Kamala Harris, like Joe Biden, is a mediocre mind. He fancies himself a deep thinker when he is not, while she (I believe) realizes her limitations and is scripted and overly careful. As a result, she seems and is inauthentic. Trump is, if nothing else, authentically himself.
I disagree, on both of these. Joe never had the "book smarts" of a JD Vance. But he made up for it by having an almost Bill Clinton-like finger on America's pulse. Basically, whatever America's "center" was, from 1972-2024, Joe Biden was always just a tick to the left. (He didn't have Clinton's intelligence or eloquence, but the instinct was there.) And going from being just a tick to the left of Herman Talmadge to being the guy that leads the way on gay marriage in 2012 and then codifies it in 2022 takes an INSANE amount of EQ, and adaptability. Unfortunately, like many politicians (and people, in general), he stayed on too long. (I actually think he would've been just fine. He was running the country well enough. But Americans now seem to want John Wayne as president instead of someone who pulls levers and presses buttons.)
Kamala is the opposite. She has the book smarts, and she might even be good at understanding other people. But she doesn't always know how to put that into words and expressions. IOW, she's not scripted b/c she's dumb– she'd be perfectly at home in a room full of lawyers or doctors. She's scripted b/c she can't "code switch" well. She'd talk the same way to doctors and lawyers as she would to construction workers and plumbers. And that's hard. To her credit, unlike, say, John Kerry, she realizes this. But wasn't able to correct it without coming off as lacking authenticity.
Hindsight is 20:20. FDR was more dead than he was and won a landslide. I agree he should've stepped down sooner. But sometimes, it's the people, not the leaders.
Not suggesting Biden was a superior politician by any means, but it was a different technological paradigm in FDR's day. Roosevelt did not have high-definition, real-time TV debates to contend with the same way Joe Biden did. It's not hard to imagine Biden sticking it out through election/inauguration day if he only had to deal with TV and radio.
Biden was lucky — DE being a small and very closed state protected him. He had a degree of what the “pulse” was in the country but he never was all that forward looking. His speeches were all about what he did and what was past. If you remember the remark on gay marriage was really a slip of the tongue that forced Obama’s hand.
Harris has always had a reputation for being lazy … from her early days in CA. High staff turn over. Not one to do the real work needed. She was a known bully as far as office staff (not unheard of in DC). Always someone else’s fault — it’s can’t be her. Go look at any Senate hearing — she is scripted and it’s all about her.
Joe Biden has always been a consummate follower, and can always be found in the same general vein of opinion as wherever the democratic party’s orthodoxy is. He’s never had any convictions that weren’t open to 180 degree change for political expediency
I disagree with just about every word of this. As I said above, Biden always found a way to be just left of where the party was. Not so far left that he got tagged a radical. No so moderate that he got stuck in Joe Manchin-ville. He led the way on gay marriage. He was literally the first one to support it on a national level. Changing with the times and encouraging others to do the same isn't "political expediency". It's what actual leadership looks like.
As I mention above … The gay marriage was a slip. That’s how he felt — he was genuine. If you remember Obama was not happy but was part the way he handled it.
I can’t disagree with this …. In fairness to Biden I think he was just a little bit left of the party for most of his first 30 years. You can’t separate Biden from DE and how safe he was in his senate seat. He was used to talking endlessly and no one ever checking his facts he really di believe his own press releases. that’s why he ran into problems when he became VP.
Here’s the thing about Delaware: It’s the corporation capital of America. (It was also a slave state.) Pleasing business interests while evolving politically takes skill.
Your first point may have relevance to some in the state -- few. I'm not sure what the second is about. If you speak of lingering legacy -- there was more of that in Baltimore and lower counties into the early 70's.
Biden never had to work very hard or sharpen up. He was very lucky both as a Senator and when he ran for President .. few voted for him -- they voted against Trump. he was the lessor of two n the general and the lessor of many in the primary.
Harris had the same problem -- she did not fight to the top. She was picked and placed all along the way
In 1972, Joe Biden was the only Democrat to flip a senate seat. To say he didn’t work for that is rich. My comment about slavery was to point out that Delaware as a solid blue left state is a very recent development. The thing you seem to be missing is that the ppl of Delaware ARE the corporations. Thats where the jobs there are.
Harris, if you know anything at all about her rise, was not “picked”. She ran a tough campaign to win the DA job. Did a good job there (crime was low in SF during her tenure). Parlayed that into an upset win in the AG race. Then used that as a springboard to the US Senate when Barbara boxer retired.
And that is a malevolent, corrupt, amoral, vengeful, misogynistic, liar, huckster, con man, and wanna-be dictator who doesn’t give much of a damn about anyone but himself. Are you suggesting that these are somehow virtues in a president?
Lesser of two weevils, methinks. Devil and the deep blue sea.
The Democrats kind of shot themselves in the feet on many issues, so they don't have many other candidates to take the blame for being on the outside looking in.
My latest elaboration on the theme, some of the "usual suspects", notably Kamala -- "she's for them/them" -- Harris gushing over transwoman or male transvestite Dylan Mulvaney supposedly "living authentically as a woman". What a flaming joke, a classic case of Orwell's "2+2=5":
Have you spent anytime with our Constitution lately? You’ll note that it doesn’t distinguish among the sexes. But it does very clearly distinguish between democracy and autocracy.
You really want to pick nits while Trump is busy trying to turn the United States of America into the Disunited States of Trump?
Hardly just "picking nits" when the issue of putting male transvestites -- if they still have their nuts attached and sexless eunuchs if they don't -- into women's sports, prisons, change rooms, and toilets was something which likely tipped the balance in favour of Trump in the last election.
Newsweek: "John Fetterman Says Certain Trump Ad Helped Clinch His Victory"; Nov 08, 2024 at 08:01 PM EST ....
New York Representative Tom Suozzi told The New York Times on Wednesday, "The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left. I don't want to discriminate against anybody, but I don't think biological boys should be playing in girls' sports." ...."
As for "distinguishing among the sexes", the Supreme Court is clearly leaning in that direction -- as has the UK Supreme Court in the For Women Scotland case -- as in the Tennessee Skrmetti case. Justice Alito had the clearest expression of that:
CNN: Justice Samuel Alito, in particular, was interested in the question of whether transgender status is “immutable.” Historically, the court has considered immutability to be a key aspect of the characteristics of a group deserving of more protection.
"transgender status" is something of joke since it's as easily changed as a guy putting on a dress, though many might consider that as a "fate worse than death". But, on the other hand, being male or female seems a better contender for an "immutable status", and a trait that has some significant policy ramifications -- as with Biden & Harris putting those transvestites or sexless eunuchs into women's sports. Should be hell to pay for that.
The fact that this issue may have been a significant factor in getting Trump re-elected is immaterial both in terms of the complexity of human sexuality and to any assumption that people were right in making so much of it.
After all, “We the People” kept slavery legal for seventy years after the founding. “We the People” refused to enfranchise women for more than a century after the founding. And a significant part of “We the People’ doubled down on racial segregation until the 1960’s.
in 2024, a substantial proportion of “We the People” re-elected to the Presidency of the United States a man who has continually proven to utterly
disdain and disavow our electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law. Besides that, a couple of transgender females competing in women’s sports is rather below microscopic.
With far-reaching consequences. Though, as a point of reference, those "transgender females" of yours are most certainly NOT females and are, in point of fact, male transvestites if they still have their nuts attached and sexless eunuchs if they don't. An outright lie to call them such, though you're in "good" company with it:
But don't think you're paying attention. Maybe intentionally. Those "transgender females" are just the tip of the iceberg, more sticky wickets being the Democrats endorsing the sterilization and castration of dysphoric and autistic children because they were "born in the wrong body", as well as the assassination of Charlie Kirk:
Good God. Can’t people analyze went wrong with the Democrats without somebody throwing in an indignant “Trump is so much worse” statement? It’s not relevant or useful.
In my opinion, Trump is way worse. I didn’t vote for the guy because I thought/think so. But he won. So we need to analyze where the Democrats went wrong. Saying Trump is worse is not gonna get us there.
Along with that analyzation has to be where the Republicans also went so badly wrong even as they knew in 2016, and many said so, that Trump might well prove to be a disaster. Whatever the Democrats got wrong, and I don’t for a moment deny their errors, the Republicans had a whole range of potential candidates in 2016, 2020, and 2024 and, particularly in 2024 they willingly chose perhaps the worst of them, a man who had proven himself to utterly disdain and disavow our electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law - a man who as President incited a riot in order to illegally and unconstitutionally remain in power.
Whatever the Democrats got wrong, the Republicans didn’t help them to take Trump off the table after January 6th, as they certainly should have. That wasn’t in any way down to the Democrats. They did their part, and had the Republicans done their, we wouldn’t be here now.
🙄 You don't seem particularly ready to face the facts about the effects of Kamala -- "she's for they/them" -- Harris gushing about Dylan Mulvaney "living authentically as a woman". What a flaming joke, a classic case of Orwell's "2+2=5".
What? Speak up, it's your nickel. What's your point? You have one?
Seems the article is arguing, with some justification, that the Democrats bear some responsibility for being on the outs because of their various party planks, a rather damning case-in-point being Kamala – "she's for they/them" – Harris gushing over transwoman/male-transvestite Dylan Mulvaney "living authentically as a woman". "barking mad" doesn't begin to cover that.
Don't see that you, she, or they – the Democrats in general – are taking much if any responsibility for that bit of "2+2=5" that, maybe arguably, tipped the balance in favour of Trump in the last election.
I, likewise, don't give much of a rat's ass over whether some guys want to play dress-up – I once "consorted" with someone who I thought was a she but who turned out to be a he. The Crying Game, Part Deux. But when many in that particular tribe demand to be treated as if they had changed sex, and to access rights and opportunities that might reasonably be taken as the sole estate of "real women [AKA ovary-havers]" then, Houston, we have a problem. Which the Democrats more or less own – having drunk the transactivist Kool-Aid (i.e., "trans women are women!!11!!") pretty much to the last drop.
"Yep, that Charlie Manson -- he certainly overdid it that one time, but you gotta hand it to him: he's authentic and true to himself. He's not trying to be somebody else, that's for sure"
The problem is not left-of-center Democrats being spectacular in New York. Can the Democrats find candidates who will be spectacular in Tulsa, Charleston (SC), Tampa, Houston, etc. for the 2026 midterm election and the 2028 general election? So far I have not seen any high ranking Democrats who can command attention outside their own bailiwicks and the Democratic bailiwicks are getting smaller.
Umm Harris won Charleston, SC 51-46. That is not the issue. She also won Houston (and Harris County), TX, and Tampa, FL.
The problem is that she needed to win by more than she did. Also, she didn’t do as well as Biden or Clinton in places like Clark Co., NV (i.e., Las Vegas) or Miami, FL.
Tulsa, OK is so overwhelmingly Republican that no Dem can win. Last to do so was FDR in 1940!
🙄 Seems that one might reasonably argue that Kamala -- "she's for they/them" -- Harris is barking mad, not least for gushing over Dylan Mulvaney and his "living authentically as a woman" :🙄
What an absolute flaming joke, a classic case of Orwell's "2+2=5". When Dylan replaces his testicles with some ovaries of "her" own is when I, and many others, might consider that "she" has some claim of "authenticity 🙄" on that estate.
Y'all might try reading and thinking about the standard biological definitions for the sexes which is, more or less, exactly what one of Trump's EOs has endorsed.
From the Glossary of this Journal article on "Gamete competition, gamete limitation, and the evolution of the two sexes; Jussi Lehtonen, Geoff A. Parker; Oxford Academic; Molecular Human Reproduction, Volume 20, Issue 12, December 2014":
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
Spectacular at what, exactly? Effortlessly tepping into the middle of the circle jerk of yet another coastal city event? What was the most useful and actionable thing she said that night? Can you remember even one single useful thing she said? Or was she just a really really good cheerleader for a vague and undefined group of progressives?
Also, while Joe Biden may have a mediocre mind, until he started going senile he was a skilled politician. Harris is not by any stretch of the imagination a good politician.
The so-called "autopsy report" will itself be dead on arrival. The faction that funded and ran the Harris/Walz campaign seems to think they are always the smartest ones in the room. If there is a chance of prevailing in 2028, it has to come from a re-energized and more broadly based coalition of leaders within the Democratic Party. Just allowing the donor class to run the show is a prescription for continuing decline and irrelevancy.
Maybe the party itself is the problem. American Liberals are not left wing, they are “slightly left” leaning conservatives with a large does of identity politics baked in. That's why they fight so hard against independents and threats from their left flank.
