UPDATE:

See also: Brian Schatz place below in Jentleson area

Q. & A. with Brian Schatz: Do Democrats Have a Plan? | The New Yorker

UPDATE:

(289) Tim Miller: Democratic Donors Are Afraid of Trump. I’m Sick of It. – YouTube

The Adam Jentleson paradox: are they really naive or just evil? His interview with Sarah Longwell

ProChoice Mike: “But but but the #GenocideJoe people have been telling us Trump is the anti war guy so how is Trump saying ‘we’re going to own GAZA’ and he floated the idea of BOOTS on the GROUND in Gaza. Wait until Cenk HEARS THIS www.msn.com/en-nz/news/o…” — Bluesky

This is what I mean by Orwellian

I’ve been very gratified to see some post November 5 developments-like the young group of Zoomers working to create a sort of liberal version of Charlie Kirk’s Turning Points as well as Kyle Kulinski’s recent interview on Project Liberal. These are some of the signs that liberals and leftists on YouTube are beginning to realize that while neither side entirely likes or trusts the other it’s the future assuming either side hopes to achieve any kind of a progressive future.

Partuclarly love that young folks realize that being a liberal is actually BASED-liberalism won two world wars, whipped the Great Depression, passed the New Deal, integrated the armed forces, passed the GI bill, did the Great Soceity, signed the Voting Rights Act. I don’t think it’s hyperolic at all to say that all progressive achievements of the last 111 years are thanks to the Democratic party.

FN:

Although-seeing what Trump is trying to do to our OWN ALLIES it’s become clearer than ever his goal is to destroy the entire legacy of liberalism both domestically AND internationally.

Trump Tilts Toward a Ukraine Sellout – WSJ

Anti turning points on Medias Touch?

FN: Find links

Then on the Left it’s been amazing to see how far Kyle Kulinski has come to the necessary alliance of liberals and leftists-in 2020 Kyle was straight Bernie or Bust.

(279) The Liberal + Leftist Alliance | Kyle Kulinski – YouTube

Not sure how Kyle would feel about this but it seems to me that Vaush was an important and positive influence on him-Vaush had taken a strong anti #BernieorBust stand in 2020-despite being a fairly passionate Bernie supporter. I also suspect that Kyle has had a salutary influence on his wife Krystal who in 2020 was doing some truly terrible videos actually minimizing Trump’s attempted coup.

As I’ve argued in other chapters the cause of liberalism cum progressivism hit its nadir after LBJ’s 1964 landslide and it’s been only-or at least mostly-downhill since. Reagan’s General Electric speech of 1964 ‘liberals say you’ve never had it so good’ was correct-it was a highwater mark for both liberalism and US capitalism. If liberalism has mostly or at least much of the time gone South since Ronnie’s speech so has the country as a whole at least for the 60% supermajority of Americans living paycheck to paycheck.

You might have noticed in this book that I have quite a lot of criticism of the Left. The reason for this is that often the Left’s only real function has appeared to be to spllit the progressive vote thereby electing the GOP Right. Think about it. The Left takes much pride in their anti LBJ chants-‘how many kids did you kill today?!’ but all they did was elect Nixon who continued Vietnam 5 years longer than it needed to take-even Daniel Ellsberg himself acknowledges in retrospect that Hubert Humphrey would have ended the war as I do believe would have Kamala Harris.  Like Harris however, Humphrey’s was nervous about putting too much daylight with his own Administration.

FN: Link

Leftists always seem to come most alive when there’s an opportunity to take down a liberal Democratic President-they always seem to hate liberals more than they’d ever hate fascists. And we’ve seen this has been a recurring dynamic-Nader 2000, #BernieorBust Circa 2016, #GenocideJoe 2024, Jill Stein every four years. Indeed what’s very telling is Kirsten Sinema originated in: the Green party because of course she did. The Green party seems to have no function other than to play a spoiler to the Democratic party-as opposed to more substantive third parties like Minnesota’s Farm Labor party or the Working Families Party.

But years ago in the Nixon Administration-of course-the GOP’s playbook was laid out very well by none other than Pat Buchanan: the GOP strategy is to focus not on things that unite Repubicans but divide Democrats-a very effective wedge for the GOP for many years was between US labor and the African American community, for instance as Buchanan had pointed out.

“Dividing the Democrats” | The New Yorker

See also Nixonland.

The irony of the attacks by Stone and Trump in the 1999 Reform party primary is that it pitted two Nixon 1972 Alum against each other.

Seems a long time ago but back in 2014 a writer who called themself ittalkyoubored wrote a fascinating deep dive-with the emphasis on deep it has 10 very long parts-on none other than Roger Stone. This Roger Stone manifesto seems downright prophetic in light of Stone’s subsequent role in helping Trump steal the 2016 election.

FN: It also seemed almost prophetic that both Stone and Buchanan wrote Richard Nixon books in the period as if to say ANOTHER even worse than Nixon will be here soon.

Here the writer analyses Stone’s method of political engagement:

I don’t think Stone ever says what policy he is for in this memoir, and he might well consider a focus on policy a distraction. There is only winning and losing an election, and five methods for achieving a victory recur again and again in races that Stone is involved with, four methods that create a mirror maze of confusion, misdirection, and elimination. The first is through association, by having a candidate receive an endorsement from a person or group who potential supporters of the candidate are predisposed to view as an opponent, or through association with something unquestionably malevolent made via protesters, pamphlets, or other means funded by Stone’s campaign but without any fingerprints. The second is by having a group, funded by allied interests, oppose a candidate or policy due to some larger moral principle that everyone can agree on – the issue is not candidate A versus B, but opposition to crime, gambling, or child abuse. The third is the smear, saying your opponent is corrupt, weak, racist, a rapist, a murderer, a pedophile, always helpfully done not through you, the opponent on which this tar might stick, but through a phantom proxy. This last is used very, very often by Stone. The fourth, and one of the most effective, is through fragmentation of the vote. There is, say, overwhelming support for candidate A, who will raise the minimum wage, versus candidate B, who won’t. You split this overwhelming vote by funding another candidate, who wants to raise the minimum wage even higher, and who chastises candidate A for compromising their principles and being beholden to business interests for not asking for a higher wage. Through a vote split, candidate B, the one who says he believes the condition of workers must be improved, but not through easy sounding solutions like a higher minimum wage, scores a victory. At the same time, you make great efforts to keep the votes for your own candidate or issue from being fragmented. The fifth is vote suppression, of black and latino voters, who tend to poll democrat. The first four have been employed in elections that Stone has been involved in, with Stone often taking credit. The fifth has been employed alongside Stone’s efforts, though perhaps without the collusion of Stone.”

All three were used in the first major race that Stone was involved in, the 1972 presidential election. When he was ten years old, Stone remembered he had a tarot card reading where he was told he would meet a leader who would change his life, and Stone would later say this leader could be only one man, a man he would become enraptured by, make into his idol, and whose face he would ink into the skin on his back¹⁴. In 1972, he would help to get this life changing leader, Richard Nixon, re-elected. Every method, except voter suppression, were put to use by Nixon and the Nixon group Stone worked for, CREEP, the Committee to Re-elect the President

Roger Stone: Pretty Reckless Is Going Straight To Hell Part One | italkyoubored

Voter fragmentation for the GOP has meant to a large extent dividing the Left from the Center Left-ie destroying the possibility of a “Liberal-Left Alliance.” Buchanan would love to focus on the racial fault lines of the large and fractioius Democratic coalition-in 1972 you had the divide between the Black vote that finished it’s 30 year migration to the Democratic party after LBJ signed the VRA and the ethnic Whites-the Italians, Irish, Poles, the Catholics. etc that had long been part of the New Deal coalition via the Unions.

But another way to understand voter fragmentation is that it’s essential to the GOP the majority of the electorate prefers progressive leaning Democratic policies. This remains true even now-though the Right appears through it’s huge media ecosphere further extenuated by the post November 5 capitulation of the legacy media-the latest version-and its permanent 24 hour disinformation campaign to have potentially neutralized the fact that today just as in 1946-Nixon’s first successful House campaign or in the Watergate election of 1972 most voters prefer left leaning Democratic party policies even as the Democratic party’s brand appears to be in shambles. As we saw in chapter Sometimes the Bad Guys win-seems a lot more than SOMTIMES lately-that poll reported by WaPo in Occtober 2024 showed that voters still preferred Democratic policies to the extent they didn’t realize they ARE DEMOCRATIC PARTY policies.

Regarding the third method we literally saw this in 2016 right? Bernie proposed a $15 MW, Hillary $12 and Trump said he agreed the MW was too low but then the MW isn’t the way to raise wages. And true to form the Bernie Bros proclaimed Hillary Clinton the devil-a corporate shill, a neoliberal corporate shill, etc. They calumniated her far more than they ever criticized Trump

If the GOP is better at campaign narrativization than Democrats this is in large part though necessity-as they know their policies are unpopular so they have to make up for it via clever, dishonest framing.

Because of the eventual landslide margin of Nixon win over McGovern it’s not widely understood but 1972 was yet another GOP stolen election. One zombie idea that never dies is that Watergate was just a “low level burglary” that didn’t have any impact on the result.  To understand the disconnect it’s important to understand that “Watergate” is about more than just the physical burglary of the DNC-that was just one episode in a larger campaign of Nixon’s political espionage.

And it would be the 19 year old Roger Stone who had the winning shot-or at least a major assist-for Nixon’s winning shot when he hand delivered the Canucks Letter-written by Don Segretti-to the Manchester Union Leader leading to the sudden withdrawal of Ed Muskie from the race.

Stone is the thread that connects the last 79 years of Republican party dirty tricks together.

Again as I argued in chapter in 1946 the year that Nixon first won his CA House Seat the GOP by then had to have wondered if they’d ever have power again. After all by then they had been shut out of the WH and both Houses of Congress since 1932. The nation supported FDR’s New Deal but the GOP represented the minority class interest of voters who opposed it. How could the not so Grand Ole Party ever get back in power?

There were a few possibilities. One they could make peace with the New Deal. But this was never seroiusly considered to the contrary it was ruled out of hand. The second was the William F. Buckley option: “to stand athwart history and yell stop!”

However a third option would emerge in 1952: the Republicans could-and did-endorse an extremely popular war hero with trans partisan appeal a la I like Ike. Dwight Eisenhower had kept his political preferences very close to his vest but it turns out he was a Republican. He was not a huge fan of liberalism BUT he was pragmatic enough to understand it wasn’t politically tenable to oppose the heart of the New Deal. Ike would himself continue to increase and expand Social security until it as truly universal.

Eisenhower would win 1956  by an even larger landslide than he did in 1952 over the same candidate-the unlucky Adlai Stevenson. Certainly Ike was successful at least in getting himself elected but many on the Right weren’t happy seeing him as a largely Me Too Republican-he expanded the safety net perhaps less than a Democrat would but still substantially.

Ultimately the long term strategy the GOP would choose was Buckley’s ‘standing athwart history yelling stop!’ The modus operandi would come not from Ike but his VP whom Ike himself always had an ambivalent relationship with-a la The Checkers Speech and ‘if you give me a week I might think of something-I don’t remember’-Stone’s mentor Richard Nixon.

The basic blueprint for Nixonism was already apparent in 1946-dirty tricks of the sort quoted above from italkyoubored A major aspect of Nixonism was always character assassination of your (liberal, Democratic) opponent. Ie basically McCarthyism. This underscores Roger Stone’s relation to this reactionary modern history of the Republican party. To see this you have to understand that Nixonism=McCarthyism=Trumpism. Stone’s mentor was Nixon. After the fall of Nixon, Stone met Roy Cohn. It was Cohn through who he initially met Donald Trump.

FN: Post the 1946 campaign Nixon would admit his defeated Democratic incumbent opponent Jerry Voorhes WASN’T a Communist but “here’s what you have to understand: you have to win!” Much of the Nixonian-McCarthyite-Trumpian-GOP blueprint was laid out by Nixon’s first winning campaigin manager in 1946 Murray Chotiner. He laid out some clear campaign Theses or commandments.

Murray Chotiner – Wikipedia

https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=UCR19591202.2.9

FN:

Roy Cohn introduces Roger Stone to Donald Trump (and Fred Trump) – TrumpFile.org

In a sense then Roger Stone WAS THE BATON Nixon passed to Trump.

How Roger Stone Connects Richard Nixon to Donald Trump | TIME

Another classic recurring Republican tactic is laid out the second part of italkyoubored’s massive Roger Stone deep dive. One reason I personally get so frustrated is how the GOP strategy never changes-it’s timeless. Yet the media, the Democrats, the anti Democratic Left, and most of the voters NEVER EVER NEVER catch on.

Roger Stone: Pretty Reckless Is Going Straight To Hell Part Two | italkyoubored

After the apocalypse of Watergate, Stone had two noteworthy jobs. He would work as a driver for Bob Dole, who, he tells us, was “angry and horny”. More importantly, he would join the National Conservative Political Action Committee (NCPAC), a group made up of veterans of Barry Goldwater’s failed presidential campaign, which would score electoral wins by flooding a race with negative advertising that could not be tied to the candidate that it was intended to help out. “Groups like ours,” said Terry Dolan, a founding member of NCPAC and its most important player, “are potentially very dangerous to the political process. We could be a menace, yes. Ten independent expenditure groups, for example, could amass this great amount of money and defeat the point of accountability in politics. We could say whatever we want about an opponent of a Senator Smith and the senator wouldn’t have to say anything. A group like ours could lie through its teeth and the candidate it helps stays clean.”²¹ They would help Ron Paul win his first election in Texas; they would take down John Culver of Iowa, George McGovern of South Dakota, Frank Church of Idaho, and Birch Bayh of Indiana. It was not about ideology, it was about you winning and the other guy losing. “We want people to hate Birch Bayh without even knowing why,” explained Dolan²

This is exactly what the GOP did to HRC in 2016. Overnight they were able-with a major assist by the mainstream media-to convince large swathes of the electorate to hate Hillary Clinton without having the slightest clue why. It’s this kind of high school dynamic where everyone decides they hate someone but can never tell you why-other than everyone does so you should too.  But nobody could tell you why they SUDDENLY hated Hillary Clinton.  After all, before 9 Benghazi hearings 64% of Americans said they had a favorable view of her.

This was the same dynamic with Al Gore in 2000, or for that matter Biden in 2024 or Jimmy Carter in 1980. What the GOP has mastered is the art of destroying the popularity of Democratic Presidents or nominees. Think about it. This goes back to Jimmy Carter. Carter’s approval rating was 75% after he was sworn in January 1977. By August 1979 with all the crap that was thrown at him-and the high prices   his approval tanked to 29%.

FN:

Jimmy Carter presidential approval U.S. 1977-1980 | Statista

See also:

Final Presidential Job Approval Ratings | The American Presidency Project

End FN

Similarly while Obama is remembered as being popular he really wasn’t through a large part of the meat of his Presidency. While he was obviously very popular during his campaign and he was sworn in with a 66% approval rating his approval rating it took just a year for the GOP’s balls to the wall obstruction at every point to drop him below 50%. By the midterms of 2020-aka the GOP red wave “shellacking”-he was down to 45%.

During his campaign of 2012 his approval rating recovered some and he was back to 50% on election day 2012. And got back up to 52% at the time of his second inauguration. By March, however, he was back under 50% and by the end of the year his numbers had tanked into the low 40s they dipped to 41% in November 2013 and basically stayed there for three months only starting to rise very slightly in February, and that was only to 42% and 43% in March. Indeed Obama’s numbers remained mired in the low 40s through most of 2014-on midterm election day 2014 he remained at 42%. Indeed the Democratic losses were even worse than 2010 with the Dems now losing the Senate.

