The reason no Democrats want to talk about what they need to do differently is that most of them think what they need to do is throw every vulnerable group possible under the bus. They don’t want to do it, but the American people have shown their true character and Democrats feel there is no alternative.
Clinton executed a mentally disabled man to prove he weren’t no bleeding heart. Maybe it was necessary to get elected. Maybe it prevented even worse things from happening. But even if all that were true I can’t imagine anyone would be eager to start that process of selling your soul any second sooner than you absolutely had to.
And I know some wags laugh off the possibility of Trump screwing with elections (“don’t you know elections are run by states, not the federal government” say the insufferables) but with his DOJ ready to launch sham indictments of D candidates (hey nerds, remember what he was impeached for the first time? Guess who wasn’t deterred) or strongarming media into not airing D ads (CBS seems pretty pliable! Think local affiliates will stand up to him?).
And nothing from the Dems suggests they have any plan for dealing with this.
It’s depressing and frightening that the Democrats have become a calcified party tactically and ideologically stuck in 1996, completely at a loss for how to deal with someone like Trump and the sick mess the GOP has become. Bad enough that this is what the Democrats are now, but worse that it’s happening when the opposition has lurched into fascism. Dem personnel have to change—Schumer is a mess, just looking at him the word “tired” comes to mind—and already three Dem House members died in office, which until their replacements are elected gives Republicans a bit more room to pass their nightmare budget. But even the new blood seems hopelessly not up to the task. A bunch of Tom Hagens when we need wartime consiglieri.
At one time we could have said “well the demand is there, surely someone will emerge to take advantage of the need for a pit fighter” but I can’t even think of anyone who’d fill that role. Seeing really stupid shit like Democrats coming together to pass that “no tax on tips” travesty (tough tits, everyone on an hourly wage! Trump wants waitstaff votes and we’re obliging him) just tells me they’re hopeless.
I thought Biden made the right decision to run for reelection, but clearly I was wrong. However, I am not throwing him under the bus for making the wrong decision, like elected Dems are doing. They all supported him then, or SAID that they did. They can admit to being wrong, but without throwing him under the bus, as they seem to be doing now. They were in a better position than I to have known if Biden was up to campaigning and running the country at the same time. One thing that they can do is admit that Dems suck at messaging, and that was one of Biden's problems. I'm not saying that his age wouldn't have been an issue, but Dems should have, and could have countered that by pointing out Biden's record, which repubs and the media distorted. Establishment Dems rely too much upon paid political consultants, who constantly get things wrong, and focus groups (who are in those focus groups? Friends and family of the paid political consultants?)
When JFK was inaugurated, I was 3 days old, so of course I don't remember it, but I know one of his remarks was "...the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans." It's time to pass the torch to a new generation of Democrats.
"but Dems should have, and could have countered that by pointing out Biden's record, which repubs and the media distorted"
TBF, the 'media distorted' part is the biggest issue...It doesn't matter if you have the best messaging in the world if the media machine either ignores it or misrepresents it...An example: Harris made a DELIBERATE point of not leaning into trans issues because she figured it was poison to do so (right or wrong that was her reasoning) yet the media take ended up being: Why won't Kamala Harris shut up about Trans people...
I'm hoping the decline of the failed legacy media and the decline of the 24/7 coble news model coupled with the emerging progressive (AKA fact based) media on the interwebs will change that dynamic
I have to disagree with one thing here: The post-2012 Republican autopsy said “Maybe we should try not being so racist,” and then in 2014 the sitting House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, was beaten in a primary by David Brat, an actual stupid person (not just not-what-you’d-want-in-an-officeholder-level intelligence, but actually stupid), because he was on Laura Ingraham’s show seemingly four times a week screaming the 2014 equivalent of “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.”
That was a Southern Strategy-esque moment for Republicans. They realized “Oh—it’s OK to go full racist.” Trump made some mouth noises about abortion being OK and maybe taxing rich people, but no one except the CNNs and Axioses and Politicos of the world believed that. He was right where Republicans wanted to go.
Yes, but Trump wasn't just Romney but Racist (pretty easy to do, considering his business background). He differed with Romney/Ryan on some key policy issues (particularly trade).
