around on much needed changes about a decade too late and here we are, on the brink of long term minority (Republican) rule.
I think that a majority of the country could be ‘swayed’ to get behind a pro democracy agenda right now. Call it a ‘returning power to the people’ agenda or whatever. Things are so bad that going hard on anti corruption, anti billionaires, fair maps, court reform all so ‘We the People’ can afford the necessities, that our votes do matter and that popular policies can pass congress without the threat of being trashed cus the Supreme Court is hugely compromised.
It would be difficult for this kind of message to break through as the right owns a majority of the media but Democrats can craft one that voters can understand and they need to try, starting now.
All legislation a Dem Trifecta passes in 2029 has to strip SCOTUS of judicial review, require any lawsuits be filed in DC, and explicitly forbid using recent SCOTUS rulings as precedent. No right wing venue cherry picking. No SCOTUS shadow docket.
Expanding the court / reforming is good, but we can also just strip them of all appellate jurisdiction and they can just adjudicate when states sue each other, etc. Plus Schumer already got (partially) on board with jurisdiction stripping by including it in his No King's Act back in 2024.
"Plus, it’s a democracy: majorities should rule, then voters should decide whether they like the outcomes. So let the Republicans go nuclear!"
I liked this line in your piece because I think, in 2025-26, it's been a useful lesson in waking the average person out of their complacence and hardening/radicalizing others into a pro-democracy stance. We are all being exposed to the end-game policies of the Republican project (it's not just Trump's uniquely awful everything), and people fucking hate them.
It's crazy going back and seeing which legislation from pre-2009 passed the Senate with less than 60 votes, often not on a party-line basis. I think even people who were around back then have forgotten what it was like...
Well, I think it's fair to state that the filibuster threat is keeping the notorious vote-suppressing "SAVE Act" off the books through the midterms, so there's that. The implications should be obvious to all, even the reformists.
Ending the filibuster, adding DC and Puerto Rico as states, and expanding the Supreme Court all in exchange for the SAVE act is a fair trade, as long as we get ours first.
Let's dramatically expand the House and index the addition of seats to the Census while we are at it. And don't forget about ending gerrymandering.
You know what? While we are at it, just do multimember district proportional representation in the House and expand it. Gerrymandering won't matter at all and the population will be properly represented for the first time ever in the US in at least one legislative chamber of Congress.
Is anyone in the party reading these informative and on the point takes at all? I feel like all the smart people (almost none with actual political power) are screaming in the wind and the actual people with power would rather crash the airplane because they are too comfortable to get out of their passenger seats and get into the pilot seat to land the plane.
The cowardly elected Democrats are literally doing the shameful opposite behavior of what the heroic passengers on Flight 93 did on September 11, 2001.
I've given up on convincing them to rise to the moment. They aren't capable of it. Someone like Schumer, in his soul, cannot lead the country, the party, or anyone through this moment.
If this were a video game boss called "save the country", he would sit there with the controller and be physically incapable of beating that level.
I have come to believe that the ONLY way for us to beat that boss is to metaphorically take the controller ourselves. Work in campaigns. Run for office. Change our careers to politics or political jobs.
Here is a hard truth for everyone reading this: at current trajectory, in 2029, most of us are going to be powerless, reading blogs, begging people with power to rise to the moment. They're not fucking doing it.
There is no solution except for putting ourselves, and people who really represent us, in those positions of power. NO OTHER SOLUTION exists. There's not a coherent vision of how our current leaders deliver us. It will not happen.
So, I don't think they're reading Brian's haze-clearing writing. I know they aren't. But we are and we know what our country needs in our leaders. The solution is staring at us in the mirror.
Outstanding argument as usual. Clear and compelling. It's frustrating that those with power to influence the party's strategy are not receptive to these ideas, and perhaps not even equipped to deal with them. I can only imagine how frustrating it must be for you.
I think your point about how GOP-induced dysfunction and obstruction alters and worsens the intra-Democratic dynamic is a vitally important one.
For a long time, I've thought that Boyd's OODA loop (Observe-Orient-Decide-Act) is a useful framework for thinking about the two party's strategy-action pipeline. The GOP is so far inside the Dems OODA loop that it is not a dogfight but a massacre. The Dem leadership is unimaginative, risk averse, and sclerotic. So many elected Dems (esp. the "centrists") seem to be fully enmeshed in abstraction -- pitting an abstract "left" with an abstract "moderation" (i.e., toward GOP positions) -- divorced from actual values, real-world problems, or practical and political effectiveness of policy. Only a few have been speaking and acting with real moral clarity.
You point out that we missed the last opportunity to make an impact (with filibuster reform). If we miss the next opportunity (democracy reform and reconstruction), another opportunity will not come for a long time. I fear that the Dems are not up to it.
Thanks for a great piece!