What this brings home is the fallacy of some of the elected and leadership Dems post November 5-like Ro Kihanna who seriously argued that the Dems lost because Biden wasn’t nice enough to Elon Musk. Which has the inconvenience of not being just absurdly cucked take but just wrong-Musk was already talking like RFK Jr back in 2020.

FN

Ro Khanna’s DOGE Dream Is Dead – Mother Jones

John Fetterman actually went to Mar-a-Lago to kiss Trump’s ring and seemed to take pleasure in finding as many ways to cave in advance to Trump as possible-one thing Fetterman had been saying was that Trump was very popular in PA. This is overstated things a little  Trump  has some popularity true but he still has plenty of opposition. More to the point this was literally the opposite of what Mitch McConnell did in 2009-2010 which while very cynical was all too effective-as we saw above it tanked Obama’s numbers and led to two big GOP Congressional wave elections in 2010 and 2014.

Then we had Adam Jentleson’s pathetic flameout on Bluesky where he seemed to see his mission as persuading the #resistanceliberals who hang out there like myself to agree it would be a keen idea for Democrats to vote to confirm as dangerous and unhinged nominee for HHS as RFK Jr

FN:

While it’s true that in the time since November 5 Trump’s approval ratings have been a little higher than in the past they still hardly set the world on fire-at the moment his approval rating is about 48%-49%. Again high FOR him historically but not high by the standards of other Presidents in the early honeymoon period. But the lesson of Mitch McConnell is that the way to deal with a popular incoming President from the opposing party is not to bend the knee and earnestly assure the nation you will work with him but rather oppose and obstruct him at every point

As we saw in chapter Sometimes the Bad Guys Win David Dayen had this really crucial post that pointed out McConnell went the opposite way of dropping bipartisan olive branches at every point.

In 2009, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell had the singular goal of making the Democrats pay for their policy ambitions. “We worked very hard to keep our fingerprints off of [Democratic] proposals … Because we thought—correctly, I think—that the only way the American people would know that a great debate was going on was if the measures were not bipartisan.”

What We Have Here Is a Rudderless Ship – The American Prospect

This attitude couldn’t be more different than of the Democratic “centrists” who are reportedly asking Jeffries for permission to vote for more Republican bills

Scoop: Hakeem Jeffries’ centrists press him to let them vote for GOP bills

It certainly was depressingly effective politically as we saw above. And this was in the face of a historically popular new young President in 2009. Obamaism like “there’s no Red State America or Blue State America just the United States of America”, “Hope and Change” and “Yes, We Can” seem an awful long time ago.

UPDATE:

House Dem Rips His Party For Calling Everything Trump Does ‘Dictatorial Or Illegal’ – It ‘Undermines Your Credibility’

(5) ProChoice Mike: “Trump threatening Letticia James yet Jared Golden doesn’t think Trump has done anything authoritarian or illegal www.msn.com/en-us/news/p…” — Bluesky

(5) ProChoice Mike: “I mean everything he does IS illegal or authoritarian www.msn.com/en-us/news/p…” — Bluesky

If nothing else the Republican party as the party of reaction always makes a comeback-in the mid 1970s a party leader like Nixonland Reference said “The Republican party is like fungus you can never get rid of it” and has been proven prescient indeed. Meanwhile the Democrats often have lacked all intensity.

FN: Nixonland.

Again the GOP seems to have cornered the market in raising the negatives of Democratic Presidents-and nominees. Like HRC. Remember the Birch Bay Treatment: many people are conditoined to hate prominent liberal, Democratic politicians and they have no idea why. Again it’s like high school-all the popular kids hate this girl, you know that if you DON’T hate her you won’t get to be one of the popular kids. The GOP playbook really is that simple.

This brings us back to Hillary Clinton. Millions have been conditioned to believe that to be received as a decent person in society you have to despite Hillary Clinton and insist she’s the most “unlikable” person imaginable. This makes me think of Orwell’s great opus 1984 where acceptance by the Party and therefore society requires you to accept the Big Lie.

FN: Richard Rorty vs Orwell.

Life in Orwell’s dystopian society you had to agree that “We have always been at war with Oceania.”

Totalitarianism and Perpetual War: 1984, A Case Study

Even though in reality-we have NOT ALWAYS BEEN AT WAR WITH OCEANIA. This had been just a recent policy change but to be in good standing you had to be super adaptive and “forget” that just recently “we” were NOT at war with Oceania.

Similarly the “Winstonesque” position in the Trumpian era-the point of view of this book-is to recall the simple, trivial fact that there was a time when Hillary Clinton wasn’t terribly unpopular. It wasn’t that long ago. You just have to go back to 2013 and early 2014 before she became the perceived nominee for the 2016 campaign. No one recalls this now-again this is how Orwellian society works things are forgotten as if they never happened-but during the Obama years Hillary was typically more popular than he was.

But this simple fact is never remembered as it would undermine the narrative that “we have always been at war with Oceania” while being allied with Atlantis. During her time as Obama’s Secretary of State HRC was popular-her approval rating was 64% while as we chronicled above Obama’s were for the better part of the four years between 2010 to 2014 in the mid to low 40s.

Indeed to show you how different the conventional narrative was back then there was this idea that BIDEN was such a liability to Obama-aka “a gaffe machine”-that Obama should dump him for Hillary. This is simply inconprehensible for the post Benghazi era we’ve existed in since where it’s simply a metaphysical certainy of the universe that Hillary Clinton is “unlikeable.” But there WAS a time we were at peace with Oceania while at war with Atlantis.

Then you had Benghazi. Initially this faux scandal focused on Obama-remember Benghazi in late September 2012, a month before the election, so it focused on Obama and his National Security Advisor Susan Rice. It started to focus on HRC in 2013 after Obama won reelection . From there we got to Emailgate. In short the political needs of The Party changed. In our version of Orewllian society today-aka Trumpian reality. If this book seeks to be Winston clearly Trump is O’Brien-millions of Americans will believe ANYTHING Trump says just because he said it. Remember when Orwell held up four fingers and demanded Winston say he had five fingers up?

That is literally what Trump has done for 9 and a half years-there has been a large fraction of the country will believe anything Trump says And this fraction is growing. Again membership in The Party-in the US it’s the Republican party is willfully allowing yourself to be dupe of the Big Lie-there are a number of Trumpian Big Lies, most important being the lie that “Frankly we did win that election.” Now that Trump get reelected after THIS it’s not clear what he can’t get away with.

Then there was Kevin McCarthy’s frank gloating “we did a Select Committee her numbers are dropping.”

McCarthy links Benghazi panel to Clinton’s falling poll numbers

Again it’s the Evan Bayh principle of Nixon cum Roger Stone: ideally you want to condition people to hate someone-a leading liberal Democrat-without actually knowing why. It’s like joining a cult that requires you to believe certain theses without knowing why are asking for a reason-or to get to sit with the popular kids in junior high.

There was a time when Jimmy Carter was so demonized, for a good while Obama, for a very long time Hillary Clinton, the last four years it was Joe Biden. Biden too was once popular. But this is thanks to the Mitch McConnell Doctrine: DON’T SEEK BIPARTISANSHIP even on things you might have previously agreed with.

Again for this to work you have to have no sense of history-thankfully in Trump’s America few do. Some forget most never knew it in the first place. This is why Indivisible’s Ezra Levin has been urging Senate Democrats since the start of the Musk Coup to ask themselves “What would Mitch McConnell do?” as a guiding principle. Because as despicable as what McConnell did in 2009-2010 and since it has been wildly successful. Clearly the idea that positivity beats negativity has been as decisively debunked as anything can be via a natural experiment.

Going back to Watergate, again it’s commonly understood as about the one break when in fact that was just one episode in a much larger project of political espionage and sabotage. The 100 IQ response of course is: even if this is true this wasn’t what decided the election Nixon won 49 out of 50 states. Sure against McGovern. But McGovern was the candidate he wanted and who he worked for hard and successfully to ensure WOULD be his nominee. This brings us back to CREEP.

Again Watergate was about much more than the one break in. There was this massive political espionage campaign where via CREEP-that the 19 year old Stone played a consequential part of-the Nixon campaign spied on all the leading 1972 Democratic campaigns. On the other hand the Nixon campaign had a clear preference-that McGovern not Muskie be the nominee. So Muskie was the 1972 version of Evan Bayh, or Al Gore-who in 2000 was allegedly “too boring to be President”-or Hillary Clinton-“But her emails!” or Biden 2024. In every cycle the GOP plays the same hand but everyone from the media, to the Dem leadership, to the anti liberal Left to many voters acts like they’ve never seen this movie before.

So while all the Democrats were spied on, Muskie was the central target

The repellent ugliness of most of these tactics has been forgotten, and so I’m grateful to Rick Perlstein’s Nixonland for recording them. Black protesters suddenly showed up in front of the hotel room of democratic candidate Edmund Muskie, calling him racist for having said that a Democratic ticket with a black running mate couldn’t get elected. An ad suddenly appeared in a Miami Beach Jewish newspaper: “Muskie, Why Won’t You Consider a Jew as a Vice President?” Muskie hadn’t excluded the possibility. Flyers appeared in Jewish neighborhoods: “Remember the Warsaw Ghetto…Vote Right on March 14.” Muskie was of Polish descent¹⁵. A letter was sent to a New Hampshire paper, filled with outrage at what happened when Muskie had been asked how he could understand the problems of minorities given the lack of minorities in Maine, Muskie’s home state. A Muskie aide had supposedly replied that they did have minorities in Maine, the very same minority that was there in New Hampshire: “Not blacks, but we have Canucks.” Muskie had supposedly laughed¹⁶. The next day, Muskie’s wife was indicted in an editorial in the same paper of telling dirty jokes to reporters, and having two cocktails before dinner. Something in all this broke Muskie, and when the candidate defended his wife in front of television cameras, he began to weep¹⁷. Muskie’s tears destroyed his candidacy. Muskie was a target, but all the Democratic candidates were targets. Two hundred dollars was donated to Pete McCloskey by the Young Socialist Alliance, the receipt for the donation helpfully sent to a right-wing news editor. A mole, code named Sedan Chair II, was hired to go inside the Herbert Humphrey campaign and relay strategic information¹⁸.

Enter 19 year old Roger Stone:

It would eventually be established with certainty that the man who’d written the “Canucks” letter, the man who’d hired the black protesters in front of Muskie’s hotel room, was Donald Segretti, who handled a secret, separate black ops campaign team for CREEP. The man who’d actually sent the letter to McCloskey, who’d hired the Sedan Chair II mole, was a nineteen year old operative named Roger Stone. It was because of this that he makes a brief appearance in the Watergate testimony.”

Stone’s name came up in the Watergate hearing regarding his role in hiring the spy Sedan Chair II presumably from a Democratic party campaign-Robert Reisner in his testimony would conjecture it could have been a disgruntled operative from the Hubert Humphrey campaign.

“From “Hearings before the Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activities of the United States Senate June 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, and 14, 1973” (page 499 on pdf and the actual document). Reisner is Robert Reisner, former administrative assistant to Jeb Magruder, the head of CREEP; Thompson is Fred Dalton Thompson, occasional senator, occasional actor, and one-time candidate for the president, in 2008:

Now enter Roger Stone:

Stone himself would discuss his role here in a political memoir italkyoubored copiously references.

FN: Wherever the writer obtained the quotes from Stone’s memoir entitled simply Dirty Tricks, I was not able to find it here in 2025.

This is an important point and goes back to my argument that this was yet another time the GOP stole a Presidential election despite the ultimately huge margin over McGovern-as McGovern was in a sense Nixon’s CHOSEN OPPONENT-the polls in mid and late 1971 were very tight.

Back to italkyoubored-who WAS Sedan Chair II?

Sedan Chair II was Michael W. McMinoway, and he would testify before the Watergate Committee that he worked as a campaign spy between February until July 1972 within three Democratic campaigns, Muskie in Wisconsin, Humphrey in Pennsylvania and California, and McGovern at the Democratic National Convention. He would be contacted by a man named Jason Rainier, who said he represented a group of concerned citizens, and he would pay him $1,500 a month for undercover work. Jason Rainier would turn out to be Roger Stone – incidentally, there is a twitter handle Jason Rainier (jrainier88), most of whose tweets are re-tweets of Stone’s. Another incidentally is that McMinoway would say in his testimony that two women who met with a McGovern delegate were prostitutes, though despite Stone’s claims, he made no mention of such activity in connection to Humphrey. He offered no proof as to why he believed the women with the McGovern delegate were prostitutes¹⁹.

But for the reactionary minority it always comes back to vote fragmentation-in the case of CREEP these tactics extended to the level of an attempt to draft yet another Democratic primary challenger for Muskie:

There were methods of misdirection, and there was also use of the most powerful method, vote fragmentation. Edmund Muskie was the candidate considered to be the most formidable opponent against Nixon, and so focus was given to weaken and destroy the candidate in order that Nixon might face someone he might easily beat, George McGovern, in the general election. In his memoir, Stone gives an account of his attempt to split Muskie’s catholic vote by bringing a conservative catholic democrat into the race, Los Angeles mayor Sam Yorty:

Again as we saw above Pat Buchanan was also a big purveyor of vote fragmentation-to win as the party of reaction you simply have to be. It was he who wrote the “Muskie Watch” memo that CREEP used.

Buchanan had turned down a chance to lead the Plumbers, but was downright lustful in strategizing for the 1972 election. He had been refining his ideas on the subject since March, when he wrote, proposing a “Muskie Watch,” that the campaign goal should be to “focus on those issues that divide the Democrats, not those that unite Republicans.” That, he said in July, must be their “guiding political principle.”

FN: Nixonland Location: 13,179

Buchanan always emphasized a special focus on tweaking the racial faultlines in the Democratic party-that was a major part of the Republican strategy at the time-to win over the ethnic Whites in unions which had historically supported the Democratic party by persuading them the Democrats now no longer cared about them only Black voters-post the party supporting civil rights.

Buchanan filed his masterpiece on the subject in October. “Top level consideration should be given to ways and means to promote, assist, and fund a Fourth Party candidacy of the Left Democrats and/or the Black Democrats,” he wrote. “There is nothing that can so advance the President’s chances for reelection—not a trip to China, not four and a half percent unemployment.” Though they should also hedge their bets, and “continue to champion the cause of the blacks within the Democratic Party”—promoting the message that “the Power Elite within the Party is denying them effective participation.” Keep a flow of letters full of damaging information on Democrats to journalists; fake a poll showing Humphrey ahead (he was third); keep the president out of everything—“the President and the Presidency” were “quintessential political assets”—cut welfare, even though the president had already increased food stamps and food assistance by 500 percent—it would “force a division within the Democratic Party.” Continue the “positive polarization” formulation of Agnew in 1970—for if the presidential election “cut the Democratic Party and country in half,” they would end up with “far the bigger half.”

FN: Location 13187

Buchanan had another idea I found pretty interesting-he proposed Republicans praise any Democratic support for the Vietnam war. To be sure, as Perelman argues correctly, this was sort of out of date by 1972 as there were no Democrats who still supported Vietnam by then. Still I find it interesting to see how Buchanan looked at it-it showed the same perceptiveness the GOP showed during Hillary-Bernie 2016-how to get those who support a $12 MW fighting those who propose a $15 MW-where the Bernie Bros preferred Trump who is actually opposed to the MW to HRC who proposed $12-and accepted $15 during her negotiation with Bernie at the convention.

It showed the Right has long understood the HOW for fragmenting the progressive vote-which shows they not only understand their own base but have a decent understanding of the Democratic base too-like, for another analogy, (unelected autocrat currently executing a coup against the USG) Elon Musk’s disinformation campaign) in Pennsylvania which targeted both Jewish and Muslim voters telling each the opposite of what the other was told. Trump then very wisely visited Dearborn as Kamala Harris failed to do.

