Since the election of the Orange Man from Florida the DNC has been struggling with their message…..is it possible they could find it before the next election?
With an election coming soon I have been looking that the Dems and their party in the coming years.
Their biggest problem is they are mostly old farts….
A generational clash is intensifying within the Democratic Party, as younger politicians challenge a leadership class that some say refuses to cede power and risks alienating voters. Veteran lawmakers such as 88-year-old Eleanor Holmes Norton, DC’s delegate to the House of Representatives since 1991, and senators in their 70s and 80s remain fixtures in Congress—even as millennials and Generation Z members now outnumber baby boomers in the adult population but hold far fewer seats, reports Rebecca Traister for the Intelligencer. The article describes incidents such as lawmakers physically struggling to navigate the Capitol or missing votes due to illness, but then running again anyway. One former member tells of an older colleague who, when asked why he doesn’t retire, simply asked, “Well, what would I do?” The power struggle is playing out in races across the country.
In Maine, 77-year-old Gov. Janet Mills, hopes to become the oldest freshman ever elected to the Senate in her primary campaign against 41-year-old oyster farmer Graham Platner. In Massachusetts, Seth Moulton, 47, is challenging Sen. Ed Markey, 79, while in New York City, 34-year-old Zohran Mamdani ran against and defeated 67-year-old Andrew Cuomo and 71-year-old Curtis Sliwa for mayor. While some of the older Democrats are stepping aside—for example, ex-New Hampshire Rep. Annie Kuster and Minnesota Sen. Tina Smith—many aren’t. And some, like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, are seen as actively working to keep younger candidates from gaining power. “While the olds may think they are saving us by sticking around, what they are often doing is denying the future itself just when Americans most keenly long to be reminded that there is one ahead of us,” Traister writes.
So new ideas are in short supply.
Plus since the 1990s Dems have been corporate controlled….
This time analysts are saying that the Dems, who have been struggling with messaging, have found the hook they need…..and that message is economics.
Democrats say: “They’re spineless,” Cathia Krehbiel, 48, of Indianola, Iowa, said of her party’s leaders. “I just feel like there’s so much recently that’s just going abhorrently wrong. And they speak up a little bit and they roll right over.” Overall, roughly one-third of Democrats described their party negatively in the open-ended question. About 15% described it using words like weak, or apathetic, while an additional 10% believe it is broadly ineffective or disorganized. Only about 2 in 10 Democrats described their party positively, with roughly 1 in 10 saying it is empathetic or inclusive. An additional 1 in 10 used more general positive descriptors. Jim Williams, a 78-year-old retiree from Harper Woods, Michigan said he typically supports Democrats but is disappointed with the party and its murky message. He feels much worse about the Republican Party, which he said “has lost it” under Trump’s leadership. “All he does is bully and call names. They’ve got no morals, no ethics. And the more they back him, the less I like them,” the self-described independent, said of Trump.
Trump was furious. “In just 6 months, I cut costs, especially Energy and Taxes, Tremendously. Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren, on CNBC, said costs have gone up,” he wrote on Truth Social, using his long-standing offensive nickname for the senator. “She is just angry that I blew up her terrible Presidential Campaign. Call her out!!!”
Trump’s wrong. Prices are going up on just about everything. “Government data, including from the Commerce Department this week, show that prices rose in June on items heavily exposed to tariffs, such as home furnishings, toys and appliances,” The New York Timesreported over the weekend. That’s Trump’s Commerce Department. He may be trying to cook the books in other areas—notably by firing the federal official tasked with collecting (recently disappointing) jobs data—but he can’t hide the fact that the economy is getting worse.
In the coming 2026 midterms and the economy the way it is there should be an open door for a Dem win…..but is it?
The 2026 midterm elections should, by all rights, be good for Democrats.
That’s because midterms are almost always good for the party that doesn’t hold the presidency; that party has gained House seats in all but four midterms since the Civil War.
However, there is a sizeable “but” that comes along with that right now.
It’s looking like Democrats could squander at least some of that opportunity, if they don’t do something about their brand, which is historically awful right now.
That doesn’t mean they’ll lose the midterms. But it could mean they won’t take full advantage and grow their numbers as much as they could.
Me? I think if anybody can find a way to lose then the Dems are that entity….their messaging for decades has been sub-par for decades….a lot can happen between now and the election and if a way can be found then the Dems will have their asses handed to them…..yet again.
Why?
Well the top Dem senator candidates are just a repeat of the past….old farts with heavy corporate ties….so much for looking for new blood.
That is why Dems are running scared because of the rise of the Progressives…..
…
Democratic party leaders havebeenaccusedof a wave of poor performances that go back far beyond last year’s chastening presidential defeat.
