Democrats didn't just win a few House seats in Virginia. They also showed they can be a different kind of party, and the future may be better because of it.
Warriors was a great movie. Good choice for illustration. I would like to point out as a Texas Democrat that it was us who stood up and fought back which initiated the Democratic gerrymander uprising. We led the way, backed up by Governors Pritzker and Newsome. The leadership to fight Republicans is in the states, not in DC. After all, Republicans' power base was in the states. Now that Republicans have taken over Washington, Democrats can attack them in the states.
It would be more enlightening for American voters if there were more reporting (present company excluded) on the battle for Texas which is happening right now. I really do not think people appreciate how freaked out Republicans here are now that they screwed up with their dummymander, Latinos are over them, and rural Republicans are extremely angry about school vouchers.
Talaricio is not alone. He is heading up a very robust and credible to everyday voters ticket of Democrats. We may not win everything here, but as our young, progressive Texas Democratic Chair promises, Republicans are going to have to fight for every vote.
Would like to point out that the picture made it clear that only one of those people was able to do the hero's walk in a split skirt and heels, illustrative of the fact that the democrats currently most clearly possessed of the warrior spirt tend to be the females. Weird, that.
>> You donβt have to tell Democrats in Congress that their base is angry; they know it all too well, and you can see it in the fact that every Democrat now says theyβre a βfighterβ who will βfightβ Trump with all the fightinβ fightingness they can muster.
LOL!
I have hated politicians using this f-word since forever. Talk about cheapening the language.
Agree. It's meaningless bullshit language that their talking points team probably throws out after looking at poll data. "Fight" - what does that even mean? Fight *for what*?? Develop an agenda, sell it to the people. It's politics 101. Instead, they want to maintain status quo that is super duper clearly not working for the people of the country.
βNow imagine if, when Republicans sent Merrick Garlandβs nomination to purgatory in early 2016, every Democratic leader said publicly and privately, βIf you donβt immediately move this nomination through the process, we make you this promise: The second we have control of Congress and the White House, we will add four seats to the Supreme Court, all of which will be filled by the Democratic president.ββ
Obama's failure to lead the Democratic Party in a fight-to-the-death over the Republicans' refusal to hold hearings on Garland'sl nomination was one of the greatest political mistakes of his Presidency, and in American history. Not only did it allow the Republicans to consolidate their (Federalist Society-engineered) majority on the Court, it signaled to the body politic that the Democrats were incapable of offering even the most pathetic of defenses against Republican assaults on the rule of law. It is a bitter historic irony that Obama then went on to compound this mistake by refusing to do whatever he needed to do to get his failed nominee Garland, now Attorney General, to indict Trump immediately for January 6th. What I would give to see the sniveling memos that passed through the Obama administration that allowed Garland to sit on his ass until it was too late to stop Trump from getting re-elected.
It is encouraging to see Democrats around the country finally getting a little backbone. But we should never forget, nor forgive, Obama and all the other Democratic leaders whose failure to act kept Garland off the court, and who then turned around and failed to put Trump in jail.
I'm on your wavelength here, Richard, but I feel oblged to point out that BIDEN brought Merrick Garland back from limbo to shine Republican Doc Martens.
I'm opposed to looking back and seeing who didn't have the gumption to respond in kind. I'm more intent on using the 'disgust' of voters and encouraging an intent to vote for change. I think that's the word I got from running a Voter Registration booth at the Open Food Market all last summer in Cheboygan. Also, these new apps are so fucking easy to register to vote. And, note: we voted by phone at the Michigan Nominating Convention this year. Just think how easy it would be to do a State Nominating Committee meeting online, followed by every registered Democrat voting from home!...
it is just barely possible the Democrats are betting on "democracy" prevailing. I think they missed the bus. but dont' forget the "progressives" who sat on their hands so they wouldn't get the dirty by voting for the lesser of two evils. Moreover, the rest of us have not yet realized how evil the greater evil is. We have done nothing but march and chand while they murder people in broad daylight and commit worse crimes against children.
Sorry, but I'll believe the enthusiasm of this column once more evidence is in. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. The Democrats have taken far too long to realize that when you fight with pigs you have to get in the mud. And Michelle Obama did not help matters with her lofty rhetoric "when they go low, we go high". Democrats have to stop swearing and start acting like fighters. I will never get the image of the pathetic Chuck Schumer pumping his fist in the air chanting "we will win!, we will win!" out of my head.
looks like you are right. i just read (glanced at) a report that a judge has denied Virginia the right to enact it's redistricting. you can't have a democracy when the judges are bought at a dime store. I am not sure the mud would have helped. but a back bone and eyes might have.