FN: Chapter Musk Links

Here’s another quote from Roger Stone in his interview in The New Yorker way back in 2007

“Remember,” Stone said. “Politics is not about uniting people. It’s about dividing people. And getting your fifty-one per cent.”

The Dirty Trickster | The New Yorker

At least for the Right wing this is what it’s about-by dividing the majority of Americans who support Center Left policies-the Washgingto Post poll in October showed they did as much then as they did in 1946 during Nixon’s first successful campaign to the House-as the true father of McCarthyism.

In summation of the modus operandi of the modern-that is post New Deal-Republican party you can’t beat Daneil Ellsberg’s quote of what Nixon said in Vietnam-this was a few years before either Nixon ran in 1968 or Ellsberg became a dissident.

Roger Stone: Pretty Reckless Is Going Straight To Hell Part Eight | italkyoubored

Overall this is a great piece by italkyoubored-a huge deep dive with 10 parts. If you’re as fascinated in an appalled way as I am in all things Roger Stone cum Republican dirty tricks-which again I argue goes back to Nixon 1946-I’d read recommend it very highly. In part 9 the writer delves into Stone’s 2014 book claiming LBJ assassinated JFK. I agree with his toplline position-that Stone’s claim is dubious indeed shoddy. However reading this excursion helped me see something else that I’ve sort of thought before but now with more clarify: Stone’s claim that Watergate was in reality a CIA takedown of Nixon-a la the Deep State-has been pretty influential on the Left and particularly among those interested in the JFK assassination literature, that is those who don’t believe the Warren Report

Seems to me Stone’s dubious book fills a number of functions. OTOH it continues his apparent long term project of rehabilitating Nixon. But it also on some level furthers the project of vote fragmentation as it likely made more left leaning people-quite mistakenly-see him as someone they can trust.  Stone always has had the pretense of being a “libertarian” like when he went through his alleged 2012 phase of supporting Gary Johnson he talked a lot about pot legalization. Yet in 2016 he played every dirty trick in the book to elect Trump who’s first AG was Jeff Sessions-who thought a good “joke” was to talk about how much he hated pot.

Again this is another dimension of voter fragmentation-with Trump in 2016 the GOP started pretending to take more positions that were kind of popular on the Left-though often less popular on the liberal Center Left. Trump himself is literally Orwellian-he IS O’Brien. After all in 2016 he won the Republican primary in large part by claiming to be the one Republican who WOULDN’T cut Social Security. Now on just Friday he dropped another hint he could seek to cut Social Security in the future.

Donald Trump’s Social Security Warning Sparks Confusion

In 2016 he had run against Paul Ryanism now he’s committed to Paul Ryanism on steroids. Similarly in 2016 he’d sort of run against the Iraq War-he had accused Jeb Bush to his face in South Carolina of “lying us into the war”-which wasn’t untrue of course.

But now he’s talking about invading multiple countries-Panama, Greenland, the other day he floated the idea of taking Gaza and even putting boots on the ground.

Stone too has always been a master at this kind of misdirection-again as unpopular as the real GOP agenda is it’s a necessary skill for the Party of Nixon. What his LBJ Killed Kennedy book achieved was to once again misdirect the Left. It’s basic human psychology perhaps but by asserting one thing that many others believe-that the Warren Report was a coverup and that Lone Nut Theory is a canard-he kind of opens them up to acept other more dubious assertions-like that Nixon was a martyr and that Watergate was actually a setup by the CIA.

It’s the same way Trump was able to win people over by stating the truth that Bush-Cheney DID lie us into Iraq leading them to make the logical leap this means Trump himself has some deep principle of his own against either lying, war, or lying the country into war. Similarly Stone gets the trust of readers by saying something that many believe-I will confess I myself strongly suspect-and making them open for other more dubious claims.

Now as we discussed inChapter Kendzior I myself don’t believe in the Warren Report a la the Lone Nut Theory. I’m quite convinced Oswald was some sort of agent provocateur-quite plausibly with the CIA though there were many agencies involved. If not believing in the Warren Report makes you a “conspiracy theorist” to quote Hillary Clinton “Deal me in.”

FN: Remember it was Trumpland the FBI aka Hoover himself who initially constructed the story of the Warren Report

Italkyoubored also does very good job of debunking Stone’s canard that Watergate was about the CIA trying to cover up the truth about the assassination. When Nixon referred obliquely to “the Bay Of Pigs Thing” he wasn’t talking about JFK but his own role in the plan to assassinate Castro-which started during the Ike years where Nixon had a significant role.

In any case perhaps the biggest impact of Stone’s dubious book is that many who to my mind rightly question the Warren Report and suspect a CIA connection now also wrongly believe Watergate was a CIA coup aka a Deep State hit against Nixon. Obviously this “martyr” narrative has more than a family resemblance to Trump’s lie that there’s a “Deep State” coup against himself. The GOP is always 95% projection. So maybe his book contributed in some way to this phony Deep State narrative-as we argued in Chapter Deep State-the real Deep State is Republican.

But again as predictable as the dirty tricks of the Republican party are so are the failures of the media, the Democratic party leadership, and the anti liberal Left.

Speaking of which-Adam Jentleson vs Mitch McConnell. On January 1, 2025, Jenstleson posted on Bluesky that his new years resolution was to-post more on Bluesky.

Adam Jentleson: “Happy new year! One of my resolutions is to post here more.” — Bluesky

Sounded like a decent idea if his intention was to reach and engage voters in the Democratic base as this is where most of us are these days. I unlike many haven’t deleted my Xitter account yet but I do most of my posting on here now and after just a few months I’m already up to 17,500 followers-as of 2/13/2025-compartively I currently have 14,100 followers on Xitter-I call Twitter Xitter as everyone is leaving-and I’ve been on there since 2011. So certainly if you’re a Dem Congressperson or in leadership and are actually interested in the opinion of your own voters-it’s actuallly often been unclear over the years how interested Dem leadership IS in the feellings of their actual voters-this is the place to go. If anything not enough Congressional Democrats are on Bluesky.

When Schumer publicly revealed Cory Booker was in charge of getting Democratic members into the 21st century in terms of their social media engagement this drew no little mirth but some of the ideas were actually reasonable-like the Democrats IMO SHOULD post more often on social media when they don’t many feel like they’re not in the fight with us. And Cory Booker has been of the more engaged Democrats during Musk’s perpetuated coup against the US government with some real barnburner speeches in front of USAID-which I found surprising as in the past he has sometimes seemed tepid-his 2020 primary run never took off after he kept declaring “I don’t hate Donald Trump I love Donald Trump”-problem is most base Democratic voters DO hate him and for good reason! LOL

However, his vow to post more on Bluesky didn’t turn out to be the crowd-pleaser you might have thought it would be.

What went wrong? His first post was the “suggestion” MAYBE the Democrats should vote for RFK Jr. Yes really-Mr.  Let’s Give Infectious Disease a Break the Next Eight Years:

RFK Jr. wants to pause infectious disease research. Trump just gave him a head start.

FN: As the article notes Trump’s policies before RFK Jr is confirmed-which looks increasingly likely alas-have already given them a major head start. For more on RFK Jr regarding what a terrible person he is personally as well as the grave national security threat he is for our nation’s health see chapter RFK Jr

Was Jentleson SURPRISED this “suggestion” didn’t go over big over at the headquarters of #ResistanceNation? His response was pretty sniffy.

Throwing tantrums online doesn’t help with vaccine uptake. Yet some folks think the Dem consultant class is bad at political messaging. The best summation of his takes are the little word “condescending.”

As for his “suggestion” the answer is to “to build bridges not browbeat?” it always baffles me when someone like Jentleson-of all people-comes up with such bad takes. This is why this completely threw me for a loop. For two main reasons:

1. He was a Harry Reid aide during Obama’s first two years when McConnell had effecitvely obstructed and filibustered his entire agenda

2. A few years ago Jentelson had published a book advocating for major reform of if not the abolition of the filibuster.

Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy – Kindle edition by Jentleson, Adam. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

At the time this book had suggested to me that he was something of a rebel-as  many in the “Sensible Center” within the party opposed it.

FN: Of course now that Trump is back we can only be grateful for it again. Nevertheless perhaps had we not had the filibuster Biden would have passed more of  his agenda and the Dems would have wo reelection. The reality remains that assuming the Democrats ever regain power again-no longer something you can assume with all the hints of Trump and his GOP co-conspirators being dropped that MAYBE he should have a third term-they will still need to end the filibusterj or never pass their agenda which will once again lead to voter dissatisfaction which will once again bring the Party of Nixon Party of Trump back.

And again-he was there in 2009. He saw how remorselessly McConnell refused to work with Obama on the economic recovery making the cold blooded assessment that if that was bad for the economy it would be all the better for the GOP-after all McConnell wasn’t President. McConnell’ gambit was that the Republican party should never work with Obama on ANYTHING. And Obama was POPULAR-Trump has been relatively more popular than in the past but in absolute terms these are historically low numbers for a new Administration. Yet some Dems have been suggesting capitulation facing a President with an approval rating in the high 40s while McConnell went full obstruction against a President with one in the high 60s.

Let me just emphasize I like Sarah Longwell-a lot. I don’t hold it against her for doing that recent interview with Jentelson but it sure didn’t help me like him any better.

ProChoice Mike: “I’m generally a fan of @sarahlongwell25.bsky.social but man I’m not a fan of @adamjentleson.bsky.social who says so many things that are science fiction where to start? No wonder he wanted Democrats to support RFJ Jr. Just for starters Biden did not “do nothing at the border” again creative fiction” — Bluesky

I don’t hold it against her too much for being kind of impressed with his argument-as she IS a former Republican after all… I have to admit I don’t buy one recurring premise she has come back to a lot post November 5-that the Republicans won “the culture” by a larger margin than they won the election. I simply disagree.

FN: In Chapter Sometimes the Bad Guys Win I discussed the factors I believe were decisive-a failure to talk about the eonommy in the right way-that both took credit for the red hot Biden economy while being clear it was understood there remains a 60% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck and Kamala taking some terrible consultant advice.

UPDATE: Happy to see newly elected DNC Chair Ken Martin had vowed that “the consultants will be gone when I am here”

Knives come out for the D.C. consultant class as Democrats search for a new leader – POLITICO

He’s here now hopefully that’s happeing.

Beyond that there’s the huge GOP advantage on social media which Martin has also identified as a major problem. I have since come to believe voter suppression was a much bigger problem than I intitially appreciated

End FN

HIs larger metaphysical argument that he laid out in more detail on Bulwark seems to be that “the groups” won’t let the Democrats win. He’s not the only insider Democrat making this argument-I actually saw Mark Warner make a variation of this in a PoliticoLive interview he just did. OTOH at least Warner didn’t ‘vote for RFK Jr…

But this blaming of “the groups” only works to the extent you never name a single example of who these alleged “groups”-are exactly.. I would love to see him offer one example of the “groups” Kamala Harris listened to too much. Which makes me strongly suspect this is a strawman.

In a NYT piece he wrote a few months ago Jentleson expanded on his theory of the case-in which he urged the Democrats to embrace “supermajority thinking”-as, according to Jentleson, Trump did in 2024. I’m all for supermajority thinking-one point many candidates correctly made IMO during the DNC Chair race was that the Demorats need to get back to the idea of both Howard Dean and then Barrack Obama 2008 of a 50 state strategy. As it is there are far too many states and counties that the Democrats simply concede without a fight.

FN: See the Missouri Dem who tried to partner up with Charles Johnson.

End FN

But the devil is very much in the details-how does he propose to achieve supermajority thinking?

When Will Democrats Learn to Say No?”

So far so good-the Dems certainly need to learn to say no-but to who? Unfortunately NOT Donald Trump but “the groups.” If anything Jentleson seems to want the Democrats to say YES more often to Trump.

When Donald Trump held a rally in the Bronx in May, critics scoffed that there was no way he could win New York State. Yet as a strategic matter, asking the question “What would it take for a Republican to win New York?” leads to the answer, “It would take overperforming with Black, Hispanic and working-class voters.”

Mr. Trump didn’t win New York, of course, but his gains with nonwhite voters helped him sweep all seven battleground states.

Unlike Democrats, Mr. Trump engaged in what I call supermajority thinking: envisioning what it would take to achieve an electoral realignment and working from there.”

Again I agree about the need for “50 state thinking”-as does luckily Ken Martin at least based on what he said during the campaign.

However I do think it’s important not to overstate Trump’s performance.

Supermajority thinking is urgently needed at this moment. We have been conditioned to think of our era of polarization as a stable arrangement of rough parity between the parties that will last indefinitely, but history teaches us that such periods usually give way to electoral realignments. Last week, Mr. Trump showed us what a conservative realignment can look like. Unless Democrats want to be consigned to minority status and be locked out of the Senate for the foreseeable future, they need to counter by building a supermajority of their own.”

You can cut Jentleson some slack here as this was just a few days after the shock of Trump’s victory. But it’s very clear in retrospect that the real mystery is not how Trump gained so much support-in truth his gain of 3 million votes was modest by historical standards MAYBE his gains kept up with population growth?-but why Kamala Harris lost so many-6 million-since 2020.

Nevertheless his point his taken-if he means we should do 50 state strategy I agree.

That starts with picking an ambitious electoral goal — say, the 365 electoral votes Barack Obama won in 2008 — and thinking clearly about what Democrats need to do to achieve it.”

Amen-but again the devil is in the details, how does Jentleson imagine Dems can achieve it? This is where things go South.

“Democrats cannot do this as long as they remain crippled by a fetish for putting coalition management over a real desire for power. Whereas Mr. Trump has crafted an image as a different kind of Republican by routinely making claims that break with the party line on issues ranging from protecting Social Security and Medicare to mandating insurance coverage of in vitro fertilization, Democrats remain stuck trying to please all of their interest groups while watching voters of all races desert them over the very stances that these groups impose on the party.”

Is it a trivial point that Trump and his co-President Elon Musk are openly talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare AND ALSO going after the abortion pill-Pam Bondi is already talking about this?

And which “special interest” groups speifically prevented Harris from winning?

Achieving a supermajority means declaring independence from liberal and progressive interest groups that prevent Democrats from thinking clearly about how to win. Collectively, these groups impose the rigid mores and vocabulary of college-educated elites, placing a hard ceiling on Democrats’ appeal and fatally wounding them in the places they need to win not just to take back the White House, but to have a prayer in the Senate.”

“Rigid mores and vocabulary of college-educated elites…”

I don’t see the evidence that this has happened-note the Dems over performed in 2022 and even in 2024 the House came very close to taking the House back-if not for the dirty tricks of the NC GOP Supreme Court they would have. But there’s little evidence reading Jentleson is even aware voter suppression is a thing.

As for all this fretting about college grads alleged rigidly imposing vocabulary on everyone I guess this is about the whole “Latin X” thing? But when exactly have Kamala, Biden, or Nancy Pelosi ever used this phrase? This was a custom back in 2019 soon after the murder of George Floyd that suddenly became a thing. It was used a lot on cable news weekend shows and some mainstream articles but the Democratic party never embraced it-so why would someone not vote for them because Latin X?

Interest groups tend to be nonprofit organizations dedicated to advancing a single issue or set of related issues that they often hope to get on the Democrats’ agenda. At their best, these groups can be productive partners in building power and legislating. But many have grown too big, adopted overly expansive mandates and become disastrously cavalier about the basic realities of American politics in ways that end up undermining their own goals.