Actual Leftists don't care about the partisan and incrementalism games that Democrats play.
Even though some leftists or left adjacent people who live in the western world strongly wade into social society and identity battles, the majority of leftists around the world don't, not because those battles don't matter, of course they matter to those involved, but because it diverts from the overall point of class struggle.
Democrats and Republicans are essentially different flavors of the same class of capitalism supporting, albeit heavily propagandized, warmongers and defenders of the status quo. Both parties support Genocide and the unchecked domination of American imperial dominance and the pursuit of corporation's business interests over any sort of moral or ethical framework. The politicians of both mainstream American parties reflect that reality, and first and foremost serve their paying customers.
Thanks for your good wishes. I know we will need good luck, but hoping that more clarity about the vision of how a better-run country can benefit the working class will play a part too.
good essay! Thanks, as always, for acting as one of the only left of center commentators to repeatedly promote introspection in response to this textbook populist backlash. Always nice to read a rare and welcome breath of authentic journalism.
Here is my problem Nathan. There is no explanation as to why liberalism went woke and therefore no way to understand what it takes to get back to reasonable policy, even if it can be articulated. People went to woke because of how they felt. What is the alternative being proposed? Seems to me that the Democrats will have no chance against a reasonable right of center conservative, who at least can coherently raise the flag, defend the border, save traditional women’s spaces and talk about the pride of being American again. This is the feeling that needs to accompany the centrist policy. I don’t think Mounk gets it.
The point is that not very many people are woke. I think you and him are making the exact same point? Stop running on unpopular policies. Stop treating Americans like a list of identities. Stop treating trans people like they're the sacred cow. Stop treating capitalism like it was a bad idea, let alone a terrible idea. Win elections.
Stop treating people like a list of identities. This is exactly the problem with a lot of the democratic parties shadow wing and certainly of Harris who is the result of this thinking. I respect her a lot but she has not actually learned the real lesson
I hope you are right. With respect to you her generations, I fear you are wrong. But leadership here is key. Trump is doing many necessary things, but the next President needs to be someone that young people can better identify with. I like Marco Rubio, Vance not as much or Erika Kirk.
Republicans are the party that are anti-Capitalist. What is more anti-Capitalist than telling someone what they can and cannot buy, or where they can and cannot invest?
The problem that the American people have is that they want all of the benefits of the free market, but none of the costs. That itself will have costs. We are already seeing it; higher prices, higher costs, depleted inventories, reduced economic growth, and therefore lower overall job creation. We are heading toward stagflation and a debt bubble, like NYC or the UK in the 1970’s.
You said to stop treating capitalism like a bad idea, did you not? So my point, is that the issue is not capitalism vs non-capitalism, its opportunity vs identity. People keep trying to pin Dem losses on "identity politics" when the GOP has been playing on identity politics for the past 60 years. The only difference is that its White Identity politics.
All politics is about identity; this idea that people just go vote based on who will promise to give them money has been disproven so many times that I don't really understand why it keeps being brought up, other than as a distraction. I mean, you have farmers out here who voted for Trump two times, AFTER he nearly bankrupted them with his trade policies. You have union workers and working class voters who gave Trump their votes despite proof that his policies made them worse off. Immigrants voting for an anti-immigrant POTUS. Why? Well, sorry if people don't want to recognize it, but its racism, plain and simple. As long as this people of this country refuse to deal with the racism within their hearts, we will continue to disintegrate to the point that it will cease to exist.
The best way for Dems to counteract this is to focus on expanding opportunity. Problem is, that costs money and it takes time. However, a leader with the ability to get buy in from the various groups that make up the Dems can do it.
I think about politics like basketball. There are two types of coaches: a Bob Knight/Red Holzman type and a Steve Kerr/Rudy Tomjanovich type. The first works you to death and demands loyalty and perfection; the other builds camaraderie and gets buy in. Both types have won championships in the past, but the former doesn't win any more. The GOP is like the first type, but Dems can never be that type of party, so we have to go with the latter.
Your points about racism are tired and irrelevant at this point. We know now that racism has nothing to do with it, and hasn't in this millennium. We had a black president nearly two decades ago. Get it through your head that there are other reasons people disagree with you. Try to find those, instead of chasing these racism boogeymen, because guess what keeps happening? You keep fucking losing. This is why. You people are so obsessed with identitarianism that you don't understand that the people who voted against identitarianism *are against identitarianism*, they're not some kind of evil other identitarians.
Yeah man, you are totally right. Honestly man, i think the source of this backlash goes back a LOT farther than wokeness....which is why i think it's really important for the dems to do some serious soul searching.
This is my chronological timeline...very consistent with yours, but just reaches back a little further cause I'm so friggin old.
Before it really got started the seeds were being planted for later phases of cultural ostracization. This started back when the republicans were legitimately the party of the rich...so in some sense it was very excusable. It also seemed excusable during a period when racism was still pretty damn bad and pretty damn common, women were being treated pretty damn badly in the workplace, and our treatment of homosexuals was an utter and complete disgrace. But, nevertheless, the cultural antagonism from the democrats started to get kind of nasty in a gratuitous and sort of downward punching way. As much as I adored Gore Vidal and Gary Trudeau, I remember the cutting nature of their satirical takes would raise my eyebrows from time to time.
But all that seemed fine. The real problems clacked off as follows. Purely my own opinion...I make no claim to authoritative understanding.
1) Clinton disenfranchises the working class with NAFTA, also by permanently granting most favored trade status to China. This was BAD for labor, and probably the worst foreign policy mistake of my lifetime. Dems started taking unions for granted just for their votes, but lost all interest in taking political hits on behalf of labor.
2) The dems briskly and steadily became the second party for the rich, albeit for a new and different rich economic cohort embodied by the new and burgeoning technology sectors. The republicans certainly did not step in to save labor, but at the time pretty much stuck with representing the traditional forms of wealth and power.
3) Democrats and cultural elites (including arts and entertainment industry) assuaged their guilt for rat fucking workers by culturally ostracizing them to boot....and did so with exponentially increasing satirical intensity. (I think maybe this formed the cultural bedrock of wokeness)
4) The prior form of post modern morality and philosophy gained popularity and dominance in universities as far back as the seventies and by the mid eighties it was very dominant on college campuses. I the early nineties so called "relativists" launched a pretty widespread attack against the hard sciences. They were repelled at the time(the Alan Sokal paper symbolizes the turning point, but overall a great many good men and women fought well to beat back this assault) but they certainly got our attention. Instead of dying off, relativism was basically rebranded as social constructivism, and they began flanking the sciences through social science departments. (These shallow post modern intellectual fads formed the intellectual bedrock of wokeness)
5) Populism and Identity politics beginning with Obama (this is where our timelines overlap.) This is the beginning of wokeness as far as I can tell. Where cultural ostracism meets post modern intellectual fetishism.
7) For some (not all) woke college students, I think it's easier to be against racism than classism. You're from the upper middle class, with parents who can support you through college and intend to leave their house to you. Yet the real problems are inequality in wealth, education, and cultural capital.
Man, you’re 100% spot on—I totally missed that point. The anti-racism wing of the woke movement is a gross insult to civil rights warriors who came before, precisely because it buries class differences under the false banner of racism. That confusion between class and race is the kerosene that keeps the woke gas-lamps burning.
So, in the old days, racism, sexism and homophobia were variously “pretty damn bad” and a “complete disgrace,” but what raised your eyebrows back then was the satire of Gore Vidal and Gary Trudeau? Thank you for having unintentionally demonstrated that relativism was already hard-wired in the 70’s.
You are not wrong to identify NAFTA as a cause of blue collar discontent with the Democratic Party, but you are wrong to lay the blame on Clinton alone. NAFTA was the end product of the process of globalization initiated by Reagan and continued by Bush Sr., favouring the needs of capital by offshoring hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and industrial jobs to low-wage countries. That process has produced ongoing collateral domestic economic consequences - destroying the power of unions and suppressing the wages of North American workers (see, for example, the (mostly GOP-governed) ‘right to work’ states) - leading to predictable social problems.
Both parties are culpable for the disenfranchisement of labour. With few exceptions, including Obama’s remarkable expansion of the availability of healthcare, every recent administration has endorsed laws and policies that favour the rights of capital, and the wealthy, over the rights of labour. The result is the Gilded Age-like level of economic inequality, political disempowerment and social tension that we now suffer under.
As for your list of problems, it reveals that you have permitted yourself to be distracted by shadows. The concepts of identity politics and wokeness are in reality smokescreens. Since Clinton moved the Democratic Party to the right, the parties have sought to differentiate themselves ‘culturally’ because the reality is that they are largely undifferentiable in their basic political philosophy, which prioritizes capital over labour. The GOP has remained successful electorally because our primitive brains, battered by the unsettling speed of social change and tech-mediated information overload, are responsive to its simplistic emotive message of loss and grievance.
It's true. The GOP has much hell to answer for. But since I used to be such an ardent democrat I tend to focus on that which we should have done better. My biggest bipartisan beef is probably this totally ridiculous relationship we formed with China. Big mistake. Free trade results in a net exchange of goods and services. Our deal with China is that they send us goods in a net exchange for assets. Meanwhile, I would say my timeline is a pretty reasonable roadmap for the origins of wokeness.
Also, dude, regarding your conversational tactics..."So, in the old days, racism, sexism and homophobia were variously “pretty damn bad” and a “complete disgrace,” but what raised your eyebrows back then was the satire of Gore Vidal and Gary Trudeau?". Seriously? This is how you read my comment?
Great analysis! Rat fucking labor, embedding and being embedded by cultural elites, and "vibing" this is what the national Democratic party has been since the first time I voted and was paying attention in 1996.
totally reasonable, man. I didn't understand a single thing about Canadian politics until 2000 when I started diversifying my retirement investments into Canada. You guys were SO awesome back then. The devastation wrought by Trudeau is just crushing. Wokeness has been especially hard on Canadians.
Good thing the Dems aren’t facing a reasonable right of center conservative and, even in a best case scenario, probably won’t for at least a decade and a half to 2 decades.
Actually, I weep for the country that such is the case, it’s terrible for us. But it is lucky for the democrats
I have no idea whatsoever who that person could be. Find me someone who has the balls to call gender identity absolute nonsense. Find me someone who will speak out against the Palestine Cult whose goal is to destroy Israel. Find me someone who will speak directly to the DEI failure. These are all death moves in primaries. They are captives of their own creation.
At this point both parties are despicable in their own pathetic way, he says as an ex-Democrat.
I'm really surprised that the dems and the legacy media are not way more focused on people who speak with your voice,, in one way or anther. I just don't get it. It's so obvious that there a LOT of people who feel this way.
Neither party can get past the primaries that are ruled by the extremes.
The same discharge from alleged elite universities that have gone into politics have gone into journalism and media and share similar social justice leanings. It's no longer "all the news that's fit to print" , but all the news that supports our "values". Sources like NPR have unfortunately undermined their trust , hence making it easy for GOP to cut their funding. The far left is so pathetically counterproductive.
Yes the Dems need a whole scale slaughtering of a variety of sacred cows on cultural issues. I still believe in an election defined purely by economic issues the Dems will win far more often than not, as majority wants a government dedicated to maintaining the social net and who treats affordability and inequality like real problems that the government should be genuinely interested in trying to solve, even at the cost of higher taxation. BUT!! I am also convinced that Democrats are on dramatically the wrong side of several important cultural issues from a public opinion point of view and need to retreat to the positions of 20 and 25 years ago (especially on issues regarding race, gender relations, Jews and Israel, immigration, and patriotism). I think Dems win 9/10 elections that are fought on healthcare, progressive taxation, social security, and education grounds, but lose 9/10
On elections fought on all cultural grounds other than abortion.
Dems taking a truly wacky turn into coddling antisemitism if it’s couched as “antizionism” (as if there is some fundamental difference between the two) is I think an underrated factor in moderates thinking they’ve gone crazy on cultural issues.
You're right. They have completely ruined their brand by being so out of touch with most voters on cultural issues that it's difficult to have people listen to the economic issues. Dems seem to believe they can just skip past those and win on economics , but are unaware people are fed up with so much of the nonsense they champion , me included, hence the low standings in the polls. I'm now another ex-Democrat.
The antisemitism posing as anti-Zionism is a driving issue for a great many younger voters who have completely bought into the Islamic objective of destroying Israel, which is what "from the rive to the sea " actually means.. They would sit out if candidates don't support Palestine.
