Let me introduce you to the US Senate.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/13/politics/donald-trump-chuck-schumer-new-york/index.html

Correct, this was from a brief phase where Trump was trying on bipartisanship, and Schumer was trying to connect with him as a fellow New Yorker. I remember the talk at the time was Trump might go the way of Arnold Schwarzenegger when he was CA governor, tacking to the center and trying to become bipartisan to improve his approval ratings and mitigate midterm losses and ultimately set him up better for reelection. Obviously, it didn’t work out like that, but there was a brief time where bipartisanship was on the table.

Hope Dan has room in his home studio!

It’s not part of the government. It will have no power or influence. It’s a set piece, just part of the show. The point is to pretend to be focused on government waste and to bring in smart outsiders to do it. The point is to get liberals pissed off so Republicans can tell voters Democrats are so out of touch, they get mad at anything Trump does, even cutting government waste. It won’t end up even issuing recommendations or doing anything, we’ll all just forget about it in two weeks. Trump gets the headline, the reaction from libs who just love government waste, further eating into our negative perception among voters, and we’ll all move on to the next outrage in the Trump show.

Learn the lesson now. Don’t react to every dumb thing Trump does. He’s a showman, there will always be a next act to keep the masses entertained, we don’t have to play a supporting role all the time. Roll your eyes, demand he follow through and show results, ridicule him for failure when nothing comes of it. Save the outrage for when people are getting hurt.

Correct

an entity Trump indicated will operate outside the confines of government.

So this is just a blue ribbon commission that’s going to collect donations, maybe government grants, write some kind of report, then send it to Congress where it will be promptly ignored because it’s recommendations will be too politically toxic for actual Republicans up for reelection to implement.

This reminds me of 2016, Trump claimed he won the popular vote but millions of illegal aliens voted, so he set up some dumb commission to investigate all the election fraud. It held a hearing or two, wasted a bunch of money, didn’t find any evidence of anything, then quietly disappeared.

Anyone on the left needs to be ready for this kind of shit and to respond appropriately. Trump will do a bunch of shit for show that doesn’t mean anything. Part of that show is getting the libs all outraged and worked up. Then Trump and Co can say “Look at those Dems with their Trump derangement syndrome lashing out at our brave president trying to cut government waste, Dems are so out of touch, yada yada”. This is the playbook, he’s been doing it for a decade now. Don’t play the game, save the outrage for real shit that hurts real people.

Biden was objectively less coherent than Trump. And I don’t say that to praise Trump, it’s just reality. Also the media did a great job of sane washing Trump, cutting out specific sentences he said, rather than letting voters see the full incoherent rambling. But Trump did a better job of forming sentences, I’m sorry but that’s true. Go back and listen to Biden’s full remarks when he made the garbage comment, somewhere in that word salad it sounded like he was about to refer to his home town as being in Puerto Rico, realizing his mistake he pivoted and just shot out the garbage remark.

On the plus side, voters are going to be treated to 4 years of uninterrupted exposure to Trump’s ramblings as his mind continues to diminish. The media can’t sane wash that.

MAGA-flation. Republican -flation. Trump is a lame duck, but MAGA will survive. Messaging that ties everything that Trump fucksup to him alone gives Republicans in 2 or 4 years room to duck the consequences (I didn’t do it, Trump did it, I don’t agree with everything he did, blah blah blah). We need to make sure to tie everything Trump does to the whole Republican party now, so they all pay the price for letting Trump take over their party and fuck the economy and everything else.

The fight for the midterms starts today. Remember that.

Ah how time sands away the rough edges of our memories.

Bush created an illegal prison to hold “suspected terrorists” indefinitely without charges or trials. Bush had literal CIA black sites around the world for the explicit purpose of evading US law. Bush had a legal memo drafted for the explicit purpose of instituting a torture program. Can I get an Abu Ghraib up in here? Mass surveillance of Americans, Bush invented the Patriot act and fisa warrantless taps! So many chestnuts like “Your either with us or with the terrorists” “See something say something” as an explicit way to turn Americans against each other, to compel loyalty to death leader or else be labeled a terrorist. Speak out against Bush’s lies about the Iraq war, well how about an administration official leaks to the NYT blowing the cover of your spy wife to put her in danger as revenge, and then pardon the fucker who did it? To say nothing about getting Medicare, opposition to lgbtq rights, no child left behind bullshit, voter restrictions, and I can’t just not give a big what’s up to Hurricane Katrina! Fuck the “unitary executive” theory is a Bush era creation. That’s just the stuff I personally remember, without even looking up a greatest hits list of Bush shit.