The party elite’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 69,000 Palestinians, have turnedvoters and donorsaway from the party. As have other incidents. In Illinois, Democratic US representative Chuy García’s plan to handpick his own successor upon his retirement next year, circumventing an open election, drew howls of criticism from all sides of the political divide.
Rightwing media outlets have gone after Democrats’ low favorability ratings and the party’s apparent refusal to integrateyounger members into its leadership, at a time when the Republican party made JD Vance a vice-presidential candidate last year at the age of 40.
Democrat warns US progressives against moving toward the center: ‘It lost me the election’
However, observers say that the Democratic party’s failure to secure the continuation of federal subsidies for health insurance for millions of Americans last month, a move that ended the 43-day government shutdown, could have the most lasting negative effect on the party going forward.
With the mildly successful voting in the past election the Dems seem to have found their political legs to defeat the Donny machine….or have they?
They were successful in NYC, Virginia and New Jersey but will that translate to the mid-terms?
Many people are delighted at the voting outcome….but will it translate?
To answer my question….past track record suggest they probably have not.
History is not on their side….
Democrats enabled Donald Trump to become president twice because of repetition compulsions that still propel the party’s leaders – undermining the party’s potential to end the real-life nightmare of Maga control over the federal government. Scrutinizing how this century’s Democratic leaders set the stage for Trump’s electoral triumphs is crucial not only for clarity about the past. It also makes possible a vital focus on how such failures can be avoided in the future.
Elites did quite well after Barack Obama took back the presidency for Democrats in January 2009, amid the Great Recession. He bailed out big banks while a huge number of people lost their homes. By the time Obama was most of the way through his presidency, he had facilitated “the dispossession of at least 5.2 million US homeowner families, the explosion of inequality, and the largest ruination of middle-class wealth in nearly a century”, the journalist David Dayen pointed out.
Obama’s last year as president was supposed to lead to Hillary Clinton’s first. She was the party establishment’s favorite. “You know, I get accused of being kind of moderate and center,” Clinton told a Women for Hillary audience in 2015. “I plead guilty.” The Democratic National Committee and corporate media provided major assists as she withstood the strong progressive campaign of Bernie Sanders. But after winning the nomination, Clinton never got traction with younger voters, who had gone overwhelmingly for Sanders during the primaries.
After Trump defeated Clinton in November 2016, Democratic party leaders could hardly blame themselves or their “moderate and center” nominee. Criticizing her coziness with Wall Street wouldn’t do. Neither would critiquing her thinly veiled contempt for the progressive wing of the party. Instead, the swift response from prominent Clinton campaigners was to blame Russia, launching a prolonged fixation on “Russiagate” that let the corporate-friendly leaders of the party off the hook.
The party leadership’s devotion to economic elites continued to evade scrutiny. As Sanders told a reporter in 2017: “Certainly there are some people in the Democratic party who want to maintain the status quo. They would rather go down with the Titanic so long as they have first-class seats.”
I have been warning people since the 1990s about the direction the Democratic Party has taken….in essence they have become the left wing of the conservatives.
Then in the last election when the Dems were handed their asses on a platter the word came out that they would change course and become the true party of the people. (Doubtful in my mind)
Dems have given this country all the major social successes since FDR…..then why are they so impotent?
As opposition to Donald Trump’s autocratic regime has intensified — with a majority of Americans now seeing him as a dictator — it’s been widely noted that the most important difference between elected Democrats isn’t whether they’re “progressive” or “moderate,” but whether they’re willing to fight.
But behind these two distinctions there’s a more important one, the distinction between present-oriented and future-oriented behavior, which provides insight into the Democrats’ longstanding problems and how conservative Republicans have exploited them for decades — a dynamic that ultimately brought us Trump.
I’ve been perplexed for decades by this paradox: The Democratic Party has brought us every major policy advance since at least the New Deal, but is now the party most firmly wedded to status-quo, poll-tested politics. The Republican Party, while growing increasingly radical and backward-looking, is far more focused on creating fundamental change, if only to return America to an imaginary past golden age.
This is an open letter by Richard Falk to Dems and their direction….
Ever since Trump’s electoral victory in November 2024 I have been receiving multiple daily solicitations for funds to support the Democratic Party, individual Democratic candidates for Congress or State Offices, and notification of worthy campaigns on public issues such as the protection of Social Security, Medicare, and reproductive rights, as well as on voter protection in various forms. I am personally sympathetic with resistance to this perverse Republican effort to dismantle democracy and constitutional governance in the United States by taking giant steps toward legitimating autocratic rule with fascist features.
I expect many will be critical of what I write here as a diversion from attacking the main targets of concern: a White House dangerously out of control, a subjugated Republican Congressional presence, and a Supreme Court that subscribes to the subversive Trump ethos 90% of the time and is due to be further ‘packed’ in coming years. My response: failure calls for self-criticism, and criticism from an ally can be restorative, at least indirectly.