Generally speaking I’m not a single issue voter though sure hope he doesn’t consider abortion rights “a special interest”-again as we saw in Chapter Sometimes the Bad Guys Win Trump didn’t win because voters don’t care about abortion rights-quite to the contrary abortion rights one pretty much every place it was on the ballot-but because there was 10 to 15 percent of voters who voted for abortion referendums AND Donald Trump as they failed to get that Trump is who took away abortion rights in the first place.

FN: OTOH the recent issue with Hakeem Jeffries wasn’t about single issue groups but that Dem voters want Democrats to fight harder-link.

When Jentleson does name names I find it question begging.

To cite a few examples, when Kamala Harris was running for the Democratic nomination in 2019, the A.C.L.U. pushed her to articulate a position on surgeries for transgender prisoners, needlessly elevating an obscure issue into the public debate as a purity test, despite the fact that current law already gave prisoners access to gender-affirming care. This became a major line of attack for Mr. Trump in the closing weeks of this year’s election. Now, with the G.O.P.’s ascent to dominance, transgender Americans are unquestionably going to be worse off.”

I still feel there’s this assumption that this had a big impact on the election despite little evidence it did. Assuming it did it begs a pretty curious question: why did it not harm the Democrats in 2020? Jentleson subscribes to a fairly common piece of conventional wisdom amongst the Savvy class that the Democrats lost because of 2020:

The same year, a coalition of groups including the Sunrise Movement and the Working Families Party demanded that all Democrats running for president embrace decriminalizing border crossings. When candidates were asked at a debate if they would do so, every candidate on the stage that night raised a hand (except Michael Bennet). Groups like Justice Democrats pushed Democrats to defund the police and abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Positions taken a few years ago are fair game in campaigns, and by feeding into Republican attacks these efforts helped Mr. Trump and left the people and causes they claim to fight for under threat.

This reminds me of the larger tendency of the MSM to dismiss the #Resistance as a failure-despite evidence to the contrary. Regarding Jentleson’s argument here it’s pretty curious that all his examples of the Democrats tacking too far to the Left in the face of pressure from “The Groups” are from 2020 when THEY WON. Jentleson like much of the conventional wisdom keeps going back to the positions the Democrats took in the year they won to explain why they lost in 2024-when they DID NOT take many ultra progressive positions:

Adam Jentleson (@adamjentleson.bsky.social) — Bluesky

So the Democrats tacked to the Left in 2020 and won, tacked to the Center in 2024 and lost so the most logical Occam’s Razor’s explanation is they lost 2024 because they went too far Left in 2020-when they won. Again, my theory is pretty much the opposite-she lost in my view BECAUSE she tacked to the Center, which hurt her on two levels-her own positions were more popular AND the fact that she was backing away so resolutely from her own record suggested she repudiated it.

As for Biden even if he did make the promise Sunrise wanted him to he ended up breaking his promise. And again if vowing to decriminalize border crossings is the kiss of death how did he win 2020? And after seeing Biden break the vow why wouldn’t that help him? Why were these allegedly radical leftist positions not damaging the year the Dems took them but in the next one where they clearly tacked to the Center?

It’s also pretty rich-even now more in retrospect-that Jentleson is arguing Harris was the too radical candidate in the race-implicitly is he arguing Trump moderated?! You can say many things about Trump’s first three weeks in Office but moderate isn’t one of them.

A winning strategy has to be more heterodox than the interest groups will allow. Many candidates who overperformed in swing districts were, simultaneously, economically populist, culturally conservative, anti-regulation and anti-corruption, reflecting the complexity of voters that the groups try to sand down. Working-class people feel cheated by major corporations, yet Amazon has been extremely popular — far more so than the federal government. Americans blame billionaires for economic unfairness and want to tax them at higher rates, but also look up to them and think they’re good for the economy. By wishing away these complexities, a coalition-first mind-set produces many candidates who are the inverse of what voters want — people with the cultural sensibilities of Yale Law School graduates who cosplay as populists by over-relying on niche issues like Federal Trade Commission antitrust actions.”

In principle “heterodox” is fine IMHO but I do think he’s overstating the resistance a Democratic candidate faces to being “heterodox.” I’m not sure what the implication is in his assertion that Amazon is far more popular than the federal government? Trump and Elon Musk’s DOGE is now seeking to make good on the long conservative fantasy of drowning it in a bath tub is this something we should celebrate as according to him government is unpopular? Personally I use Amazon as much as anyone true-as I’m such an avid reader. There are still some real problems with how it treats workers.

I agree it’s not an easy problem to solve-in the long view the answer has to be regulation of the tech giants which they decidedly don’t want which is why they’re all in Trump’s pocket now. As for his assertion that Americans want to tax billionaires at higher rates but also think they’re good for the economy that’s basically been my view though post 11/5 even a liberal like me-as opposed to leftists like Kyle Kulinski who argue billionaires shouldn’t exist-am kind of rethinking how good they really are for the economy. Their tech products may be but arguably the level of tech monopoly isn’t so great, whatever you want to claim their impact on the economy is it’s clearly terrible for our democracy.

Indeed, Jentleson’s framing here sort of sounds like Yglesias’s popularism-something as I discussed in Chapter Bad Guys Win I am not a fan of as it’s such a passive strategy-it just assumes that PUBLIC OPINION is something static and unchangeable. I’m actually all for looking at what Trump and the Republicans do but once again what’s astonishing as how they have been able to win back power without in any way moderating their very unpopular positions-overturning Roe was/is very unpopular yet they have now not just successfully banned abortion in 30-40% of the country but am now working on  ways to make it harder to get an abortion nationally-as noted above Pam Bondi is already going after the abortion pill. Similarly nothing is less popular than dismantling SS, Medicare, and Medicaid but Trump-Musk have now at least opened the door to the possibility of doing just that.

What popularism fails to understand is that public opinion is dynamic and can be moved and influenced in all kinds of ways. Indeed, this brings us back to immigration. Again while I like Sarah Longwell-really do find her focus groups fascinating in a very depressing, scary way-that so many people are apparently this ill informed-she repeated something in her interview with Jentleson that has the inconvenience of being false-that Biden was weak on border security. Jentleson was only too happy to agree with her.

To quote the late, great, Patrick Moniyhan you’re entitled to your own opinion but you’re not to your own facts-all though that’s exactly what Trump’s Orwellian America traffics in a la Kellyann Conway’s alternative facts.

When Longwell’s focus groups show that Trump voters including many who previously voted for Biden/Clinton wrongly believe Biden didn’t do anything about border security much less didn’t deport anyone that’s one thing-it points to how much work we have to do in fighting Right wing disinformation on social media, etc. But unfortunately she herself wrongly believes this-as apparently does Jentleson who ought to know better. If Democrats themselves believe Biden was weak on border security we are truly f-ed.

It shows even they don’t know the facts. Seriously if even Democratic leadership and consultant types believe Biden’s immigration policy was way too lax what hope do we have of winning on this issue? And why are these folks in leadership and running around telling candidates what’s popular? Would you want to consult with a doctor this ignorant of the facts in his/her own field? Although at this point RFK Jr is now are HHS God help us-though thankfully he didn’t win with any Democratic votes as Jentleson had advocated for.

Indeed, while I’m NOT a radical leftist, I’m a liberal, on this subject I’ve come to the conclusion that leftists like Vaush-who I like a lot-and Hasan-God help me as I have more of a love hate relationship with him-are right. The Democrats big mistake was moving to the Right on immigration during the Biden years.

OTOH if there’s anything we should learn from Republicans is that public opinion can be moved in your direction-the irony is that it hasn’t even moved on their position they just were successful in gaslighting the electorate. Still OTOH what’s so frustrating is that immigration reform actually IS popular-but the Democrats during the Biden years completely dropped it focusing almost entirely in convincing the public they can deport as many brown people as Republicans did. While they still support things like path to citizenship and the Dreamers they don’t focus on that-Harris focused almost predominantly on the fact that Trump killed the pretty draconian bill Biden and a bipartisan coalition in Congress had supported.

Why didn’t this work? Because Dems wrongly believed this is a good faith debate on border security. Also it reduces them to the me too party-‘we can so also be tough on the border’-ie they basically have accepted the MAGA framing of the issue during the Biden years rather than contest it as they had during the first Trump WH. But immigration reform remains popular but they have convinced themselves wrongly it’s bad politics.

Thank God for David Bier who has done the research and corrects many canards about Biden’s immigration policy like Longwell’s very common misconception that Biden was lax on the border:

Particularly since the election, a conventional wisdom has emerged that President Biden caused a border crisis by being lax on enforcement. My Cato Institute colleague David Bier, a leading immigration and border policy expert, has an excellent piece explaining why that conventional wisdom is largely wrong. Here is his summary of his main points:

The main takeaways are:

• Illegal immigration had already increased to a 21-year high by December 2020 before Biden came into office.
• Biden immediately started increasing expulsions from his first day in office.
• Biden tripled interior detention and increased border detention 12-fold.
• Biden increased air removal flights by 55 percent over 2020 levels.
• Biden negotiated broader expulsion deals with foreign countries than Trump.
• Biden got many foreign countries to carry out crackdowns on illegal and legal migration.
• Biden removed or expelled 3.3 million border crossers—3 times as many as Trump.
• Biden even managed to remove a similar percentage of crossers as Trump’s 4 years.

Despite Biden’s historic crackdown:

• Expulsions did not deter migrants, even among demographics universally expelled.
• Evasions of Border Patrol increased as rapidly as Border Patrol arrests, implying that releases did not cause the crisis and that many people did not want Border Patrol to catch them but were undeterred by the threat.
• Releases occurred not because Biden cut removals but because migration grew faster than the administration could increase them.
• As a result, releases only occurred among specific demographic groups and in specific areas where removals were logistically complicated.
• Biden could not easily remove groups to Mexico, like families, children, and immigrants from distant countries who were arrested in record numbers.

The actual causes of the increases in illegal immigration were:

• Unprecedented labor demand, which incentivized and funded migration from around the world: From February 2021 to August 2024, there were more open jobs each month than in any month before Biden’s term began. During this time, economies worldwide were recovering far less quickly than the United States. As labor demand subsided in 2024, immigration fell.
• Unprecedented access to information about migration through the Internet and social media: Internet access rose rapidly from 2018 to 2021, nearly doubling in Central America and reaching unprecedented highs in South America. Social media platforms gave people step-by-step instructions on migrating and connected them directly with smugglers. This opened migration from around the world—which contributed to the number of releases.
• Novel and perverse enforcement policies: The Title 42 expulsion policy incentivized repeat crossings by returning people to Mexico, where they could immediately attempt to re-enter the United States. Title 42 also cut off access to asylum, incentivizing more Border Patrol evasions.
• Novel and perverse legal migration policies: Title 42 and related pandemic restrictions not only banned asylum for people who crossed illegally but also prohibited legal entries by asylum seekers, including demographic groups that had traditionally always entered legally, like Haitians, Cubans, and Mexican families. Biden eventually increased legal entries by these groups and others, limiting the crisis’s extent and ultimately contributing to its end.

The rest of the article substantiates these points in detail. I agree with almost everything David says. As he and I explained in a November 2023 USA Today article, the best way to address border issues is to make legal migration easier. Unfortunately, as we described in the same piece, the Biden administration undermined its own otherwise laudable efforts to do just that, because of bureaucratic constraints and arbitrary numerical limits on parole programs that expand legal migration.

Biden Didn’t Cause the Border Crisis by Being too Lax on Enforcement

Exactly-Biden’s mistake was his reluctance to expand legal migration. Indeed, Ilya Somin goes on to make a good point about the parts of Biden’s immigration policy that were to my mind not so laudable-but these were on the side of being TOO restrictionist.

I would add two points to David’s analysis. First, in addition to the “pull” factor of the hot US labor market (emphasized by Bier), there was also the “push” provided by intensifying poverty, violence, and repression in countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, and Haiti. Both played a role in increasing illegal migration over the last several years.”

Yes and this leads us back to Biden’s border bill that Trump torpedoed: while Harris focused her immigration discussion almost entirely on it during the campaign there was a real problem with the bill’s crackdown on asylum seekers-both legally dubious and I’d argue morally wrong:

Second, it is notable that Biden’s many restrictionist measures – documented by Bier – did little to increase his popularity. At the very least, this weakens the claim that such policies are obvious political winners for Democrats. I would not go to the opposite extreme of saying that the policy I prefer – near-total open borders – would be popular, either. But, as Bier and I have long argued, making legal migration easier can reduce chaos at the border, and thereby reduce the political backlash such chaos creates.”

Yes although who’s arguing for total open borders? Pretty much nobody so this is a strawman. And again-despite Biden’s many restrictionist measures the “conventional wisdom”-again as a Nietzschean cum Zarathustrian this phrase always sounds a little like a contradiction in terms-is that Biden was “weak” and lax on the border letting criminals “pore into the country” EVEN AMONG DEMOCRATIC CONSULTANT TYPES a la Jentleson.

This is why I’d argue the opposite-Democrats shouldn’t move FURTHER to the Right but the opposite as they got no benefit from Biden’s restrictionist policies-why not then just do the right thing and advocate sensible immigration reform-not “completely open borders” the position of pretty much nobody in the Democratic party-but on the types of reform Democrats supported until the Biden years when the entire party moved to the Right at least rhetorically-most still supported reform in principle but their rhetoric clearly went in Trump’s direction.

Again on Asylum seekers I’d argue that Biden’s moves were legally dubious and morally wrong-as well as being politically counterproductive:

For those who care, Bier and I were both highly critical of Biden’s use of Title 42 restrictions (which extended a policy first adopted by Trump) and “Trump-lite” asylum policies at the time. These policies were legally dubious, caused great harm, and largely failed even to achieve Biden’s political goals. Sometimes, harmful, counterproductive, and unjust policies can boost politicians’ popularity. In this instance, they failed even to do that.”

But the Democrats fail to understand this even now which led many of them to support the even more toxic Laken-Riley Act-which cleared the way for Trump to start sending undocumented immigrants who were simply stopped by police-not indicted/convicted-to Guantanamo. I guess it’s small consolation that some Senate Democrats have now expressed regret for supporting it-none to innocent people many deported bound hand and foot.

But if Biden whose policies were actually quite restrictionist are wrongly seen as lax even by the party where does this leave us in the future? Again the Dems have to stop helping Trump push the Overton Window even further to the Right on this issue-which is where discourse like Jentleson’s interview with Longwell takes us. Otherwise soon maybe they’ll follow Trump to the Right of Hitler himself?

FN: As discussed in Chapter Bad Guys Win Hitler actually admired the draconian 1924 US anti immigration law and used it as a model.

David Bier back in late 2022 however also corrected another misconception and this one from the Left: that Biden’s policies were no different than Trump’s:

David Bier on “What Biden Has Gotten Right on Immigration Policy”

There is much to criticize in Biden’s record on immigration issues. But the administration has also made some major improvements.”

There is much to criticize in the Biden Administration’s record on immigration policy, and I myself have sometimes been among the critics, most notably on the administration’s extension of cruel Title 42 “public health” expulsions of migrants, and other harmful pandemic-era migration restrictions.  But it is also important to recognize that Biden has made major improvements in immigration policy, and has even – belatedly – begun to wind down some of the awful policies he himself previously perpetuated.  At the very least, claims that Biden has mostly just perpetuated Trump’s ultra-restrictionist policies are utterly unjustified.

Cato Institute immigration policy expert David Bier – himself often a critic of the administration – has a helpful summary of their achievements in this field. The list is long and difficult to summarize. I urge anyone interested in these issues to read (oar least skim!) the whole thing.”