This is a great piece, and I think you’re absolutely right that the Democratic Party needs to confront not just Trump, but the broader structure that enables him. I wrote something related recently—about how accountability within the party isn’t betrayal, it’s strategy.
“The next true leader will defy convention and forge a new path.”
Thank you as always, Stephen, for your thoughtful, excellent analysis. I just wanted to throw in a few thoughts of my own:
Gerry Connolly died today, of cancer. In 12/24 he became the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, reportedly at the behest of Nancy Pelosi, over AOC, who also had her eye on the position. At the time, there was a lot of grumbling from the many Democrats who yearned for younger, more aggressively progressive voices in the party’s leadership, and who bristled at the elevation of Connolly, a 75-year-old career Congressman (and, of course, a white male) who’d just announced his cancer diagnosis a month prior to assuming the Oversight Committee’s leadership position.
So now, in this regard, we’re back to where we started from in the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election. Is our Democrats learning? Will there now be a reckoning between the Democratic establishment — those who are still wedded to traditional and institutional norms — and the unavoidable, ever-louder Dems begging for bolder, more forthright voices to lead us in future? This could be a start.
Well what I know going forward is that we're not going to care about the actual job that's done. And even then Afghanistan went as well as it could have under the circumstances. But that's what happens, no good deed goes unpunished. I know to never listen to the demands of the "anti-war" movement, it looks like it's just another vehicle for anti-Dem FUD as it only seems to punish Dems and not Republicans who start wars of choice.
As Murc's Law is Cruise Control for Cool (and Clout) I am not surprised at all to see Democrats buying into sliming Biden. It's pretty easy to do. And yeah I can't help but notice the little "Yeah we should have a primary so the Black woman can be damaged by a shitty contest."
Remember the operating principle. "Vote Like Black Women! Just Don't Vote FOR Them!"
At least all these folks know the rules going forward, so all that is left now is to see which non-minority penis carries us to the Promised Land. Frankly at this point I'm committed to just picking randomly in the primary
especially the way democrats drag out primaries into several heats over several months...Liz Warren wasn't even on the primary ballot by the time the California primaries were held. The earlier heats determine who moves to the next round and on and on...it is EXTREMELY undemocratic and shame on democrats for running their primes this way. If everyone had voted in the primaries at the same time, its very likely Warren would have been our candidate
There is probably some sort of historical or artifact reason why this doesn't work the same way as the Republican party, but their structure is different in the first place.
Given what I know of the electorate, inclusive of Democrats, I am kinda of the mind that Elizabeth Warren would get Abrams Paradoxed too.
I dunno, looked at from across the pond (UK), I’d kill to have someone in charge as competent as Biden, or as genuinely radical as Biden.
Maybe I have had my expectations lowered, dropped my standards to much, but when all politicians have to offer is ‘austerity’ or ‘austerity lite’ I’d kill to have a leader who invested in the country, who dared publically support unions, who didn’t keep the economy flatlining by sucking up tax payers money and feeding it to any grifter with a private company and a good story.
That said, I agree the future of democracy shouldn’t have come down to an election. If the U.S. ever wants to be taken seriously as a country on the world stage, it needs to prove more than just a few thousand swing state voters stand between the U.S. becoming a madman’s playground.
If the Dems are going to save the U.S that means tackling the Supreme Court - and also the inequalities laid bare within the legal system, the rich can delay justice indefinitely, the poor are jailed for profit. That’s going to take some radical thinking.
This is because no good deed goes unpunished and there is a peculiar thing here called Murc's Law. In American politics, only Democrats have political agency, so that also means that in order to win an election among many demographics, Democrats need to be perfect. Republicans only need excuses.
In order to assure a Democratic victory, Democrats need to draw from an impossibly large coalition of people. Due to the way the United States are organized, political and electoral power not only accrues to rural, conservative states, but also the population dynamics have shifted to growing large conservative states like Texas and Florida.
In other words, the radical thing that must happen is the American electorate needs to upgrade.