Against this background, I find myself increasingly alienated by procedural and substantive aspects of the chosen approach being taken by the Democratic Party leadership to oppose such an undesirable and dangerous set of developments in the governance of the country. On procedural issues, besides crudely reducing electoral politics to matters of raising money for electoral campaigns, giving the impression that democratic politics is little more than a continuous funding appeal. This is the overt posture of the Democratic Party establishment. I find this turn from ideas to money deeply distressing.
After their epic failure in the last election a poll was taken of dem voters and their desire….
Democratic voters overwhelmingly prefer a populist program that takes on oligarchy and corporate power over the so-called “abundance agenda” that’s all the rage among many liberals as party leaders examine why they lost the White House and Congress in 2024 and strategize about how to win them back.
That’s according to a new Demand Progress poll of 1,200 registered voters “to test the resonance of the ‘abundance agenda’ being promoted as a potential policy and political refocus for the Democratic Party.”
The poll revealed that 55.6% of all surveyed voters said they were somewhat or much more likely “to vote for a candidate for Congress or president who made the populist argument,” compared with 43.5% who said they were likelier to cast their ballot for a candidate promoting the abundance agenda.
Those results are not overwhelmingly in favor of what they think….plus there is a lot of time for this to swing in the other direction before the next election.
Their promise of changing their evil ways were just fodder for the media and those with half a brain….they are going nuts deep into the world of dark money mimicking the GOP….the return of ‘Blue Dog democrats’….that conservative, oh my bad…centrist…Democrats that love the status quo./…they were around with Clinton ….they are the big money Dems that are just as corruptible as any Repub….
The Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of centrist House Democrats who have repeatedly blocked their party’s major legislation, will form a new super PAC to accept donations of unlimited size, as well as a new nonprofit group that will not be required to disclose its funders. The coalition’s plans were first reported by the New York Times in an article last week about their appearance at a centrist event, dubbed WelcomeFest.
The Times said that the Blue Dogs have never previously had an independent entity that could take unlimited donations, but the Blue Dogs have long been linked to a group called Center Forward that has a “dark money” advocacy group and a super PAC that has spent millions of dollars to help elect its members. Center Forward was founded in 2010 as the think tank Blue Dog Research Forum, run by a Blue Dog Coalition co-founder, former Rep. Bud Cramer of Alabama, who still chairs Center Forward’s board. The centrist group changed its name in 2012. The Blue Dog PAC has donated at least half a million dollars to Center Forward’s super PAC over the years, according to Federal Election Commission records.
The economically-conservative Blue Dogs, whose numbers have dwindled to 10 members out of 213 House Democrats, have been feeling feisty of late. At WelcomeFest, held in D.C. on June 4 and co-sponsored by the Blue Dog PAC, three Blue Dogs appeared, including co-chair Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, with Reps. Jared Golden of Maine, who was one of its prior co-chairs, and Adam Gray of California. WelcomeFest speakers argued that centrists should have even more control over the Democratic Party’s messaging and budgets, and made the case to sideline progressive groups like Indivisible.
The Dems have not changed from their evil ways that began with Clinton and his band of thugs.
The Progressives that are attempting to put the party back on their original intent are few and far between…..the one bright spot was when David Hogg became vice chair of the DNC and he made waves immediately calling for a change and for a challenge to the rich incumbents …..well the ‘Good Ol’ Boys Club’ within the party have successfully rid themselves of the only commonsense voice the DNC had for the coming fight.
David Hogg, the 25-year-old activist who stirred controversy within the Democratic National Committee over his plans to challenge party incumbents, has announced his resignation as vice chair after weeks of internal strife and a forced re-election vote. Hogg, a survivor of the 2018 Parkland school shooting, had been planning to use his outside group, Leaders We Deserve, to fund primary challenges against sitting Democratic lawmakers, reports the New York Times. He said he aimed to raise up to $20 million to push for “generational change” within the party, per the Times.
Hogg’s moves drew criticism from party officials, with the Hill reporting earlier this week that frustration with him had reached a “boiling point.” DNC chairman Ken Martin had tried to bar Hogg from engaging in primaries and pushed for new bylaws to prevent party leaders from such involvement. Hogg was the only officer who refused to sign a neutrality pledge regarding primaries. The situation was further complicated by a leaked audio recording from a DNC meeting, for which multiple officials blamed Hogg. A complaint about the February election that initially seated Hogg and another vice chair, Malcolm Kenyatta, led to the call for a new vote. Hogg, citing ongoing disagreements and a desire to avoid further distraction, chose not to run again.
“It’s clear that there is a fundamental disagreement about the role of a Vice Chair,” he wrote in his resignation letter, adding that the party should focus on more important matters. Party leaders, including Martin, expressed respect for Hogg’s decision. Kenyatta is now running unopposed for the male vice chair role, with new elections beginning Thursday, per Politico. Hogg’s outside group endorsed a candidate in a Virginia Democratic primary earlier this week but has not yet targeted any incumbents. The episode illustrates the internal divisions at the DNC as it tries to regroup ahead of the next election cycle.