However, it’s worth emphasizing that Biden has now – however belatedly – terminated almost of all of Trump’s major restrictionist innovations, including his anti-Muslim travel bans, restrictions on work visas, the massive Title 42 expulsions (now scheduled to end on Dec. 21, though litigation might yet prevent that), and much else. And, in his establishment of private refugee sponsorship programs that make it possible to admit migrants far faster and cheaper than in the moribund traditional refugee system, he has gone beyond merely repudiating Trump. These innovations, most notably the Uniting for Ukraine program, not only improve on Trump’s policies, but also on those of prior administrations.”

Bier himself more recently did some deep analysis of the difference between Biden’s immigration policies and what we’ve seen from Trump so far. The main difference is that Trump has cracked down on LEGAL immigration thereby increasing illegal immigration including those who are violent-although again immigrants commit crimes at lower numbers than homegrown citizens

David J. Bier on X: “Members of Congress accused me of not telling them the truth so I just want to go through point-by-point my testimony, so we can be clear about the data being cited: Trump destroyed the immigration system and Biden rebuilt it. 🧵” / X

THIS is where Democrats should hit Trump regarding public safety:

David J. Bier on X: “”He removed requirements to target public safety threats. As a result, he released twice as many convicted criminals from detention as President Biden.” https://t.co/v75YEp37se https://t.co/ad7wepr1qP” / X

David J. Bier on X: “”He forced US attorneys to prioritize misdemeanor family separation prosecutions of parents over sex offenders.” https://t.co/t24IdDXvTa https://t.co/Im3FNyMVhX” / X

In other words this is the opposite of both the Biden and Obama Administrations which focused on targeting public safety threats. Though again I strongly believe they also need to reclaim sensible and human immigration reform which DOES have popular support.

FN: For more on Trump’s attack on legal immigration

Trump’s Cruel Assault on Legal Immigration

End FN

UPDATE: Apparently this is all also too subtle a point for Senator Mark Warner

(3) ProChoice Mike: “27. This by Mark Warner I really hate: Putting aside wether this is really true-really? You want to celebrate his unconstitutional attack on birthright citizenship? Or deporting legal immigrants? Are any means justified?” — Bluesky

Trump of course has since responded to those who pointed out to him that he wasn’t even deporting as many people as Biden-though to our leftist friends, again, Biden was deporting genuine criminals and safety threats-by creating deportation quotas which will only further exacerbate his terrible policies.

In this vein let’s revisit Jentleson’s comment quoted above about the need for a more heterodox strategy-which in principle I’m all for. I do agree that the Bernie Bros to did have a tendency towards orthodoxy but Jentleson is drawing this criticism far broader than just the Far Left suggesting even Biden was under the thumb of “the groups.”

A winning strategy has to be more heterodox than the interest groups will allow. Many candidates who overperformed in swing districts were, simultaneously, economically populist, culturally conservative, anti-regulation and anti-corruption, reflecting the complexity of voters that the groups try to sand down. Working-class people feel cheated by major corporations, yet Amazon has been extremely popular — far more so than the federal government. Americans blame billionaires for economic unfairness and want to tax them at higher rates, but also look up to them and think they’re good for the economy. By wishing away these complexities, a coalition-first mind-set produces many candidates who are the inverse of what voters want — people with the cultural sensibilities of Yale Law School graduates who cosplay as populists by over-relying on niche issues like Federal Trade Commission antitrust actions.”

I will admit that the phrase “culturally conservative” being used in such a formal, contentless way worries me. I’m trying to think what policies fill it? The irony is that in terms of policy preferences- voters are NOT cultural conservatives-on policy, if you frame it in an entirely vibes based way it can appear this way which is how the GOP does frame it.

To mention three policies: immigration reform, gun reform, and abortion rights… The public agrees with the Democrats on all three yet consultant types like Jentleson always act as if it’s the opposite. Gun reform like immigration reform is yet another issue the Dems have mysteriously abandoned the last few years apropos of nothing other than some bad assumptions about vibes. As for abortion I do worry that from the stupid fact the Democrats lost, many of the consultant class will declare abortion is NOT a winner-rather than that Trump was successful in  wrongly persuading swing voters he’s not THAT anti abortion. This is a messaging, social media problem. As I discussed in Chapter Bad Guys Win the Dems SHOULD be compiling a list of the millions of voters who voted for abortion rights referendum AND Donald Trump and reaching out to them NOW and the next few years.

Again I’m all for learning from the GOP-but that’s just it, Jentleson and Friends are NOT doing that. You can debate HOW Trump and his GOP co-conspirators won but the one thing it was not was via “popularism”-quite the opposite. What these consultants do-and hopefully Ken Martin will make good on his promise and they will be “gone”-is the opposite of the GOP which manages to win despite doubling and tripling down on its unpopular policies while the consultant class urges Dems to drop policies which have the convenience of actually being popular.

Mari: “Must read by Greisa of @unitedwedream.org who speaks with the clarity that comes from organizing with young undocumented people for decades & personally faces the impact from the ambition and limitations of Dem and R’s lack of durable solutions. She names the villian. www.nytimes.com/2025/02/12/o…” — Bluesky

In the last few weeks there are SOME signs the Democrats are upping their game a lttile bit. They’re NOT where they need to be but their moving in the right direction with the commencement of Elon Musk’s fast moving high tech coup against the US government. A few Democrats have been on the case post November 5-AOC, Chris Murphy, Brian Schatz, Maxwell Frost, Bernie’s done a pretty good job-but many have seemed happy to play prevent defense.

To a large extent prior to the Musk Coup this is the general tone we’d been hearing from both Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries.  Post the Musk  Insurrection this has changed. If the Dems were in first gear prior to they’ve since moved up to third gear-this is still not nearly fast enough but it’s an improvement. Contrary to the Savvy narrative of the legacy media that the #Resistance is muted this time we’ve seen national mass protests since the #MuskInsurrection begun.

A number of Dems joined protesters at a protest in front of the US Treasury-which Trump’s Treasury Secretary illegally allowed Musk access to. Outrageously the Dems were prevented from entering the building to see what Musk’s college interns were doing-think about THAT: elected members of Congress were not allowed into a public building while an unelected billionaire is controlling it.

But how the Dems came to join a huge rally in front of the Treasury a few weeks ago is very notable and important. In an interview with Jennifer Rubin, Indivisible’s Ezra Levin revealed that it’s not like they asked the Senate Dems to join them rather they showed up and the Senate Dems followed thm there.

.ProChoice Mike: “Really interesting interview of Indivisible’s Ezra Levin by Jen Rubin. Notably they got the rally in front of the Treasury going THEN the Senate Dems followed them out there. Key takeaway: THEY will follow OUR lead. We just have to lead them www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bUm…” — Bluesky

This is the important key-as members of the Dem base we can’t wait for them seemingly paradoxically we have to show them where we want them to be and they’ll slowly get there. And this more the normal order of things than you might think-the Tea Party movement led and the GOP Congress followed their lead

Since then you’ve seen a lot more engagement from the Dems-Cory Booker for one example has giving some pretty electric speeches.

(264) Corey Booker says there’s potential for “locking up” Elon Musk. – YouTube

Democratic Senator mocked following ‘meltdown’ over Elon Musk’s USAID crackdown

FN: Note though the only YouTube link I could find for Booker’s speech was in a MAGA link mocking him which is a pattern I’ve noticed more in the post November 5 period where its sometimes tougher to find what Trump’s political opponents say than what he and his co-conspirators do.

End FN

This was after Hakeem Jeffries who finally laid out a 10 point plan for Democrats to challenge Trump-Musk. One of the best ideas might be #10 where he recommended members doing town halls.

“Lastly, we urge all Members to once again conduct district-wide outreach today, or as soon as possible this week, in order to connect directly with our constituents and discuss the challenges we are decisively addressing on their behalf. For example, I will conduct a telephone town hall meeting in my district this evening. We will track participation throughout the Caucus.

Hakeem Jeffries Publishes The Plan Against Trump Crimes | Crooks and Liars

Dems doing town halls got a huge response with in many cases thousands showing up. Mark Warner revealed that he got a very large response to a tele town hall. There has been an explosion of calls to Congress from angry and concerned constituents-Congressional switchboards which normally receive maybe a few dozen phone calls per minute started receiving 1500 calls a minute

As Trump and Musk Upend Washington, Congressional Phones Can’t Keep Up – The New York Times

The callers have been calling for Dems to take a strong stand against the #MuskCoup and demanding that Republicans break ranks against the coup.

CF

Trump spurs tsunami of calls to Democrats’ phones: “Fight harder”

In a Politico interview Mark Warner related both him and Tim Kaine getting 71,000 people on telecalls where the typical amount is like 3,000

(303) politics girl – YouTube

Full interview with Sen. Mark Warner | POLITICO at Munich Security Conference

Chuck Schumer who had been quite lackadaisical  prior to Musk’s insurrection-one way to conceive of what he’s doing is it’s the continuation of what Trump started on 1/6. Another way to conceive it is as Seth Abramson has as a continuation literally of the civil war-sort of the Civil War 2.0

FN: See Chapter The Elon Musk Coup

has finally raised himself out of first gear directing his members not to vote for any more Trump nominees and the Senate Democrats did hold the floor all night to protest the nomination of Russell T. Vought, Trump’s OMB nominee who just happens to be the architect of Project 2025

Senate Democrats Hold the Floor in Overnight Protest of Trump Nominee – The New York Times

Certainly these have been some good signs and if nothing else the response of voters puts the lie to the media canard that the #Resistance this time is “muted”-though the MSM has covered it very little with the very notable exception of Rachel Maddow-assuming you even want to consider her part of the legacy media-she’s always been a unique case.

As for the elected Democrats though while they have raised themselves from first gear over to third there have been some clear signs they’re reluctant to raise it beyond this-as they need to.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has certainly been telegraphing some mixed messages.

Indeed the day after Trump fired the 15 IGs the Saturday morning of his first week back in Office Jeffries tweeted out that “Presidents come and Presidents go” but that “God is still on his throne.”

Internet Slams Top House Democrat for Tweeting ‘God Is Still on the Throne’ Following Trump’s Transition: ‘This Is Why Dems Lose’ | IBTimes

Many saw this as symptomatic of the Dems entire passive, see no evil hear no evil approach. As I kind of did myself. After all here was one of the most powerful members of the US government acting as if he has no more power than a serf from the Middle Ages hoping that the next King will be a nicer guy.

Interestingly there are some who argued differently and that this was NOT Jeffries point.

FN:

(7) Hakeem Jeffries is Right About God

End FN

But wether or not the #Resistance folks like myself fairly appraised Jeffries tweet it did seem symptomatic of the larger strategy of the Democrats post November 5 which is essentially prevent defense-don’t do anything as there’s nothing we can do ‘the people elected him’ but he’ll punch himself out eventually he’s Donald Trump. Of course as the great Hall of Fame coach John Madden liked to say the only thing the prevent defense does is prevent you from winning. Indeed ironically Steve Bannon himself has noted this seems to be what the Congressional Dems were doing and rightly noted that while this CAN work it’s a risky strategy.

If the Dems are this transparent that Bannon sees through them this is not such a great “strategy” to say the least

Indeed this Dem prevent defense strategy recalls that pretty terrible song by Tom and Bob:

You can be mean to me
Mean as you want to be
Just say anything that you like

You can be nasty and caddy
cruel and unusual
twist my nose with your fingers
trip me while i carry liquids

And as you pin me down
my arms right on the ground
as your spit drips into my face
deep in the back of your mind
remember at some point youll have to fall asleep

Bob & Tom – You Can Be Mean To Me lyrics | LyricsFreak

And Jeffries has certainly been sending us mixed messages even as he has upped his game. There was his clandestine pilgrimage to Silicon Valley hat in hand to basically plead with the tech billionaire bros to like the Democrats again.

“Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Silicon Valley donors in bid to ‘mend fences.’

“The meeting comes as the tech world has lurched rightward in the second Donald Trump era”

Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Silicon Valley donors in bid to ‘mend fences.’ – POLITICO

I think right off the bat even these headlines demonstrate the fallacy of Jeffries entire mission. What fences need mending? Have Democrats somehow damaged them? In what way? Does Jeffries believe the Democrats somehow wronged the Silicon Valley billionaires? This is certainly what Ro Kihanna seemed to be saying when he with a straight face claimed the reason Elon Musk supported Trump was Biden didn’t invite him to a WH party.

But it’s the second sentence which problematizes this entire premise: that the tech world has lurched rightward in the second Trump era-many of them never had to lurch very far. Who is Silicon Valley? I think it’s fair to say a major part of it derives from the original PayPal mafia which was led by: Peter Thiel, David Sachs, and Elon Musk.

As for Zuckerberg he’s always been fairly apolitical-which at best means he’s a political chameleon and will go wherever the wind blows. Of course, the GOP blows much harder than the Democrats do-as demonstrated yet again by Jeffries apology tour to Silicon Valley. Is it uncharitable to characterize it as an apology tour?

Jeffries’ appearance was the Democratic leader’s first Silicon Valley swing after the 2024 election and in the run-up to the midterm elections — an early overture at a meeting where no donation was required to attend. And it was no accident he trekked to the nation’s tech capital. In Washington, Democrats in recent days have been lacing into Musk as he wreaks havoc on the federal government, viewing him as a more polarizing — and less popular — foil than Trump. But the moneyed tech world that Musk hails from is critical to Democrats’ fortunes in 2026.”

NO DONATION TO ATTEND. These edgelords get to have the ranking member of the US House of Representatives slink over 3000 miles to see them FOR FREE. This coming just a few days after Musk illegally hacked into the Treasury payment systems of all Americans with access to their tax ids.

Much of this article was based on this dubious premise that Silicon Valley USED TO BE progressive

Entrepreneurs from Musk to Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, all once card-carrying Democrats, are now aligning themselves with Trump. Zuckerberg visited the White House for meetings on Thursday.”

I don’t know that any of these tech bros were EVER DEMOCRATS. Zuckerberg again is more apolitical though OTOH Thiel was an early mentor for him and major influence. I think more likely much of Silicon Valley used to at least feel the need to pretend to be decent people Trump’s given them a permission structure to be their potty selves.

Musk was wrongly assumed to be progressive just because he met with Obama a few times-he had no choice, Tesla needed help it was on the verge of collapse.

Elon Musk Reveals Former President Barack Obama Relationship to Tesla, Change Everything!

And he clearly was already leaning Trump during the Covid era.

“The singular focus was — how do we ensure Silicon Valley remains with Democrats,” said one of the people who participated, “because, right now, Silicon Valley is feeling very purple.”

At this point even the assessment that it’s purple seems pretty optimistic.

Indeed, even if Zuckerberg is personally more apolitical than conservative Facebook management has been dominated by Republicans since 2016 precisely because the GOP wind blows much stronger than the Dems do. While there was never any evidence of anti conservative bias

The results of Facebook’s anti-conservative bias audit are in.

these specious claims were successful in leading to Republicans dominating FB leadership going back to 2017

(7) The Republican political operatives who call the shots at Facebook

Indeed with all the recent furor over fact checking it turns out FB actually hired TUCKER CARLSEN to FACT CHECK back in 2017. In addition:

“Facebook hired former Republican Senator Jon Kyl to produce a report on whether Facebook is biased against conservatives. Facebook did not make any effort to study whether the platform had any bias against liberals.”

Gee where do you think Kyl’s report fell on this question?

“Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg invited right-wing pundits to his home to discuss “partnerships” and “free speech.” Invitees included Tucker Carlson, who recently said that immigrants were making America “dirtier,” and Brent Bozell, who said President Obama looked like a “skinny ghetto crackhead.” Zuckerberg does not appear to have met with any liberal pundits.”

When the GOP perceives Silicon Valley doesn’t support them they bully and threaten, while the Dems travel 3000 miles and speak to them for free. Indeed, by 2019 it was said that “everyone in power is a Republican” at Facebook.

