I think this is missing the elephant in the room. Schumer has said his entire purpose in life is to “keep the Democratic party pro-Israel” and Platner is very hostile to the Israeli war. I don’t think Schumer or party leadership rlly care about oyster consolidation as much as they care about funding Israel. IMO Schumer would lose the general election to a R than let anti-Israel candidates win the D factional battle.
💯💯💯 Schumer (and majority of Dem politicians) are so completely misaligned with the vast majority of Democratic voters and the general public on this. They are proving how little they actually care about the future of the party or our democracy. Absolutely nothing is more important to them than kissing the feet of Israel even if it means supporting a genocide; even if it means losing US elections to fascists and ultimately toppling our democracy. It’s all so shameful! They need to grow a moral spine or get out of the way!
Moderates in the Democratic Party can't have it both ways. If they want lefties to support more moderate candidates when they win primaries, then they need to support lefties (or just idiosyncratic black boxes like Platner) when *they* win the primaries.
What our party lacks that the GOP has, is an understanding that we all need to play the kayfabe. For all our fucking talk of solidarity, we basically expect the entire rest of our coalition to knuckle under to our own respective factions.
The GOP doesn’t work like that. Each faction hates each other and understands that they’re all in one big power struggle with each other. BUT they know that even when they’re working at cross purposes, it’s all a show for the normies: “See, WE accept dissension within our own ranks, unlike the evil Borg lefties. We don’t expect everyone to conform, we fight it out! In the open!”.
Lefties don’t understand that normies actually respect that. All we usually can see is the other side having an entire authoritarian hierarchy, and we rightly recoil. But we can’t see that we have our own freaking hierarchy! And ours is much worse in terms of what it hamstrings us from doing.
Just win! Even if a "RaDicAl lEFtisT tHug" were to win a primary and a general election, they'd still be miles better for the country from a moral perspective than whatever the hell is crawling out from under the rocks these days in the GOP.
I just want decent, normal people who can **win**. Let's iron out policy nuance when we hold all 3 branches of government. Until then, shut the fuck up and send the fascists crying back to Peter Thiel.
I was just in Maine last week on a last minute change of plans due to some of the folks we were planning on visit coming down with COVID. We spent four days along the Coast, Acadia and Portland. Tourist areas. You could not find a lobster roll for under $30.
No, I am not making the standard neolib critique of Maine’s lobsterman-protecting laws. I didn’t know about them, but they make sense. Sure,consolidation might make a lobster roll cheaper by a buck or two but at what cost? How would wiping out independent lobstermen help Maine life in general? Overfishing has already wiped out Maine’s cod fishing industry, I learned on an Acadia tour.
I agree, Schumer should stay the hell out, endorse the winner of the NYC Dem primary and stop pretending he has a winning formula.
The old guard Democrats MUST go; they are KILLING the Party. Mills is waaay too old; Schumer LOST everything to Trump. Imagine being 18 years old & being lectured to by the “AARP” party…
I’m 79 and I can work behind the scene, stay in the background & still do good work. The old Democrats are boring & blocking talent from coming forward. We NEED new people
to move the Party forward.
Graham Plantner is going against The Chair of The Appropriations Committee with lots of big money behind her. Susan has waited her whole career for this job. She is ONLY
loyal to her Party; she has no loyalty to Maine or the US. ALL decent people have left Trump’s Party. Susan has no decency & we will find out if Mr Platner can convenience Maine voters of this fact and win in 2026.
I don’t know anything about lobstermen and consolidation, but trying to make a living on a small family farm, laws that protect small producers sound pretty darn good. Canada has kept small dairies in business while the US has allowed giant corporations to make it impossible to make a living with a small dairy.
I would love to see a progressive outsider win in a more rural state. Maybe it could slow down the ridiculous narrative from people who don’t live in rural areas that the only candidates who can win are centrists like Elissa Slotkin, who has represented my state by repeatedly voting from trump’s nominees while telling us what a fighter she is, like Reagan that she admires. Centrist politics have led us to a pretty bad place and I know trump voters who have been impressed with Bernie’s policies. I think people who code as more blue collar, but have real ideas and passion to change things could do well.
Lucky us, we get giant corporations controlling the food supply, racing to the bottom to compete on prices and we end up with polluted water and microplastics in our cereal.