Oh yeah, Bush wasn’t even elected the first time! The conservative supreme court in a 5-4 opinion installed him!

Trump is the first president not to accept the results of an election, to undermine democracy directly. I’ll give you that, and in some ways he’s a very unique threat in that way. But he is not the first president to stretch presidential authority, to abuse his power, to break democratic norms, to stomp on civil rights, etc. We’re talking here about Bush, but don’t forget Nixon and Reagan also existed!

Yes this is bad, maybe uniquely bad, but one thing we have going for us is Trump and the people around him are highly incompetent. That was not true in the Bush years. We can fight him and we can defeat Trumpism. So long as elections happen, we can stop the worst of Trump. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the country that reelected Bush even after all that shit, turned around 4 years later and elected a progressive (by the days standards) black candidate with the middle name huessain, and voters did it by a landslide. It took a lot of work to get there, but we as a country did it before and can do it again. There is hope.

Yeah his very limited contributions to the campaign sure reminded us all of how great he was as a campaigner. Like when they confined him to a zoom call with supporters and he word saladed his way into calling Trump supporters “garbage”. Biden, a real master of messaging, he surely would have overcome the 15 point deficit he had in the swing states, the 80% plus of all voters saying he was too old to have another term, being 30 points underwater in his approval rating, and inspired the masses with his sharp populist messaging.

Ffs Biden should never have tried to run for reelection.

I’m not going to defend the DNC, and I know the “fight from the inside” line gets eye rolls. But look at what Trump did. He took over the Republican party. He represented what the grassroots activists and voters in Republican primaries wanted. It was ugly and gross, but that’s what they wanted. And Trump transformed the Republican party in his image. Traditional Republicans became refugees, “never trumpers”. The Paul Ryan’s and Elizabeth Cheney’s who were willing to go along, without adopting the new maga Republican line, were forced out. Now the old Reagan, country club, fiscal discipline, free trade Republican party is dead. The survivors are exciled to places like the Bulwark, like it’s Taiwan and they’re just waiting for the opportunity to take their party back, an opportunity that will never come because the grassroots won’t let them.

I’m not saying this is a model. It happened in large part because fox news let Trump run wild because he was good for ratings, and by the time they went to quash him with Megan Kelly as hitman during a Fox News debate, it was too late, the base was with him and it was Kelly who was sacrificed as appeasement. It was overall a hostile takeover of the party based on the force of personality of one person, not a takeover based on differing policy ideas or a general vision for the party and country. I don’t think we can, or should want to, replicate that. But still I think there might be something there, some nugget we can replicate, for the grassroots to force change from the inside.

It’s a whole lot easier to take over a party than to build a new one.

Yeah, I hope that’s not the case but I worry about it. I think the most hopeful take is Trump isn’t running again, he’ll be like 86, so he’s not going to give a shit what comes next. Why bother to use the power of the state to help dipshit Vance? If anything, Vance losing just reinforces how special and unique Trump was, inflates his own ego. In terms of elections, I’m more concerned with the midterms. Trump has an incentive to prevent Congress flipping.

But also remember, W. Bush also had a conservative supreme court willing to let him get away with war crimes. Fuck, he “won” in 2020 only because SCOTUS stepped in to hand him the win. W. Bush was more illegitimate than Trump. But we survived, and we got Obama after. So there’s hope here too.

Progressive spaces do not accommodate those supportive of genocide, even if you try to frame the genocide as “self defence”. The “majority” of Jews you describe are not shut out of progressive spaces, they have chosen genocidal revenge as their policy and have thus turned their back on ideals like protecting the “the least of us”. Remember, it’s not just progressives who are against the genocide supporting zonists, it’s basically the whole world who has rejected you. You are welcome in conservative circles only because Jewish control of Israel is a necessary condition for the Christian cultists doomsday proficiencies. They don’t care about Jews, they dislike Jews generally, they just support Israel because 1) a lot like ethno states and want to replicate Israels model, and 2) Jews need to be there so Christ comes back or whatever.

Jews are more than welcome in progressive spaces, and many are there, just not the ones cheering on the mass murder and starvation of civilians. Maybe take a hard look at yourself and why your on whatever side your on.