A shame that a voice for progress has been silenced within the DNC….but that was expected since the status quo must remain….why? Easy Dems are stuck in the past….
As opposition to Donald Trump’s autocratic regime has intensified — with a majority of Americans now seeing him as a dictator — it’s been widely noted that the most important difference between elected Democrats isn’t whether they’re “progressive” or “moderate,” but whether they’re willing to fight.
But behind these two distinctions there’s a more important one, the distinction between present-oriented and future-oriented behavior, which provides insight into the Democrats’ longstanding problems and how conservative Republicans have exploited them for decades — a dynamic that ultimately brought us Trump.
I’ve been perplexed for decades by this paradox: The Democratic Party has brought us every major policy advance since at least the New Deal, but is now the party most firmly wedded to status-quo, poll-tested politics. The Republican Party, while growing increasingly radical and backward-looking, is far more focused on creating fundamental change, if only to return America to an imaginary past golden age.
…
The party as an organization is almost entirely focused on the first three levels, with no coherent focus on the future, and thus no experienced need to reconcile present- and future-orientations. I’m not saying Democrats don’t have ideas about the future; they do. But they are forever putting new wine in old bottles, and that’s the fundamental source of the Democrats’ recurring problems, from high-level failures of issue-framing and communication to nitty-gritty organizing failures typified by the feckless abandonment of the 50-state strategy. I’ll cite some examples of how this manifests.
The Dems will continue their spineless approach to government and the people they claim to represent….the winners will be the bank accounts of the candidates and the losers will be their supporters….that would be you and me.
We have enough of spectators in our system….the only thing the Dems have accomplished is their wallets have grown and they have become fat and lazy.
It is definitely time for a new Progressive Party to actually go after the challenges of the nation….but will they ever come around and see the errors of their ways?
Doubtful in my lifetime.
Any thoughts?
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
+++ Today I start more doctors and such so this will be all I have for today….after spending hours at the hospital I just want to relax and try to forget all the crap to come from these cancers.+++
The Dems are in trouble for sure…..the problem is we all see it but the status quo cannot move past their love of cash and their need for the special interests in their fight to regain power.
This is the Dems new plan for upcoming elections….
Examining their last presidential election loss and looking ahead to 2028, Democrats are divided on whether the issue is that their candidates aren’t succeeding in selling voters on the party’s policies or the problem is the ideas themselves. So they plan to put together a book of Democratic stances, with a new section released every quarter, for candidates to work with in the next primaries, the New York Times reports. Project 2029 is modeled after the right-wing agenda President Trump disavowed as a candidate and put into action once in office, though not by name.
Party operatives aren’t concerned that their attacks on Project 2025 will rebound on them. They just need to tell a compelling story. In the 2024 campaign, “we didn’t lack policies,” said Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster. “But we lacked a functioning narrative to communicate those policies.” She said her party’s candidates hit voters with “agencies and acronyms and statistics” rather than with a clear story about “what we’re going to fight for.” Installments in Project 2029 will be released quarterly in Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.
But it’s not just the format that Democrats can take a lesson from, said a former aide in Democratic White Houses who’s on the project’s advisory board. “Liberals underestimate the power of Trump’s ideas,” said Neera Tanden, adding that her party needs better ones to compete. “We get wrapped up in his personality. But he puts forward an idea like ‘No tax on tips,’ and that’s an important signifier that he is championing working-class people,” she added. The project has Democratic skeptics. “Developing policies by checking every coalitional box is how we got in this mess in the first place,” said Adam Jentleson, who’s mulling launching a new think tank.
After the 2024 election and Dems were handed their asses to them the chest thumping was trying to find a new direction that speaks more to the people….so far not has not happened….as a matter of fact the party loyalists even made sure that a true progressive was removed from the DNC, David Hogg.
The GOP used about 40 years to get where they are today and the Dems want to do the same thing in a year and half…..delusional my friends….but then Dems have always been delusional.
The status quo Dems cannot do anything but react to Trump as they have done for decades before…..and there is the resurgence of the conservative Blue Dog Dem (a post to follow later)….another telling example of where the DNC is headed…..NOWHERE!
Watch for my upcoming series on the Democratic Party and the problems it faces.
Dems are facing a quandary….low voter confidence and now the new spending bill….
The government will shut down at midnight Friday unless Congress passes a spending measure before then, and the deadline is putting Senate Democrats in a bind: They don’t want to vote for the GOP-authored resolution before them, but they fear the alternative of triggering a shutdown is worse. Coverage:
Punchbowl News reports that the most likely scenario, for now, is that Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer will settle for a face-saving measure to avert a shutdown. He’ll demand votes on amendments, including a separate vote on the Democrats’ own continuing resolution. “It’s theater,” the outlet notes, given that the Democratic plan has no chance of passing. But it would allow Schumer to say Democrats were trying to fight back.