<<People of the left, center, and liberal mainstream can benefit intellectually from good-faith debate.>>
This is a noble sentiment, and one with which I agree. The problem is that there are some points of view that are considered prima facie signs of bad faith, the most obvious example being gender. Some people--many Democrats!--believe that although trans people should be protected by law, sex is real, sex is binary, and sometimes sex matters. This is a position that most Americans seem to agree with, but you'd never know that from Bluesky or other leftist environments.
I am a big fan of discussion, but part of a good-faith discussion is accepting that some beliefs--yes, even those we dislike--are held in good faith. If we start a discussion by classifying widely held points of view as mere bigotry...well, that's not discussion but just conflict. And I think we've had more than enough conflict over the last decade.
I'm increasingly convinced that the "left vs. center" debate is mostly ideological nonsense only electeds and politics nerds care about anyway. There are voters out here who support Bernie and AOC but also Trump. A lot of voters vote on vibes and who they think can help them, not on a specific ideology, and the sooner the Dem party learns that, the better able we'll be to build a healthy but diverse coalition, IMHO.
Anyway, I'm with you 100% on Platner. My dad lives in Maine so we've talked about this race some; when we chatted a couple of weeks ago, he was pretty sour on Mills because of her age. (Dad's 76 and likes Mills as governor, so it's not agism or anything against her personally so much as wanting someone young with new ideas in the Senate. My guess is a lot of Maine voters would agree. I mean, she'd be in her 80s at the end of her first term.) There are some other people who have announced in that race, but none have gotten attention like Platner has, which to me feels like a sign he can pull off something big in Maine. "Has won statewide" is a persuasive argument but can't be the only criteria.
I think you're right on age...76 is not a good time to be running for office. That doesn't necessarily disqualify a candidate in my eyes, but it's a factor.
I feel as though the national party should tread carefully here. Susan Collins is nearly impossible to defeat, and it might be wisest to let Mainers sort out who runs under the Democratic banner.
I want to see the campaign to pressure Schumer not to fund the government without extracting big concessions. He and Jeffries purport to have a plan, but haven't shared it (no, really, I did my homework, but I left it at home). We have Elizabeth Warren's demand to restore Medicaid cuts in the meantime. Maybe Schumer learned a lesson, but if he caves, 24 Democratic senators need to demand his replacement as minority leader. If you have Democratic senators, ask them:
1. Will you commit to vote against funding the fascist regime without serious concessions?
2. If Schumer can't prevent this, will you demand new leadership?
Thats a great idea. Unfortunately my senators are Schumer and Gillibrand who routinely ignore my letters and pleas and whose answers to your two questions would be indignant and resounding NO’s.
The only thing I find wrong with this analysis is the statement "Trump will still be President." I find that highly unlikely. I believe that he'll be removed by 25th Amendment or impeachment before then. In my estimation the odds of Trump still being President in January, 2027 are about 1%. Odds of Vance being President then, 90%. Odds of something totally whacky and unpredictable having occurred between now & then, 9%.
I know Democratic party leadership is weak, but is this where someone needs to step in and establish a coalition government/platform? Everyone is taking pot shots and it seems like everyone is camping out, waiting to spring their ideology if they can get enough votes.
Instead, you have a "grand coalition", and all Democrats agree to implement the agreed upon policies and goals? And not some huge party platform. 10 things or less. I don't know what the 10 things are and they need to be agnostic to ideology. What would be your list with Matt?
I agree that now isn't the time to try and control how the party behaves when we need to focus on saving the direction of the US
I was all onboard for Mills—NOT because of Schumer but because she’s a fighter, she’s won statewide twice as governor, and she has a real chance of dislodging Collins…and all this fully cognizant of her age (which she does not look). I still think she’d be a solid choice. THAT SAID, I’m all ears about Platner and learning more. He could potentially attract some of the District 2 purple-red folks I grew up with. 👍
“In practice what will hold the pro-democracy coalition together for electoral purposes won’t be leftists moving right or centrists moving left, but leftists, centrists, and the people who span those camps finding their greatest common factors, and more or less forgetting about everything else, at least as a basis for voting in general elections.”
I think this is missing the elephant in the room. Schumer has said his entire purpose in life is to “keep the Democratic party pro-Israel” and Platner is very hostile to the Israeli war. I don’t think Schumer or party leadership rlly care about oyster consolidation as much as they care about funding Israel. IMO Schumer would lose the general election to a R than let anti-Israel candidates win the D factional battle.