The first ballot I was old enough to cast was for John Kerry in 2004. After Bush lied about WMDs and got us into a pointless war, a torture program, mass surveillance of Americans, let alone shit conservative social policies. 4 years of that, and Americans knowingly reelected him by a wider margin than his initial election. This time he won the popular vote, which he didn’t do in his initial election. Any of this sound familiar?

But we survived, and we paid attention, and we organized, and by 2008 we had a (by the standards of the time) progressive candidate at the top of the ticket, offering “radical socialist” policies ideas like universal healthcare and just a general vibe of inclusiveness rather than division. The Democratic party rejected the establishment options and nominated the bold candidate, the black guy with the middle name huessain. And we worked our asses off, I was mostly working on local campaigns but did some door knocking for Obama in a swing state.

And we won. The same country that four years ago shrugged off concerns about a guy who lied to get us into a war, turned around and voted for the (comparatively) progressive black guy the right painted as an out and out socialist by a landslide.

It’s not just that we defeated Trumpism in 2018, and 2020, and to some extent in 2022. Democrats turned a country that voted for a moron with little to no respect for democratic norms and the rule of law by wide margins, into a country that voted for a progressive in 2008.

We can do it again. We can organize and fight and convince the working class Americans who are so fed up with the status quo that they are so desperate for change that they voted for Trump, that real change that actually benefits working people is progressive. We can do that.

Two conditions though. First, we can’t let the DNC force another moderate center right candidate on us. Second, we have to make sure elections are still a thing that happens in America come 2026 and 2028. Both are tall orders, but we can do it.

I just want to nip this line of thought real quick. Policies and candidates matter, convincing voters about your positions all the time (not just during an election) matters, meeting voters where they are and having conversations matters.

Trump basically proved this.

Harris out raised Trump almost 2 to 1. Harris had an army of volunteers and the biggest ground operation in history. Trump improved his margins over 2020 anyway. Most importantly, Trump did better in states and counties where neither campaign was spending any resources, like New Jersey, or another really good example is Dade County which swung over 40 points in Trump’s favor since 2016, with neither party campaigning there.

A big reason was what Biden and Democrats did, not during the election, but in the three years before the election. They passed some moderate policies and utterly failed to sell those policies to voters as things that will help the average person. The average voter if asked what Biden did for them would give you a blank stare, and that’s on Biden and Democrats failing to 1) act boldly and 2) communicate their policy vision and how it helps people.

Meanwhile Republicans everyday beat on the drum of inflation and immigration and crime, whether or not those issues were real people felt like they were real. And most importantly people saw these messages, because Republicans are able to get in front of regular voters, to get into the national consciousness. Sometimes by going to spaces that aren’t blatantly right wing, but right wing friendly, like Rogan, sometimes just being loud and causing controversy that trickles into other spaces. When moderate spaces ridicule the latest right wing controversy, that also gets their message in front of regular people, who may not agree outright but will at least consider it. The average voter rolled their eyes at Trump saying immigrants are eating pets, but just by seeing the outrage gave some consideration to immigration and whether it’s a problem, including a cultural problem, and considered and thought about the Trump campaigns larger argument. And it cost Trump zero dollars to get a week or more of coverage about what he considers the problems with immigration just by making an outlandish claim.

Money is helpful, but it’s not even close to everything. We need Democrats with real liberal policies, getting in front of voters to explain what they mean to their lives, to talk about money in politics and corporate greed and wage stagnation and the transfer of wealth from the working class to the oligarchs, to talk about what is sure to be new epic levels of government corruption and incompetence that hurts real people. And Democrats need to do that everyday, not just in the months before an election, and need to do that in spaces where people are, not just on cable news.

Great, now I’m at the point of the post election grief cycle where I’m getting a bunch of books to try to figure out what happened. I remember this phase from 2016. Thanks for the recommendation for my list!

This is basically what Republicans did. McCain in 08, Romney in 12. The whole time conservative activists complained bitterly that they were losing elections because they were not nominating “true conservatives”. The RNC was putting their thumb on the scale to nominate squishy moderates believed to be more acceptable to the general electorate. The conservative activists, meanwhile, yelled and screamed that these squishes didn’t represent a clear vision of conservativism, they were just focused group tested sound bites in suits, trying to appeal to everyone and actually appealing to no one. Voters didn’t have a real choice, it was the uniparty kind of thing.