We should add states and also combine the Dakotas into one, merge Wyoming with Montana, Idaho with Utah, Kansas with Nebraska, West Virginia with Kentucky, Oklahoma with Arkansas, and Mississippi with Alabama.
Would a strong executive with the right approach be able to strong arm crappy leadership into pushing court reform thru? Say Pritzker gets in as discussed the other day and for some reason Chuck Schumer is still in charge and doing what he does best (next to nothing). Could the President come and piss in Chuck's coffee every day till he see's the light? Kind of a Trump play but with a positive result.
Under Trump v United States the president has immunity for any official act he conducts, so if he can make “pissing in Schumer’s cereal” an official act, there is nothing anyone can do to stop him.
I love the deep thinking here. Frustration with Democrats is in the red zone--it's as if they have fingers crossed waiting on Republicans and SCOTUS to see the light. Democrats need new and renewed leadership. Every Democrat I talk to expresses their frustration with this party. It's time for major reform.
Sadly I don't think major reform is possible without throwing the bums out. We had a few bold primary challengers on the Democratic side but we need like 5X or more the numbers of interesting and innovative challengers we have gotten.
The party is still extremely stagnant, outdated, and just plain creakly old. Even if every interesting challenger wins in the House, more than half the Democrats won't be replaced. And the Senate is even more of a stagnant decaying swamp.
We are still many years away from a Tea Party revitalization of the party.
So, for the democrats filibuster is one of the many blockages they need to overcome to legislate. For republicans, it's one of the last barriers between them and total rule. I don't think democrats are going to successfully fight both filibuster and judiciary, and other obstructionist procedures, especially if they win big.
Why not keep the congress even more blocked and rule through executive only, with EOs, slush funds and such? With piss poor rating congress has, Americans seem more accepting for imperial type presidency. Instead of rebuilding the institutions of yesteryear, we need a left-populist leader, leading march on Supreme Court instead of trying (and failing) to pack it through, bills, congress, etc. In modern USA, a funny meme is stronger that law.
Without new leadership I don’t think there’s even a small chance that enough Democrats will come around on court reform before the 2028 elections. They tend to come around on much needed changes about a decade too late and here we are, on the brink of long term minority (Republican) rule.
I think that a majority of the country could be ‘swayed’ to get behind a pro democracy agenda right now. Call it a ‘returning power to the people’ agenda or whatever. Things are so bad that going hard on anti corruption, anti billionaires, fair maps, court reform all so ‘We the People’ can afford the necessities, that our votes do matter and that popular policies can pass congress without the threat of being trashed cus the Supreme Court is hugely compromised.
It would be difficult for this kind of message to break through as the right owns a majority of the media but Democrats can craft one that voters can understand and they need to try, starting now.
Excellent Brian. This article requires a second read for complete digestion and understanding of how we best move forward. Thank you
All legislation a Dem Trifecta passes in 2029 has to strip SCOTUS of judicial review, require any lawsuits be filed in DC, and explicitly forbid using recent SCOTUS rulings as precedent. No right wing venue cherry picking. No SCOTUS shadow docket.
Expanding the court / reforming is good, but we can also just strip them of all appellate jurisdiction and they can just adjudicate when states sue each other, etc. Plus Schumer already got (partially) on board with jurisdiction stripping by including it in his No King's Act back in 2024.
"Plus, it’s a democracy: majorities should rule, then voters should decide whether they like the outcomes. So let the Republicans go nuclear!"
I liked this line in your piece because I think, in 2025-26, it's been a useful lesson in waking the average person out of their complacence and hardening/radicalizing others into a pro-democracy stance. We are all being exposed to the end-game policies of the Republican project (it's not just Trump's uniquely awful everything), and people fucking hate them.
I don’t understand this part - “We should also be statehood advocates, because without new states,….”
Can someone explain this to me?
Thanks!
Is it just the above- adding Puerto Rico and DC as states?
Yes
It's crazy going back and seeing which legislation from pre-2009 passed the Senate with less than 60 votes, often not on a party-line basis. I think even people who were around back then have forgotten what it was like...
Well, I think it's fair to state that the filibuster threat is keeping the notorious vote-suppressing "SAVE Act" off the books through the midterms, so there's that. The implications should be obvious to all, even the reformists.
Ending the filibuster, adding DC and Puerto Rico as states, and expanding the Supreme Court all in exchange for the SAVE act is a fair trade, as long as we get ours first.
Let's dramatically expand the House and index the addition of seats to the Census while we are at it. And don't forget about ending gerrymandering.
You know what? While we are at it, just do multimember district proportional representation in the House and expand it. Gerrymandering won't matter at all and the population will be properly represented for the first time ever in the US in at least one legislative chamber of Congress.
While we’re at it, can we pretend to be a normal democracy and move to electing presidents by popular vote?
It kills me that there hasn’t been any long term push towards getting rid of the ridiculous electoral college.
100%