I have sometimes struggled with the "or else, what?" part of the threats the Dems should make, but your framing of the CBS bribe is a great answer to that question. The "or else, what?" only has to be something as simple as putting the word out that you are not on the level. We will recognize that you're a cog in this machine. From the CEO level, down to the journalists, you have been corrupted.
A wise man once said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself." He was a Dem, if I remember correctly.
Remember early on in Trump 2.0, when DOGE was destroying things the idea of a "Shadow" Cabinet be put together to counteract all the things Trump/Musk were doing. What ever happened to that? Haven't heard it mentioned in quite awhile. Why can't the Dems that are fighting (AOC, Pritzker, Newsom, Murphy etc) get together and do something like that? Why does Schumer/Jefferies have to be the lone representatives of "our" side?
I love Gavin's moxie, but I wish he would wish he would conjure up some in protection of our trans fellow humans. You in fact don't have to give it to them on sports (especially high school sports where most people suck anyway). It's a nuanced topic that probably should be addressed locally. But the end game is always some coach or adult checking some girl's (it's always girls) "equipment." Nobody would claim to want that, but that's where it always ends up.
Then again, maybe Gavin really doesn't like trans people or finds them icky. Whether he just won't defend them or find just finds them icky, that's a problem for him in 2028 when there are other strong candidates who don't seem to have that problem. Andy Beshear and Roy Cooper have been southern governors and won in spite of robust support for trans rights. And they pretty much share the rest of Newsome's presumed positions. Plus I have no idea if they've ever been to French Laundry, but they certainly didn't go during COVID lockdown.
About a year ago, I was looking at the NCAA policy on trans athletes. The sole criteria was testosterone levels. I get the feeling that the genitalia check stuff is a scare tactic.
Dems have to take on this issue head-on or it becomes a mill-stone around their neck.
Check out the history of these criteria. Maybe last year it was testosterone levels, which is in and of itself problematic (see Caster Semenya), but historically these types of tests have run the gamut, including inspection of genitalia. What about the last year thinks that giving ground on this issue won't lead us back to that? The fact that the right only cares about this in the context of women's sports (we have never tested for "abnormal" estrogen levels in male athletes when estrogen aids endurance a ton), when they don't care about women at all in any other context, should be a blaring red flag about the possibilities. There certainly are nuanced decisions to be made, but none of the politicians discussing the topic know a gd thing about them and they should stay out of it.
Honestly most people have no clue how complex genetic sex is. They learned the simplest explanation of XX/XY in freshman biology 20 years ago and didn't think of it again. It's far more complex than that and there are tons of women walking around with XY. Not to mention that in sports, there are all kinds of genetic advantages. A woman with genetically high testosterone has an advantage in track in the same way a woman born to be 6'5" has an advantage in basketball. It's an meaningless advantage unless you work your ass off and yet we only punish one of them.
Trump and those around him are evil. What do-nothing Dems (Carville, Schumer, Jeffries) have been saying is, "Don't worry. Sooner or later enough people will see that he's evil, and they'll come asking us to help." This is repulsive. It's like saying, "When enough people have suffered, and enough institutions have been damaged, then we can say we told you so."
Never mind "inspiring"--how is that even reassuring? Can you guarantee that I won't be harmed while you wait patiently? Trump's malevolence and stupidity is incalculable. Can you guarantee that something truly horrific (e.g., a new pandemic) won't happen before he "fucks up"? And this has nothing to do with political maneuvering. Even if Schumer and Jeffries' let-them-shut-down-the-government plan is working, that doesn't excuse or justify their almost complete lack of robust opposition. How much of their passivity is strategic, and how much proceeds from their character, is worth discussing.
Yes! The lack of fight in Dems even way back before Trump always baffled me. Remember Tom DeLay and similar characters? These GOP hardliners were always creating conflict with Dems to both please their base and actually to move the country’s political center to the right, notch by notch. Fighting back consistently against cruel policies and defamatory lies is looong overdue.
This is why Mallory McMorrow’s righteous tirade against the Republican who labeled her a “groomer” was so electifying. Mallory gets this. We need more politicians like her.
We, also, need to tie Republicans to Trump, for all time. At some point they will try to claim they opposed Trump all along and are as much victims as anyone else.
Nope. It's the Republican dictatorship, the Republican ICE goons, the Republican runaway Supreme Court. Tie Republicans to Trump with a steel cord.