Yeah - I a good example of no good deed goes unpunished was brought up by Chauncey Devega in Salon today, Trump signed the stimulus checks, Biden did not. Full quote & link
I never knew the name Murc's law. Thanks for that. But I do know the asymmetry: Republicans offer nothing but complaints - go back to the 1995 American President movie to see how long it's going on - and come election time, they lie and stoke fear. It's ingrained in Republican voters that Democrats are satanic baby killers who want to implement socialism and take away their guns. And it's hard if not impossible to break into the disinformation, lying RW media ecosystem.
I'm obsessed with Murc's law, it's SUCH an accurate descriptor of how American politics attributes agency. Like, once you SEE it, you can't UNSEE it. It is ALSO remarkably under-talked about...there's very little content online still...
Mainly because it was an offhand comment by a commenter at Lawyers, Guns and Money blog, and has diffused out from that readership which overlaps with a lot of lefty sites. LGM has been a continual going concern foreve (in internet years :-)
And this is why I say so often, Murc's Law is Cruise Control for Cool (and Clicks!)
Or alternately, Murc's Law is Cruise Control for Cool (and Clout!).
I wish I knew how to keep my handle as SethTriggs and get my gray text (what used to be {user's Substack) to say Murc's Law is Cruise Control for Cool, because really I think that's what my own Substack posts center around.
One reason it's so hard to break into that system is that the rightwing media human centipede is funded by billionaire and millionaire pocket change. There can be no equivalent structure for the Democratic Party because the redistributive policies of Democrats butt up against the greed of said millionaires and billionaires. A lot of Dems (especially online) ignore this crucial fact, sometimes doing cartwheels to do so if not to say their own pet cause is most important.
Yes, if the system is in fact not already dead. Things move slowly and then all at once, like when a glacier "rushes" forward and digs up the earth in its path. At 50 years old, I don't anticipate seeing what happens, just being part of the machinations of bringing progress forward in my own lifetime. I've chosen the directions I will take in my work for society, and I hope to do that dilligently while still enjoying my trip on the planet when I can.
What we're seeing today is the end result of the Gilded era oligarchs vengeance on the Great Class Traitor FDR, who unforgivingly saved their hides from the flensing knives of the masses during the Great Depression.
There is a direct line linking The Business Plot to the Hoover Institution to the rise of Buckley to the Goldwater campaign (which set the stage for the migration of the Jim Crow Southern Democrats to the Republican Party) to the Religious right, the Heritage Foundation to Reagan to Gingrich and the Contract on America to Trump.
During that time they wore down the durable FDR Dem power bloc infavor of what we have today, and I fear it'll take yet another existential catatrophy like the Great Depression/WWII to change it again...if it can be changed. I think we stand an equal chance of turning into a Theocratic oligarchy modeled on the Confederacy instead of the United States.
Yes, the action of FDR (guided by Frances Perkins, the New Deal was her list of priorities and she refused to join the cabinet without his buy in: she got everything except universal healthcare passed) in the shadow of war and the Great Depression are being gutted. My mother told me that along with Johnson’s Great Society which is often referred to, she remembered Johnson saying “this will change the face of America” meaning that in addition to economic and legal protections for the poor, there would be more non-European migrants. Well we know the power class didn’t like that. We get all of this white-replacement nonsense. But the original problem is way back in the colonies, after the slave rebellion in Haiti, their revolution. Afterwards, everyone who was an indentured servant here who was not white was made to be enslaved, and white people were allowed to remain indentured servants. We have never dealt with this wound and it may prove to be the congenital condition that kils the republic. It wasn’t really about race, it was about keeping power at the top, by using race. The desire to keep power concentrated at the top is a destructive power, and we see it again now.
Yes, do not give up. But if we find that it is a corpse we are carrying and not an injured body, we will do better to lay it down and focus our energy forward.
The reason no Democrats want to talk about what they need to do differently is that most of them think what they need to do is throw every vulnerable group possible under the bus. They don’t want to do it, but the American people have shown their true character and Democrats feel there is no alternative.
Clinton executed a mentally disabled man to prove he weren’t no bleeding heart. Maybe it was necessary to get elected. Maybe it prevented even worse things from happening. But even if all that were true I can’t imagine anyone would be eager to start that process of selling your soul any second sooner than you absolutely had to.