💯💯💯 Schumer (and majority of Dem politicians) are so completely misaligned with the vast majority of Democratic voters and the general public on this. They are proving how little they actually care about the future of the party or our democracy. Absolutely nothing is more important to them than kissing the feet of Israel even if it means supporting a genocide; even if it means losing US elections to fascists and ultimately toppling our democracy. It’s all so shameful! They need to grow a moral spine or get out of the way!
Get out is the more preferable choice for us all.
Which is also, in large (if not whole) part, why Schumer won't endorse Mamdani.
Moderates in the Democratic Party can't have it both ways. If they want lefties to support more moderate candidates when they win primaries, then they need to support lefties (or just idiosyncratic black boxes like Platner) when *they* win the primaries.
Indeed.
What our party lacks that the GOP has, is an understanding that we all need to play the kayfabe. For all our fucking talk of solidarity, we basically expect the entire rest of our coalition to knuckle under to our own respective factions.
The GOP doesn’t work like that. Each faction hates each other and understands that they’re all in one big power struggle with each other. BUT they know that even when they’re working at cross purposes, it’s all a show for the normies: “See, WE accept dissension within our own ranks, unlike the evil Borg lefties. We don’t expect everyone to conform, we fight it out! In the open!”.
Lefties don’t understand that normies actually respect that. All we usually can see is the other side having an entire authoritarian hierarchy, and we rightly recoil. But we can’t see that we have our own freaking hierarchy! And ours is much worse in terms of what it hamstrings us from doing.
Just win! Even if a "RaDicAl lEFtisT tHug" were to win a primary and a general election, they'd still be miles better for the country from a moral perspective than whatever the hell is crawling out from under the rocks these days in the GOP.
I just want decent, normal people who can **win**. Let's iron out policy nuance when we hold all 3 branches of government. Until then, shut the fuck up and send the fascists crying back to Peter Thiel.
I was just in Maine last week on a last minute change of plans due to some of the folks we were planning on visit coming down with COVID. We spent four days along the Coast, Acadia and Portland. Tourist areas. You could not find a lobster roll for under $30.
No, I am not making the standard neolib critique of Maine’s lobsterman-protecting laws. I didn’t know about them, but they make sense. Sure,consolidation might make a lobster roll cheaper by a buck or two but at what cost? How would wiping out independent lobstermen help Maine life in general? Overfishing has already wiped out Maine’s cod fishing industry, I learned on an Acadia tour.
I agree, Schumer should stay the hell out, endorse the winner of the NYC Dem primary and stop pretending he has a winning formula.
The old guard Democrats MUST go; they are KILLING the Party. Mills is waaay too old; Schumer LOST everything to Trump. Imagine being 18 years old & being lectured to by the “AARP” party…
I’m 79 and I can work behind the scene, stay in the background & still do good work. The old Democrats are boring & blocking talent from coming forward. We NEED new people
to move the Party forward.
Graham Plantner is going against The Chair of The Appropriations Committee with lots of big money behind her. Susan has waited her whole career for this job. She is ONLY
loyal to her Party; she has no loyalty to Maine or the US. ALL decent people have left Trump’s Party. Susan has no decency & we will find out if Mr Platner can convenience Maine voters of this fact and win in 2026.
I don’t know anything about lobstermen and consolidation, but trying to make a living on a small family farm, laws that protect small producers sound pretty darn good. Canada has kept small dairies in business while the US has allowed giant corporations to make it impossible to make a living with a small dairy.
I would love to see a progressive outsider win in a more rural state. Maybe it could slow down the ridiculous narrative from people who don’t live in rural areas that the only candidates who can win are centrists like Elissa Slotkin, who has represented my state by repeatedly voting from trump’s nominees while telling us what a fighter she is, like Reagan that she admires. Centrist politics have led us to a pretty bad place and I know trump voters who have been impressed with Bernie’s policies. I think people who code as more blue collar, but have real ideas and passion to change things could do well.
I think Trump voters admire Bernie for his authenticity. He believes in something. That makes them open to his policies.
Lucky us, we get giant corporations controlling the food supply, racing to the bottom to compete on prices and we end up with polluted water and microplastics in our cereal.
<<People of the left, center, and liberal mainstream can benefit intellectually from good-faith debate.>>
This is a noble sentiment, and one with which I agree. The problem is that there are some points of view that are considered prima facie signs of bad faith, the most obvious example being gender. Some people--many Democrats!--believe that although trans people should be protected by law, sex is real, sex is binary, and sometimes sex matters. This is a position that most Americans seem to agree with, but you'd never know that from Bluesky or other leftist environments.