Then came Trump, bold no compromise vision for what his party and the country could be. Voters were willing to give something new a try. It largely sucked, so Biden a centrist squish was elected by a close margin just to restore sanity to government. Biden did do some big things, but he didn’t communicate them well over his term, voters didn’t see benefit, just more centrist squish politician talk stuff. So here comes Trump again, with a bold vision and a promise to shale things up. Voters were willing to put up with all the shit again just to have a politician willing to do something to visibly change their lives. Harris meanwhile ran safely to the centered, studiously avoided differentiating herself from Biden or staking out anything resembling a bold vision. Squish. No change, more of the same.

Dems need to stand for something, we need a vision we can offer to voters.

Probably more than that, Dems need a backbone to actually fight, and fight hard and dirty when needed. Voters are tired of gridlock and nothing changing. They elected the strongman because they figure he won’t get bogged down in political bullshit, he’ll just get shit done, even if it means breaking rules. It’s ok to break some rules if your doing it to help me, say the voters. Not to say that Dems should go all authoritarian, but they should be able to convey that they are going to do everything they can to help people, they’ll throw a few elbows of necessary, they’ll get bloodied and bruised and do what it takes to help people.

No more “but Republicans blocked us” excuses. The Dem president should personally go to the house chamber and occupy it until a vote is taken. Dems leaders should round up union memebers and storm the board rooms of corporations funding Republicans blocking economic policies. Dems should be visibly fighting for people. No more moderate squishes.

They wouldn’t even say “working class”, they would always say “middle-class”

NYT The Runup podcast had an episode following people door knocking for Harris in Philly projects. This was specifically one person’s objection to Harris “She’s always talking about the middle class, but what about me and my neighbors? We’re broke”.

Dems need to be the party of Bernie and AOC, activists on behalf of the working class, promoting policies of economic justice. Dems need to be the tough as nails union folk of the early labor movement, fighting bloody fights for workers rights against corporations and robber barrons. That’s why people voted for Trump, they want economic change and politicians actually willing to fight for it, as wrong as they are to put that energy into Trump. Right now Dems are the party of the elites, the corporations, Hollywood, the people with “In this house we believe…” signs in front of their upper middle class suburban homes - the party of economic establishment, of incremental change that at best makes a minor impact on people’s real well being. Dems are the party more concerned with using non offensive language than addressing pay inequality between workers and executives.

Dems dropped the mental of the working class fighter. Trump picked it up, but is welding it as a weapon for his own destructive aims. Until Dems take that back, with a legitimate economic agenda, with legitimate plans to help the working class, and with authentic candidates who can clearly convey to voters “I’m tough as hell, and with your help I’m going to take on those bastards” , until then we’re fucked.

The “Run Up” podcast had an episode following the Working Families Party while they were out knocking on doors for Harris in a poor projects type neighborhood. The first lady they talk to is hesitant to vote for Harris because she’s a prosecutor who jailed black men for weed. While they are talking and the canvasser is trying to convince her, her neighbor jumps in and he says something to the effect of “Harris is a woman and world leaders won’t respect her and get us in a lot of trouble”.

Is sexism/racism the reason Harris lost? No, I personally at this point think it has more to do with the Democratic party’s inability to offer solutions for working families - Dems are the center right party representing corporate interests and the elite while paying lip service to actual regular people, MAGA is viewed as the party of the common man, as bullshit as that is it’s what voters feel. I personally think the only way forward is an actual progressive platform which addresses fundamental economic unfairness in the system, and candidates who can connect to and explain that platform to regular folk of all races and demographics.

But you can’t deny that sexism/racism didn’t play a significant role in the loss.

And don’t forget all the protesting when Trump gets states to refuse to certify their election results!

Interesting issue. Does their belief in their right to power control? There’s that crazy lady in Canada who calls herself the queen of Canada and issues edicts and whatever every now and then (somehow connected to qanon, I don’t remember the details). Could a US official accept a “title” bestowed by her, since she claims nobility and authority?

My recollection on the emoluments issue was SCOTUS punted in the same way they did with respect to Trump’s ability to run for office after the insurrection - Congress must declare the violation, and the remedy is presumably impeachment. So the practical effect is zero, since Congress would never take this up, let alone impeach and remove. I’d love if Dems did though, it would be fun seeing Republicans defend their justice receiving nighthood from some weird ass secret society thing.