And I know some wags laugh off the possibility of Trump screwing with elections (“don’t you know elections are run by states, not the federal government” say the insufferables) but with his DOJ ready to launch sham indictments of D candidates (hey nerds, remember what he was impeached for the first time? Guess who wasn’t deterred) or strongarming media into not airing D ads (CBS seems pretty pliable! Think local affiliates will stand up to him?).
And nothing from the Dems suggests they have any plan for dealing with this.
It’s depressing and frightening that the Democrats have become a calcified party tactically and ideologically stuck in 1996, completely at a loss for how to deal with someone like Trump and the sick mess the GOP has become. Bad enough that this is what the Democrats are now, but worse that it’s happening when the opposition has lurched into fascism. Dem personnel have to change—Schumer is a mess, just looking at him the word “tired” comes to mind—and already three Dem House members died in office, which until their replacements are elected gives Republicans a bit more room to pass their nightmare budget. But even the new blood seems hopelessly not up to the task. A bunch of Tom Hagens when we need wartime consiglieri.
At one time we could have said “well the demand is there, surely someone will emerge to take advantage of the need for a pit fighter” but I can’t even think of anyone who’d fill that role. Seeing really stupid shit like Democrats coming together to pass that “no tax on tips” travesty (tough tits, everyone on an hourly wage! Trump wants waitstaff votes and we’re obliging him) just tells me they’re hopeless.
I thought Biden made the right decision to run for reelection, but clearly I was wrong. However, I am not throwing him under the bus for making the wrong decision, like elected Dems are doing. They all supported him then, or SAID that they did. They can admit to being wrong, but without throwing him under the bus, as they seem to be doing now. They were in a better position than I to have known if Biden was up to campaigning and running the country at the same time. One thing that they can do is admit that Dems suck at messaging, and that was one of Biden's problems. I'm not saying that his age wouldn't have been an issue, but Dems should have, and could have countered that by pointing out Biden's record, which repubs and the media distorted. Establishment Dems rely too much upon paid political consultants, who constantly get things wrong, and focus groups (who are in those focus groups? Friends and family of the paid political consultants?)
When JFK was inaugurated, I was 3 days old, so of course I don't remember it, but I know one of his remarks was "...the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans." It's time to pass the torch to a new generation of Democrats.
"but Dems should have, and could have countered that by pointing out Biden's record, which repubs and the media distorted"
TBF, the 'media distorted' part is the biggest issue...It doesn't matter if you have the best messaging in the world if the media machine either ignores it or misrepresents it...An example: Harris made a DELIBERATE point of not leaning into trans issues because she figured it was poison to do so (right or wrong that was her reasoning) yet the media take ended up being: Why won't Kamala Harris shut up about Trans people...
I'm hoping the decline of the failed legacy media and the decline of the 24/7 coble news model coupled with the emerging progressive (AKA fact based) media on the interwebs will change that dynamic
I have to disagree with one thing here: The post-2012 Republican autopsy said “Maybe we should try not being so racist,” and then in 2014 the sitting House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, was beaten in a primary by David Brat, an actual stupid person (not just not-what-you’d-want-in-an-officeholder-level intelligence, but actually stupid), because he was on Laura Ingraham’s show seemingly four times a week screaming the 2014 equivalent of “they’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats.”
That was a Southern Strategy-esque moment for Republicans. They realized “Oh—it’s OK to go full racist.” Trump made some mouth noises about abortion being OK and maybe taxing rich people, but no one except the CNNs and Axioses and Politicos of the world believed that. He was right where Republicans wanted to go.
Yes, but Trump wasn't just Romney but Racist (pretty easy to do, considering his business background). He differed with Romney/Ryan on some key policy issues (particularly trade).
He differs with fucking reality on trade...and his shambolic tariff tantrums prove it.
This is a great piece, and I think you’re absolutely right that the Democratic Party needs to confront not just Trump, but the broader structure that enables him. I wrote something related recently—about how accountability within the party isn’t betrayal, it’s strategy.
If you’re interested:
https://substack.com/@devinmccune/note/p-164054472?r=5jlujj&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
“The next true leader will defy convention and forge a new path.”