EXCELLENT column, again Paul, and THANKS for your therapeutic sarcasm accurately spearing our timid Myron Poindexter "they go low, we go high" Dems who think they can "forge consensus" with lunatic Republicans who have nothing but scorn for fussy ditherers like Charles Schumer. It's like handling venomous snakes now for Dems to "work with" Republicans who are NEVER dealing in good faith. We might as well try to smuggle a baby wolverine through customs by stuffing it in our undershorts.
I personally soured on Obama when he allowed McConnell to steal the Scalia SCOTUS appointment. Agreed, in hindsight, that Merrick Garland would have been a pushover simp if confirmed. Garland would have voted to torpedo Roe v Wade based on some dusty legal arcana just to demonstrate "balance" to bloodthirsty conservatives who will still steal his lunch money and beat him up.
Obama should have just decreed that the Senate had waived its "Advise & Consent" option, and that Garland could move into Scalia's chambers & start working. Of course the Republicans would have screamed, but you know, "suck it, Republicans". This was a SHAMEFUL capitulation on Obama's part, and has done incalculable HARM to live humans subsequently degraded & oppressed by feudal/ Fascist SCOTUS & the venomous MAGA hordes now plundering with wild abandon.
Every Dem candidate choking my text inbox insists that they're going to "Fight" on my behalf once I cough up donations daily & help elect them. Talk about "assuming facts not in evidence."
I think the democrats didn't do this before because the headship saw the people to the left and advocating for lessening inequality as the larger threat than the republicans. That's starting to change I guess
I can't say for sure that I understand what you are saying. But I will try to point out that the "tax the rich" meme assures, first, stupidity in regard to Social Security which we can fix immediately just by demanding the congress let us continue to pay for it ourselves, as our parents and grandparents did, to the great success of Social Security by preventing from becoming just another line item in the budget. Second, yelling tax the rich just assures that even the sane rich will fight tooth and nail to defeat us and make sure no sensible solution to any problem is ever reached.
Oh I was just saying that the democratic leadership's goals had been out of alignment with the base for sometime. They didn't see their Republicans as enemies so they extended them good faith.
I canβt comprehend why California and Virginia made their redistrictings *temporary*, presumably reverting back to non-partisan commissions after the 2030 census. Are they assuming that red states will do the same? Of course they wonβt! Coupled with the likely overturning of Section 2 of the Civil Rights Act, allowing Republicans to eliminate Black opportunity districts, Republicans will seize absolute control of the House after 2030.
Term limits seem kind of βweakβ to me. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett are all going to be on the court for a long time yet with 18 year term limits. Maybe also put in hard rules regulating the ethics of the supreme court, which Alito and Thomas, at least, just might be afoul of. Less incentive for someone like them to ever appear on the court again. And or hard rules requiring a certain level of experience in practicing law, which someone like Kavanaugh, or any other hack political appointee might not have the right stuff for. And what about the myriad of awful decisions sullying the process of voting passed down by conservative majorities over the years from Buckley v Valeo through Citizens United all the way up through to today. A horrifying backlog that has weakened the Democratic party by weakening democracy.
The Democrats, and democrats, principle was never that the Republicans can gerrymander as much as possible, and the Democrats can never gerrymander. This was never the principal. The principal was and is to make the country as democratic as possible, and if the Republicans are gerrymandering as much as they possibly can, then the country is more democratic if the democrats gerrymander in return, so that the legislature then on net more closely reflects the percentage of voters for each party.
And of course, unilateral disarmament is the best way to make sure that the authoritarian Republicans end democracy completely. Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good in this case can mean the difference between being Putinβs Russia, and an imperfect but first world democracy.
Democrats have a problem with looking weak, but they do not have just one problem. So, we will be substantially less likely to save democracy, if we assume that because the party has other problems, we could ignore the problems of taking very unpopular left-wing positions. Those positions can cost several points in elections, if not more. They can make the difference between, oh. just one example, Trump winning In 2016, when the difference was about 50,000 votes, or even in 2024 when the difference was about two percentage points.
G Elliott Morris is absolutely wrong on this, and is not a good source. Crucial elections are often very close, and these unpopular positions can make the difference easily.
Warriors was a great movie. Good choice for illustration. I would like to point out as a Texas Democrat that it was us who stood up and fought back which initiated the Democratic gerrymander uprising. We led the way, backed up by Governors Pritzker and Newsome. The leadership to fight Republicans is in the states, not in DC. After all, Republicans' power base was in the states. Now that Republicans have taken over Washington, Democrats can attack them in the states.