As a quick aside , in 1932 Jews created the Palestine Post which became the Jerusalem Post in 1948 with the founding of Israel. Prior to that they were the Jewish Palestinians as opposed to the Arab Palestinians, and they both thought of themselves as Palestinians until the creation of Israel and Jordan, the Arab Palestinian state. Oy!
The Democratic Party apparently does not realize how their profoundly their “transwomen are women, no debate” platform invalidates them as serious leaders in the minds of regular voters. As Sall Grover, an Australian who is being sued because her women-only platform excludes males, says (paraphrasing here) - “If you insist that men can be women, then I won’t believe a single other thing you say.” When a party demands fealty to an ideology that is just so fundamentally at odds with material reality, people don’t just lose respect on that one issue. They know a government that insists that men can become women by donning a dress and proclaiming it so is both dangerous and stupid.
There are many, many democrats that just discount it because it only affects a few. A little introspection should inform them that they’re being held hostage by very few to the detriment of all the normal voters.
It’s kind of like when republicans say they don’t think climate get change is caused by human activities only Dems are making EVEN MORE people think they are catastrophically stupid with some of their trans positions than repubs do on climate.
An ex-Democrat, I have given up any hope for my former party. Nor can I vote for Trumpist Republicans. Instead, I favor the emergence of a centrist party that can help to enact good laws and block bad ones and perhaps eventually help us to end the current two-party duopoly, which serves the country so poorly.
I would gladly explain my views more fully here, but it would likely take up too much space.
Here is a long reply to Jason's comment, so that I can better explain my perspective on these matters.
Unlike most Democrats, I am not reflexively and compulsively anti-Trump. Instead, I will state what I believe to be the good and the bad in his politics.
First, the good.
Trump freely speaks his mind, which is sometimes refreshing, especially in comparison to modern-day Democrats, who are so risk-averse that they dare not say anything that might possibly break with party orthodoxy or offend any of the large number of strident identity groups who form their modern coalition.
On some occasions, Trump has fearlessly challenged received truths that should have been challenged and discredited long ago. For example, at his inaugural he proclaimed that his Administration would restore "merit" as the standard by which people qualify for positions.
He has skillfully presided over an unruly, broad coalition of starkly different kinds of voters and brought fresh perspectives to long-festering problems.
Improbably, Trump has emerged as a strong voice and the national champion for disaffected rural and conservative Americans who are utterly put off and deeply offended by the self-righteous, galling excesses of the woke left, and who I believe resent the condescension and air of moral superiority that so many Democrats exude.
I often agree with Trump's predisposition to rescind or modify onerous regulations.
Also, Trump's first instinct is to avert war if possible and to prefer prosperous dealings for himself and his fellow Americans.
In addition, Scott Bessent seems to be a very competent, capable Secretary of the Treasury.
If that was all there was to Trump, I might support him. But, alas, that is not all there is. So I now turn to what I deem to be the bad.
Above all, in my view the second Trump Administration has repeatedly misused its vast federal powers to target its surprisingly long list of political adversaries, who include its good-faith critics, political opponents, high-ranking members of the first Trump Administration, popular comedians, some our best universities, prominent law firms, foreign scholars, foreign businesses that to all appearances have strictly commercial aims, and even historic allies (e.g., Canada).
In particular, the second Trump Administration has used its powers against perceived enemies in ways that I believe wrongly infringe upon our related rights of free speech, a free press, peaceful assembly, petitioning activity (the right to petition the government for redress), and due process (which protects our lives, liberty, property, and legal privileges from arbitrary forfeiture). I trust and expect that the lower federal courts and eventually the US Supreme Court will declare these efforts to be ultra vires and to lack the force of law, and that the Administration will respect and heed duly issued orders rendered by competent courts.
Also, I respectfully and strongly disagree with the second Trump Administration's approach to trade and tariffs. As Adam Smith demonstrated in his opus work in 1776, free trade is always mutually beneficial, or else it wouldn't occur. If an American furnishes valuable services in the US or abroad, then uses the profits to purchase, say, a car made in Germany, that purchase is not a net loss to the US. Rather, it is a mutually profitable trade.
Protecting domestic producers from foreign competition invariably hurts not only foreign producers, but also other domestic producers elsewhere in our supply chains, as well as domestic consumers and the entire domestic economy. If workers and their industries are displaced by free trade, our government should make it easy for them to learn new skills and develop new careers in lines of work where Americans enjoy a comparative advantage. Even so, for the sake of our national security we must furnish certain kinds of products on our own. But the list of such products should be very short and established according to transparent, reasonable, and predictable principles. Bill Clinton, who I believe has been the best President of my lifetime, understood all of these points.
Also, Trump's battles with the Federal Reserve Bank and government statisticians are misguided and might undermine public confidence in our capital markets, which are indispensable to our continued prosperity.
The US has many natural and man-made advantages. For generations, the best and brightest have aspired to come here to study, learn, innovate, work, and prosper, and foreign investors have treated our deep capital markets as one of their preferred investments. Also, having the dollar serve as the world's reserve currency has been "an exorbitant privilege," not a burden, as some in the second Trump Administration mistakenly assert. This Administration's various policies imperil all of these great advantages.
I hoped in vain that Trump, having survived and triumphed over so much, would emerge as a magnanimous, well-counseled President during his second term. How wrong I was. I still hope that he makes a major course-correction and finds more advisors like Scott Bessent.
This is exactly the kind of discourse that the Democrat party and many voters are missing. Trump has plenty of warts, and most of his voters see and understand that. Trump voters aren't a cult contrary to popular belief, but when the other side decries them as fascists, nazis, and pedo protectors how do they expect to win any of those voters back?
Excellent points. As a conservative-leaning person who has a lot of issues with Trump, I feel like you've hit the nail on the head.
He's completely right on a few issues (e.g. controlling illegal immigration, getting NATO members to pay their fair share) and dead wrong on many others.
Many good points - it’s refreshing to see some balanced thought. Only thing I will say though - is the political weaponization started the day Trump won in 2016. You seem smart and intellectually honest - so I’ll assume you must know 11 years of putting everything at him they could - way overstepped boundaries.
If Trump doesn’t respond - then there’s no reason the Dems wouldn’t go 100 turns harder next time in power. If they have no consequences then they’ll keep doing it.
Trumps evening the field - and to me that’s more than fair.
Oh, please! Such nonsense. I stopped after you stated Drumpf pledged to restore "merit" to the hiring process. Total and absolute BS.
Merit WAS the process used in the most recent Admins. Historical minorities were just given a foot in the door to be considered alongside white males. They weren't hired instead of more qualified folks. What do we have with Drumpf? The wanton sacking of large numbers of qualified top level career civil servants to be replaced by unqualified sycophants who pledged allegiance to Drumpf instead of the Constitution. (Just looking at the Cabinet level, we have the most unqualified group we have ever had.)
"I stopped after you stated Drumpf pledged to restore 'merit' to the hiring process."
That's the problem. Failing to consider another's viewpoint before responding to it.
Had you read the entire post, you would at least have understood my position before responding.
As it happens, I agree that some of Trump's picks have been clearly unfit for their positions.
But your comment illustrates another of my key concerns. Why are modern-day Democrats and progressives so viscerally intolerant of any view that does not echo their preferred talking points? What a great way not to persuade anyone who isn't already fully persuaded.
That’s what many fail to see. Is you look past the boisterous personality, he’s Bill Clinton in a red hat with a more likable wife. There haven’t been any crazy policies, gay marriage hasn’t been banned, and abortion I’d still legal.
No. I was replying to someone that wrote Clinton was pres 15 years ago. If that was you that pArt was deleted. If it was your comment, you must've corrected that part. I was attempting to point out how very long this slide into anti-worker, pro-elitist policy has inflicted the national Democratic party.
I didn't edit mine, but I agree with your point. People have gotten more liberal in the last 30 years, but the party went off it's rocker. MO used to be a bellweather. We now have legal weed, legal sports betting, and every other legal protection for any disadvantaged group that exist elsewhere, but now it's predominately Red come election time. We don't have a bunch of new staunch conservatives, the democrats just left their voters behind that they took for granted.
England has had the same two parties alternating in power for the last hundred years, and two different parties for the hundred years before that. It’s likely that our current two will be wiped out in the next election. Unfortunately, we’ll probably have a more extreme party next time, but I am hopeful that a centrist party will emerge too.
The first-past-the-post system makes it hard for new parties to become established, but combining that with a presidential system makes it almost impossible.
Great post! I would only add to the section on American's resentment of hedge fund managers and billionaires that highly engaged Democrats have trouble recognizing other forms of elite resentment (namely that directed towards themselves). Around 25% of US adults have a bachelor's degree and earn more than $50,000 per year. Likely most reading this are included in this group (myself included).
These people are in a very real sense elite, both by virtue of their income and stability (personal and intergenerational). The bottom 75% certainly resent millionaires and billionaires to a degree, but they also resent these educated upper middle class people (PMC, symbolic capitalists, etc.) - think of those at the 80th or 90th percentile - who dominate the Democratic party. Not only politicians, but their staffers, donors, and volunteers are drawn overwhelmingly from this group. It's a problem that the Democratic party is so much more attuned to the views of these people (e.g., identity politics) than the rest of the Democratic coalition. We don't have to cease to exist, but a little humility and honest self-appraisal are in order.
Democrats not only underestimate the degree of elite resentment directed their way.
Democrats also compound the problem by calling Americans who resent elites (eg white working class) “privileged,” and telling them that most of those elites (eg black millionaires, rich South Asian tech bros, PoC Ivy-League grads, gay media execs, old-money WASP women) are the *real* oppressed class.
She was never selected by her party or by the American public through an objective, fair, and democratic process. So much for the democratic party being democratic. I hope we never have to deal with the possibility of an unelected candidate, simply propped up and promoted by their party.
Yes the point on your head still stands. She has not received a single vote in her own. She was propped up. You’re a coward for. It admitting that and trying to question it.
Exactly! And it's why she lost. Because she wasn't selected by ANY democratic process. She was annointed by a deeply unpopular, mentally unfit outgoing president and she never recovered from it.
I see the same mistake made again, "enforcing the border" sounds good but does little. It's the interior that needs enforcing. As long is there is no deportation you in effect have open borders. Democrats have to support enforcing the interior, humanely, but also expeditiously and uniformly. And don't supplement with millions of work visas. When incomes return to where they should have been all along we can revisit.
“ But only a minority of Americans favor the cruel chase for illegal immigrants on which top administration officials have publicly prided themselves.”
What the fuck did Americans supposedly think? That it was ok to turn illegals away at the border, but once they’re here it’s not ok to deport them? Why on earth would this be the case?
Some other senator with the first name Bernie is trying to bring up a bill saying just that. At first I thought Bernie Sanders, but no, another Bernie.
The Republican house side came up with a very good proposed bill last sesion. It had increasingly severe penalties so that at first employers could just pay a fine, but they knew that things would get progressively more expensive.
Every employer files 941s, many bi weekly, and they are by social security number. No one cheats on 941s because it's how the workers comp people track you, and if you cheat on on comp you really can go to jail, lose your house, etc. Judges frown on workers comp cheats. Obviously I used to be an employer.
At this point i think i just dont *trust* the democratic party. Their behavior since the election makes me feel this way. For instance, i keep hearing comments like "when the democrats are in power, theyll do these same crazy ass things trumps doing, to the republicans", and i think thats probably right. I dont want to go back to 20-24 when you had to watch every little thing you said, lest someones feelings get hurt. When trump won(which i did not want to happen) you could feel that pressure lift. If dems plan to ratchet up their bs if they win, i want nothing to do with that. And ik alot of folks who feel the same way.
We need a candidate who isnt a coward. Do the dems even have one of those?
I didn’t vote for Harris or Trump and have no regrets about that decision. Even as the Republican train goes off the rails driven by an increasingly insane engineer my former party the Democratic Party sinks even deeper. The Democrats lost in 2024 and will continue to lose in the future because of one reason. They have lost the support of the American working class.The historic Democratic icons FDR, and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their beloved party. Although they were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class. Working class Americans hate many of the policies foisted on them by Democrats.
Here’s a laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester. Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow energy efficiency and nuclear power. Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that relies on using expensive batteries or natural gas generators. Germany has destroyed its industry with this approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines. Dump vaccine mandates and allow individuals to decide.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating on the basis of race and sex because in the past we discriminated on the basis of race and sex.
Keep the protection of gay, lesbian, and trans rights. Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons and the mutilation of children in pursuit of the impossible.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration. Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs, mental health assistance and a place to live. Dump camping in cities, shitting in our streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice. Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and allowing violent criminals loose prior to trial.