I agree globally but want to push back on Clinton’s world salad. She could say she thinks the sun is good and then we’d have to deal with people abstaining from the neoliberal sun. Mamdani is likely better off with her word salad than a totally reasonable explanation for anything, least of all anything that might come off as favorable to Mamdani. She’s just an unusual lightning rod to use as an example.
I agree that it’s not really fair to Hillary and she probably did the right thing by zohran. However, I would prefer that she just be honest and say that she wasn’t going to answer because she didn’t want to negatively tarnish the candidates one way or the other. Instead we got the meaningless word salad that puts us all to sleep.
Yes to all of this, a 1000x yes. But I will say that….
“ By fighting, Newsom transformed a huge majority of undecided voters into supporters of the referendum…”
Ignores that in the succeeding 2 months the continuing excesses of the Trump administration surely helped Newsom and Prop 50 gain steam, too. Let’s give full credit to the stupid self-harm the GOP is dong to itself. : )
Those puzzled at the passivity and cowardice of Democratic leadership operate, I believe, under the misimpression that the political parties represent their political bases. Rather, the political parties represent their economic clientele, and tell stories to their political bases. (The GOP story is the authoritarian one about all of the "others" that threaten; the Democratic story is essentially a TINA ("there is no alternative") tale about beneficent capitalism that recognizes individual rights and redistributes moderately.) Both parties serve wealth: the GOP serves stateless, coalescing autocratic wealth; the Democratic party serves old-fashioned, New-Deal-compromise corporate wealth that by and large continues to recognize the nation-state construct and the rule of law. All decent people vote Democratic, but simply as the lesser of evils - the party that will afford more time before all wealth condenses into a singularity.
But the Democratic party still serves capital, and capital, legally and practically, may not consider what is right, or what is necessary for society to sustain itself, or anything other than return on investment. So Democratic capital waits, without commitment, temporizing, to see which way things will go. If the GOP may prevail in securing an authoritarian state in which it decides who gets the wealth, the economic clientele served by the Democratic party don't want to be left in the cold by having stepped forward in resistance. Democratic leadership stand between the political base, who would like leadership to try to keep the nation from collapsing into a police state, and the economic clientele, which demand that all options be kept open. I believe this is the best explanation of the unending, cosmic fecklessness of Democratic leadership.
Hillary's answer was absurd. No one cares, so just answer it. It's OK to let your hair down now. And you're absolutely right re CBS. If I could sue on behalf of the DNC I'd do it right now.
Yes many Dems leaders don't seem to understand even the basics of messaging. But is hard to build favorable image for the party when Republicans have a consistent longterm campaign of daily attacks while Dems do nothing in response. No, a two month blitz of ads every four years doesn't do it. Anyway most Dem funding is controlled by individual candidates who have no incentive to spend money on a general messaging effort building up the Democratic party brand.
If I could I would vote for Mamdani. Having left NYC 30+ years ago, the only way I will be able to return and live in an apartment larger than a closet is if he succeeds. In my older age Sidewalks, Shopping carts, and public transportation are a dream. Not that I don't like my home. It's access to better hospitals and a variety of choices which city life brings which makes me think in 10 years it would be wonderful to go home.
I think you articulated the "Big Fight/Big Tent" model which 'should have been/hopefully will' be the motis operendi of the party. Big Fight (Polarize Trumpism Nationally/Locally...Turn every Trumpublican action, Policy Issue and Complicit Entity into a statement of its destruction on Democracy, Quality of Life, American/Human Values, and present the Dem counterpoint position)...Big Tent (Rally around the Dem Flag...Make Core Dem Issues on Democracy, Quality of Life, Values universal across the party which can unite diverse candidates and present a party identity, while letting each candidate have the leeway to represent the issues important to their constituency)...and please create a Shadow Cabinet...
Yes, and every time Kamala Harris appears in public we should demand why her husband is working for one of the corrupt law firms rather than defending victims of ice.
Amazing piece, Brian.
I have sometimes struggled with the "or else, what?" part of the threats the Dems should make, but your framing of the CBS bribe is a great answer to that question. The "or else, what?" only has to be something as simple as putting the word out that you are not on the level. We will recognize that you're a cog in this machine. From the CEO level, down to the journalists, you have been corrupted.