Thank you as always, Stephen, for your thoughtful, excellent analysis. I just wanted to throw in a few thoughts of my own:
Gerry Connolly died today, of cancer. In 12/24 he became the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, reportedly at the behest of Nancy Pelosi, over AOC, who also had her eye on the position. At the time, there was a lot of grumbling from the many Democrats who yearned for younger, more aggressively progressive voices in the party’s leadership, and who bristled at the elevation of Connolly, a 75-year-old career Congressman (and, of course, a white male) who’d just announced his cancer diagnosis a month prior to assuming the Oversight Committee’s leadership position.
So now, in this regard, we’re back to where we started from in the immediate aftermath of the 2024 election. Is our Democrats learning? Will there now be a reckoning between the Democratic establishment — those who are still wedded to traditional and institutional norms — and the unavoidable, ever-louder Dems begging for bolder, more forthright voices to lead us in future? This could be a start.
darmok and jalad crossing fingers at tanagra
Well what I know going forward is that we're not going to care about the actual job that's done. And even then Afghanistan went as well as it could have under the circumstances. But that's what happens, no good deed goes unpunished. I know to never listen to the demands of the "anti-war" movement, it looks like it's just another vehicle for anti-Dem FUD as it only seems to punish Dems and not Republicans who start wars of choice.
As Murc's Law is Cruise Control for Cool (and Clout) I am not surprised at all to see Democrats buying into sliming Biden. It's pretty easy to do. And yeah I can't help but notice the little "Yeah we should have a primary so the Black woman can be damaged by a shitty contest."
Remember the operating principle. "Vote Like Black Women! Just Don't Vote FOR Them!"
At least all these folks know the rules going forward, so all that is left now is to see which non-minority penis carries us to the Promised Land. Frankly at this point I'm committed to just picking randomly in the primary
Frankly at this point I'm committed to just picking randomly in the primary
(:
I'd still wait to see who those candidates will be! I'll always vote with my ethics in the primaries!
I just feel like our choices are going to be Identicate Non-Minority Penis who is going to speak for the “Forgotten” man!
especially the way democrats drag out primaries into several heats over several months...Liz Warren wasn't even on the primary ballot by the time the California primaries were held. The earlier heats determine who moves to the next round and on and on...it is EXTREMELY undemocratic and shame on democrats for running their primes this way. If everyone had voted in the primaries at the same time, its very likely Warren would have been our candidate
There is probably some sort of historical or artifact reason why this doesn't work the same way as the Republican party, but their structure is different in the first place.
Given what I know of the electorate, inclusive of Democrats, I am kinda of the mind that Elizabeth Warren would get Abrams Paradoxed too.
I dunno, looked at from across the pond (UK), I’d kill to have someone in charge as competent as Biden, or as genuinely radical as Biden.
Maybe I have had my expectations lowered, dropped my standards to much, but when all politicians have to offer is ‘austerity’ or ‘austerity lite’ I’d kill to have a leader who invested in the country, who dared publically support unions, who didn’t keep the economy flatlining by sucking up tax payers money and feeding it to any grifter with a private company and a good story.
That said, I agree the future of democracy shouldn’t have come down to an election. If the U.S. ever wants to be taken seriously as a country on the world stage, it needs to prove more than just a few thousand swing state voters stand between the U.S. becoming a madman’s playground.
If the Dems are going to save the U.S that means tackling the Supreme Court - and also the inequalities laid bare within the legal system, the rich can delay justice indefinitely, the poor are jailed for profit. That’s going to take some radical thinking.
this^^^^^^^
This is because no good deed goes unpunished and there is a peculiar thing here called Murc's Law. In American politics, only Democrats have political agency, so that also means that in order to win an election among many demographics, Democrats need to be perfect. Republicans only need excuses.
In order to assure a Democratic victory, Democrats need to draw from an impossibly large coalition of people. Due to the way the United States are organized, political and electoral power not only accrues to rural, conservative states, but also the population dynamics have shifted to growing large conservative states like Texas and Florida.
In other words, the radical thing that must happen is the American electorate needs to upgrade.