Why is this happening? Popular Information spoke with three former Facebook employees to find out. All of them pointed to the leadership in Facebook’s powerful DC office.

“Everyone in power is a Republican,” one former Facebook employee based in the DC office told Popular Information. The person requested anonymity because they are still employed in the tech industry.

Indeed, the three top leaders of Facebook’s DC office all have extensive backgrounds in Republican politics: Vice President for Global Public Policy Joel Kaplan; Vice President for U.S. Public Policy Kevin Martin; and Public Policy Director for Global Elections Katie Harbath.

And this is Zuckerberg who is relatively less political-ie he just follows the wind to benefit his own material interests rather than having the strong conservative ideological feelings of folks like Thiel, Sachs, or Elon Musk-it’s widely believed that Musk endorsed Republicans late in the 2020 cycle after being accused of sexually harassing a female employee-there have been multiple such accusations.

In any case these tech bros were hardly appreciative for their all expenses paid meeting with one of the most powerful Congressmen in the country. Indeed the one good sign was they were upset he criticized Trump too much

“When will we move off this posture of complaining and moaning about Trump,” the person said. “What positive ideas will Democrats offer to people to bring people back in?”

I mean sure-who cares about Trump-Musk’s overthrowing of the constitutional order? They want to hear about what goodies they’re going to get for crypto, AI, etc.

Jeffries was also widely canned after saying at a press conference that he was “trying to figure out what power we actually have?” going onto declare “It’s their government”-which has the inconvenience of being completely untrue. Yes the GOP currently has control of Congress-by a very small margin in the House-only made possible by the chicanery of the NC Supreme Court we can add-but this doesn’t mean Congress belongs to the Republican party-there are millions of constituents in Democratic districts who also have a right to representation.

This public apparent declaration of powerlessness led to major blowback against him with Kyle Kulinski declaring he had to go.

(264) HAKEEM JEFFRIES HAS TO GO | The Kyle Kulinski Show – YouTube

Indeed, at a minimum even if this were true-it’s not-it would still be political malpractice to admit this publicly. Indeed even in the nature of Charles Darwin, a smaller weaker animal will at least feign to be bigger and stronger-a la mimicry-which can be a very effective strategy until it’s able to get bigger and stronger. Fake it till you make it.

In yet another viral moment in the bad sense for Jeffries Axios reported that at a recent meeting he was grousing that liberal, progressive groups were pushing hard for a more muscular approach to Trump-Musk Musk-Trump.

A closed-door meeting for House Democrats this week included a gripe-fest directed at liberal grassroots organizations, sources tell Axios.

Why it matters: Members of the Steering and Policy Committee — with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) in the room — on Monday complained activist groups like MoveOn and Indivisible have facilitated thousands of phone calls to members’ offices.

• “People are pissed,” a senior House Democrat who was at the meeting said of lawmakers’ reaction to the calls.
• The Democrat said Jeffries himself is “very frustrated” at the groups, who are trying to stir up a more confrontational opposition to Trump.
• A Jeffries spokesperson disputed that characterization and noted to Axios that their office regularly engages with dozens of stakeholder groups, including MoveOn and Indivisible, including as recently as Monday

Zoom in: “There were a lot of people who were like, ‘We’ve got to stop the groups from doing this.’ … People are concerned that they’re saying we’re not doing enough, but we’re not in the majority,” said one member.

Democrats “pissed” at MoveOn, Indivisible over Trump approach

When the shoe fits. I mean Obama had a much larger majority in 2008-the House majority is historically tiny-but at no point did Mitch McConnell declare ‘we’re not in the majority so there’s not a thing we can do.’ Nor did he criticize “the groups” which for them was the Tea Party wave

Indeed as MoveOn Director Rahna Epting argued on The Majority Report yesterday Democrats should welcome the mobiization of their own voters rather than getting frustrated not at Donald Trump and Elon Musk but “the groups” that is their own voters. Note that this isn’t the Left-the Bernie Bro cum Bernie or Bust cum #GenocideJoe folks. These are mainstream #Resistantlib types like myself who are the heart of the Democratic party’s support. They are insulting their own voters in dismissing them as “the groups” a la Jentleson.

MoveOn Is Mobilizing Voters to Stand Up Against Trump, Musk, And Budget Cuts | Rahna Epting | TMR

Look if you want the most charitable explanation of the Adam Jentleson Sydrome-as we can see he’s far from the only Democrat like this-perhaps Tom Malinowski puts it best: these Dems were made for different times when rules were followed.

Tom Malinowski: “If you’ve got an hour to kill shoveling snow, here’s a convo between me and Tim Miller, on Ukraine, the attempted dismantlement of our government, and how Democrats must rise to an occasion that life did not prepare them for. www.thebulwark.com/p/tom-malino…” — Bluesky

Fair enough but when do they figure out those times have been long over? The end begun with Newt Gingrich. Yet these Democrats still haven’t gotten the memo.

Notably Sam Seder referenced the etymology of MoveOn-the group formed initially in response to the GOP’s politically weaponized investigation and impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998. You suspect Seder doesn’t love this-while he’s not like the wild, crazy, Tankie left a la Jimmy Dore cum The Grayzone-as a leftist he does have a certain amount of congenital Clinton Derangement Syndrome. But this underscores their historical effectiveness-as in fact there were Democrats considering convicting Clinton but backed down in the face of MoveOn’s advocacy.

One point Seder made I agree with is that the Democrats have a “consultant mindset” ie everything they say is poll tested for the least offensive way to say it. But as Jason Paul had argued back when he was running for DNC Chair if you always find the least offensive way to put everything you may succeed but you’re unlikely to ever say anything INTERESTING. In this sense you could say Jentleson is a classic Democrat consultant: he’s great at generating unpopularity.

As for the canard the Dems are in the minority so there’s “nothing they can do” here is Indivisible Director Ezra Levin and Co-Director Leah Greenberg:

Here’s How Democrats Can Stop Trump and Musk. Trump and Musk aren’t kings, and the rest of us aren’t powerless in the midst of this coup.

Here’s How Democrats Can Stop Trump and Musk3y

Indeed it’s important not to give into learned helplessness. Going back to Hobbes we learned that an alleged King only serves with the consent of the governed. If we treat them like Kings, Kings they will become. Note as I quote from them that this was written on February 4 back when Dems were in first gear-indeed this manifesto was part of what pushed them to move up to where they are now: in 3rd gear.

We’re former Democratic congressional staffers, but we’ve got to be honest: congressional Democrats need to get their act together. We are in the midst of a power grab unlike anything in modern American history. President Donald Trump’s agenda is cruel, chaotic, corrupt, unconstitutional, and deeply unpopular. And yet, most Senate business continues as if Elon Musk’s unconstitutional takeover of the Treasury isn’t underway. Just on Monday, eight Senate Democrats – including some from deep blue states – voted to confirm yet another Trump secretary.

This won’t cut it. We need a unified opposition party. If Democrats need inspiration, they should look to Mitch McConnell. Yes, that Mitch McConnell.

Yes! What would Mitch McConnell do?; Because as sociopathic as much of what he did in 2009-2010 was IT WORKED. We can use the power for Good or Less Evil but we must use the power!

McConnell never whined about being in the minority. He used it as a weapon. He wielded Senate rules like a hammer, grinding government to a halt when it suited his interests. And when we were congressional staffers during the Obama administration, we watched Republicans build an entire playbook for obstructing Democratic governance. We need Democrats to fight as hard for democracy as Republicans fight to tear it down

They then listed four things the Senate can do: deny a Quorom, block unanimous consent and slow debate, refuse to confirm Trump nominees, and throw everything into denying the confirmation of Russell Vought-again this was February 4 the week of Vought’s confirmation. Notably the Dems followed all four of these proposals.

Again “the groups” are effective. Yesterday Indivisible’s Levin posted thus:

Ezra Levin: “If someone on national TV asked you “What has Trump done in the last 4 weeks that you find most concerning?” would you just say, “He hasn’t lowered prices.” Or is there anything else you might mention about the last month?” — Bluesky

I know exactly what he means-Jeffries recent stump speech as been on the line of ‘The Republican party has done nothing to lower prices in the last 5 weeks.’

Jeffries says Trump, GOP show ‘no interest’ in lowering costs of living

Jeffries says Trump, GOP show ‘no interest’ in lowering costs of living

While this is assuredly true it still seems to understate the reality on the ground wildly as Levin suggests. Like Trump is doing far more than simply not putting forward a credible plan to lower prices-he’s done dozens of executive actions that are likely to RAISE prices. Obviously there the tariffs. But there’s also his crackdown on the health agencies preventing them from informing hospitals and the public on infectiouis diseases like the Bird Flu-which has been a major factor in the rise of egg prices the last year. Trump also has stopped research into new stands of Covid-and now of course RFK Jr has been confirmed…

Beyond that there are some other things going on-to say the least-beyond high prices.

Glynnis Campbell ~ Author: “Invited a billionaire with a staff of hackers with no security clearance to infiltrate the innermost workings of our government.” — Bluesky

Also there was the pardoning of the 1600 insurrectionists, the firing of the 15 IGs, and now shutting down the prosecution of Eric Adams in exchange for him going along with Trump’s draconian immigration policies in NYC, the threat of annexing Canada, Panama, and Greenland in far from an exhaustive list.

The way Jeffries frames it sounds very much like the theater criticism of a normal Administration from the opposition party rather than a constitutional crisis of the highest order since the Civil war.

FN

Indeed when you think about how exactly to fight back you consider that maybe the only way to fight the invasion of our government from within by Musk’s college aged black hat hackers might be white hat hackers-a la the “ethical hackers” one version of this might be the recent reporting that DOGE has already been hacked.

Elon Musk’s DOGE launched its website. It was hacked within days

So this recent stump speech that the GOP and Trump aren’t lowering prices once again seems to validate the narrative that the Democrats are still trying to treat this like a normal political disagreement rather than a genuine hair on fire moment where we don’t know if our country will make it at all-as it is.

Finally Parkrose Permaculture discusses going to Ron Wyden’s townhall and coming out arguing Congress is NOT going to save us.

(264) I went to Senator Ron Wyden’s Town Hall. Congress Is NOT Gonna Save Us, Folks. – YouTube

She makes the point that many Democrats feel like ‘they did win the election’-so what can we do? Again what would Mitch McConnell do?

“Congress is not going to be saving us they are so hung up on operating on procedure on decorum.”

As she says Dems are trying to play by the rules of the game when the GOP has flipped the chessboard over and thrown its pieces onto the floor. As she also says they admit it’s a coup but have no plan on how to stop it. Parkrose acknowledges that at least the Democrats are going to townhalls while Republicans duck their townhalls

She does a great job of calling out the talent of Senators to produce these carefully crafted answers that say nothing. And Wyden is one of the good ones certainly one of the most progressive members in the Senate. Here’s another quote from her:

“the perspective from establishment Democrats is basically like this is what the voters voted for we can only work within the confines of the rules and procedures of the house and the Senate like their Paradigm is such that they cannot think about operating outside of the box they cannot think about breaking any rules.”

Bottomline it’s hard to disagree with her that Congress won’t save us WE have to save ourselves. At this point there are three tracks of #Resistance: Congress, the Courts, and we the voters. As she says the Courts have been fairly impressive though the rubber meets the road when Trump starts bringing these cases in front of the same GOP Court he appointed and who gave him Absolute Immunity. Then even if the SJC DOES rule the right way will he ignore it? Vance has been saying for three years that Trump should do an Andrea Jackson-‘You have made your ruling now let’s see you enforce it.’

As discussed above we’ve seen the mass, national protests spring up. Congress will do the right thing to the extent we continue to press them even if Jeffries, Jentleson and Friends finds this pressure from “the groups” inconvenient

.UPDATE: While we’ve focused particularly with Jeffries in this section, Schumer has certainly gotten plenty of to my mind justified criticism of his own.

Schumer recently took a call from several Democratic governors who urged him not to tolerate Democrats voting for Trump nominees.

He told the Journal that “some of my caucus didn’t want to do that,” but he agreed with the governors and said he would “urge people to vote no on every nominee, and we’re going to work hard.”

Dem Lawmakers in Chaos 3 Weeks Into Trump’s Presidency, Pulling Chuck Schumer in Opposite Directions

UPDATE:

With all the talk of Mitch McConnell it is amazing how far he has now fallen.  This is a prediction I made in previous chapters that has not aged well, alas. Unfortunately only my bad predictions about how October 7 would lead to another Trump term or how bad his term would be seem to hold up. In Chapter Sometimes the Bad Guys Win I’d predicted McConnell could emerge as a low key #Resistance hero. I wasn’t wrong that McConnell would seek to be this what I didn’t foresee was that his entire party who he had ruled with an iron fist for 16 years as their Senate leader would bail on him, that he would be unable to convince anyone to follow him in resisting Trump and that even Susan Collins EVEN Lisa Murkowski would capitulate to Trump’s worst nominees-even Tulsi Gabbard, even RFK Jr.

I’ll admit I’d been fairly confident that the GOP Senate would at least reject Tulis Gabbard and this appeared so in her early hearings. Then-apparently Trump applied serious pressure and they all caved even Murkowski and Collins. McConnell ended up being the only holdout. So after all these years of such iron discipline over the GOP members he now has no clout with them at all where I’d assumed he’s at least be able to herd a few over to his side.

From the National Review:

Every Republican senator voted to confirm Tulsi Gabbard except one. Every Republican senator voted to confirm RFK Jr. except one. That one, in each instance, was Mitch McConnell.

I wrote about him last year when he announced he would not stand again for Republican leader of the Senate: here. I will not repeat what I wrote in this piece. But I will summarize:

Like many others, I wish he had voted to convict Trump in the impeachment trial of 2021. But I value him highly. He tells the truth about the 2020 election and January 6. He understands the conflict in Ukraine, and he knows what Putin is, and he backs Ukraine to the gills. He tells the truth about Viktor Orbán — an ally of “America’s greatest strategic adversaries,” as McConnell says: Russia, China, and Iran.

And now he has voted against the nominations of Tulsi Gabbard and RFK Jr. — alone, among Republicans. Absolutely alone.

McConnell alone, &c.

It just seems that one again people who had the power to take a different course if they took a stand don’t until they no longer have that power anymore. Indeed if you look at it individually it sort of feels like karma for McConnell-live by the sword die by the sword. But when you think about the effects this is going to have on our country the next few years-and the world with Trump-Musk now leading our country-the effects of this will be cataclysmic. McConnell could have stopped it all. Had he pushed for impeachment post January 6 in 2021so much could have been different including the ignominious way McConnell has been shunted aside from his own party and Trump’s puerile denial that Mitch even has Polio after he voted against RFK Jr.

Seems like a variant of the Peter Principe for power-powerful people always wait to do the right thing once they have no power anymore. Now McConnell has nothing to lose. But he has no power either. Now in a perverse sense he knows how he made Democrats feel all these years when every good and substantive objection and argument of theirs was swatted away as he “rammed through”-the words he used for what he wanted to do with the Brett Kavanaugh nomination-or simply torpedoed their progressive agenda.

In a weird way now he and his Democratic opponents who he got the better of so many times since January 2009 are on the same side. The losing side. Such has been the Price of Power for McConnell as the book of this title put it published in 2023

The Price of Power: How Mitch McConnell Mastered the Senate, Changed America, and Lost His Party – Kindle edition by Tackett, Michael. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

UPDATE:

I should wish you happy #NotMyPresident day as that was what the #Resistance called today. It was also ironically enough as I just wrote this piece, national Hakeem Jeffries does all the cable news shows day. He was on Nicole Wallace-always one of my favorites; her not him so much after watching the interview LOL

He wasn’t terrible but he wasn’t great-which may be by design he always seeks the safe median position. So he doesn’t call for Eric Adams to be fired but he agrees Adams has some very tough questions to answer. This way he’s covered either way-or at least I imagine that’s the premise for most of his responses. The safest response according to poll testing. Hopefully he has enough plausible deniability wether you want Adams to leave or stay that way.