A wise man once said, "The only thing to fear is fear itself." He was a Dem, if I remember correctly.
Yes, but that always reminds me of a line from the Andry Griffith show.
ANDY: Now, Barney, calm down. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
BARNY FIFE: Yeah, well, that's what I got--fear itself.
Yes! The CBS example is PERFECT.
Remember early on in Trump 2.0, when DOGE was destroying things the idea of a "Shadow" Cabinet be put together to counteract all the things Trump/Musk were doing. What ever happened to that? Haven't heard it mentioned in quite awhile. Why can't the Dems that are fighting (AOC, Pritzker, Newsom, Murphy etc) get together and do something like that? Why does Schumer/Jefferies have to be the lone representatives of "our" side?
I love Gavin's moxie, but I wish he would wish he would conjure up some in protection of our trans fellow humans. You in fact don't have to give it to them on sports (especially high school sports where most people suck anyway). It's a nuanced topic that probably should be addressed locally. But the end game is always some coach or adult checking some girl's (it's always girls) "equipment." Nobody would claim to want that, but that's where it always ends up.
Then again, maybe Gavin really doesn't like trans people or finds them icky. Whether he just won't defend them or find just finds them icky, that's a problem for him in 2028 when there are other strong candidates who don't seem to have that problem. Andy Beshear and Roy Cooper have been southern governors and won in spite of robust support for trans rights. And they pretty much share the rest of Newsome's presumed positions. Plus I have no idea if they've ever been to French Laundry, but they certainly didn't go during COVID lockdown.
About a year ago, I was looking at the NCAA policy on trans athletes. The sole criteria was testosterone levels. I get the feeling that the genitalia check stuff is a scare tactic.
Dems have to take on this issue head-on or it becomes a mill-stone around their neck.
Check out the history of these criteria. Maybe last year it was testosterone levels, which is in and of itself problematic (see Caster Semenya), but historically these types of tests have run the gamut, including inspection of genitalia. What about the last year thinks that giving ground on this issue won't lead us back to that? The fact that the right only cares about this in the context of women's sports (we have never tested for "abnormal" estrogen levels in male athletes when estrogen aids endurance a ton), when they don't care about women at all in any other context, should be a blaring red flag about the possibilities. There certainly are nuanced decisions to be made, but none of the politicians discussing the topic know a gd thing about them and they should stay out of it.
Honestly most people have no clue how complex genetic sex is. They learned the simplest explanation of XX/XY in freshman biology 20 years ago and didn't think of it again. It's far more complex than that and there are tons of women walking around with XY. Not to mention that in sports, there are all kinds of genetic advantages. A woman with genetically high testosterone has an advantage in track in the same way a woman born to be 6'5" has an advantage in basketball. It's an meaningless advantage unless you work your ass off and yet we only punish one of them.
For reference on the history:
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_verification_in_sports
- https://radiolab.org/series/radiolab-presents-gonads/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-nPVCgcqOM (this is an episode of the above series)
Trump and those around him are evil. What do-nothing Dems (Carville, Schumer, Jeffries) have been saying is, "Don't worry. Sooner or later enough people will see that he's evil, and they'll come asking us to help." This is repulsive. It's like saying, "When enough people have suffered, and enough institutions have been damaged, then we can say we told you so."
Never mind "inspiring"--how is that even reassuring? Can you guarantee that I won't be harmed while you wait patiently? Trump's malevolence and stupidity is incalculable. Can you guarantee that something truly horrific (e.g., a new pandemic) won't happen before he "fucks up"? And this has nothing to do with political maneuvering. Even if Schumer and Jeffries' let-them-shut-down-the-government plan is working, that doesn't excuse or justify their almost complete lack of robust opposition. How much of their passivity is strategic, and how much proceeds from their character, is worth discussing.
Hillary Clinton has not run for office in nearly a decade, and she is still criticized about her reaction to political events.
Yes! The lack of fight in Dems even way back before Trump always baffled me. Remember Tom DeLay and similar characters? These GOP hardliners were always creating conflict with Dems to both please their base and actually to move the country’s political center to the right, notch by notch. Fighting back consistently against cruel policies and defamatory lies is looong overdue.
This is why Mallory McMorrow’s righteous tirade against the Republican who labeled her a “groomer” was so electifying. Mallory gets this. We need more politicians like her.
Good job, Brian.