The Hill similarly reports that Senate Democrats were saying privately they will not allow a shutdown to happen, meaning they would ultimately have to vote in favor of the six-month Republican plan—despite pressure from the party’s progressive wing. As Axios puts it, “Schumer is balancing his deep distaste for a shutdown against pressure from the grassroots to do more to stand up to Trump.”
One fear among Democrats is that a shutdown would leave federal employees even more vulnerable to Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency, per CNN. “If it shuts down, what is Elon Musk going to allow to open back up?” asked Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona. “That’s a big concern of mine. How many more veterans is Elon, and this administration, going to fire? So, there’s not a good option here.” Independent Angus King of Maine, who caucuses with Democrats, called it a “choice between two terrible alternatives.”
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania is already on board publicly with voting for the GOP plan, reports the Washington Post. A shutdown would “absolutely punish millions, millions of Americans,” Fetterman said this week. Senate Majority Leader John Thune says the GOP measure, which already has passed the House, is the only route to keeping the government open. “The question of whether or not it stays funded now is up to the Democrats,” said the Republican leader.
This is a problem….do they show backbone and fight the new spending bill which they will be accused of causing a government shutdown or do they support and betray a lot of what they say the are for?
The Dems are in trouble.
For decades now the Dems have been losing support among the working class….the slide started, in my opinion, with Bubba Clinton and his embrace of big business and then it became more about the cash than the policies that would benefit the American people.
And now the studies show that it is getting to its lowest levels of support….for me I lost all confidence, what little I had back then, with the 1980 election….
Voters still have a sour view of Democrats six weeks after President Donald Trump and Republicans swept into Washington with control of all branches of the federal government, according to a new poll.
A plurality of voters — 40 percent — said the Democratic Party doesn’t have any strategy whatsoever for responding to Trump, according to the survey by the liberal firm Blueprint that was shared first with POLITICO. Another 24 percent said Democrats have a game plan, but it’s a bad one.
The most recent study shows a serious lack of support…..
Out of power in Washington, Democrats are looking for ways to win voters back. A new poll suggests they have their work cut out for them. The Quinnipiac University survey found that 31% of registered voters have a favorable opinion of their party, while 43% have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party. That amounts to the largest advantage in favorability the GOP has enjoyed since 2008, Axios reports. A CNN poll released last week had similar results.
The flip side in Quinnipiac’s poll was no more encouraging for Democrats, with 57% of registered voters reporting an unfavorable opinion of the Democratic Party and 45% feeling the same way about the GOP. The findings, for which the pollsters report a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points, alone aren’t evidence that Democrats need despair, Aaron Blake writes in a Washington Post analysis. The same polls showed Republicans were less popular in the first year of President Trump’s first term than Democrats are now, he points out. A Quinnipiac poll had Republicans with a 67% unfavorable rating in August 2017.
In addition, another poll released this week found that some of Trump’s early actions aren’t popular, per Reuters. Most respondents of both parties oppose his moves to end the practice of granting citizenship to children born in the US regardless of the parents’ immigration status, for instance. Overall, the share of respondents who disapproved of Trump’s performance rose from 39% to 46% since the first two days of his second term. The Reuters/Ipsos poll reported a margin of error of about 4 percentage points. “While it does seem Trump is getting a honeymoon to some extent, his numbers are still not impressive by historical standards,” said Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia Center for Politics.
I will admit that the Progressive Caucus does have a bit of concern for the working person and they are showing their disdain for the more conservative colleagues……
The head of a leading U.S. progressive group on Thursday accused the Democratic National Committee—which will choose new leadership this weekend—of trying to silence rank-and-file activists and voters, showing that the Democratic Party’s governing body is failing to connect with the working-class Americans who helped deliver the White House and Congress to Republicans.
“This moment demands a Democratic Party that provides more than just reactive opposition to an administration bent on rigging our economic and political systems in favor of the wealthiest and most powerful individuals on Earth,” Joseph Geevarghese, the executive director of Our Revolution, an offshoot of Sen. Bernie Sanders‘ (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign, said in a statement ahead of Thursday evening’s final DNC candidate forum. “It demands leaders who put the party’s grassroots base ahead of the donor class and articulate a real vision that rejects [Republican President] Donald Trump’s corporate rule—starting with renouncing corporate money themselves.”
“Unfortunately,” Geevarghese lamented, “Democratic leadership is failing disastrously to meet this urgent mandate. Ahead of tonight’s forum, the DNC is actively working to silence rank-and-file Democratic activists and base voters calling for a ban on dark money in primaries and the rejection of corporate funding. In a last-minute move, they shut the event off from the public and even deliberately shared the wrong address for where grassroots supporters are allowed to gather.”