Do all of the above and you might find your way back to power.
While you’re correct, the army of loyal foot soldiers they’ve enlisted take many of those things to be so sacred that they can’t be compromised with. Is the religion of millions, while being ridiculous and unfeasible to the vast majority of either party. Your proposals resonate with most voters, but will get you shouted off the stage in a room full of young democrats.
Yes, because the Nazis famously tolerated and supported trans adults (just not them playing sports)
And they couldnt get enough of the gays- THEY were their faves- especially Goebbel's. also the NDSP shouldn't have invested so aggressively in green energy. Not to mention the brownshirts very well known off-the-streets and into mental health supports and safe and secure housing programs. That was like Heydrich's favorite thing.
I'm good with all of that except vaccine mandates - not for the overblown Covid vaccine mandate these years later - but for stuff like Measles for kids.
The thing about a reasonable platform is that the disagreement is also reasonable. That makes progress far more possible than militant loyalty to incredibly stupid policies like we're currently seeing.
I will begin with the simple math of the reality that not voting for Harris ended up being a de facto vote for Drumpf. So I see that you are part of our current problem. That you have no regrets is very telling.
I'd love to do a point by point, but it's impossible to quote paragraphs within a comment.
I will try a couple:
You say okay to 1st trimester abortions and no for remainder unless woman's or fetus' health in danger. Major problem: who decides? Women are bleeding out in hospital parking lots because of draconian laws that prosecute doctors if they perform an abortion in the second and third trimester unless the woman's life is in danger. Where do you draw the line?? I'm countless women have died in states that have these laws.
Your idea for Dems to dump vaccine mandates. This is where we are going now. This is anti-science and dangerous. For example, MMR vaccine has saved countless lives. So has the polio vaccine. With no mandates and massive scary misinformation, fewer children get vaccinated. Herd immunity disappears. Not only do regular unvaccinated kids get these preventable diseases, with many getting sick, having lifelong illnesses, or dying - but so do immunocompromised people who cannot tolerate vaccines.
Get the picture? Simplistic "solutions" can have complicated consequences.
Cathrine: Thanks for your response. Do you really believe that abortion up to birth on a personal whim is politically acceptable?
My two college roommates both suffered from polio as children and their lives were irreparably damaged and shortened as a result. I am myself vaxxed up. Certainly adults should be able to make the decision for themselves and suffer the consequences.
Newsflash dear Dave! NO ONE has an abortion, especially after the first trimester, on a "personal whim" - there will be a deep and thought out reason. It is an incredibly traumatic experience similar to a natural miscarriage. Ask any woman who has experienced both.
Most preventive vaccines happen in childhood. I am sorry for anyone who had to experience polio. There is NO excuse now.
As for adults making there own decisions and suffering the results if they don't get COVID, flu or other vaccines: all fine EXCEPT for those who are immunocompromised like the elderly, those unable to be vaxxed, etc. We get vaxxed not just for ourselves, but also for our neighbors so we don't pass illnesses on to them.
Catherine: Newsflash dearest C. After the first trimester she has a baby not a clump of cells. Maybe she should have completed her “deep” thinking during the first three months of pregnancy.
As to mandatory vaccinations. The Covid vaccine didn’t stop the spread of the virus only its deadliness. Digging in your heals on these and similar issues will only guarantee more Trumps.
Many good ideas here for Democrats in terms of doing better in future conventional elections. Sadly, however, Trump is NOT "squandering" his opportunity for political realignment. He is well on the way to transforming the entire political system into one in which he is above the law, in which he controls the elections, and therefore his 'enemies' simply cannot win elections, no matter how the majority of Americans feel or vote.
The majority of Americans voted for him and approve of what he is doing. He pushes the courts, and then abides by their decisions, while he appeals. O'Biden never did that.
He got more votes than Obama. Contrary to popular desire by his haters, his popularity is holding its own. The number of Bidens that Biden pardoned is that many more people than the number of Trump’s political prisoners he had to pardon. Simply hating Trump is useless at this point. Until the D’s figure that out and try to get some political wins by working with him, they’re just racing to the bottom.
I used majority in the same sense as the previous commenter. If you don't like my polling data, I can share the only poll that matters to me; I like what he's doing. Cheers
And even LESS voted blue. Why don’t Dems get that? If he’s so horrible - you all were even more horrible. This is what she’s trying to say - stop gaslighting yourselves. Face reality. Then change. You can’t change what you won’t acknowledge.
There's been a lot of discussion recently about finding a "left-wing Joe Rogan". It occurs to me that an equally pressing matter should be finding a "left-wing Charlie Kirk".
Democrats are very much NOT in the habit of going into ideologically hostile spaces and saying "Change my mind" or "Prove me wrong". They aren't in the habit of using FACTS and LOGIC to OWN those who disagree. That leaves their ideas untested and weak.
It's not that the Democrat positions are wrong. It's that they haven't been workshopped for a broad audience. Dems are in the habit of talking to each other a bunch, and excluding everyone who disagrees. Then, when it comes time for election season, they pivot and start knocking on doors furiously. (I live in a swing state. Last November we had 3 left-wing canvassers knock on our door in a single day. I ended up taping a sign to the door, threatening to vote for Trump if they bothered us any further.)
What the Democrats need to realize is that canvassing, phone banking, TV ads, and so forth which get deployed during election season are just the tip of the pyramid. The base of the pyramid is the sort of conversations Charlie Kirk had. Every day, he practiced selling conservative ideas to voters who were not at all committed to the Republican party. And sure enough, young people started flipping to the right.
For the love of god, you had a left Joe Rogan. He was Joe Rogan! He endorsed Bernie 2020. Repeatedly he stated he supported national healthcare for all and free college. But the left spurned him over and over for his normal stance on trans issues. This type of thing is why the trannies drag down democrats , they’re repeatedly prioritized over much bigger issues.
"Finding" those types is nearly impossible. The reason Charlie was so influential was because he was authentic. The reason Rogan is so successful is because he's organic and authentic. Much like Kamala's rallies compared to Trump's, authenticity is severely lacking by "finding" people to fill the voids.
Not a chance, but somebody told her he was awful and that's enough. Hating people because somebody else told you to is the least informed kind of discourse possible.
Kirk spent much of his adult life defending and articulating a worldview aligned with Trump and the Maga movement. Accountable to no one but his audience, he did not shy away in his rhetoric from bigotry, intolerance, exclusion and stereotyping.
Here’s Kirk, in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative media.
On race
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022
Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
Kirk invoked a Bible verse about stoning gay people "to death" on a June 2024 episode of his podcast with Jack Posobiec, calling it "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters."
In a February 2024 Instagram post, Kirk referred to the "great replacement" conspiracy theory (which has been widely debunked), suggesting undocumented immigrants are coming to the U.S. to replace white Americans. [There was more to it than that, but this is an example.]
Empathy and debate
On the Oct. 12, 2022, episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, Kirk discussed how former U.S. president Bill Clinton used empathy and sympathy as a political strategy. In an aside, Kirk went off on the term empathy.
"I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made up new age term that does a lot of damage."
He also didn't believe there was EVER a valid medical reason for abortion.
He believed that wives should always submit to their husband.
How about this quote from Snopes to show it was fact checked:
Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder Charlie Kirk said of gun deaths on April 5, 2023, "I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
Rating: Correct Attribution
I say, tell that to children traumatized by frequent school shootings and even more frequent drills. Tell that to their families. How about victims of other mass shootings? Losing their lives is "worth it"???
I don't have a clue. I didn't read anywhere near all of his unhinged pronouncements. I read some of his statements and stopped because they were so egregious. That he thought it was a great idea to kill unhoused people, just shoot them, was certainly a game stopper for me.
Do you have a quote from Kirk sayjng homeless people should be shot? I can’t find one by googling. So far, everything I’ve been able to hear from him since he died is just normal conservative stuff.
The book is non-serious because Harris is a non-serious and not very bright person. She was chosen by the Democratic Party elite for her ideological purity, and no other reason. The Republicans have a simple tag line that will guarantee votes for the next several elections. ‘Democrats don’t know the difference between boys and girls.’ The author of this essay is correct that Democrats have completely lost the middle class, but all they need to do to get it back is admit women and men aren’t the same, and promise effective health care reform. It’s really that simple.
Yascha. I think that you are underestimating how much the “senior bonus deduction” will matter to lower income retirees “But that is not how Trump has governed so far. His budget may have included a few shrewd concessions to aspirational voters, such as exempting tips from income tax; on the whole, it was an exercise in redistribution from the bottom to the top.” Elderly taxpayers face one of the largest and most regressive tax increases as Social Security income becomes taxable at very low thresholds. While this is purported to be temporary, the number of people impacted is immense and growing daily. These people vote and have a lot at stake. I doubt that it will be temporary or that Democrats will argue for taking it away.
2024 was similar in pattern to 1968 for the Democrats: an incapacitated President suddenly withdraws, imposes on the Party his unpopular Vice President who never bothers to win votes in any primary and who never distances from unpopular policies (Vietnam; the open Border) , and the result is a humiliating defeat by a Republican Darth Vader.☹️
And the way things are going among the Democrats, we’re headed in 2028 for something like a replay of 1972: the dominance of leftist identity politics in tbe Party and hence the nomination of an unelectable “woke” candidate for President, and a slaughter at the polls. Hence: Hello President Vance (or Rubio). 🙁
Why not both? I doubt it will take less than twelve years for a reset to occur. If Biden was Carter, we have another decade and change of republican presidents.
Kamala Harris, like Joe Biden, is a mediocre mind. He fancies himself a deep thinker when he is not, while she (I believe) realizes her limitations and is scripted and overly careful. As a result, she seems and is inauthentic. Trump is, if nothing else, authentically himself.
I disagree, on both of these. Joe never had the "book smarts" of a JD Vance. But he made up for it by having an almost Bill Clinton-like finger on America's pulse. Basically, whatever America's "center" was, from 1972-2024, Joe Biden was always just a tick to the left. (He didn't have Clinton's intelligence or eloquence, but the instinct was there.) And going from being just a tick to the left of Herman Talmadge to being the guy that leads the way on gay marriage in 2012 and then codifies it in 2022 takes an INSANE amount of EQ, and adaptability. Unfortunately, like many politicians (and people, in general), he stayed on too long. (I actually think he would've been just fine. He was running the country well enough. But Americans now seem to want John Wayne as president instead of someone who pulls levers and presses buttons.)
Kamala is the opposite. She has the book smarts, and she might even be good at understanding other people. But she doesn't always know how to put that into words and expressions. IOW, she's not scripted b/c she's dumb– she'd be perfectly at home in a room full of lawyers or doctors. She's scripted b/c she can't "code switch" well. She'd talk the same way to doctors and lawyers as she would to construction workers and plumbers. And that's hard. To her credit, unlike, say, John Kerry, she realizes this. But wasn't able to correct it without coming off as lacking authenticity.
But Biden should have stepped down
Hindsight is 20:20. FDR was more dead than he was and won a landslide. I agree he should've stepped down sooner. But sometimes, it's the people, not the leaders.
Not suggesting Biden was a superior politician by any means, but it was a different technological paradigm in FDR's day. Roosevelt did not have high-definition, real-time TV debates to contend with the same way Joe Biden did. It's not hard to imagine Biden sticking it out through election/inauguration day if he only had to deal with TV and radio.
Yes, but my point is, so what? This isn't a TV show. I get where you're going. I just don't see why it matters.
Biden was lucky — DE being a small and very closed state protected him. He had a degree of what the “pulse” was in the country but he never was all that forward looking. His speeches were all about what he did and what was past. If you remember the remark on gay marriage was really a slip of the tongue that forced Obama’s hand.
Harris has always had a reputation for being lazy … from her early days in CA. High staff turn over. Not one to do the real work needed. She was a known bully as far as office staff (not unheard of in DC). Always someone else’s fault — it’s can’t be her. Go look at any Senate hearing — she is scripted and it’s all about her.
Joe Biden has always been a consummate follower, and can always be found in the same general vein of opinion as wherever the democratic party’s orthodoxy is. He’s never had any convictions that weren’t open to 180 degree change for political expediency
I disagree with just about every word of this. As I said above, Biden always found a way to be just left of where the party was. Not so far left that he got tagged a radical. No so moderate that he got stuck in Joe Manchin-ville. He led the way on gay marriage. He was literally the first one to support it on a national level. Changing with the times and encouraging others to do the same isn't "political expediency". It's what actual leadership looks like.
As I mention above … The gay marriage was a slip. That’s how he felt — he was genuine. If you remember Obama was not happy but was part the way he handled it.
