In 2008, Hillary Clinton was pilloried for mocking Obama’s lofty rhetoric. She said:
“The sky will open. The light will come down. Celestial choirs will be singing… Maybe I’ve just lived a little long, but I have no illusions about how hard this is going to be.” —
She was dismissed as prose. Obama was crowned as poetry. But 17 years later—how have the Celestial Choirs done?
The Right is ascendant. Democracy is on life support. And the politics of uplift without moral antagonism has proven insufficient.
Huey Long understood this. He named enemies. He dramatized stakes. He mobilized rage.
The Democrats need less choir. And more rhythm of reckoning.
See:
So it is that 17 years later it becomes clearer by the day that Hillary Clinton was right.
The Time Hillary Was Right About Obama in 2008 – The Atlantic
Section: Moral Narrativization is Essential in Politics.
This is something that seems congenitally impossible for the establishment Democrats to understand. There needs to be a moral dimension to a campaign to make it resonate with the electorate. Above we discussed the idea that Long argued that to really be compelling politically it’s good to show some genuine disdain indeed hatred for your opponent-which is literally the opposite of Obamaism where it’s a technocratic discussion between decent people on both sides who both want the same thing for America but just disagree technically.
Indeed, I actually thought that JVL on the Bulwark made a pretty good point recently regarding Gavin Newsom’s recent rise in popularity-that even the fact that Newsom clearly wants this bad might paradoxically HELP HIM.
“I have long believed that there is something in politics where voters reward candidates who are really hungry and that they don’t like the too cool for school. Oh, like Adelaide Stevenson, I was drafted to run. Um, they really ike the people who are in the most grotesque way would run over their own grandmothers to be elected president I wonder if a is that true…”
FN: (29) Gavin Goes FULL TRUMP! Tucker DROOLS Over Dictatorship! Trump’s CULT Has COPS?! – YouTube
Starting at 50:42
I don’t know that this describes it precisely but I do think that-now more than ever-as a general prospect hunger is all things being equal a good thing in a candidate-as opposed to the opposite: someone who’s “too cool for school” ie complacent.
To be complacent particularly at this authoritarian not to say crypto fascist moment-and the fascism is not so crypto but rather explicit!-moment in our history at the same time that 60% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck suggests you as a candidate just don’t get it, that you might as well live in Mars you’re so remote and out of touch with the concerns not to say struggles of the average American.
The opposite of hungry is complacent and most Americans are struggling and furious with the system-just for one example recall how Mangione became a folk hero for many after murdering healthcare CEO Brian Thompson in cold blood.
FN: Luigi Mangione Has Become A Social Media Folk Hero
Complacency suggests you’re happy and satisfied with the current status quo-which if true disqualifies you as a viable choice in the minds of many voters. After all how can you plausibly promise change if you’re so comfortable with the current status quo?
Section: Huey Long’s Own Mein Kampf Moment
Let’s be clear I don’t subscribe to the Godwin Principle that you should never compare anything to Hitler as if that were valid why learn history at all if you can’t compare anything in history to anything else or make historical analogies to things happening today? Trump absolutely should be compared to Hitler-as it’s apt. He’s-obviously not literally the same person-it’s a comparison. There are many obvious differences. yet there are many apt analogies too like what Trump’s ICE thugs have been up to in DC the last week.
FN: Detentions of D.C. delivery drivers leave immigrant communities on edge
In any case whatever analogies you very may well agree with or disagree with it ought to be clear I’m no fan of Hitler. This unlike many of Trump’s supporters. Having said that I have read Mein Kampf-again we study history to avoid terrible things happening again!
Still it’s striking when thinking of Hitler as a politician he was the opposite of complacent. His (In)famous book was aptly called My Struggle. Note that this made him sympathetic politically-because many people were struggling at the time-as they are certainly today. Indeed, Hitler actually spent some time in his early adulthood homeless in Vienna.
The History Place – Rise of Hitler: Hitler is Homeless in Vienna
The point being made is not that Hitler wasn’t so bad-he WAS awful, terrible, no good, hideous and every other negative adjective you care to think of! But it was kind of a compelling political narrative. Indeed, it turns out that Huey himself was homeless for some time in his early adulthood-he actually slept on a park bench for a few weeks before getting accepted into law school-at which time he was penniless.
This gave more credence to his framing himself as the man of the people seeking to “Share the Wealth.”
Certainly there’s something compelling politically about a candidate who’s angry-particularly about the state of society-rage over injustice gives the rage a halo of righteousness. Trump is the opposite of a man of the people but his anger can fool some into believing he is. His rage isn’t righteous but many have misread it as such.
Again Hitler’s “My Struggle” framing had great political resonance. After all you’d rather have a leader who has struggled to and knows how tough it is out there than someone who’s life has always been easy peasy like a bowl of cherries. In this vein, moral righteousness comes from the would be leader’s own struggles where he applies his anger at how the system treated him to anger over how it treats the rest of the people-he being a member of that people. Obviously Hitler’s actual time in politics was an unmitigated disaster but the point here is about what made his message-as well as Long’s-politically resonant.