For me I would like to see the Dems grow a spine and get down to doing what needs to be done….but their actions in the first days of the new admin does not bode well for the country….they are too mamby pamby….
I have bee a Progressive since the beginning of my political life but in those days we were insulted by morons that have the IQ of a garden slug.
For me there are two major policies that the Dems should push and push hard….at least for now….
Implementing Universal Health Coverage (UHC). That is, a publicly administered system that guarantees that all people have access to the full range of quality health services when and where they need them. Financing of UHC could come entirely from broad-based tax revenues. Coverage would be universal and automatic. Covered services would include inpatient, outpatient, dental, mental health, and long-term health, as well as prescription drugs. All three levels of the U.S. government (federal, state, and local) would be involved in the health care system.
Cutting military spending. The United States spent $820 billion on national defense during the fiscal year 2023. It spends nearly 8.4 times as much on its military as Russia does and more than three times the amount of China. While the U.S. comprises just over 4 percent of the world’s population, it accounts for nearly 40 percent of global military spending. Between 2001 and 2022, the U.S. spent $8 trillion on war. The notion that such enormous defense spending is important for national security questions is utterly absurd. The U.S. homeland has never been invaded and no nation threatens U.S. national security. The obscene amount of money that the U.S. spends on defense, which different methodologies estimated to be above $1.5 trillion for the fiscal year 2022. Money saved from cuts in the defense budget can go towards supporting social programs and/or for reducing the national debt. Arguing for reforms in Social Security and Medicare when the country spends so much money on the military is morally indefensible and will become politically unacceptable if people realize how wasteful and harmful military sending is.There are other policies that need attention but these two, for now, would illustrate the the Dems are truly fighting for the working class.
The Dems are truly in trouble because very few people think the party will make a difference without some change in tactics.
In this case I am talking about the Dems….I have been watching DC to see just how these people will handle the Trump Admin and so far I am very unimpressed.
Lots of words and such and their actions have been muted. I know they are the minority at this point but at least they could fight for those they pretend to care about…us normal peasants they have ignored for several decades.
Sorry but they to do more than they have so far…they are fighting for the very soul of them nation….and I fear for it’s survival at this time.
After this past disastrous election I asked a question….
Everyone I know is complaining about the Democrats. They’re weak. They’re divided. They’re letting themselves get steamrolled. And on and on.
In this case, “everyone” is right. Even allowing for some degree of shock at the sheer scope of the onslaught in these first few weeks of Donald Trump’s second presidency, they should have found their sea legs by now. And not for the shallow purpose of “winning the day,” but for a very real one: Millions of Americans have a foot—or a leg—caught in Trump’s ideological bear trap, and they need a political party that will fight this illegal and indiscriminate rampage with everything at its disposal to help people pry themselves loose.
Naturally, we should have realistic expectations about what a minority party can achieve as far as parliamentary maneuvers. But you know what happens as soon as I type a sentence like that? I imagine too many elected congressional Democrats just nodding in agreement and exhaling in relief. The truth is simple: Far too many Democrats don’t want to think of themselves as fighters. This is a self-conception that has some deep historical roots; but far more importantly, it’s a potentially self-fulfilling prophecy of passivity that will have grave consequences for tens of millions of Americans, and for the Constitution and the republic, if they don’t get over this fast and come to terms with the reality they are in.
The historical roots go back to the late 1970s, when this new thing called “movement conservatism” was afoot in the land. Movement conservatism’s intellectual roots go back to the 1950s; but it wasn’t until the 1970s, when the “religious right” began to assume its form, that this movement started electing a critical mass of politicians and having a big impact on the country’s political culture.
Somewhere there has got to be some balls in the party.
There are those like me that think we need to find some charisma in our Dem leadership….as it is now there is very little….
The Democratic race to succeed President Trump in 2028 could be shaping up to be an outsider’s race.
Down in the dumps after their devastating loss to Trump — the ultimate outsider — in November, Democrats increasingly are saying they must consider all options as they chart the way forward. That means looking beyond candidates to people who don’t fit the traditional bill, they say.
Billionaire business mogul Mark Cuban? Let’s take a look.
What about sports commentator Stephen A. Smith? I’m interested, say Democratic consultants and strategists.
Their sharp eyes are also considering politicians who don’t look like politicians. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.)? Definitely a possibility.
“In modern political history, there’s never been a time that’s more favorable for someone not of the system to rise in Democratic politics,” said Joel Payne, a veteran Democratic strategist who added that these potential candidates “have a bigger lane now more than ever.”
While I agree I fear that the Dems will just another high dollar man to lead.