Even having said that I didn’t HATE his answers. He’d say something I didn’t love then say something that sounded pretty good but then something else which makes me wonder how seriously he meant the thing he said I thought was pretty good…

He often seems like kind of a likable guy but is it possible to call him “authentic?” He seems incredibly studied in everything he says. But usually I come away vacillating between thinking he gets it and that he doesn’t get it or maybe he’s just trying to con us into thinking he gets it.

But then the subject turned to Nancy Pelosi and what he learned from her and here he said something I am certain I really didn’t like. One theory I have about Jeffries is that it’s hard for him to be the Democratic party leader when he got the job by following Pelosi’s lead all these years. His education was in not speaking for himself.

Nicole Wallace asked him about what he learned from how she ran the Democratic caucus during the first two years of Trump when then-as now-the Dems were totally out of power-naturally this was the analogy Wallace was making. Jeffries said that back in that time a lot of people were “in a frenzy”-exact words over the Mueller Report and Russian interference but Pelosi won by basically putting those things on ice and focusing like a laser beam on healthcare and the failed attack by Trump and the GOP on the ACA AND on the GOP’s huge tax cut for the rich-Pelosi and Friends loved to call it the “GOP tax scam” which some have since mocked though I think that’s not a bad thing to call it-it was a scam.

But what triggered me here was his glib dismissal of the concern of the Mueller investigation of Russian interference AND collusion-he didn’t use that word of course-as a kind of excessive “frenzy.” It’s almost as bad-certainly not quite as bad but a family resemblance-as when Fetterman said Biden should pardon Trump as his conviction in the hush money case was a politically motivated hitjob-again with Democrats like these who needs Republicans?

I have some feelings about this I don’t mind saying. While many were shocked to see the Trump Administration throwing Ukraine under the bus last week this is because they still never have understood that Russia DID interfere to elect Trump in 2016-and 2020 and 2024-and Trump DID collude-AND coordinate and conspire-with this Russian interference.

Marcy Wheeler has writtten extensively of the mainstream media’s abject failure on Russian collusion-she doesn’t use that word much she’s more precise, it’s my word but read the report nowhere does it show “Mueller proved there was no collusion” As EW has pointed out many times “collusion” is not a crime-but conspiracy-which the MR also shows generous evidence of. But how can you fault the media for not getting it when even the Democratic majority leader doesn’t get it after all these years? Maybe had Pelosi and her lieutenants-Steny Hoyer had declared 45 minutes after receiving the MR that there was nothing to see there and that it was time to “move on”-to what? Talking about healthcare-as opposed to passing it?

Maybe had the Democrats taken this very serious investigation seriously the lie would not have settled that “Mueller proved there was no collusion” and we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in today.

And it’s obvious the analogy he’s drawing-just as Pelosi allegedly won by ignoring the Russia investigation and focusing in an entirely anodyne way on healthcare and “the GOP tax scam” the Dems will win 2026 by ignoring “the frenzy” over Trump’s rape murder of the rule of law and Elon Musk’s cyberinfiltration of the US government while sticking pedantically to his talking points that “the GOP has done nothing to lower the price of eggs.”

FWIW I would argue that he is mistaken about 2018. They didn’t win because of their talking points about “protecting healthcare and fighting the GOP tax scam” but despite it. WE the #Resistance won it despite the abysmal “messaging” and it will be up to us again. As PermaRose quoted above says it’s up to us-we’ll have to win the fight against fascism and bring our alleged “leaders” along for the ride.

Ok with all the hits on Jeffries in this passage a little intel on Schumer. The NYTimes reported that he’s been reaching out to Donor X on how to call Donald Trump(!).

Jeff Skoll, a Silicon Valley billionaire and a longtime friend of Elon Musk’s, said there was “an awful lot of pressure” to side with Mr. Trump.

This month, Mr. Skoll, who has donated tens of millions to Democratic candidates and causes in recent years but said he did not vote in the 2024 presidential election, posted a photo on social media of himself standing with Mr. Trump backstage at the inauguration. On Friday, he had breakfast in Palm Beach, Fla., with Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, where they discussed the prospect of Mr. Schumer’s using Mr. Skoll to back-channel ideas to the president, Mr. Skoll said.

Venting at Democrats and Fearing Trump, Liberal Donors Pull Back Cash – The New York Times

This is telling on many levels starting with the fact that this Skoll was either too big a coward to even vote against Trump OR such a big coward he’s now pretending he didn’t. Which alternative makes you feel better? But it’s also pretty telling that Schumer is trying to “back-channel ideas” to Trump. I’m fascinated-what kind of ideas does Schumer imagine Trump would be interested in “working with” Schumer on at this point? Considering Trump now did yet another EO saying only Trump gets to say what the law says?

If Schumer really wants to be Trump’s friend-which is a fairly pathetic thing to want-it’s clear Trump doesn’t respect doormats he loves walking over them but doesn’t respect them. Zelensky unlike Schumer is neither a coward or a doormat.

‘Disgraceful and humiliating surrender’: Dems ‘frustrated’ progressives are pushing them

ProChoice Mike: “I like people with ideas not learned helplessness-‘I’m trying to figure out what power we actually have’ a la Hakeem Jeffries” — Bluesky

Mark Cuban: “theintercept.com/2025/02/17/e…” — Bluesky

Remain In Hell Without Despair: “Some chud just mocked my Ukraine Polandball banner, but this is why – despite those who prefer bitter political quietism or collaboration – the Ukrainian struggle still inspires the freedom-loving peoples of the earth” — Bluesky

Mind you things are overall looking pretty bleak for the “peace negotiations” at this point which underscores another thing too many people have failed to do with Trump-Maya Angelou had warned that when someone shows you who they are believe them the first time but Trump has showed us who he is many times and some folks still refuse to see it.

Michael McFaul on X: “Trump’s team allegedly has offered Putin (1) Ukrainian territory, (2) no NATO membership for Ukraine, (3) no US soldiers in Ukraine, (4) the withdrawal of US soldiers from Europe, including from frontline states, and (5) sanctions relief. Putin’s return offer — nothing.” / X

Ie this Trump is literally agreeing to the overturning of Yalta

CF: For much more on this truly disgraceful unfolding agreement between Trump and Putin-again believe them the first time, I’ve been predicting for months that this was going to be another DOHA-see Chapter Russia Russia russia.

End CF

In any case Zelensky, like the Syrian resistance against Assad, or for that matter AOC who is not impressed with Tom Homan’s absurd threats of prosecuting her for simply discussing publicly the legal rights of immigrants are those small pockets of inspiration against a world that seems determined to go full blown authoritarian.

We are all Syrians now, all Ukrainians now. and all Canadians now that Trump has comletley brought shame to our country who can blame anyone for booing the US national anthem? Of course Trump-being completely unAmerican wants to criminalzie flag burning.

ProChoice Mike: “Oh Canada! We are all Canadians now www.youtube.com/watch?v=RidI…” — Bluesky

There remains many folks in this fight. Contrary to the MSM canard that “the resistance is muted this time” Maddow alone in the media documents on a nightly basis how large the #Resistance is. Ten thousand or more people are showing up to Democratic townhalls.

FN: Maddow 2/17.

One worrisome theme about the post 11/5 Democrats has been that they’re “rudderless”-they have 262 members of the House and Senate with 262 separate individual agendas. Even Hakeem Jeffries friends and supporters say at most maybe in time he’ll BECOME the party’s leader he’s NOT THERE YET.

In that vein I was quite impressed by Ken Martin’s interview with PoliticsGirl-he certainly looks and sounds like someone who could be our leader-he’s as close as we are to one any case. He had me on “most of the consultants are going to be gone” unless they show what value they actually bring. This is excellent there is no bigger problem-in Chapter Bad Guys Win I argued that the consultants get a major portion of the blame for Kamala Harris’ defeat.

ProChoice Mike: “Oh Ken Martin you had me at most of the consultants are going to be gone www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbLY…” — Bluesky

He also touched on another issue that really frustrates many of us Democrats: even when we win elections our leaders are reluctant to use their own power-they act like power can be put in a lockbox for a rainy day. Very glad to hear Martin sharply disagrees with this.

UPDATE: What’s wrong with the Democrats Kathy Hochul edition

There was some hope yesterday when it was reported that Hochul would have a meeting with top Democratic leaders on the question whether she should fire Adams.

Many have been arguing she should. Carville called her a “dolt” for not swifly doing so on Monday 2/17 and it’s hard to disagree with him IF SHE DOESN’T.

Carville: Hochul a ‘dolt’ for not removing Adams

But later that night we heard she’d be having that meeting and that Adams either resigning or her firing him were on the table. Obviously, though he’s not going to resign. If you want him gone you-being Hochul-have to fire him.

Last night however the reporting clearly signaled to me that she’s NOT GOING TO FIRE HIM. Why not? Well first of all consider this description of her by the NYT:

Amid increasing calls to remove Mayor Eric Adams from office, Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York is weighing a complicated set of considerations.

5 Factors That May Shape Hochul’s Decision on Adams’s Fate – The New York Times

So here we go right off the bat: FIVE factors, “complicated set of considerations” so paralysis of analysis. Not a promising framing.

There is little doubt, as far as the New York State Constitution is concerned, that Gov. Kathy Hochul has the power to remove Mayor Eric Adams of New York City from office.

But as she faces growing pressure to exercise that authority, the choice before Ms. Hochul is anything but simple. No governor in New York’s 235-year history has removed a mayor, leaving little precedent to guide her. Doing so now could also unleash unpredictable political and legal consequences — including for Ms. Hochul.

Of course it’s unprecedented as Trump and everything he does is unprecedented. But for someone like Hochul evidently this is a problem as the Times goes on to tell us is “a cautious student of history.” Again Trump is unprecedented as is the high tech infiltration and subversion of the US government going on in the executive branch as we speak. There are no roadmaps or sign posts. But being a cautious student of history Hochul is the kind of person reluctant to make the trip at all without them. Too dangers better wait like a sitting duck for the leopards to find you and eat your face.

Advisers who requested anonymity to characterize the governor’s thinking said she could do that in several different ways. Ms. Hochul could initiate removal proceedings; try to pressure Mr. Adams to resign; bless a separate city process meant to remove mayors deemed unable to govern — or simply push for less drastic concessions from the mayor and let voters have the final say in this year’s election.”

That last option, choice #3 is the not just the worst option but truly a terrible choice. Unfortunately the signs-as of 2/19 Wednesday morning seem to point thither.  Why? Because, again, she’s a cautious student of history and likes precedents to follow and there are no precidents to follow

A cautious student of history, with little guide.

As governor, Ms. Hochul has typically favored a cautious approach, looking for precedent to guide her thinking. In this case, she has little to lean on.”

So as she has no precedent to lean on she, unfortunately, seems to have chosen Al Sharpton to lean on. Why has she chosen Sharpton of all people? Well… Adams is Black. It really is that simple. Because he’s Black she worries that firing him  would “alienate Black voters.”

Government leaders almost always prefer to make decisions that are broadly popular with voters. In this case, Ms. Hochul appears to be particularly attentive to one segment of the electorate: Black New Yorkers.

Black voters have been among the steadiest supporters of Mr. Adams, the city’s second Black mayor. If they conclude that Ms. Hochul is targeting him unfairly or casting him aside without proper due process, they could punish her at the ballot box next year.

Are NY Black voters really that supportive of Eric Adams? I’m skeptical. Again this is an assumption because he’s Black. Yes by definition Black voters are ALWAYS the most supportive demographic for high ranking Democratic politicians this hardly proves they have some special love of Adams-and why would they? He may be Black he’s also a former NYPD chief.

But so Hochul presumes-and so Better Call Al Sharpton. Who says Adams DESERVES HIS DUE PROCESS. I wish this were satire. Sharpton who tries to situate himself as a leader of the anti Trump #Resistance yet didn’t even endorse Hillary Clinton in 2016.

I mean DUE PROCESS? This is what Trump is taking from millions of undocumented immigrants-and that Sharpton’s boyfriend Eric Adams is helping him take. Where’s their due process?

Ms. Hochul has carefully solicited the views of Black leaders, including the Rev. Al Sharpton and Representative Gregory W. Meeks, the leader of Queens Democrats. Maintaining their support could help insulate her from any potential voter backlash.

On Tuesday, Mr. Sharpton and Mr. Meeks both told the governor that while they were worried by the Adams situation, it was premature to remove him, particularly before a federal judge holds a hearing Wednesday on the Justice Department’s motion to dismiss the case.

“I think she agreed that she cannot just wave a magic wand or say that the mayor is gone, is going to be removed,” Mr. Meeks said in an interview after his call with Ms. Hochul.

“The mayor and everyone else has due process,” he said. “For me, that’s essential.”

She CAN’T? I guess that’s only for Trump who waved a wand and now to even get into a press briefing you have to accept Trump’s like that the Gulf of Mexico is the Gulf of America. Like Orwell said in a time of universal deceit telling the truth is a radical act.

FN: Chapter Orwell for more

In point of fact Congressman Meeks SHE CAN fire him wether she waves a wand at the same time or not and yes he’s removed. What these “Black leaders” fail to get is that the mayor isn’t Black anymore-assuming he ever was. In reality he was more Blue than anything-NYPD Chief.

But the mayor isn’t Eric Adams anymore it’s Donald Trump. So the “due process” their on about isn’t Adams but Trump’s-the only person in America today who apparently still has a right to due process, Mr. Absolute Immunity himself.

What makes this so maddening is that public opinion is strongly in favor of Hochul firing him. She could do something truly popular and maybe raise her anemic poll numbers.

Liz (or Lizzie) Kim 김혜성 💫: “NYC voters would likely support Gov. Kathy Hochul removing Eric Adams as mayor. About two-thirds of New York City voters in November’s election said at the time that they would approve of Gov. Hochul removing Adams. apnews.com/article/eric…” — Bluesky

But can’t pretend to be terribly optimistic about that. Object lessons:

1. Democrats are too cautious quit being cautious. Look at the world we’re living in now, realize this is the worst of all worlds, and so get over the worry that acting rather than not acting will make things worse.  THIS IS THE WORST. Donald Trump’s America IS THE WORST.

2. Don’t listen to hacks like Al Sharpton who defend political cronies over the genuine well being of Black voters or any other voters.

Cautious hasn’t worked. Cautious is what got us here. When in doubt ask what would Mitch McConnell do not Adam Jentlesen or Kathy Hochul.

Hopefully my pessimistic take on Hochul will be proved wrong-but by accepting Sharpton’s proposal of waiting around drinking coffee and eating donuts while farting into your shorts until the judge rules it seems the momentum will likely go in Adams favor now enabling him to wait it out.

Sorry to use such visceral language. I’m feeling pretty visceral about now!

U{DATE:

Again it’s like the movie: I’m the one that I want.

We”re the ones who have to save ourselves

Thousands Protest on Presidents’ Day, Calling Trump a Tyrant ‘King’ – The New York Times

Sarah Longwell made a great point on Nicole Wallace yesterday-with all this fretting over the right “message” the thousands of protesters have the “right message”: THIS is unacceptable.

2/18 link

UPDATE: On CNN channel 18 in a large protest in NY protesters including many Black protesters are chanting “Hochul remove Adams!”