I can’t disagree with this …. In fairness to Biden I think he was just a little bit left of the party for most of his first 30 years. You can’t separate Biden from DE and how safe he was in his senate seat. He was used to talking endlessly and no one ever checking his facts he really di believe his own press releases. that’s why he ran into problems when he became VP.
Here’s the thing about Delaware: It’s the corporation capital of America. (It was also a slave state.) Pleasing business interests while evolving politically takes skill.
Your first point may have relevance to some in the state -- few. I'm not sure what the second is about. If you speak of lingering legacy -- there was more of that in Baltimore and lower counties into the early 70's.
Biden never had to work very hard or sharpen up. He was very lucky both as a Senator and when he ran for President .. few voted for him -- they voted against Trump. he was the lessor of two n the general and the lessor of many in the primary.
Harris had the same problem -- she did not fight to the top. She was picked and placed all along the way
In 1972, Joe Biden was the only Democrat to flip a senate seat. To say he didn’t work for that is rich. My comment about slavery was to point out that Delaware as a solid blue left state is a very recent development. The thing you seem to be missing is that the ppl of Delaware ARE the corporations. Thats where the jobs there are.
Harris, if you know anything at all about her rise, was not “picked”. She ran a tough campaign to win the DA job. Did a good job there (crime was low in SF during her tenure). Parlayed that into an upset win in the AG race. Then used that as a springboard to the US Senate when Barbara boxer retired.
And that is a malevolent, corrupt, amoral, vengeful, misogynistic, liar, huckster, con man, and wanna-be dictator who doesn’t give much of a damn about anyone but himself. Are you suggesting that these are somehow virtues in a president?
Lesser of two weevils, methinks. Devil and the deep blue sea.
The Democrats kind of shot themselves in the feet on many issues, so they don't have many other candidates to take the blame for being on the outside looking in.
My latest elaboration on the theme, some of the "usual suspects", notably Kamala -- "she's for them/them" -- Harris gushing over transwoman or male transvestite Dylan Mulvaney supposedly "living authentically as a woman". What a flaming joke, a classic case of Orwell's "2+2=5":
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/the-dems-are-still-not-getting-it/comment/159930619
Have you spent anytime with our Constitution lately? You’ll note that it doesn’t distinguish among the sexes. But it does very clearly distinguish between democracy and autocracy.
You really want to pick nits while Trump is busy trying to turn the United States of America into the Disunited States of Trump?
Hardly just "picking nits" when the issue of putting male transvestites -- if they still have their nuts attached and sexless eunuchs if they don't -- into women's sports, prisons, change rooms, and toilets was something which likely tipped the balance in favour of Trump in the last election.
Newsweek: "John Fetterman Says Certain Trump Ad Helped Clinch His Victory"; Nov 08, 2024 at 08:01 PM EST ....
New York Representative Tom Suozzi told The New York Times on Wednesday, "The Democrats have to stop pandering to the far left. I don't want to discriminate against anybody, but I don't think biological boys should be playing in girls' sports." ...."
https://www.newsweek.com/john-fetterman-says-certain-trump-ad-helped-clinch-his-victory-1983128
As for "distinguishing among the sexes", the Supreme Court is clearly leaning in that direction -- as has the UK Supreme Court in the For Women Scotland case -- as in the Tennessee Skrmetti case. Justice Alito had the clearest expression of that:
CNN: Justice Samuel Alito, in particular, was interested in the question of whether transgender status is “immutable.” Historically, the court has considered immutability to be a key aspect of the characteristics of a group deserving of more protection.
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/scotus-transgender-care-ban-12-04-24/index.html
"transgender status" is something of joke since it's as easily changed as a guy putting on a dress, though many might consider that as a "fate worse than death". But, on the other hand, being male or female seems a better contender for an "immutable status", and a trait that has some significant policy ramifications -- as with Biden & Harris putting those transvestites or sexless eunuchs into women's sports. Should be hell to pay for that.
The fact that this issue may have been a significant factor in getting Trump re-elected is immaterial both in terms of the complexity of human sexuality and to any assumption that people were right in making so much of it.
After all, “We the People” kept slavery legal for seventy years after the founding. “We the People” refused to enfranchise women for more than a century after the founding. And a significant part of “We the People’ doubled down on racial segregation until the 1960’s.
in 2024, a substantial proportion of “We the People” re-elected to the Presidency of the United States a man who has continually proven to utterly
disdain and disavow our electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law. Besides that, a couple of transgender females competing in women’s sports is rather below microscopic.
> "... rather below microscopic. ...
With far-reaching consequences. Though, as a point of reference, those "transgender females" of yours are most certainly NOT females and are, in point of fact, male transvestites if they still have their nuts attached and sexless eunuchs if they don't. An outright lie to call them such, though you're in "good" company with it:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/open-letters-ideological-capture
But don't think you're paying attention. Maybe intentionally. Those "transgender females" are just the tip of the iceberg, more sticky wickets being the Democrats endorsing the sterilization and castration of dysphoric and autistic children because they were "born in the wrong body", as well as the assassination of Charlie Kirk:
https://www.osborneink.com/p/how-democrats-lost-their-right-to
https://quillette.substack.com/p/showing-us-their-true-colours
What the hell do you think Skrmetti was all about. a case that went to your Supreme Court?
Or cavorting with Beyonce. That will get you a lot of votes in Lubbock.
Good God. Can’t people analyze went wrong with the Democrats without somebody throwing in an indignant “Trump is so much worse” statement? It’s not relevant or useful.
It is the whole picture that matters here, not just one piece or another.
In my opinion, Trump is way worse. I didn’t vote for the guy because I thought/think so. But he won. So we need to analyze where the Democrats went wrong. Saying Trump is worse is not gonna get us there.
Along with that analyzation has to be where the Republicans also went so badly wrong even as they knew in 2016, and many said so, that Trump might well prove to be a disaster. Whatever the Democrats got wrong, and I don’t for a moment deny their errors, the Republicans had a whole range of potential candidates in 2016, 2020, and 2024 and, particularly in 2024 they willingly chose perhaps the worst of them, a man who had proven himself to utterly disdain and disavow our electoral process, our Constitution, and the rule of law - a man who as President incited a riot in order to illegally and unconstitutionally remain in power.
Whatever the Democrats got wrong, the Republicans didn’t help them to take Trump off the table after January 6th, as they certainly should have. That wasn’t in any way down to the Democrats. They did their part, and had the Republicans done their, we wouldn’t be here now.
Whatever.
Blah blah rinse and repeat
As is so common among Trumpists, silliness instead of facts.
🙄 You don't seem particularly ready to face the facts about the effects of Kamala -- "she's for they/them" -- Harris gushing about Dylan Mulvaney "living authentically as a woman". What a flaming joke, a classic case of Orwell's "2+2=5".
https://yaschamounk.substack.com/p/the-dems-are-still-not-getting-it/comment/159969726
Spamming your 'stack is desperate.
I Love how Steersman is proving this article's point to a t. I sure hope he's in on the joke!
What? Speak up, it's your nickel. What's your point? You have one?
Seems the article is arguing, with some justification, that the Democrats bear some responsibility for being on the outs because of their various party planks, a rather damning case-in-point being Kamala – "she's for they/them" – Harris gushing over transwoman/male-transvestite Dylan Mulvaney "living authentically as a woman". "barking mad" doesn't begin to cover that.
Don't see that you, she, or they – the Democrats in general – are taking much if any responsibility for that bit of "2+2=5" that, maybe arguably, tipped the balance in favour of Trump in the last election.
I, likewise, don't give much of a rat's ass over whether some guys want to play dress-up – I once "consorted" with someone who I thought was a she but who turned out to be a he. The Crying Game, Part Deux. But when many in that particular tribe demand to be treated as if they had changed sex, and to access rights and opportunities that might reasonably be taken as the sole estate of "real women [AKA ovary-havers]" then, Houston, we have a problem. Which the Democrats more or less own – having drunk the transactivist Kool-Aid (i.e., "trans women are women!!11!!") pretty much to the last drop.
"Yep, that Charlie Manson -- he certainly overdid it that one time, but you gotta hand it to him: he's authentic and true to himself. He's not trying to be somebody else, that's for sure"
Are you out of your mind. I jsut saw her in NY and she was SPECTACULAR
I just drew a line on the sidewalk and jumped over it and claimed I was a spectacular high jumper.
Best reply of the month! Ha!
The problem is not left-of-center Democrats being spectacular in New York. Can the Democrats find candidates who will be spectacular in Tulsa, Charleston (SC), Tampa, Houston, etc. for the 2026 midterm election and the 2028 general election? So far I have not seen any high ranking Democrats who can command attention outside their own bailiwicks and the Democratic bailiwicks are getting smaller.
Umm Harris won Charleston, SC 51-46. That is not the issue. She also won Houston (and Harris County), TX, and Tampa, FL.
The problem is that she needed to win by more than she did. Also, she didn’t do as well as Biden or Clinton in places like Clark Co., NV (i.e., Las Vegas) or Miami, FL.
Tulsa, OK is so overwhelmingly Republican that no Dem can win. Last to do so was FDR in 1940!
🙄 Seems that one might reasonably argue that Kamala -- "she's for they/them" -- Harris is barking mad, not least for gushing over Dylan Mulvaney and his "living authentically as a woman" :🙄
https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/03/23/kamala-harris-dylan-mulvaney-birthday-card-backlash/
What an absolute flaming joke, a classic case of Orwell's "2+2=5". When Dylan replaces his testicles with some ovaries of "her" own is when I, and many others, might consider that "she" has some claim of "authenticity 🙄" on that estate.
Y'all might try reading and thinking about the standard biological definitions for the sexes which is, more or less, exactly what one of Trump's EOs has endorsed.
From the Glossary of this Journal article on "Gamete competition, gamete limitation, and the evolution of the two sexes; Jussi Lehtonen, Geoff A. Parker; Oxford Academic; Molecular Human Reproduction, Volume 20, Issue 12, December 2014":
"Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems."
https://web.archive.org/web/20221214064356/https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990?login=false
And Trump's EO "restoring biological truth to government":
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/defending-women-from-gender-ideology-extremism-and-restoring-biological-truth-to-the-federal-government/
Spectacular at what, exactly? Effortlessly tepping into the middle of the circle jerk of yet another coastal city event? What was the most useful and actionable thing she said that night? Can you remember even one single useful thing she said? Or was she just a really really good cheerleader for a vague and undefined group of progressives?
Also, while Joe Biden may have a mediocre mind, until he started going senile he was a skilled politician. Harris is not by any stretch of the imagination a good politician.
The so-called "autopsy report" will itself be dead on arrival. The faction that funded and ran the Harris/Walz campaign seems to think they are always the smartest ones in the room. If there is a chance of prevailing in 2028, it has to come from a re-energized and more broadly based coalition of leaders within the Democratic Party. Just allowing the donor class to run the show is a prescription for continuing decline and irrelevancy.
Maybe the party itself is the problem. American Liberals are not left wing, they are “slightly left” leaning conservatives with a large does of identity politics baked in. That's why they fight so hard against independents and threats from their left flank.
Actual Leftists don't care about the partisan and incrementalism games that Democrats play.
Even though some leftists or left adjacent people who live in the western world strongly wade into social society and identity battles, the majority of leftists around the world don't, not because those battles don't matter, of course they matter to those involved, but because it diverts from the overall point of class struggle.
Democrats and Republicans are essentially different flavors of the same class of capitalism supporting, albeit heavily propagandized, warmongers and defenders of the status quo. Both parties support Genocide and the unchecked domination of American imperial dominance and the pursuit of corporation's business interests over any sort of moral or ethical framework. The politicians of both mainstream American parties reflect that reality, and first and foremost serve their paying customers.
Good luck.
Thanks for your good wishes. I know we will need good luck, but hoping that more clarity about the vision of how a better-run country can benefit the working class will play a part too.
good essay! Thanks, as always, for acting as one of the only left of center commentators to repeatedly promote introspection in response to this textbook populist backlash. Always nice to read a rare and welcome breath of authentic journalism.
Here is my problem Nathan. There is no explanation as to why liberalism went woke and therefore no way to understand what it takes to get back to reasonable policy, even if it can be articulated. People went to woke because of how they felt. What is the alternative being proposed? Seems to me that the Democrats will have no chance against a reasonable right of center conservative, who at least can coherently raise the flag, defend the border, save traditional women’s spaces and talk about the pride of being American again. This is the feeling that needs to accompany the centrist policy. I don’t think Mounk gets it.
