The Scourge Of Wimpiness
Terminal insecurity has damaged the Democratic Party's credibility more than any local policy choice or rhetorical trope.
Consider the political instincts of two Democratic elders, recently on display, as the party they shaped over three decades floats adrift.
First up, Hillary Clinton, who appeared on a podcast called Unholy a few days ago and was asked, “If you had a vote in this city, would you vote for Zohran Mamdani?”
She responded (or, rather, didn’t) like so: “You know what? I don’t vote in this city. Look, I am not involved in it. I have not, you know, been at all even asked to be involved in it, and I have not chosen to be involved in it. I will be there the day after, and everybody else should be too, no matter what happens.”
Clinton surely knows, in her heart what she would do. I don’t know what she would do. But she knows whether she’d set aside misgivings to vote for Mamdani or Cuomo, or whether she’d abstain on principle. What she lacks, even a decade removed from party leadership, is confidence to explain her reasoning. Endorse Mamdani, and it might feed perceptions that the Democratic Party is too far left. Abstain, and it will remind young progressive voters how hostile the establishment is to their preferences. Endorse Cuomo and be in league with Donald Trump. Better to just dodge and pivot, impressing nobody.
Next up, Chuck Schumer,
Here is the germ of a good idea, clothed in a similar kind of insecurity: Should I? Shouldn’t I? There’s clearly unfairness here, but perhaps it’s best to underline the hypocrisy and move on.
The right move, quite obviously, is to act as a means of insisting on fair treatment.
Trump sued CBS for billions of dollars and CBS chose to settle. Schumer (or the DNC, or some other party leadership entity) should follow suit, then, cut to the chase: It is our expectation that CBS’s parent company will even the score by making a $16 million donation to a cause of our choosing. Otherwise, my official guidance to our members will be to treat the reporting staff at CBS News as presumptively hostile and untrustworthy. How can we trust them not to be pawns of the Trump loyalists who run their network? If CBS executives show this favoritism, we will assume employees of the news division are either happy to do their bosses’ dirty work, or feel they have no choice.
This is, I realize, extremely unfair to the actual journalists at CBS News, most of whom work hard and detest that they’ve been sacrificed like pawns. But that isn’t my fault or Chuck Schumer’s fault. It’s the fault of the corporate leaders and the corrupt bargains they’ve made with Trump. The executives are the only ones who can set things straight, and lashing out at Schumer for insisting on equal treatment would simply underscore the double standard. Trump can be Trump, and Democrats have to grow up and learn to live with it.
Fuck to all of that.
STRICTLY BALLROOM
These examples happened to be close at hand, but they illustrate an important general point: Fighting is a better, more constructive, and more actionable impulse than agonizing over how every deed and utterance affects public perception of the national party.