It would be more enlightening for American voters if there were more reporting (present company excluded) on the battle for Texas which is happening right now. I really do not think people appreciate how freaked out Republicans here are now that they screwed up with their dummymander, Latinos are over them, and rural Republicans are extremely angry about school vouchers.
Talaricio is not alone. He is heading up a very robust and credible to everyday voters ticket of Democrats. We may not win everything here, but as our young, progressive Texas Democratic Chair promises, Republicans are going to have to fight for every vote.
Would like to point out that the picture made it clear that only one of those people was able to do the hero's walk in a split skirt and heels, illustrative of the fact that the democrats currently most clearly possessed of the warrior spirt tend to be the females. Weird, that.
When snark begins to bite...
>> You donβt have to tell Democrats in Congress that their base is angry; they know it all too well, and you can see it in the fact that every Democrat now says theyβre a βfighterβ who will βfightβ Trump with all the fightinβ fightingness they can muster.
LOL!
I have hated politicians using this f-word since forever. Talk about cheapening the language.
Couldnβt agree more! When I hear a politician say they are βfightingβ for something I turn away.
Agree. It's meaningless bullshit language that their talking points team probably throws out after looking at poll data. "Fight" - what does that even mean? Fight *for what*?? Develop an agenda, sell it to the people. It's politics 101. Instead, they want to maintain status quo that is super duper clearly not working for the people of the country.
βNow imagine if, when Republicans sent Merrick Garlandβs nomination to purgatory in early 2016, every Democratic leader said publicly and privately, βIf you donβt immediately move this nomination through the process, we make you this promise: The second we have control of Congress and the White House, we will add four seats to the Supreme Court, all of which will be filled by the Democratic president.ββ
Amen, Paul!
Obama's failure to lead the Democratic Party in a fight-to-the-death over the Republicans' refusal to hold hearings on Garland'sl nomination was one of the greatest political mistakes of his Presidency, and in American history. Not only did it allow the Republicans to consolidate their (Federalist Society-engineered) majority on the Court, it signaled to the body politic that the Democrats were incapable of offering even the most pathetic of defenses against Republican assaults on the rule of law. It is a bitter historic irony that Obama then went on to compound this mistake by refusing to do whatever he needed to do to get his failed nominee Garland, now Attorney General, to indict Trump immediately for January 6th. What I would give to see the sniveling memos that passed through the Obama administration that allowed Garland to sit on his ass until it was too late to stop Trump from getting re-elected.
It is encouraging to see Democrats around the country finally getting a little backbone. But we should never forget, nor forgive, Obama and all the other Democratic leaders whose failure to act kept Garland off the court, and who then turned around and failed to put Trump in jail.
I'm on your wavelength here, Richard, but I feel oblged to point out that BIDEN brought Merrick Garland back from limbo to shine Republican Doc Martens.
I'm opposed to looking back and seeing who didn't have the gumption to respond in kind. I'm more intent on using the 'disgust' of voters and encouraging an intent to vote for change. I think that's the word I got from running a Voter Registration booth at the Open Food Market all last summer in Cheboygan. Also, these new apps are so fucking easy to register to vote. And, note: we voted by phone at the Michigan Nominating Convention this year. Just think how easy it would be to do a State Nominating Committee meeting online, followed by every registered Democrat voting from home!...
Richard
it is just barely possible the Democrats are betting on "democracy" prevailing. I think they missed the bus. but dont' forget the "progressives" who sat on their hands so they wouldn't get the dirty by voting for the lesser of two evils. Moreover, the rest of us have not yet realized how evil the greater evil is. We have done nothing but march and chand while they murder people in broad daylight and commit worse crimes against children.
Sorry, but I'll believe the enthusiasm of this column once more evidence is in. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut now and then. The Democrats have taken far too long to realize that when you fight with pigs you have to get in the mud. And Michelle Obama did not help matters with her lofty rhetoric "when they go low, we go high". Democrats have to stop swearing and start acting like fighters. I will never get the image of the pathetic Chuck Schumer pumping his fist in the air chanting "we will win!, we will win!" out of my head.
Cindy
looks like you are right. i just read (glanced at) a report that a judge has denied Virginia the right to enact it's redistricting. you can't have a democracy when the judges are bought at a dime store. I am not sure the mud would have helped. but a back bone and eyes might have.
EXCELLENT column, again Paul, and THANKS for your therapeutic sarcasm accurately spearing our timid Myron Poindexter "they go low, we go high" Dems who think they can "forge consensus" with lunatic Republicans who have nothing but scorn for fussy ditherers like Charles Schumer. It's like handling venomous snakes now for Dems to "work with" Republicans who are NEVER dealing in good faith. We might as well try to smuggle a baby wolverine through customs by stuffing it in our undershorts.