The point is that not very many people are woke. I think you and him are making the exact same point? Stop running on unpopular policies. Stop treating Americans like a list of identities. Stop treating trans people like they're the sacred cow. Stop treating capitalism like it was a bad idea, let alone a terrible idea. Win elections.
Stop treating people like a list of identities. This is exactly the problem with a lot of the democratic parties shadow wing and certainly of Harris who is the result of this thinking. I respect her a lot but she has not actually learned the real lesson
I hope you are right. With respect to you her generations, I fear you are wrong. But leadership here is key. Trump is doing many necessary things, but the next President needs to be someone that young people can better identify with. I like Marco Rubio, Vance not as much or Erika Kirk.
Oops, younger generations.
Republicans are the party that are anti-Capitalist. What is more anti-Capitalist than telling someone what they can and cannot buy, or where they can and cannot invest?
The problem that the American people have is that they want all of the benefits of the free market, but none of the costs. That itself will have costs. We are already seeing it; higher prices, higher costs, depleted inventories, reduced economic growth, and therefore lower overall job creation. We are heading toward stagflation and a debt bubble, like NYC or the UK in the 1970’s.
This doesn't engage with my point at all
You said to stop treating capitalism like a bad idea, did you not? So my point, is that the issue is not capitalism vs non-capitalism, its opportunity vs identity. People keep trying to pin Dem losses on "identity politics" when the GOP has been playing on identity politics for the past 60 years. The only difference is that its White Identity politics.
All politics is about identity; this idea that people just go vote based on who will promise to give them money has been disproven so many times that I don't really understand why it keeps being brought up, other than as a distraction. I mean, you have farmers out here who voted for Trump two times, AFTER he nearly bankrupted them with his trade policies. You have union workers and working class voters who gave Trump their votes despite proof that his policies made them worse off. Immigrants voting for an anti-immigrant POTUS. Why? Well, sorry if people don't want to recognize it, but its racism, plain and simple. As long as this people of this country refuse to deal with the racism within their hearts, we will continue to disintegrate to the point that it will cease to exist.
The best way for Dems to counteract this is to focus on expanding opportunity. Problem is, that costs money and it takes time. However, a leader with the ability to get buy in from the various groups that make up the Dems can do it.
I think about politics like basketball. There are two types of coaches: a Bob Knight/Red Holzman type and a Steve Kerr/Rudy Tomjanovich type. The first works you to death and demands loyalty and perfection; the other builds camaraderie and gets buy in. Both types have won championships in the past, but the former doesn't win any more. The GOP is like the first type, but Dems can never be that type of party, so we have to go with the latter.
Your points about racism are tired and irrelevant at this point. We know now that racism has nothing to do with it, and hasn't in this millennium. We had a black president nearly two decades ago. Get it through your head that there are other reasons people disagree with you. Try to find those, instead of chasing these racism boogeymen, because guess what keeps happening? You keep fucking losing. This is why. You people are so obsessed with identitarianism that you don't understand that the people who voted against identitarianism *are against identitarianism*, they're not some kind of evil other identitarians.
Yeah man, you are totally right. Honestly man, i think the source of this backlash goes back a LOT farther than wokeness....which is why i think it's really important for the dems to do some serious soul searching.
Love to hear where you think it goes back to. In my mind it goes back to what I like to call early woke, with Obama. Let me know!
This is my chronological timeline...very consistent with yours, but just reaches back a little further cause I'm so friggin old.
Before it really got started the seeds were being planted for later phases of cultural ostracization. This started back when the republicans were legitimately the party of the rich...so in some sense it was very excusable. It also seemed excusable during a period when racism was still pretty damn bad and pretty damn common, women were being treated pretty damn badly in the workplace, and our treatment of homosexuals was an utter and complete disgrace. But, nevertheless, the cultural antagonism from the democrats started to get kind of nasty in a gratuitous and sort of downward punching way. As much as I adored Gore Vidal and Gary Trudeau, I remember the cutting nature of their satirical takes would raise my eyebrows from time to time.
But all that seemed fine. The real problems clacked off as follows. Purely my own opinion...I make no claim to authoritative understanding.
1) Clinton disenfranchises the working class with NAFTA, also by permanently granting most favored trade status to China. This was BAD for labor, and probably the worst foreign policy mistake of my lifetime. Dems started taking unions for granted just for their votes, but lost all interest in taking political hits on behalf of labor.
2) The dems briskly and steadily became the second party for the rich, albeit for a new and different rich economic cohort embodied by the new and burgeoning technology sectors. The republicans certainly did not step in to save labor, but at the time pretty much stuck with representing the traditional forms of wealth and power.
3) Democrats and cultural elites (including arts and entertainment industry) assuaged their guilt for rat fucking workers by culturally ostracizing them to boot....and did so with exponentially increasing satirical intensity. (I think maybe this formed the cultural bedrock of wokeness)
4) The prior form of post modern morality and philosophy gained popularity and dominance in universities as far back as the seventies and by the mid eighties it was very dominant on college campuses. I the early nineties so called "relativists" launched a pretty widespread attack against the hard sciences. They were repelled at the time(the Alan Sokal paper symbolizes the turning point, but overall a great many good men and women fought well to beat back this assault) but they certainly got our attention. Instead of dying off, relativism was basically rebranded as social constructivism, and they began flanking the sciences through social science departments. (These shallow post modern intellectual fads formed the intellectual bedrock of wokeness)
5) Populism and Identity politics beginning with Obama (this is where our timelines overlap.) This is the beginning of wokeness as far as I can tell. Where cultural ostracism meets post modern intellectual fetishism.
6) the rest is just as you said.
7) For some (not all) woke college students, I think it's easier to be against racism than classism. You're from the upper middle class, with parents who can support you through college and intend to leave their house to you. Yet the real problems are inequality in wealth, education, and cultural capital.
Man, you’re 100% spot on—I totally missed that point. The anti-racism wing of the woke movement is a gross insult to civil rights warriors who came before, precisely because it buries class differences under the false banner of racism. That confusion between class and race is the kerosene that keeps the woke gas-lamps burning.
Bingo!!!
So, in the old days, racism, sexism and homophobia were variously “pretty damn bad” and a “complete disgrace,” but what raised your eyebrows back then was the satire of Gore Vidal and Gary Trudeau? Thank you for having unintentionally demonstrated that relativism was already hard-wired in the 70’s.
You are not wrong to identify NAFTA as a cause of blue collar discontent with the Democratic Party, but you are wrong to lay the blame on Clinton alone. NAFTA was the end product of the process of globalization initiated by Reagan and continued by Bush Sr., favouring the needs of capital by offshoring hundreds of thousands of manufacturing and industrial jobs to low-wage countries. That process has produced ongoing collateral domestic economic consequences - destroying the power of unions and suppressing the wages of North American workers (see, for example, the (mostly GOP-governed) ‘right to work’ states) - leading to predictable social problems.
Both parties are culpable for the disenfranchisement of labour. With few exceptions, including Obama’s remarkable expansion of the availability of healthcare, every recent administration has endorsed laws and policies that favour the rights of capital, and the wealthy, over the rights of labour. The result is the Gilded Age-like level of economic inequality, political disempowerment and social tension that we now suffer under.
As for your list of problems, it reveals that you have permitted yourself to be distracted by shadows. The concepts of identity politics and wokeness are in reality smokescreens. Since Clinton moved the Democratic Party to the right, the parties have sought to differentiate themselves ‘culturally’ because the reality is that they are largely undifferentiable in their basic political philosophy, which prioritizes capital over labour. The GOP has remained successful electorally because our primitive brains, battered by the unsettling speed of social change and tech-mediated information overload, are responsive to its simplistic emotive message of loss and grievance.
It's true. The GOP has much hell to answer for. But since I used to be such an ardent democrat I tend to focus on that which we should have done better. My biggest bipartisan beef is probably this totally ridiculous relationship we formed with China. Big mistake. Free trade results in a net exchange of goods and services. Our deal with China is that they send us goods in a net exchange for assets. Meanwhile, I would say my timeline is a pretty reasonable roadmap for the origins of wokeness.
Also, dude, regarding your conversational tactics..."So, in the old days, racism, sexism and homophobia were variously “pretty damn bad” and a “complete disgrace,” but what raised your eyebrows back then was the satire of Gore Vidal and Gary Trudeau?". Seriously? This is how you read my comment?
Great analysis! Rat fucking labor, embedding and being embedded by cultural elites, and "vibing" this is what the national Democratic party has been since the first time I voted and was paying attention in 1996.
By the way, I’m 73. But a Canadian somI have not followed US as closely as you.
totally reasonable, man. I didn't understand a single thing about Canadian politics until 2000 when I started diversifying my retirement investments into Canada. You guys were SO awesome back then. The devastation wrought by Trudeau is just crushing. Wokeness has been especially hard on Canadians.
This is an excellent, if broad, mapping of the situation.
Thanks Nathan. Sounds good to me.
Good thing the Dems aren’t facing a reasonable right of center conservative and, even in a best case scenario, probably won’t for at least a decade and a half to 2 decades.
Actually, I weep for the country that such is the case, it’s terrible for us. But it is lucky for the democrats
I have no idea whatsoever who that person could be. Find me someone who has the balls to call gender identity absolute nonsense. Find me someone who will speak out against the Palestine Cult whose goal is to destroy Israel. Find me someone who will speak directly to the DEI failure. These are all death moves in primaries. They are captives of their own creation.
At this point both parties are despicable in their own pathetic way, he says as an ex-Democrat.
I'm really surprised that the dems and the legacy media are not way more focused on people who speak with your voice,, in one way or anther. I just don't get it. It's so obvious that there a LOT of people who feel this way.
They’re held hostage by the AOC, Omar, Madmani crazies that are selling absolute nonsense and getting media cover for it.
Neither party can get past the primaries that are ruled by the extremes.
The same discharge from alleged elite universities that have gone into politics have gone into journalism and media and share similar social justice leanings. It's no longer "all the news that's fit to print" , but all the news that supports our "values". Sources like NPR have unfortunately undermined their trust , hence making it easy for GOP to cut their funding. The far left is so pathetically counterproductive.
Well said! Frustrating indeed!
Yes the Dems need a whole scale slaughtering of a variety of sacred cows on cultural issues. I still believe in an election defined purely by economic issues the Dems will win far more often than not, as majority wants a government dedicated to maintaining the social net and who treats affordability and inequality like real problems that the government should be genuinely interested in trying to solve, even at the cost of higher taxation. BUT!! I am also convinced that Democrats are on dramatically the wrong side of several important cultural issues from a public opinion point of view and need to retreat to the positions of 20 and 25 years ago (especially on issues regarding race, gender relations, Jews and Israel, immigration, and patriotism). I think Dems win 9/10 elections that are fought on healthcare, progressive taxation, social security, and education grounds, but lose 9/10
On elections fought on all cultural grounds other than abortion.
Dems taking a truly wacky turn into coddling antisemitism if it’s couched as “antizionism” (as if there is some fundamental difference between the two) is I think an underrated factor in moderates thinking they’ve gone crazy on cultural issues.
You're right. They have completely ruined their brand by being so out of touch with most voters on cultural issues that it's difficult to have people listen to the economic issues. Dems seem to believe they can just skip past those and win on economics , but are unaware people are fed up with so much of the nonsense they champion , me included, hence the low standings in the polls. I'm now another ex-Democrat.
The antisemitism posing as anti-Zionism is a driving issue for a great many younger voters who have completely bought into the Islamic objective of destroying Israel, which is what "from the rive to the sea " actually means.. They would sit out if candidates don't support Palestine.
As a quick aside , in 1932 Jews created the Palestine Post which became the Jerusalem Post in 1948 with the founding of Israel. Prior to that they were the Jewish Palestinians as opposed to the Arab Palestinians, and they both thought of themselves as Palestinians until the creation of Israel and Jordan, the Arab Palestinian state. Oy!
The Democratic Party apparently does not realize how their profoundly their “transwomen are women, no debate” platform invalidates them as serious leaders in the minds of regular voters. As Sall Grover, an Australian who is being sued because her women-only platform excludes males, says (paraphrasing here) - “If you insist that men can be women, then I won’t believe a single other thing you say.” When a party demands fealty to an ideology that is just so fundamentally at odds with material reality, people don’t just lose respect on that one issue. They know a government that insists that men can become women by donning a dress and proclaiming it so is both dangerous and stupid.
There are many, many democrats that just discount it because it only affects a few. A little introspection should inform them that they’re being held hostage by very few to the detriment of all the normal voters.
THIS! SO MUCH THIS!!!!!