We, also, need to tie Republicans to Trump, for all time. At some point they will try to claim they opposed Trump all along and are as much victims as anyone else.
Nope. It's the Republican dictatorship, the Republican ICE goons, the Republican runaway Supreme Court. Tie Republicans to Trump with a steel cord.
I agree globally but want to push back on Clinton’s world salad. She could say she thinks the sun is good and then we’d have to deal with people abstaining from the neoliberal sun. Mamdani is likely better off with her word salad than a totally reasonable explanation for anything, least of all anything that might come off as favorable to Mamdani. She’s just an unusual lightning rod to use as an example.
I agree that it’s not really fair to Hillary and she probably did the right thing by zohran. However, I would prefer that she just be honest and say that she wasn’t going to answer because she didn’t want to negatively tarnish the candidates one way or the other. Instead we got the meaningless word salad that puts us all to sleep.
Yes to all of this, a 1000x yes. But I will say that….
“ By fighting, Newsom transformed a huge majority of undecided voters into supporters of the referendum…”
Ignores that in the succeeding 2 months the continuing excesses of the Trump administration surely helped Newsom and Prop 50 gain steam, too. Let’s give full credit to the stupid self-harm the GOP is dong to itself. : )
Those puzzled at the passivity and cowardice of Democratic leadership operate, I believe, under the misimpression that the political parties represent their political bases. Rather, the political parties represent their economic clientele, and tell stories to their political bases. (The GOP story is the authoritarian one about all of the "others" that threaten; the Democratic story is essentially a TINA ("there is no alternative") tale about beneficent capitalism that recognizes individual rights and redistributes moderately.) Both parties serve wealth: the GOP serves stateless, coalescing autocratic wealth; the Democratic party serves old-fashioned, New-Deal-compromise corporate wealth that by and large continues to recognize the nation-state construct and the rule of law. All decent people vote Democratic, but simply as the lesser of evils - the party that will afford more time before all wealth condenses into a singularity.
But the Democratic party still serves capital, and capital, legally and practically, may not consider what is right, or what is necessary for society to sustain itself, or anything other than return on investment. So Democratic capital waits, without commitment, temporizing, to see which way things will go. If the GOP may prevail in securing an authoritarian state in which it decides who gets the wealth, the economic clientele served by the Democratic party don't want to be left in the cold by having stepped forward in resistance. Democratic leadership stand between the political base, who would like leadership to try to keep the nation from collapsing into a police state, and the economic clientele, which demand that all options be kept open. I believe this is the best explanation of the unending, cosmic fecklessness of Democratic leadership.
RIGHT ON!
Hillary's answer was absurd. No one cares, so just answer it. It's OK to let your hair down now. And you're absolutely right re CBS. If I could sue on behalf of the DNC I'd do it right now.
Yes many Dems leaders don't seem to understand even the basics of messaging. But is hard to build favorable image for the party when Republicans have a consistent longterm campaign of daily attacks while Dems do nothing in response. No, a two month blitz of ads every four years doesn't do it. Anyway most Dem funding is controlled by individual candidates who have no incentive to spend money on a general messaging effort building up the Democratic party brand.
To quote Schmear Leader: fight, fight, fight!
If I could I would vote for Mamdani. Having left NYC 30+ years ago, the only way I will be able to return and live in an apartment larger than a closet is if he succeeds. In my older age Sidewalks, Shopping carts, and public transportation are a dream. Not that I don't like my home. It's access to better hospitals and a variety of choices which city life brings which makes me think in 10 years it would be wonderful to go home.
I think you articulated the "Big Fight/Big Tent" model which 'should have been/hopefully will' be the motis operendi of the party. Big Fight (Polarize Trumpism Nationally/Locally...Turn every Trumpublican action, Policy Issue and Complicit Entity into a statement of its destruction on Democracy, Quality of Life, American/Human Values, and present the Dem counterpoint position)...Big Tent (Rally around the Dem Flag...Make Core Dem Issues on Democracy, Quality of Life, Values universal across the party which can unite diverse candidates and present a party identity, while letting each candidate have the leeway to represent the issues important to their constituency)...and please create a Shadow Cabinet...
Yes, and every time Kamala Harris appears in public we should demand why her husband is working for one of the corrupt law firms rather than defending victims of ice.
I would prefer that we train our guns on the people who actually hold office NOW. If she jumps into a race, all's fair.