Section: It’s the Moral Antagonism, Stupid
Again the moral antagonism is key with the emphasis on moral.
FDR-obviously another one of history’s greatest political communicators-had that famous 1936 speech where he talked about his-and the Ameircan people’s-rendezvous with destiny.
For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up.
We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.
They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.
Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.
I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.”
This was an extremely effective use of the word “hatred” in a political speech to create a visceral reaction in the public in support of him and his campaign.
Section: Many in the Democratic Establishment aren’t Mad Enough-if at all.
The problem with many in the establishment Democratic party-they promise change but seem very happy with the status quo. There are many things about Huey Long that are fascinating which I do think there is much to learn from. I’ve always found him fascinating simply because he was one individual yet he as Governor as Louisiana was able to take over the entire state and dominate it the like of which T. Harry Williams argues was unprecedented in US history.
One appeal that figures like Ross Perot-and yes, Donald Trump how misplaced this premise turned out to be in his case-was the idea that if you COULD find someone who was genuinely a kind of principled idealist with deep enough pockets someone like this alone could fix the system-after all the powers that be can’t buy them off as they are rich enough not to need their money. Whatever the merits or the lack therefor very may well be of this idea, it’s notable, Huey Long was able to win on a platform that poked some very powerful economic interests in the eye-Standard Oil was a constant foil…-and the system was not able to corrupt.
So I was always very interested in how he was able to do it. While I haven’t finished it yet what’s already clear is he did it in large part by creating his own counter system and maintaining despotic absolute control over it. He was the opposite of an institutionalist-he baldly fired everyone in state government and replaced it with cronies.
Whatever he did, it was effective in setting up in Louisiana what would prove a precursor to the New Deal FDR would implement a few years later. But no doubt the tactics and methods what he used would give many liberal, institutionalist types pause.
It gives me as a kind of liberal who hates the way our current institutions function but at the same time recognizes if we are ever to get our democracy back need our institutions to be healthy and effective pause.
Section: There’s so much worthy of hate today
Trump is simply a textbook villain. How do you watch how he treated-for just one of 100 examples-President Zelensky in that WH ambush in February and NOT feel rage. Somehow the establishment Dems manage-it’s a distraction they piously intone nothing to see here. It distracts from our conversation about healthcare or the evils of not running around the room with scissors or whatever the mealymouthed narrative of respectability politics is today. Like the SNL’s version of George Bush Senior would say ‘Not gonna do it wouldn’t be prudent.’
How do you see his assault on DC where his thugs are beating up Doordash drivers and NOT be enraged? Again you’d have to ask the Savvy folks who run the party how they manage to do that so well.
Or how we live in a country now where a 13 year old rape victim has less rights than her rapist in many parts of the country, where in Texas they wouldn’t let a woman get an abortion despite the fetus being DEAD and it endangered her life.
FN:
How Did We Win A Webby Award? Behind The Scenes With The Lincoln Project
Yet there are many inside our party who look at that and see nothing but “a distraction.” The fact that the measles has made a comeback under it’s best friend in the WH RFK Jr-it’s a distraction. That the GOP has stolen six elections since 1968 by conservative estimate-if you count 2024 as I do where Trump and Bibi I believe had a deal to delay a ceasefire deal until after the election like Reagan-Bush and the Ayatollah had in 1980? Just a distraction. Let’s talk about healthcare. Not pass any healthcare bills just talk about it.
How can you not be angry? It’s hard to understand unless you simply are personally doing very well despite the dark turn to fascism of our country. But voters will have a hard time believing you’re in this to make life better for them rather than maintain the current state of things which has worked out pretty well for yourself.
🧱 Sidebar: Huey Long and the Virtue of Hate
Huey Long understood something most technocrats never will: You need an enemy. Not just a policy disagreement—but a moral antagonist.
Long didn’t shy away from hate. He weaponized it. He gave his supporters a story, a villain, and a reason to fight.
That’s what establishment Democrats still don’t get. You can’t mobilize passion with spreadsheets. You need a moral narrative.
See Prologue: The Machinery of Passion
Section: It’s the Filibuster Stupid.
The big reforms however don’t require abusing the system but radical reforms. Starting with ending the filibuster. It’s ironic when you consider the terrible kind of “advice” that Adam Jentleson was pedaling early in Trump 2.0-‘Gee maybe is we’re nice to RFK Jr he won’t gut our entire vaccine infrastructure” as just a few years ago he’d taken on a major sacred cow in the filibuster.
But as we saw in Chapter President Joe’s First Mistake, Biden and the Dem leadership in Congress-least of all Schumer in the Senate-had no interest in prioritizing reforming if not abolishing the filibuster. Or it goes without saying reforming the Supreme Court. Yet until the filibuster and SJC are reformed there is no hope to pass any meaningful progressive agenda. But “institutionalists” handwring and everything they can to table these vital reforms. Again we’ll never return to a functioning democracy again without them.
Section: A Little Sympathy for Ezra Klein’s Abundance
I deliberately framed the title as a kind of paraphrase of the Rolling Stone’s “A Little Sympathy for the Devil.” Because for many on the Left Klein has this sort of evil, demonic status. And I have some understanding as to why this might be-I don’t entirely trust Klein either even though on a policy level we’re both these kind of Center Left liberals where I probably agree with him on most issues.