It’s kind of like when republicans say they don’t think climate get change is caused by human activities only Dems are making EVEN MORE people think they are catastrophically stupid with some of their trans positions than repubs do on climate.
This is truly brilliant commentary!
An ex-Democrat, I have given up any hope for my former party. Nor can I vote for Trumpist Republicans. Instead, I favor the emergence of a centrist party that can help to enact good laws and block bad ones and perhaps eventually help us to end the current two-party duopoly, which serves the country so poorly.
I would gladly explain my views more fully here, but it would likely take up too much space.
Trump is a centrist Democrat, from 15 years ago.
Here is a long reply to Jason's comment, so that I can better explain my perspective on these matters.
Unlike most Democrats, I am not reflexively and compulsively anti-Trump. Instead, I will state what I believe to be the good and the bad in his politics.
First, the good.
Trump freely speaks his mind, which is sometimes refreshing, especially in comparison to modern-day Democrats, who are so risk-averse that they dare not say anything that might possibly break with party orthodoxy or offend any of the large number of strident identity groups who form their modern coalition.
On some occasions, Trump has fearlessly challenged received truths that should have been challenged and discredited long ago. For example, at his inaugural he proclaimed that his Administration would restore "merit" as the standard by which people qualify for positions.
He has skillfully presided over an unruly, broad coalition of starkly different kinds of voters and brought fresh perspectives to long-festering problems.
Improbably, Trump has emerged as a strong voice and the national champion for disaffected rural and conservative Americans who are utterly put off and deeply offended by the self-righteous, galling excesses of the woke left, and who I believe resent the condescension and air of moral superiority that so many Democrats exude.
I often agree with Trump's predisposition to rescind or modify onerous regulations.
Also, Trump's first instinct is to avert war if possible and to prefer prosperous dealings for himself and his fellow Americans.
In addition, Scott Bessent seems to be a very competent, capable Secretary of the Treasury.
If that was all there was to Trump, I might support him. But, alas, that is not all there is. So I now turn to what I deem to be the bad.
Above all, in my view the second Trump Administration has repeatedly misused its vast federal powers to target its surprisingly long list of political adversaries, who include its good-faith critics, political opponents, high-ranking members of the first Trump Administration, popular comedians, some our best universities, prominent law firms, foreign scholars, foreign businesses that to all appearances have strictly commercial aims, and even historic allies (e.g., Canada).
In particular, the second Trump Administration has used its powers against perceived enemies in ways that I believe wrongly infringe upon our related rights of free speech, a free press, peaceful assembly, petitioning activity (the right to petition the government for redress), and due process (which protects our lives, liberty, property, and legal privileges from arbitrary forfeiture). I trust and expect that the lower federal courts and eventually the US Supreme Court will declare these efforts to be ultra vires and to lack the force of law, and that the Administration will respect and heed duly issued orders rendered by competent courts.
Also, I respectfully and strongly disagree with the second Trump Administration's approach to trade and tariffs. As Adam Smith demonstrated in his opus work in 1776, free trade is always mutually beneficial, or else it wouldn't occur. If an American furnishes valuable services in the US or abroad, then uses the profits to purchase, say, a car made in Germany, that purchase is not a net loss to the US. Rather, it is a mutually profitable trade.
Protecting domestic producers from foreign competition invariably hurts not only foreign producers, but also other domestic producers elsewhere in our supply chains, as well as domestic consumers and the entire domestic economy. If workers and their industries are displaced by free trade, our government should make it easy for them to learn new skills and develop new careers in lines of work where Americans enjoy a comparative advantage. Even so, for the sake of our national security we must furnish certain kinds of products on our own. But the list of such products should be very short and established according to transparent, reasonable, and predictable principles. Bill Clinton, who I believe has been the best President of my lifetime, understood all of these points.
Also, Trump's battles with the Federal Reserve Bank and government statisticians are misguided and might undermine public confidence in our capital markets, which are indispensable to our continued prosperity.
The US has many natural and man-made advantages. For generations, the best and brightest have aspired to come here to study, learn, innovate, work, and prosper, and foreign investors have treated our deep capital markets as one of their preferred investments. Also, having the dollar serve as the world's reserve currency has been "an exorbitant privilege," not a burden, as some in the second Trump Administration mistakenly assert. This Administration's various policies imperil all of these great advantages.
I hoped in vain that Trump, having survived and triumphed over so much, would emerge as a magnanimous, well-counseled President during his second term. How wrong I was. I still hope that he makes a major course-correction and finds more advisors like Scott Bessent.
If anyone is still reading this comment, I invite them to read my views on these topics and others at https://williammarkham.substack.com/
This is exactly the kind of discourse that the Democrat party and many voters are missing. Trump has plenty of warts, and most of his voters see and understand that. Trump voters aren't a cult contrary to popular belief, but when the other side decries them as fascists, nazis, and pedo protectors how do they expect to win any of those voters back?
William for President!
Excellent points. As a conservative-leaning person who has a lot of issues with Trump, I feel like you've hit the nail on the head.
He's completely right on a few issues (e.g. controlling illegal immigration, getting NATO members to pay their fair share) and dead wrong on many others.
You've earned a subscriber.
Many good points - it’s refreshing to see some balanced thought. Only thing I will say though - is the political weaponization started the day Trump won in 2016. You seem smart and intellectually honest - so I’ll assume you must know 11 years of putting everything at him they could - way overstepped boundaries.
If Trump doesn’t respond - then there’s no reason the Dems wouldn’t go 100 turns harder next time in power. If they have no consequences then they’ll keep doing it.
Trumps evening the field - and to me that’s more than fair.
Oh, please! Such nonsense. I stopped after you stated Drumpf pledged to restore "merit" to the hiring process. Total and absolute BS.
Merit WAS the process used in the most recent Admins. Historical minorities were just given a foot in the door to be considered alongside white males. They weren't hired instead of more qualified folks. What do we have with Drumpf? The wanton sacking of large numbers of qualified top level career civil servants to be replaced by unqualified sycophants who pledged allegiance to Drumpf instead of the Constitution. (Just looking at the Cabinet level, we have the most unqualified group we have ever had.)
"I stopped after you stated Drumpf pledged to restore 'merit' to the hiring process."
That's the problem. Failing to consider another's viewpoint before responding to it.
Had you read the entire post, you would at least have understood my position before responding.
As it happens, I agree that some of Trump's picks have been clearly unfit for their positions.
But your comment illustrates another of my key concerns. Why are modern-day Democrats and progressives so viscerally intolerant of any view that does not echo their preferred talking points? What a great way not to persuade anyone who isn't already fully persuaded.
Regardless, thanks for posting.
That’s what many fail to see. Is you look past the boisterous personality, he’s Bill Clinton in a red hat with a more likable wife. There haven’t been any crazy policies, gay marriage hasn’t been banned, and abortion I’d still legal.
Clinton was 30 years ago! Even Obama was first elected more than 15 years ago.
So the country should go way more left by default? There's no logic in saying Clinton was 30 years ago so some guy with similar policies is far right.
No. I was replying to someone that wrote Clinton was pres 15 years ago. If that was you that pArt was deleted. If it was your comment, you must've corrected that part. I was attempting to point out how very long this slide into anti-worker, pro-elitist policy has inflicted the national Democratic party.
I didn't edit mine, but I agree with your point. People have gotten more liberal in the last 30 years, but the party went off it's rocker. MO used to be a bellweather. We now have legal weed, legal sports betting, and every other legal protection for any disadvantaged group that exist elsewhere, but now it's predominately Red come election time. We don't have a bunch of new staunch conservatives, the democrats just left their voters behind that they took for granted.
Well, my mistake. I'm not sure who I was trying to reply to then.
where were you living in 2010 and was it under a rock
England has had the same two parties alternating in power for the last hundred years, and two different parties for the hundred years before that. It’s likely that our current two will be wiped out in the next election. Unfortunately, we’ll probably have a more extreme party next time, but I am hopeful that a centrist party will emerge too.
The first-past-the-post system makes it hard for new parties to become established, but combining that with a presidential system makes it almost impossible.
I am you, you are me.
Great post! I would only add to the section on American's resentment of hedge fund managers and billionaires that highly engaged Democrats have trouble recognizing other forms of elite resentment (namely that directed towards themselves). Around 25% of US adults have a bachelor's degree and earn more than $50,000 per year. Likely most reading this are included in this group (myself included).
These people are in a very real sense elite, both by virtue of their income and stability (personal and intergenerational). The bottom 75% certainly resent millionaires and billionaires to a degree, but they also resent these educated upper middle class people (PMC, symbolic capitalists, etc.) - think of those at the 80th or 90th percentile - who dominate the Democratic party. Not only politicians, but their staffers, donors, and volunteers are drawn overwhelmingly from this group. It's a problem that the Democratic party is so much more attuned to the views of these people (e.g., identity politics) than the rest of the Democratic coalition. We don't have to cease to exist, but a little humility and honest self-appraisal are in order.
Democrats not only underestimate the degree of elite resentment directed their way.
Democrats also compound the problem by calling Americans who resent elites (eg white working class) “privileged,” and telling them that most of those elites (eg black millionaires, rich South Asian tech bros, PoC Ivy-League grads, gay media execs, old-money WASP women) are the *real* oppressed class.
She was never selected by her party or by the American public through an objective, fair, and democratic process. So much for the democratic party being democratic. I hope we never have to deal with the possibility of an unelected candidate, simply propped up and promoted by their party.
Ummm, she was VP. She won through a democratic process, meaning enough people had confidence she was qualified to be president.
Ah, yes, I recall when Dan Quayle won through a democratic process, meaning enough people had confidence he was qualified to be president.
The point stands.
Yes the point on your head still stands. She has not received a single vote in her own. She was propped up. You’re a coward for. It admitting that and trying to question it.
What are you even talking about?
Harris got trounced in the primary and withdrew early, she was later selected by Biden as VP specifically because she's a black woman.
In what world does that count as "winning through the democratic process"?
Elections matter.
Exactly! And it's why she lost. Because she wasn't selected by ANY democratic process. She was annointed by a deeply unpopular, mentally unfit outgoing president and she never recovered from it.
Ok hon
Low effort trolling hun
I see the same mistake made again, "enforcing the border" sounds good but does little. It's the interior that needs enforcing. As long is there is no deportation you in effect have open borders. Democrats have to support enforcing the interior, humanely, but also expeditiously and uniformly. And don't supplement with millions of work visas. When incomes return to where they should have been all along we can revisit.
THIS.^^^
“ But only a minority of Americans favor the cruel chase for illegal immigrants on which top administration officials have publicly prided themselves.”
What the fuck did Americans supposedly think? That it was ok to turn illegals away at the border, but once they’re here it’s not ok to deport them? Why on earth would this be the case?
Making the employer also responsible would help a lot. . The pull comes from being able to come here and work.
💯
Massive fines and prison time for hiring illegals. No mercy.
Some other senator with the first name Bernie is trying to bring up a bill saying just that. At first I thought Bernie Sanders, but no, another Bernie.
The Republican house side came up with a very good proposed bill last sesion. It had increasingly severe penalties so that at first employers could just pay a fine, but they knew that things would get progressively more expensive.
Every employer files 941s, many bi weekly, and they are by social security number. No one cheats on 941s because it's how the workers comp people track you, and if you cheat on on comp you really can go to jail, lose your house, etc. Judges frown on workers comp cheats. Obviously I used to be an employer.
At this point i think i just dont *trust* the democratic party. Their behavior since the election makes me feel this way. For instance, i keep hearing comments like "when the democrats are in power, theyll do these same crazy ass things trumps doing, to the republicans", and i think thats probably right. I dont want to go back to 20-24 when you had to watch every little thing you said, lest someones feelings get hurt. When trump won(which i did not want to happen) you could feel that pressure lift. If dems plan to ratchet up their bs if they win, i want nothing to do with that. And ik alot of folks who feel the same way.
We need a candidate who isnt a coward. Do the dems even have one of those?
Agreed. When Trump is in charge, you can criticize anything, except Israel. When democrats are in charge, you can criticize nothing, except white men.
I didn’t vote for Harris or Trump and have no regrets about that decision. Even as the Republican train goes off the rails driven by an increasingly insane engineer my former party the Democratic Party sinks even deeper. The Democrats lost in 2024 and will continue to lose in the future because of one reason. They have lost the support of the American working class.The historic Democratic icons FDR, and JFK would laugh at what passes for policy in their beloved party. Although they were upper class they understood that victory for their party depended on appealing to working class voters. Current party leaders distain the “deplorable” and “racist” members of the working class. Working class Americans hate many of the policies foisted on them by Democrats.
