Ha ha ha you Marxist just hate our country and you are nothing more than the child crying wolf again, again, and again. No one is listening you are screaming into an abyss.
Our current Democratic leadership is weak and ineffective. Yes, they are not in power, it they are also not powerless. They have ceded all their power, as you have pointed out. Shutting down the undemocratic government should be done and they should have demanded more! Mike Johnson gets away with not seating a duly elected representative from Arizona by telling the house not to come to work is outrageous! It was so obvious that he knew she would be 218th vote for the Massie/Kana resolution for the Epstein files. They will have to do it eventually!
The problem for democrats is that they have never supported individual rights, rights-protecting government, and capitalism. They have never really been anti-authoritarianism. Democrats are in many ways responsible for our current crisis. They are not going to save us from MAGA.
Only mainstream support for individual rights and capitalism can turn things around, nothing else.
Unfortunately, I don't think we really have any professional mainstream voices that can even define concepts like rights.
We have a real death of expertise in politics, which is what actually needs to change to fight back against authoritarianism effectively.
"American democracy is not guaranteed. It is not immune to the fate that has befallen so many other nations. What we do now will determine whether American self-government survives in any recognizable form."
This statement presupposes that we are not already past that point. Obviously Andy sees hope where others do not and I would prefer to see things Andy's way.
Ism sure in the end there is nothing REAL the Democrats can do. So do whatever they want. But the more they talk about it, explain it, or try to finesse their choice the more rope they give Trump to hang them
In this battle Trump has NOTHING to lose. ⁴/
He can further abuse his discretionary power during a shutdown.
It will be labeled and marketed as THE SCHUMER SHUTDOWN.
In order to get all the Republicans on board Trump and Johnson will negotiate even more draconian cuts in spending.
Trump has always demanded an end of the filibuster and a shutdown would be the perfect opportunity because it would be "saving the nation" from the evil that Democrats would plunge us into just for their own political gain.
To shutdown the government won't help the Democrats and it won't hurt Trump and the Republicans.
I totally agree that they should either negotiate for things big and worthwhile or just oppse on refusing to fund the arbitrary wishes of an unreliable and corrupt autocrat and a feckless Congressional majority and a rapidly decaying judiciary. Perhaps they shouldn't show up to vote at all. They have their greatest power to garner public attention in committee meetings than they do on the Senate floor
Congress as body has the power of the purse not the Democratic Party and the Congressional majority is going to have its way and the American people will get what they voted for good and hard.
Democrats by and large have offered reasonable governing alternatives since 2016 and voters have turned their back on them.The Democrats have done all they could as a NORMAL political party. They have no superpower to counter the overwhelming mendacity of the 21st Century National Socialists. Where they find themselves today is where they will remain for decades to come.
Perhaps one day a resistant political movement will rise up but it won't be the Democrats.
People who think America is a democracy don't have any reason to oppose Trump, since that's what pretending to be a democracy has given us.
I think it's not so much a resistant political movement that is needed, but people who actually understand the subject of politics in the mainstream. This will help spread politically literate ideas, like rights-protecting government (AKA liberalism), which will require politicians, dem/GOP/it doesn't matter, to run on pro-liberty policies if they want to get elected.
As it stands, we have authoritarian's vs worse authoritarians. No one really opposes them, nor can even theoretically conceive of what that would even sound like.
The problem goes back further. For decades everyone has accepted a deal where things are acceptable, Rs break them, then Ds fix them. It was unsustainable. Now the Rs have discovered they can break things without losing through scorched-earth politics, while Ds can't or won't do that.
How to change that? Actually, getting rid of the filibuster and making elections count is a step in the right direction, albeit far too late. But more generally, take away every incentive to elect clowns by making people feel the results. It will take time, and it probably won't work, but that's the path that would work if there were one, I think.
"Once again, Washington is facing the prospect of a government shutdown when congressional appropriations lapse at the end of this month. But this is anything but a normal shutdown standoff. Against the backdrop of an administration that is waging an unprecedented war on free speech, ginning up corrupt prosecutions of its opponents, facilitating unimaginable levels of self-dealing and personal grift, and subjecting states and cities to military occupation, this standoff cannot help but take on a heightened valence. If ever there was a time for a legislature to wield its power of the purse against a power-grabbing executive, this is it."
Out of curiosity, were you as adamant that the Republicans in legislature should wield its power of the purse against power-grabbing executives when Obama and Biden were conducting wars on free speech (more applicable to Biden than Obama), ginning up corrupt prosecutions of its opponents, facilitating unimaginable levels of self-dealing and personal grift (again, grift is far more relevant to Biden than to Obama) and refusing to protect cities from violence during "mostly peaceful" demonstrations that were really riots? I have no problem with you highlighting the many failings of the Trump administration but I find it cynical and one-sided as you have no history of providing a similar dissection of the numerous outrageous actions of the Left.
(1) Please stop calling the regime authoritarian. It is fascist.
(2) Trump & his cronies are the sideshow. The technofascists, christofascists, and other "lien-holders," foreign and domestic are running things, and whether trump or Vance or Mike Johnson is in charge is irrelevant to the level of cruelty, destruction, and, yes, evil the regime is and will wreak. (Except Johnson reportedly wants to end the world so Jesus will come back?) (https://brownpoliticalreview.org/speaker-johnson-evangelical-theology/
You're recommending Marquess of Queensberry Rules in a street fight with anything handy as a weapon.
You can stand on principle, and go down getting blamed by a uneducated electorate. Pursue protections for the poor needing health insurance coverage, and then hit the road selling it to constituents. Go after new voters like never before. GET OUT THE VOTE. And win back at least the House if not both the House and Senate.
The ONLY way to take these guys down is at the ballot box. Period.