They have a new leader (DNC) with big words….they have a Progressive Caucus that tries but their numbers limit to what they can do….this is a war then fight like it is….but again they will preserve their place at the table by letting the special interests do their thinking for them.
And that is a sure way to lose the war and a best way to lose a nation.
Which do you want? A nation in ruins or one that the Constitution is the foundation.
After their catastrophic loss to Trump the Dems have promised a new way forward and regain the voters confidence….and supposedly this way is by picking a new leader of the Party, the DNC…
The Dems now have a new leader…..
Democrats, looking for a path back to power in Washington, have a new national chair to lead the effort. Ken Martin, the head of Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, won on the first ballot at a Democratic National Committee meeting on Saturday, NPR reports, turning back competitive bids by Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler and former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley. In his acceptance speech, Martin promised a unified party leadership. “We have one team, one team, the Democratic Party. We have one fight, one fight,” he said. “The fight’s not in here.”
The campaign focused on the DNC’s internal mechanisms more than the election losses in November, per the New York Times. The body helps set the party’s tone and goals as it supports down-ballot candidates between presidential elections in addition to building an operation for the eventual presidential nominee. In campaigning for the post, Martin, 51, told DNC members he’ll pay more attention to their concerns than past chairs have. Although the party may seem to face a tough road back, the new chair steps into an organization that’s raised record amounts of money and made record investments in data and organizing resources, per NPR, which has made it more integrated with state and local party operations.
With former President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris moving on, and few other Democrats commanding much attention, the election gives party regulars somebody to rally around, per the Hill. In his speech Saturday, Martin acknowledged the seven people he defeated for the job. “It is my guarantee to each of you that we’re going to take the great ideas from all the candidates in this race,” he said.
So far this new leader sounds a lot like past leaders…..the rhetoric is the same as always after a loss.
But who is the guy?
Wellstone, the progressive senator from Minnesota who died in a 2002 plane crash, just days after casting a courageous vote opposing President George W. Bush’s rush to war in Iraq, mounted the sort of economic populist campaigns that top Democrats now all seem to agree they need to run. He practiced year-round organizing; built multiracial, multiethnic coalitions; explicitly rejected corporate influence and focused on appealing to working-class people; always campaigned in rural areas; toppled a Republican incumbent by running a grassroots campaign out of the back of a beat-up bus; and mounted reelection bids that emphasized his progressive values rather than the talking points favored by major donors and party consultants.
…
What’s missing now in too much of our politics, says Martin, is that sort of “authentic, empathetic leadership that understood struggle and understood that everyone, regardless of whether they live in a rural community, or an urban community, or anywhere in between, needs to have some hope that their lives would be better.”
Martin, who is also a former union organizer, is not alone in this view. The notion that a values-based politics that unites urban and rural voters might be the answer for Democrats is suddenly in vogue with senators, governors, and all of Martin’s fellow candidates for DNC chair.
The bottom line for Democrats, says Martin, is that “if we continue to slide with big parts of our coalition, we’re going to be in a perpetual minority.”
As DNC chair, Martin recognizes that a core part of his job would be to raise the money to fund permanent campaigns in 50 states and to take on a Republican Party that, under Trump, is seizing every opportunity to gain financial and structural advantages. But, like Wellstone, he is wary of a politics that is so focused on fundraising that it loses sight of basic values.
(thenation.com)
Martin hit a lot of good notes but many other before him have hit the same ones.
Is he a true progressive?
I will withhold my judgement until he has time to settle into his leadership role and see if he is a progressive or will just buckle under to the big cash donors like so many others have done.
For now the Dems have a new leader but will he be the savior of a dying party?
The ‘king’ in this context is the new leader of the DNC. The Dems have been scratching their heads over their recent loss in the election and are looking for a new way forward with a new head of the DNC.
At present there are 4 people that have thrown their top hats into the ring and are vying for control of the party.
Let’s look at the 4 in the mix….
Four people so far are running to be the next Democratic National Committee chair, looking to take on the task of reinvigorating a party demoralized by a second loss to President-elect Trump. Others may still get into the race as the party reckons with the 2024 election, which saw Trump gain with nearly every demographic group in a decisive repudiation of the incumbent party. The committee’s roughly 450 members will elect a successor for outgoing Chair Jaime Harrison on Feb. 1. The four declared candidates—Ken Martin, Democratic chair in Minnesota and DNC vice chair; Martin O’Malley, former Maryland governor and current Social Security administrator; New York state Sen. James Skoufis; and Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party—spoke to the AP this week in Scottsdale, Arizona, where they were making their pitch in public and private at a meeting of state Democratic chairs. Here’s a sampling of their responses.
Should Joe Biden have dropped out of the presidential race sooner?
Martin: “To me it’s an academic exercise. You can’t change the past. So for us, it’s really about what lessons can we draw right now that can inform the future.”