Here’s a laundry list of things for Democrats to keep and to dump if they ever want to win again nationwide.
Keep a woman’s right to choose for the first trimester. Dump abortion until birth unless the mother’s health is at risk or the fetus is not viable.
Keep a concern for climate change and grow energy efficiency and nuclear power. Dump intermittent, unreliable renewable energy that relies on using expensive batteries or natural gas generators. Germany has destroyed its industry with this approach.
Keep and develop new effective vaccines. Dump vaccine mandates and allow individuals to decide.
Keep equality of opportunity for all. Dump equity of results based on discriminating on the basis of race and sex because in the past we discriminated on the basis of race and sex.
Keep the protection of gay, lesbian, and trans rights. Dump men in women’s sports, private spaces and prisons and the mutilation of children in pursuit of the impossible.
Keep an opportunity for selective high value immigration. Dump sanctuary cities and open borders.
Keep helping the homeless find jobs, mental health assistance and a place to live. Dump camping in cities, shitting in our streets and allowing open drug use.
Keep a concern for due process in criminal justice. Dump letting shoplifters and other petty thieves off the hook and allowing violent criminals loose prior to trial.
Do all of the above and you might find your way back to power.
While you’re correct, the army of loyal foot soldiers they’ve enlisted take many of those things to be so sacred that they can’t be compromised with. Is the religion of millions, while being ridiculous and unfeasible to the vast majority of either party. Your proposals resonate with most voters, but will get you shouted off the stage in a room full of young democrats.
So you want the Democratic Party to become literally nazist,-:) /s
Yes, because the Nazis famously tolerated and supported trans adults (just not them playing sports)
And they couldnt get enough of the gays- THEY were their faves- especially Goebbel's. also the NDSP shouldn't have invested so aggressively in green energy. Not to mention the brownshirts very well known off-the-streets and into mental health supports and safe and secure housing programs. That was like Heydrich's favorite thing.
Ha!
I'm good with all of that except vaccine mandates - not for the overblown Covid vaccine mandate these years later - but for stuff like Measles for kids.
The thing about a reasonable platform is that the disagreement is also reasonable. That makes progress far more possible than militant loyalty to incredibly stupid policies like we're currently seeing.
Bill nails it. Again.
https://x.com/jasonjournodc/status/1971911223953285547?s=46&t=U7laPY1hHEa798qtlcpDpA
You have a simplistic view of what Democrats stand for.
Catharine: I am a simple man. What is your complex view of what they stand for if you can articulate it?
I will begin with the simple math of the reality that not voting for Harris ended up being a de facto vote for Drumpf. So I see that you are part of our current problem. That you have no regrets is very telling.
I'd love to do a point by point, but it's impossible to quote paragraphs within a comment.
I will try a couple:
You say okay to 1st trimester abortions and no for remainder unless woman's or fetus' health in danger. Major problem: who decides? Women are bleeding out in hospital parking lots because of draconian laws that prosecute doctors if they perform an abortion in the second and third trimester unless the woman's life is in danger. Where do you draw the line?? I'm countless women have died in states that have these laws.
Your idea for Dems to dump vaccine mandates. This is where we are going now. This is anti-science and dangerous. For example, MMR vaccine has saved countless lives. So has the polio vaccine. With no mandates and massive scary misinformation, fewer children get vaccinated. Herd immunity disappears. Not only do regular unvaccinated kids get these preventable diseases, with many getting sick, having lifelong illnesses, or dying - but so do immunocompromised people who cannot tolerate vaccines.
Get the picture? Simplistic "solutions" can have complicated consequences.
Cathrine: Thanks for your response. Do you really believe that abortion up to birth on a personal whim is politically acceptable?
My two college roommates both suffered from polio as children and their lives were irreparably damaged and shortened as a result. I am myself vaxxed up. Certainly adults should be able to make the decision for themselves and suffer the consequences.
Newsflash dear Dave! NO ONE has an abortion, especially after the first trimester, on a "personal whim" - there will be a deep and thought out reason. It is an incredibly traumatic experience similar to a natural miscarriage. Ask any woman who has experienced both.
Most preventive vaccines happen in childhood. I am sorry for anyone who had to experience polio. There is NO excuse now.
As for adults making there own decisions and suffering the results if they don't get COVID, flu or other vaccines: all fine EXCEPT for those who are immunocompromised like the elderly, those unable to be vaxxed, etc. We get vaxxed not just for ourselves, but also for our neighbors so we don't pass illnesses on to them.
Catherine: Newsflash dearest C. After the first trimester she has a baby not a clump of cells. Maybe she should have completed her “deep” thinking during the first three months of pregnancy.
As to mandatory vaccinations. The Covid vaccine didn’t stop the spread of the virus only its deadliness. Digging in your heals on these and similar issues will only guarantee more Trumps.
Many good ideas here for Democrats in terms of doing better in future conventional elections. Sadly, however, Trump is NOT "squandering" his opportunity for political realignment. He is well on the way to transforming the entire political system into one in which he is above the law, in which he controls the elections, and therefore his 'enemies' simply cannot win elections, no matter how the majority of Americans feel or vote.
The majority of Americans voted for him and approve of what he is doing. He pushes the courts, and then abides by their decisions, while he appeals. O'Biden never did that.
He got more votes than Obama. Contrary to popular desire by his haters, his popularity is holding its own. The number of Bidens that Biden pardoned is that many more people than the number of Trump’s political prisoners he had to pardon. Simply hating Trump is useless at this point. Until the D’s figure that out and try to get some political wins by working with him, they’re just racing to the bottom.
Did the majority of voting age Americans even vote? Recent polls show him at 29% approval.
Look at the dems approval rate
I am aware. It’s not relevant to whether “the majority of the population” approves of Trump. But you know that.
I used majority in the same sense as the previous commenter. If you don't like my polling data, I can share the only poll that matters to me; I like what he's doing. Cheers
LOL
Nonsense! Drumpf does NOT abide by courts' decisions.
The majority did not vote for him. He won a bare plurality. The majority do NOT approve of what he is doing. Only a vast majority of Republicans.
And even LESS voted blue. Why don’t Dems get that? If he’s so horrible - you all were even more horrible. This is what she’s trying to say - stop gaslighting yourselves. Face reality. Then change. You can’t change what you won’t acknowledge.
"Drumpf"
Not true! You are really far down a strange rabbit hole ...
There's been a lot of discussion recently about finding a "left-wing Joe Rogan". It occurs to me that an equally pressing matter should be finding a "left-wing Charlie Kirk".
Democrats are very much NOT in the habit of going into ideologically hostile spaces and saying "Change my mind" or "Prove me wrong". They aren't in the habit of using FACTS and LOGIC to OWN those who disagree. That leaves their ideas untested and weak.
It's not that the Democrat positions are wrong. It's that they haven't been workshopped for a broad audience. Dems are in the habit of talking to each other a bunch, and excluding everyone who disagrees. Then, when it comes time for election season, they pivot and start knocking on doors furiously. (I live in a swing state. Last November we had 3 left-wing canvassers knock on our door in a single day. I ended up taping a sign to the door, threatening to vote for Trump if they bothered us any further.)
What the Democrats need to realize is that canvassing, phone banking, TV ads, and so forth which get deployed during election season are just the tip of the pyramid. The base of the pyramid is the sort of conversations Charlie Kirk had. Every day, he practiced selling conservative ideas to voters who were not at all committed to the Republican party. And sure enough, young people started flipping to the right.
Democrats used to be really good at the whole FACTS and LOGIC thing. Read this book for instance: https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Observations-Arguments-Hendrik-Hertzberg/dp/0143035533/ It's very sad to see how far they have fallen.
For the love of god, you had a left Joe Rogan. He was Joe Rogan! He endorsed Bernie 2020. Repeatedly he stated he supported national healthcare for all and free college. But the left spurned him over and over for his normal stance on trans issues. This type of thing is why the trannies drag down democrats , they’re repeatedly prioritized over much bigger issues.
"Finding" those types is nearly impossible. The reason Charlie was so influential was because he was authentic. The reason Rogan is so successful is because he's organic and authentic. Much like Kamala's rallies compared to Trump's, authenticity is severely lacking by "finding" people to fill the voids.
Kirk "authentic"?!?! Yes, for sure. He was a super authentic racist, misogynist, xenophobe, white nationalist, etc., etc.
His ideology was NOT conservative. It was radical right-wing nut bar grievance territory.
What was the most radical thing he believed? Do you have any idea?
Not a chance, but somebody told her he was awful and that's enough. Hating people because somebody else told you to is the least informed kind of discourse possible.
A few more from The Guardian:
Kirk spent much of his adult life defending and articulating a worldview aligned with Trump and the Maga movement. Accountable to no one but his audience, he did not shy away in his rhetoric from bigotry, intolerance, exclusion and stereotyping.
Here’s Kirk, in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative media.
On race
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022
Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023
How about:
Kirk invoked a Bible verse about stoning gay people "to death" on a June 2024 episode of his podcast with Jack Posobiec, calling it "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters."
I guess you didn't see this claim has already been debunked. Stop letting other people do your thinking for you.
Stephen King Apologizes For Charlie Kirk "Stoning Gays To Death" Claim https://share.google/2mAHZ9AxN9kbs6v4E
A few more:
In a February 2024 Instagram post, Kirk referred to the "great replacement" conspiracy theory (which has been widely debunked), suggesting undocumented immigrants are coming to the U.S. to replace white Americans. [There was more to it than that, but this is an example.]
Empathy and debate
On the Oct. 12, 2022, episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, Kirk discussed how former U.S. president Bill Clinton used empathy and sympathy as a political strategy. In an aside, Kirk went off on the term empathy.
"I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made up new age term that does a lot of damage."
He also didn't believe there was EVER a valid medical reason for abortion.
He believed that wives should always submit to their husband.
There were many things.
How about this quote from Snopes to show it was fact checked:
Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder Charlie Kirk said of gun deaths on April 5, 2023, "I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
Rating: Correct Attribution
I say, tell that to children traumatized by frequent school shootings and even more frequent drills. Tell that to their families. How about victims of other mass shootings? Losing their lives is "worth it"???
I say this statement of Kirk is heartless.
I don't have a clue. I didn't read anywhere near all of his unhinged pronouncements. I read some of his statements and stopped because they were so egregious. That he thought it was a great idea to kill unhoused people, just shoot them, was certainly a game stopper for me.
Do you have a quote from Kirk sayjng homeless people should be shot? I can’t find one by googling. So far, everything I’ve been able to hear from him since he died is just normal conservative stuff.
Thank you for correcting me. Sorry I can't find it nor can I edit my post.
It was actually Brian Kilmeade of FOX entertainment who thought "homeless" should be killed. I don't know why I conflated the two.
The book is non-serious because Harris is a non-serious and not very bright person. She was chosen by the Democratic Party elite for her ideological purity, and no other reason. The Republicans have a simple tag line that will guarantee votes for the next several elections. ‘Democrats don’t know the difference between boys and girls.’ The author of this essay is correct that Democrats have completely lost the middle class, but all they need to do to get it back is admit women and men aren’t the same, and promise effective health care reform. It’s really that simple.
Good grief! So many trolls, so little time ...
Yascha. I think that you are underestimating how much the “senior bonus deduction” will matter to lower income retirees “But that is not how Trump has governed so far. His budget may have included a few shrewd concessions to aspirational voters, such as exempting tips from income tax; on the whole, it was an exercise in redistribution from the bottom to the top.” Elderly taxpayers face one of the largest and most regressive tax increases as Social Security income becomes taxable at very low thresholds. While this is purported to be temporary, the number of people impacted is immense and growing daily. These people vote and have a lot at stake. I doubt that it will be temporary or that Democrats will argue for taking it away.
2024 was similar in pattern to 1968 for the Democrats: an incapacitated President suddenly withdraws, imposes on the Party his unpopular Vice President who never bothers to win votes in any primary and who never distances from unpopular policies (Vietnam; the open Border) , and the result is a humiliating defeat by a Republican Darth Vader.☹️
And the way things are going among the Democrats, we’re headed in 2028 for something like a replay of 1972: the dominance of leftist identity politics in tbe Party and hence the nomination of an unelectable “woke” candidate for President, and a slaughter at the polls. Hence: Hello President Vance (or Rubio). 🙁
I recall that Humphrey was extremely popular. Johnson's legacy (ie the war) made it impossible for him.
Why not both? I doubt it will take less than twelve years for a reset to occur. If Biden was Carter, we have another decade and change of republican presidents.