Yeah - I a good example of no good deed goes unpunished was brought up by Chauncey Devega in Salon today, Trump signed the stimulus checks, Biden did not. Full quote & link
https://substack.com/@cheeseyandtoasty/note/c-119206763?r=1v21b6&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
I never knew the name Murc's law. Thanks for that. But I do know the asymmetry: Republicans offer nothing but complaints - go back to the 1995 American President movie to see how long it's going on - and come election time, they lie and stoke fear. It's ingrained in Republican voters that Democrats are satanic baby killers who want to implement socialism and take away their guns. And it's hard if not impossible to break into the disinformation, lying RW media ecosystem.
I'm obsessed with Murc's law, it's SUCH an accurate descriptor of how American politics attributes agency. Like, once you SEE it, you can't UNSEE it. It is ALSO remarkably under-talked about...there's very little content online still...
Mainly because it was an offhand comment by a commenter at Lawyers, Guns and Money blog, and has diffused out from that readership which overlaps with a lot of lefty sites. LGM has been a continual going concern foreve (in internet years :-)
And this is why I say so often, Murc's Law is Cruise Control for Cool (and Clicks!)
Or alternately, Murc's Law is Cruise Control for Cool (and Clout!).
I wish I knew how to keep my handle as SethTriggs and get my gray text (what used to be {user's Substack) to say Murc's Law is Cruise Control for Cool, because really I think that's what my own Substack posts center around.
One reason it's so hard to break into that system is that the rightwing media human centipede is funded by billionaire and millionaire pocket change. There can be no equivalent structure for the Democratic Party because the redistributive policies of Democrats butt up against the greed of said millionaires and billionaires. A lot of Dems (especially online) ignore this crucial fact, sometimes doing cartwheels to do so if not to say their own pet cause is most important.
yep. That's when I realized that my criticisms of Democratic messaging were misguided and wrong.
Good point. Mark Cuban can do something like this. He chooses not to.
Yes, if the system is in fact not already dead. Things move slowly and then all at once, like when a glacier "rushes" forward and digs up the earth in its path. At 50 years old, I don't anticipate seeing what happens, just being part of the machinations of bringing progress forward in my own lifetime. I've chosen the directions I will take in my work for society, and I hope to do that dilligently while still enjoying my trip on the planet when I can.
This isn't about an election cycle or two.
What we're seeing today is the end result of the Gilded era oligarchs vengeance on the Great Class Traitor FDR, who unforgivingly saved their hides from the flensing knives of the masses during the Great Depression.
There is a direct line linking The Business Plot to the Hoover Institution to the rise of Buckley to the Goldwater campaign (which set the stage for the migration of the Jim Crow Southern Democrats to the Republican Party) to the Religious right, the Heritage Foundation to Reagan to Gingrich and the Contract on America to Trump.
During that time they wore down the durable FDR Dem power bloc infavor of what we have today, and I fear it'll take yet another existential catatrophy like the Great Depression/WWII to change it again...if it can be changed. I think we stand an equal chance of turning into a Theocratic oligarchy modeled on the Confederacy instead of the United States.
Yes, the action of FDR (guided by Frances Perkins, the New Deal was her list of priorities and she refused to join the cabinet without his buy in: she got everything except universal healthcare passed) in the shadow of war and the Great Depression are being gutted. My mother told me that along with Johnson’s Great Society which is often referred to, she remembered Johnson saying “this will change the face of America” meaning that in addition to economic and legal protections for the poor, there would be more non-European migrants. Well we know the power class didn’t like that. We get all of this white-replacement nonsense. But the original problem is way back in the colonies, after the slave rebellion in Haiti, their revolution. Afterwards, everyone who was an indentured servant here who was not white was made to be enslaved, and white people were allowed to remain indentured servants. We have never dealt with this wound and it may prove to be the congenital condition that kils the republic. It wasn’t really about race, it was about keeping power at the top, by using race. The desire to keep power concentrated at the top is a destructive power, and we see it again now.
yep. something MUCH deeper is broken
it's pretty daunting, but we're not giving up on the republic. we're in it up to our eyeballs, giving up really isn't an option.
Yes, do not give up. But if we find that it is a corpse we are carrying and not an injured body, we will do better to lay it down and focus our energy forward.
well said