I personally soured on Obama when he allowed McConnell to steal the Scalia SCOTUS appointment. Agreed, in hindsight, that Merrick Garland would have been a pushover simp if confirmed. Garland would have voted to torpedo Roe v Wade based on some dusty legal arcana just to demonstrate "balance" to bloodthirsty conservatives who will still steal his lunch money and beat him up.
Obama should have just decreed that the Senate had waived its "Advise & Consent" option, and that Garland could move into Scalia's chambers & start working. Of course the Republicans would have screamed, but you know, "suck it, Republicans". This was a SHAMEFUL capitulation on Obama's part, and has done incalculable HARM to live humans subsequently degraded & oppressed by feudal/ Fascist SCOTUS & the venomous MAGA hordes now plundering with wild abandon.
Every Dem candidate choking my text inbox insists that they're going to "Fight" on my behalf once I cough up donations daily & help elect them. Talk about "assuming facts not in evidence."
I think the democrats didn't do this before because the headship saw the people to the left and advocating for lessening inequality as the larger threat than the republicans. That's starting to change I guess
Banji
I can't say for sure that I understand what you are saying. But I will try to point out that the "tax the rich" meme assures, first, stupidity in regard to Social Security which we can fix immediately just by demanding the congress let us continue to pay for it ourselves, as our parents and grandparents did, to the great success of Social Security by preventing from becoming just another line item in the budget. Second, yelling tax the rich just assures that even the sane rich will fight tooth and nail to defeat us and make sure no sensible solution to any problem is ever reached.
Oh I was just saying that the democratic leadership's goals had been out of alignment with the base for sometime. They didn't see their Republicans as enemies so they extended them good faith.
About social security and taxes I agree with you.
yeah,something like that. it seems to me the R's tell us to be bad, and the D's tell us to be good. But they are both lying.
Absolutely. Make the Supreme Court legit again.
I canβt comprehend why California and Virginia made their redistrictings *temporary*, presumably reverting back to non-partisan commissions after the 2030 census. Are they assuming that red states will do the same? Of course they wonβt! Coupled with the likely overturning of Section 2 of the Civil Rights Act, allowing Republicans to eliminate Black opportunity districts, Republicans will seize absolute control of the House after 2030.
Thanks Cynthia for the back story on Texas gerrymandering. Thatβs some good news that has gotten buried under the MAGA onslaught so strong in Texas.
Term limits seem kind of βweakβ to me. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett are all going to be on the court for a long time yet with 18 year term limits. Maybe also put in hard rules regulating the ethics of the supreme court, which Alito and Thomas, at least, just might be afoul of. Less incentive for someone like them to ever appear on the court again. And or hard rules requiring a certain level of experience in practicing law, which someone like Kavanaugh, or any other hack political appointee might not have the right stuff for. And what about the myriad of awful decisions sullying the process of voting passed down by conservative majorities over the years from Buckley v Valeo through Citizens United all the way up through to today. A horrifying backlog that has weakened the Democratic party by weakening democracy.
Warriors, come out to play! I knew the movie from that cut off Pic. One of my favorites in high school.
Thank you great article and I hope the Dems turn a corner with this or at least get replaced with someone that will
12 judges has a ring to it. Like 12 jurists. I don't know why I like 12, but it seems judicious...
Thirteen. One for each of the 13 Federal Circuit Courts (11 regional + Federal + DC). Also an odd number, so ties are less likely.
better to assure that nominees are not political hacks.
The Democrats, and democrats, principle was never that the Republicans can gerrymander as much as possible, and the Democrats can never gerrymander. This was never the principal. The principal was and is to make the country as democratic as possible, and if the Republicans are gerrymandering as much as they possibly can, then the country is more democratic if the democrats gerrymander in return, so that the legislature then on net more closely reflects the percentage of voters for each party.
And of course, unilateral disarmament is the best way to make sure that the authoritarian Republicans end democracy completely. Letting the perfect be the enemy of the good in this case can mean the difference between being Putinβs Russia, and an imperfect but first world democracy.
Democrats have a problem with looking weak, but they do not have just one problem. So, we will be substantially less likely to save democracy, if we assume that because the party has other problems, we could ignore the problems of taking very unpopular left-wing positions. Those positions can cost several points in elections, if not more. They can make the difference between, oh. just one example, Trump winning In 2016, when the difference was about 50,000 votes, or even in 2024 when the difference was about two percentage points.
G Elliott Morris is absolutely wrong on this, and is not a good source. Crucial elections are often very close, and these unpopular positions can make the difference easily.