Happy #NotMyPresidentDay Everyday is not my President day

Anonymous: “Largest protest against fascism in Denver, Colorado since 2020. (🎙️ @kylec.bsky.social) Army Veteran George Lee: “I’m not fighting for me, I’m an old guy I’m 75, but I’ve got two kids … I’m fighting for them … I’m hoping for a better world for them.” #3E #USprotests #fiftyfiftyone #Feb17″ — Bluesky

UPDATE: Secular Talk on huge natoinal protests

If anything sums up the overriding point of this chapter this by Indiviisble puts it succinctly

Indivisible: ““Democrats seem to be waiting for Trump, Musk, and MAGA to naturally become unpopular, instead of working overtime to make them unpopular. We can’t wait. We need a unified, aggressive, and creative opposition in this country.” Read more from @leahgreenberg.bsky.social and @ezralevin.bsky.social. 👇” — Bluesky

“It’s hard not to sound alarmist about such alarming events. Whether we call it a coup, a constitutional crisis, a hostile takeover, or something else, we side with the two-thirds of Democrats who want Democrats in Congress to oppose Trump at every turn rather than appease him.”

This is the difference between many of the Dem electeds vs the Dem base as was shown by a new poll released today:

“A unew poll from SurveyUSA shows a majority of Democrats don’t trust those in Congress to stand up to Trump. The poll surveyed 1,705 registered voters from February 13 to February 16, 2025.

Democrats in Congress Lack Trust From Their Own Voters: Poll

Back to Indivisible on what Democratic voters want:

It’s hard not to sound alarmist about such alarming events. Whether we call it a coup, a constitutional crisis, a hostile takeover, or something else, we side with the two-thirds of Democrats who want Democrats in Congress to oppose Trump at every turn rather than appease him.”

But this was certainly not how the Dems in Congress proceeded in the immediate aftermath of November 5:

Democrats seem to be waiting for Trump, Musk, and MAGA to naturally become unpopular, instead of working overtime to make them unpopular. We can’t wait. We need a unified, aggressive, and creative opposition in this country.”

This is the divide: the elected Dems seem to want to play the Adam Jentleson theory of political opposition-basically don’t oppose just wait for them to fail a la the prevent defense while the base wants us to do a Mitch McConnell-as it was effective. McConnell understood that if Obama was very popular in January 2009, working with him would only give him a bipartisan sheen and make him even more popular

And this failed strategy of prevent defense is the song Chuck Schumer was signing at least until recently-back to Newsweek:

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat responded to criticism from Democrats concerned about the approach embraced by those in Congress in an interview with Semafor earlier in February.

He urged Democrats to be patient because Trump would eventually “screw up” on his own.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, a New York Democrat, said during a press conference earlier in February that the party doesn’t have “leverage,” as they are locked out of power.”

UPDATE : Wow et tu Dan Goldman?

I mean Trump is threatening to usurp state laws and Goldman who was an impeachment lawyer is like don’t worry that’s a distraction? If Trump-illegally-usurps NY law that’s not a distraction it’s yet another assault on the Rule of Law

But this remains the divide. We should take some hope even in the whining of Schumer-Jeffries-and double our calls to them.

#We’reNotGoingBack #StayMad #NotMyPresident

UPDATE:

ProChoice Mike: “I love this from Tom Malinowski-what Congress could do IF they remembered they have actual power” — Bluesky

One more thought-while I’m a fan of Sam Seder-and Emma Vigeland-in his recent interview with Eppa Raphing he did reference that MoveOn started as an opponent of Clinton’s impeachment-Sam you sensed didn’t love this, leftists can never get over the Clinton Derangement Syndrome (CDS). But actually this demonstrates their historical effectiveness. As discussed in Chapter Whitewater initially many Senate Democrats were open to impeaching Clinton but moved off this after it became clear Democratic voters didn’t support it. So this was an early show of the power of the grassroots in MoveOn’s maiden fight. Raphing also made the important point that it’s not that MoveOn has been doing anything different post November 5 it’s that there’s been a huge spike in demand-so many people are now interested in joining in the activism.

#StayMad #FightBack #NoKings #WeDoNotForget #WeDoNotForgive

UPDATE: 2/22 So this week’s polls seem to suggest that whatever “honeymoon” Trump had in the polls is over as four polls show his numbers underwater. This is likely because he’s doing so many terrible things there are angry townhalls even in very Republican districts.

Meanwhile Trump is pushing us towards authoritarianism in record time

Certainly when he promised to be a dictator on day one he told the truth however he also said “only on day one”…

In any case we once again see the lie put to the canard of many Democratic elites that “we cannot react to every outrage.”

Make Elon PROVE The Budget FRAUD, WASTE, & ABUSE (w/ Jared Moskowitz)

Jared Moskowitz being the genius who wrote a column in July 2024 that “Donald Trump is going to win and that’s ok. It will not be the end of democracy.”

I guess I understand now how he said such an absurd thing-his head is constantly burrowed up his own ass.. If you simply stay in a bubble and don’t follow what’s going on you won’t NOTICE but turns out the old saying is wrong: in the Trump Era what you don’t know will hurt you-count on it. In his interview Moskowitz seemed to think that “reacting to every outrage” is crying wolf. Crying wolf isn’t crying wolf if it’s a wolf! Now that the wolf has installed loyalists in the Pentagon can we panic NOW? Or is this in Moslowitz’s alleged great wisdom still a nothingburger? Just turn around in the bed and sleep on the other side?

As Ezra Levin and Leah point out most Democrats want us to oppose Trump at every turn-honestly to not do so just means we’ll lose our country

UPDATE: Oops they did it again this time Seth Moulton-please tell me this is satire. Spoiler alert: it’s not satire

ProChoice Mike: “There they go again-if you don’t know what I mean about Dem Electeds saying “we can’t respond to every outrage” Exhibit Q: Seth Moulton. No this is not satire www.msn.com/en-us/news/p…” — Bluesky

UPDATE: Kyle Kulinski describes what the Democrats need to do very well to utilize what is a winning coalition of leftists, liberals-and I would argue centrist and even conservative former Republican anti Trumpers

ProChoice Mike: “Very good point by Kyle Kulinski of Secular Talk-Jesse Waters said the quite part out loud-the Right wing is waging this huge (dis)information war while the Democrats are using 1990s tactics. Dems in Congress need to keep up with social media and latest talking points www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0Gx…” — Bluesky

He also notes that Medias Touch has recently gone ahead of Joe Rogan in subscribers-so the coalition is there

Exactly-what’s frustrating is how many leadership Democrats are leaving the proverbial $100 dollar bill on the ground-more like $1000 dollars in truth as fired up and hungry are for Dem leaders to stand up, resist, and oppose Trump to indeed defy him at every turn. Instead we see a lot of ‘we can’t react to ever outrage” a la Jared Moskowitz and Adam Jentleson.

But what’s becoming clearer with all the public protests and all the folks showing up at townhalls is that we the #ResistanceLibs the Democratic voters get it-like the movie I’m the One Who I Want-we voters are getting it that the Dem leaders won’t rescue us we have to rescue them. The fact that Jeffries-Schumer are whining and peevish in private just underscores we’re getting through to them-let’s keep it up.

UPDATE: What’s pretty awesome is voters are going after Democrats AND Republicans-who are even more pathetic. LIke the GOP Senators talking tough about defending Ukraine while they voted for Tulsi Gabbard aka Putin’s girlfiend and they do nothing whatsoever to restrain Trump from selling out the entire Free World to Vladimir Putin

Trump LOSES IT as GOP Reps RUN AWAY from Voters

ProChoice Mike: “Again if you have any thoughts of running for Congress NOW IS THE TIME. There are already 2000 new recruits. I ran in 2018 and am considering running again. Many of us are not happy with the Democratic Congressional response-so run for Congress then www.msn.com/en-us/news/p…” — Bluesky

UPDATE: Sometimes the best move is a willingness to get arrested-a voter at a Democratic townhall recently argued John Lewis would have gotten himself arrested.

ProChoice Mike: “”John Lewis would have gotten himself arrested”-Dr. Theresa Borrenphol did just that. The Democratic base wants a liberal tea party-but our Reps need to be dragged kicking and screaming www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/…” — Bluesky

This is exactly what Dr. Theresa Borrenpohl did

ProChoice Mike: “Charges rightly dropped against the courageous Dr. Theresa Borrenpohl meanwhile her GoFundMe reaches $300,000 while the private security company that assaulted her is being investigated. She didn’t obey in advance and now the #Resistance has a new hero www.kivitv.com/news/local-n…” — Bluesky

We need that liberal tea party and if our Congressional reps need to be dragged kicking and screaming so be it. But if anyone should lead it-how about Thereas Borrenpohl? She actually ran for Congress in the past. If she were to run again she’d be a pretty compelling candidate

UPDATE: When Hakeem Jeffries wakes up in the morning he must say to the mirror “Mirror, mirror, on the wall who’s the most complacent of them all?”

ProChoice Mike: “I don’t know it seems to me there are much bigger problems with DOGE led by MTG and Elon Musk than it lacks “seriousness” www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/0…” — Bluesky

In still other tepid Dem leadership news James Carville declares the answer is for Democrats to LITERALLY “rollover and play dead.” I wish I was kidding-or uncharitably paraphrasing:

Democrats should “roll over and play dead” to allow Trump and his party’s actions to “crumble” beneath the weight of their contradictions, Carville said in an opinion piece published in the New York Times on Tuesday.

James Carville Tells Dems the Best Way to Beat Trump is ‘Roll Over and Play Dead’

He completely misses the point I’ve made in this chapter:

This “strategic retreat” is necessary because the Democrats have no leader, and no control over any branch of government, argues the 80-year-old CNN commentator, who was the lead strategist on Bill Clinton’s 1992 election win.

“The Army has a term for this: ‘tactical pause.’ It’s a vision move — get out of the hour-to-hour, day-to-day combat where one side (ours) is largely playing defense and struggling to defend politically charged positions,” he continued.

This would be a wiser approach than the “resistance” politics, which he says the Democrats “tried and failed” during Trump’s first term.

“We voiced outrage on social issue after social issue. We spun ourselves up in a tizzy over an investigation into Russia,” he said.

“Only until the Trump administration has spiraled into the low 40s or high 30s in public approval polling percentages should we make like a pack of hyenas and go for the jugular,” he continued.

Wow where to start. Again as this chapter argues this is the opposite of what Mitch McConnell and Friends did in 2010. In 2009 Obama’s numbers were in the high 60s and they went full bore opposition at every turn. They didn’t wait for Obama’s numbers to fall into the low 40s they drove them there. And he makes the same zombie argument that Jentleson and many other hackish consultant types make: that the resistance failed. Again it actually didn’t-the Democrats won a landslide victory in 2018, defeated Trump and won back the Senate in 2020 and historically overperformed in the 2022 midterms.

As for spinning into a tizzy over Russia-well obviously the Russia investigation had no merit in light of the fact that Trump is now not just throwing Ukraine under the bus but talking about undoing the last 80 years of US foreign policy and destroying the Free World to the benefit of-RUSSIA.

To paraphrase Keith Olbermann it’s official: James Carville wins the contest for worst Democratic party consultant in the world and it’s stiff competition.

For those who claim that the #Resistance is “muted” this time:

Bulwark quote. See also:

Democrats May Risk Their Own Tea Party Moment – Split Ticket

ProChoice Mike: “#DemocraticTeaParty LFG-Let’s fucking go! Repost if you feel same” — Bluesky

UPDATE: One thing the Democrats certainly have within their power to do is to impeach Trump. I agree with Keith Olbermann who argues they should impeach him every week. Sure there are like 50 new impeable offenses every week so yes!

Jamie Raskin shows an example of what voters wish more of their Dem leaders got: to speak with actual urgency

The People v. DOGE: Jamie Raskin’s Strategy to Combat the Musk & Trump Power Grab

ProChoice Mike: “For Democrats who say there’s nothing they can do there are two things they can do now 1. The Keith Olbermann proposal: bring up new articles of impeachment every week. Easy as he commits 50 new offenses every week. Speak with actual urgency. Like Jamie Raskin www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-HL…” — Bluesky

3/3/2025: Kevin Collins had a very illuminating on the disconnect between Democrats in Congress and the Dem base voters like myself.

Kevin Collins: “My qualified defense, and a qualified critique, of Jeffries and Schumer basically boils down to the fact that they are acting as legislative leaders (their putative jobs) rather than political leaders (what many Democrats, and others, want from them right now). A quick thread” — Bluesky

ProChoice Mike: “34. See this is why I can’t defend Hakeem Jeffries when people say he should be replaced. Just glad to see a number of Dems didn’t take his advice. Why is Jeffries so afraid of GOP criticism?” — Bluesky

(3) ProChoice Mike: “7. Suozzi said something similar to Adam last night. But this makes an important point: while Hakeem Jeffries wrings his hands “what can we DO?!!” voters just want to see your heart and passion. We want you to REPRESENT US. So Suozzi Mr. Problem Solver’s Caucus gets cheers just for saying “I’m mad”” — Bluesky

Hakeem Jeffries however continues to not get the memo.

(1) ProChoice Mike: “I’ve seen enough. Anyone interested in primarying Hakeem Jeffries? Thankfully many Democrats ignored this but this is terrible leadership bsky.app/profile/ezra…” — Bluesky

Brian Beutler also notes that the current “strategy” of the leadership Dem-per James Carville-of “rolling over and playing dead” is the opposite of what the base wants

(1) Brian Beutler: “It’s a problem. Dems think rectitude and decorum are keys to seizing the center, but “we submit to abuse and never defend ourselves” is an ethos that appeals to approximately no one. www.offmessage.net/p/trumps-las…” — Bluesky

“They theorize that defeating Trump requires capturing the center, which abhors showy antics and partisan rancor. They reason on surer footing that Trump’s historic unpopularity is to some degree an outgrowth of his vitriol and dishonesty.”

As this chapter has documented fairly exhaustively this is not how Mitch McConnell and Friends came back in 2009 and certainly not how Trump won in 2024 quite the opposite indeed. This is why personally I’m at the point where I can’t defend Hakeem Jeffries to say nothing of Chuck Schumer.

As Jain notes

What I also think is true, however, is that most Democratic voters are not okay with this approach. And right now, there are simply too many people that hate both Donald Trump and the Democratic Party for this equilibrium to remain.

Jain also correctly notes this is NOT along ideological lines-it’s not like 2016 with Hillary voters vs Bernie voters:

It’s important to remember, again, that unlike the Tea Party of 2010, this is not an issue that breaks down cleanly along ideological lines. An insurgency isn’t necessarily going to pull Democrats to the left, especially because Democratic voters can’t really agree on which ideological direction to take their party. (In recent Gallup polling, 45% wanted the party to become more moderate, 29% wanted it to become more liberal, and 22% were fine with its current ideology.)

But ideology isn’t the only thing that elections are fought over. And dissatisfaction is so widespread with the party’s leadership’s approach to Trump that I think something is going to give, and potentially soon. Whether it’s the strategy that changes or the lawmakers themselves, though, is yet to be determined, especially with over a year to go until the midterm cycle begins in earnest.

UPDATE: Jim Himes is yet another establishment Dem with a terrible take:

(378) Ukraine BETRAYED as Trump Cuts Off Intel (w/ Rep. Jim Himes) – YouTube

UPDATE: 3/6 Oh my God make it stop

ProChoice Mike: “Oh my God they can not be this cucked, make it make sense. Don Lemon is trying to find the names-my guess is Jared Moskowitz is one of the eight” — Bluesky

Very soon after I posted this on Bluesky the list was released which confirmed Moskowitz WAS on the list.

ProChoice Mike: “Ok so I was right-Moskowitz was on the list. It’s NOT 10-Green voted present thinking it would be bad form to vote for himself.” — Bluesky

Notably so was Jim Himes-who thinks the Democrats lost because they talked too much about democracy and abortion.