I am a big fan of discussion, but part of a good-faith discussion is accepting that some beliefs--yes, even those we dislike--are held in good faith. If we start a discussion by classifying widely held points of view as mere bigotry...well, that's not discussion but just conflict. And I think we've had more than enough conflict over the last decade.
Excellent analysis
I'm increasingly convinced that the "left vs. center" debate is mostly ideological nonsense only electeds and politics nerds care about anyway. There are voters out here who support Bernie and AOC but also Trump. A lot of voters vote on vibes and who they think can help them, not on a specific ideology, and the sooner the Dem party learns that, the better able we'll be to build a healthy but diverse coalition, IMHO.
Anyway, I'm with you 100% on Platner. My dad lives in Maine so we've talked about this race some; when we chatted a couple of weeks ago, he was pretty sour on Mills because of her age. (Dad's 76 and likes Mills as governor, so it's not agism or anything against her personally so much as wanting someone young with new ideas in the Senate. My guess is a lot of Maine voters would agree. I mean, she'd be in her 80s at the end of her first term.) There are some other people who have announced in that race, but none have gotten attention like Platner has, which to me feels like a sign he can pull off something big in Maine. "Has won statewide" is a persuasive argument but can't be the only criteria.
I think you're right on age...76 is not a good time to be running for office. That doesn't necessarily disqualify a candidate in my eyes, but it's a factor.
I feel as though the national party should tread carefully here. Susan Collins is nearly impossible to defeat, and it might be wisest to let Mainers sort out who runs under the Democratic banner.
I want to see the campaign to pressure Schumer not to fund the government without extracting big concessions. He and Jeffries purport to have a plan, but haven't shared it (no, really, I did my homework, but I left it at home). We have Elizabeth Warren's demand to restore Medicaid cuts in the meantime. Maybe Schumer learned a lesson, but if he caves, 24 Democratic senators need to demand his replacement as minority leader. If you have Democratic senators, ask them:
1. Will you commit to vote against funding the fascist regime without serious concessions?
2. If Schumer can't prevent this, will you demand new leadership?
Thats a great idea. Unfortunately my senators are Schumer and Gillibrand who routinely ignore my letters and pleas and whose answers to your two questions would be indignant and resounding NO’s.
I know what I have to say here has no intrinsic value to this convo but “I hate Chuck Schumer! He sucks balls!”
Okay, I needed to get that out.
Thank you.
Schumer should call up Platner and say, "Please campaign against me. Please say that I suck and that you will lead a revolt against me."
Basically what Biden should have told Kamala. "Please throw me under the bus and say that the inflation was Sleepy Joe's fault."
I doubt this will happen, but it's what would happen if everyone agreed on the ultimate goal.
The only thing I find wrong with this analysis is the statement "Trump will still be President." I find that highly unlikely. I believe that he'll be removed by 25th Amendment or impeachment before then. In my estimation the odds of Trump still being President in January, 2027 are about 1%. Odds of Vance being President then, 90%. Odds of something totally whacky and unpredictable having occurred between now & then, 9%.
I know Democratic party leadership is weak, but is this where someone needs to step in and establish a coalition government/platform? Everyone is taking pot shots and it seems like everyone is camping out, waiting to spring their ideology if they can get enough votes.
Instead, you have a "grand coalition", and all Democrats agree to implement the agreed upon policies and goals? And not some huge party platform. 10 things or less. I don't know what the 10 things are and they need to be agnostic to ideology. What would be your list with Matt?
I agree that now isn't the time to try and control how the party behaves when we need to focus on saving the direction of the US
I was all onboard for Mills—NOT because of Schumer but because she’s a fighter, she’s won statewide twice as governor, and she has a real chance of dislodging Collins…and all this fully cognizant of her age (which she does not look). I still think she’d be a solid choice. THAT SAID, I’m all ears about Platner and learning more. He could potentially attract some of the District 2 purple-red folks I grew up with. 👍
“In practice what will hold the pro-democracy coalition together for electoral purposes won’t be leftists moving right or centrists moving left, but leftists, centrists, and the people who span those camps finding their greatest common factors, and more or less forgetting about everything else, at least as a basis for voting in general elections.”
You mean sorta like republicans have done.
The bent of your writings is essentially, “Let a thousand flowers bloom.” Regrettably, as Mao and Schumer show, power abhors dissension.