But often his mannerisms seem kind of “Savvy” in the Jay Rosen media criticism sense I’ve used this phrase throughout the book. Why? Exhibit One of why I find it hard to trust him is for Klein it’s simply self-evident that of course Epstein killed himself. That is a very good sign that someone comes from the Savvy class where “conspiracies don’t happen” only accidents, stupidity etc.
Why Trump Can’t Shake Jeffrey Epstein | The Ezra Klein Show
That is to say the classic mainstream pundit “Conspiracies never happen” fallacy-“Hanlon’s Razor”-“Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.” etc-which as I argued in Chapter Devin Nunes is more or less the opposite of the truth: to understand this political moment in US history certainly Trump and his GOP co-conspirators never dismiss as stupidity anything that can be explained by malice.
🧠 The “Conspiracies Never Happen” Fallacy
🔍 Exposing Klein’s Contradiction
- Ezra Klein’s contradiction: He rightly sees Trump as an authoritarian threat, yet dismisses Epstein revelations as MAGA fantasy. That’s not skepticism—it’s selective epistemic gatekeeping.
- Pam Bondi’s memo to Kash Patel confirms the existence of at least 200 pages of Epstein-related documents, including flight logs and victim lists. Her later denial is not a correction—it’s a cover-up.
- John Kiriakou’s defense of Patel and Bongino suggests that the “deep state” may have destroyed Epstein-related evidence. Even if flawed, his framing reflects how real conspiracies get buried under layers of plausible deniability.
FN: I discuss Kirakou in the Prologue
To be sure not sure this-Klein’s Hanlon’s Razor cum Occam’s Razor cum “conspiracies are unpossible” tendencies-is why many on the Left dislike Klein but just more generally he’s a liberal and he’s wonky. Leftists have much of the same anti expert bias that the Right does-which is a problem. It’s thanks to this know nothingism that as a country we’ve lost our herd immunity for the measles.
FN: See The Death of Expertise
I’m a liberal but don’t entirely trust Klein in part due to what you might call matters of political economy-he comes from the same kind of pundit class of folks like Yglesias and even worse Noah Smith who clearly are clueless about how tough it is out there for the average person today. Indeed, Smith denies the self evident fact that 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck-claiming rather absurdly that the MEDIAN American makes $180,000 per year.
However putting aside vibes-as ever more important as they are in today’s politics-on the substance of Klein’s theory of abundance he does make a very important point.
Section Process vs Result
For those of us who are liberal Democrats it’s on us-as Klein argues-as the party of government to demonstrate that it can work. No doubt one compelling reason people want to give Trump’s authoritarian junta a try is that democratic government has bene flailing for so long. We have to show proof of concept. To be sure the GOP creates the gridlock that comes from them having power in Congress then uses it to argue that government does not work. It would work far better if they were out of power. Nevertheless he’s correct that liberalism has to show results.
Now there are other questions about Klein’s Politics of Abundance. Sam Seder did have an excellent guest who’s been critical-who I believe once worked in the Clinton WH-arguing that Klein-and his co author-spend too much time blaming government regulations rather than the power of private corporations etc. But no doubt what the Democrats need to understand is what matters is what you pass into law not what you talk about. You almost want to paraphrase Alec Baldwin on Glenn Garry Glenn Ross-“..what matters is that you sign on the line that is dotted.”
CODA: Except in this case the dotted line is in strong reformist legislation rather than the snake oil of telemarketers.
Section: The rise of Zohran Mamdani
There are many things about Huey Long that are fascinating and worth learning from. Other parts are less so-it often seemed that he was on his own self aggrandizement tour. I strongly argue that the desire for power is not a bad thing quite the opposite it’s essential. As Long rightly argued you can have all the ideals you want but without power you can’t implement them. Still there were times that he seemed to treat power as an end in itself rather than as a tool to achieve his progressive agenda.
Section: Huey Long, Accelerationist?!
Amassing great power is all to the good so long as you are coming from the standpoint of marshalling it for the public interest. Certainly Long’s plan to run more candidates in 1936 so as to defeat FDR so that a Republican would lead the country into such economic disaster that Long would be a shoe in, in 1940 was bad strategy but even worse morally as it showed he was willing to let the nation go through great pain for his own private vanity project much like the “Bernie Bros” of 2016 who walked arm in arm with the Trumpists in Philly at the DNC convention chanting “Lock Her Up.”
In any case this is blatant accelerationist logic where leftists argue to let the country go through even worse misery in order to “heighten the contradictions” for future revolution, etc. Long would criticize the New Deal without ever proposing his allegedly “better” policies.
Section: Mamdani by Comparison Seems Driven by Principle
Mamdani seems highly principled as well as very much a NY Everyman-with all those great video clips of him chatting with people cart owners about the cost of sandwiches rising to $10.
FN: How Zohran Mamdani rewrote the campaign playbook
See also: Zohran Mamdani – Wikipedia