"If Democrats ever win a trifecta again, they’ll have to pass significant, by today’s standards, radical reform to ensure that no one else can rise in Trump’s image and so weaponize the federal government. "
I think that is a big part of our problem. Always having to fix horrendous destruction in the Republican’s wake. We never get a chance to do the Real progressive things (and campaigning on those) when we are always patching and bailing out the boat. Once in power, we barely have enough bodies to stuff into holes, let alone reshape the social contract.
Winning (or as often, losing) elections 51/49 doesn’t help. We valiantly save the ship but can’t get much beyond that mode. Dem govts. are constantly attacked and thwarted simply through ill will and bad faith…gummed up or sabotaged merely through dirty tricks by an (often) treasonous opposition.
Now that Rs have broken everything, our campaigning shouldn’t be about ‘ending abuses’ and ‘repairing and restoring’. It needs to be emphasized what large, bold, improvements we would be making. Reshaping the healthcare system, housing and land use, new trade agreements, REAL re-shoring of industry, new energy policies and green power jobs. Getting billionaires and unlimited international dark money from foreign oligarchs out of campaigns.
Promise these things with newer candidates that truly mean it and will follow through. Doesn’t mean they will achieve all these goals. It’s campaigning. It’s winning elections. You have to bribe and excite people.
THEN you can work ruthlessly on making a better governement rather than putting everything back exactly where it was…taped and glued back together…just in time to get voted out again 51/49.
Indeed. I don’t think reopening the government works if Trump is allowed to continue to spend funds solely as he sees fit, without regard to Congressionally mandated appropriations. To me, ending recessions is as important as restoring healthcare subsidies, maybe more so, because people will feel the pain from losing healthcare and will hopefully vote accordingly, whereas the rescissions issue is probably too inside baseball.
I am not from Maine, so I don’t know how his campaign is resonating up in Maine, but as much as I was first taken in by Platner, I am also now questioning whether he has what it takes to be in the United States Senate.
The Portland Press Herald reports that Genevieve McDonald resigned from her post as campaign director yesterday, saying that the views expressed weren’t values she could stand behind.
“The words we choose to use online reflect who we are and what we stand for. While I am empathetic to Graham’s experiences and respect his personal journey and growth, I cannot overlook the volume and nature of his past comments, many of which were made as an adult, not as a young man.” McDonald said in her resignation letter.
Posts made by the senate candidate years ago on Reddit resurfaced this past week, and included controversial takes on a range of topics from police to sexual assault in the military.
“Rape is a real thing,” he wrote in a post back in 2013. “If you’re so worried about it to buy Kevlar underwear you’d think you might not get blacked out fcked up around people you aren’t comfortable with.”*
Platner defended himself by saying that he made those comments while he was going through a dark period in his life after returning home from serving in the Marines in Afghanistan.
“I felt immensely disillusioned. I felt immensely angry, and very lonely and isolated. And I spent a long time searching,” Platner told CBS 13. “I found solace on frankly getting in fights on the internet, because I was alone.”
The one north/south highway in Belize stops here in PG Town , beyond here is miles of jungle then Guatemala. I like saying that time doesn’t exist here because the tall clock tower in the town square has 4 clocks on it. None have worked for years and all show a different time.
I’m going to give the Democratic establishment the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe they saw the myriad issues with Platner before it broke into the public sphere and were preparing accordingly. I try not to have a jaundiced eye towards them because of the Mamdani situation, but it’s difficult. And while Mills may be the better candidate, it’s not great she’s already ruled out abolishing the filibuster.
Yes. But this time, I think is different. Because the job requires not a touch up, but a complete overhaul.
And if that overall includes making DC a state, reforming SCOTUS, perhaps abolishing the Electoral College, restoring voting rights, overturning Citizens United, these changes would in and of themselves naturally lead to more progressive governance.
But, also, while we’re reforming the pillars of government and democracy, surely there would still be time to press for universal healthcare, stronger unions, aggressive action on climate change, and other issues on our wish list.
Of course, will that opportunity ever present itself, and if/when it does, will our leaders be bold enough to seize the opportunity?
I have a solution. Amend the constitution. Pass a universal right to vote amendment and the ERA. Get rid of the Senate and the electoral college. Expand the House of Representatives and draw districts, as as far as possible, based on a grid, or some unbiased statistical “tiling” algorithm.
Otherwise fuck you! Your party’s not the victim here.