O’Malley: “I don’t know. You guys playing this DC parlor game on me, I’m not going to engage in that. Sorry.”
Skoufis: “Yes. A 107-day runway made for an exceptionally difficult set of circumstances. And it was clear to most Democrats at the time that President Biden was not well-situated to run for reelection. And if dropping out sooner would have meant a primary, so be it. Vice President Harris, I’m very confident, still would have likely been the nominee if there was a primary. She would have been a stronger nominee with that longer runway.”
Wikler: “My campaign slogan is ‘Unite, fight, win.’ And to me, uniting means a reckoning with how we can adapt to do better, but not recriminations about different things in the past.”
How do Democrats do better with Latino voters, particularly Latino men?
Martin: “Every hot take right now that we see is completely garbage. It’s just hogwash because it’s not based in any research. … We don’t know what universes we targeted and how we were talking to the Latino community. … All of that has to be on the table to really figure out, what did we do, where were the gaps, how did we fall down?”
O’Malley: “I may sound like a broken record, but I really do believe it is the economic issues. It is the union jobs, living wages, opportunity for all … Too many people heard ‘defending America, defending democracy,’ and they thought this meant defending the status quo.”
Skoufis: “I think it’s showing up. We have to stop speaking in overly academic terms. Sometimes young voters in particular look at us and they think that we ought to be better running for chancellor of a small liberal arts college rather than public office.”
Wikler: “Most Latino voters, most Black voters, most white voters are working-class folks who have many issues that they care about. But all those issues take a back seat to the core question of whether you can keep a roof over your head and food on your table and make sure your kids have clothes to wear to school. The thing that Democrats have the chance to do is … to show that we’re on the side of those working folks.”
More here from the four current candidates, including on whether they think Vice President Kamala Harris spent too much time courting GOP voters.
All good responses but they sound like the normal responses given by Dems…..idle promises that never seem to matter once they are in control and pass us peasants by.
The party needs fresh blood and these guys are closing in on their ‘use by’ date.
Until they start producing for the working class they will always be the ‘also rans’…..in other words….LOSERS!
The head of the DNC is a Clintonian slug and I have not thought he would do anything to help Dems get elected…..and in 2020 it has been proven in Iowa…..
Perez has weighed in on the caucuses in Iowa and the chaos it has given birth to……
The chairman of the Democratic National Committee called on Thursday for a “recanvass” of the results of Monday’s Iowa caucus, which was marred by technical problems and delays, per the AP. ”Enough is enough,” party leader Tom Perez wrote on Twitter. He said he was calling for the recanvass in order to “assure public confidence in the results.” With 97% of precincts reporting, Pete Buttigieg, a former mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders are nearly tied. The Hill explains that a recanvass is different from a recount: It would require “a hand audit of caucus math worksheets and reporting forms to ensure they were properly tallied and reported.” Perez still wants results to be reported in the interim.
The caucus crisis is an embarrassing twist for state party officials after months of promoting Iowa as a chance for Democrats to find some clarity in a jumbled field. Instead, after a buildup that featured seven rounds of debates, nearly $1 billion spent nationwide, and a year of political jockeying, caucus day ended with no winner and no official results. At issue is an app that the Iowa Democratic Party used to tabulate the results of the contest. The app was rolled out shortly before caucusing began and did not go through rigorous testing. A coding error yielded problematic results Monday. And backup phone lines for reporting the outcomes were jammed, with many placed on hold for hours in order to report outcomes.
The chaos has petitions being passed around to Perez to step down….it may not be his fault directly but he is the head of the DNC so he has to fall on his sword for the good of the party. But will he?
Calls for Tom Perez to step down as the head of the Democratic National Committee grew louder Tuesday in the aftermath of the Iowa caucus fiasco in which party mismanagement of the process delayed the results from Monday night’s contest and left the 2020 Democratic presidential primary in disarray.
“The Iowa caucus debacle is so insulting to the candidates, their volunteers, the caucus-goers, and the DNC’s own process,” tweetedHuffPost senior reporter Zach Carter. “Tom Perez has to resign.”
Multiple petitions on Change.org called on Perez to relinquish his position as chair of the DNC. One of the most popular ones had over 13,600 signatures at press time. #ResignTomPerez trended on Twitter overnight.
I agree Perez needs to go….I never thought he would do anything good for the party except keep the party glued to corporations…the same thing Clinton made “popular”…..
I read a letter by a self-identified as a centrist…asking Perez to do the right thing and step down…..
Dear DNC officials:
I come from a long line of Democrats. My grandparents survived the Great Depression because of FDR’s New Deal, and both of my parents were loyal Democrats as well. In my adult lifetime, I proudly registered as a Democrat at age 18, in the 1990s. Since then, I have become extremely disillusioned, watching the Democratic Party become more and more corporate-funded and corporate-aligned to the point where I do not recognize it anymore.