Agree in principle, but that recommendation presumes the US will continue to have free and fair elections.
Everything the regime does clearly signals they intend to remain in power forever -- or at least until their project of dissolving the country and society is completed so they can loot what's left.
Schumer is making the best of a bad situation. But the democrats need a better option to offer the American people and so far they haven’t. Kamala give me a break! Read her book and recent interviews and tell me the democrats really offered a great alternative. Ditto with Clinton and Biden. The democrats need to really offer someone who is for the people, like Mamdani!!!
Thank you Mr. Craig. This political conflict is no longer about policy or debating issues. That era is gone. Trump's Project 2025 is designed to become a permanent political regime which never relinquishes power. Democrats are still clinging to their identity politics and the belief that policy prevails. Policy as a political force is gone. The Democrats' fantasy of MediCare for All is a pipe dream that will not win even if there is another election. And all those government employees that would lose their jobs during a shutdown? Trump'll fire them anyway. That's the plan. He fired the Congress. He pretty much has fired the Supreme Court. The separation between the DOJ and the president is gone. The independence of the FBI is gone. The game is up unless the Democrats hold their ground and play hardball.
Exactly! Ds are so afraid of breaking the government they plan to inherit that they are missing the fact that they will not inherit it. They want to play back-slapping politics while Rs are at war.
But who's gonna' get blamed for the disasters it unleashes? And the Rs can bundle anything else that fails into the same "It's because of the government shutdown the Dems caused." and who will argue with them?
And how did that work out for the Rs the last time they did it?
Any lessons there?
Righteousness is OK. Winning is better. Based on past history this is a BIG vote loser, though "past performance is no guarantee of future results."
It was bad enough for Ds to accept a situation where shutdowns are blamed on Ds regardless who is in charge during more approximately normal times. It is national suicide to allow that now. Not saying it's easy to change that, but we can't just accept it.
It's a consequence of being the party that wants things to actually work, and of voters judging parties against their own goals, not objectively. But we need to do something about it.
"We" don't have a choice. Faux News and the Fauxed up people who watch it will make sure of that. Just like ThRump, we got no ammo so we end up taking one for ... the team? The people? You decide.
Don't do anything Fox News and the GOP will attack you for implies don't do literally anything. There's no scenario where Dems cave and get a bunch of credit and favorable coverage from right-wing media for it.
The crucial difference is that in THIS case Faux and Friends will be CORRECT! I know, hard to believe, but true. And it's not the MAGA-heads that matter. You'll never get them onside. Lost cause.
It's the Swingers who hold the power. If the Swingers decide to double-check what they're hearing or consume any non-Faux source, and they find that what Faux says is true, game over. "EVERYONE says that it IS the Damn Dems who shut it down and caused us all this horror. Nutz on them!" The TP folks had the support of Faux and Friends when they did their shutdown and they still paid a huge price for that.
• Dems to get their caca together and make the tent bigger, MUCH bigger. Talk about ALL of us, not each interest group one speech at a time. Make some coalitions. "We understand you. We support you. But we will NOT say that in public. You have NO future with 'the other guys'. Stay with us and help us get in a position to help YOU."
• I don't think they need a policy plan. NOBODY in any country on earth knows how to fix this digital revolution mess. There is no clear way to "a path of predictable progress" that we've lost, and the sooner they realize that and instead work on bigger, more personal/emotional issues, the better. TALK to the people!!!
• ThRump has to massively fail. That won't bring over the 30% but it will convince some of the Swingers so that the Ds can return to power and stop the slaughter of our country and liberal system. NOTHING can happen until he fails. He's got all the ammo.
Sounds about right. I'd add a 4th that's corrolary to 2: have ideas. If you're not going to be a policy wonk, at least have some high-level ideas. I hear this from young people all the time - they, or their friends, are leaning right because the left is out of ideas. We had liberalism, they say, and we got high divorce rates and Chapel Roan winning a Grammy, and now they'd like something else.
Ha ha ha you Marxist just hate our country and you are nothing more than the child crying wolf again, again, and again. No one is listening you are screaming into an abyss.
Our current Democratic leadership is weak and ineffective. Yes, they are not in power, it they are also not powerless. They have ceded all their power, as you have pointed out. Shutting down the undemocratic government should be done and they should have demanded more! Mike Johnson gets away with not seating a duly elected representative from Arizona by telling the house not to come to work is outrageous! It was so obvious that he knew she would be 218th vote for the Massie/Kana resolution for the Epstein files. They will have to do it eventually!
The problem for democrats is that they have never supported individual rights, rights-protecting government, and capitalism. They have never really been anti-authoritarianism. Democrats are in many ways responsible for our current crisis. They are not going to save us from MAGA.
Only mainstream support for individual rights and capitalism can turn things around, nothing else.
Unfortunately, I don't think we really have any professional mainstream voices that can even define concepts like rights.
We have a real death of expertise in politics, which is what actually needs to change to fight back against authoritarianism effectively.
As always an excellent read. That said:
"American democracy is not guaranteed. It is not immune to the fate that has befallen so many other nations. What we do now will determine whether American self-government survives in any recognizable form."
This statement presupposes that we are not already past that point. Obviously Andy sees hope where others do not and I would prefer to see things Andy's way.
Ism sure in the end there is nothing REAL the Democrats can do. So do whatever they want. But the more they talk about it, explain it, or try to finesse their choice the more rope they give Trump to hang them
In this battle Trump has NOTHING to lose. ⁴/
He can further abuse his discretionary power during a shutdown.
It will be labeled and marketed as THE SCHUMER SHUTDOWN.
In order to get all the Republicans on board Trump and Johnson will negotiate even more draconian cuts in spending.
Trump has always demanded an end of the filibuster and a shutdown would be the perfect opportunity because it would be "saving the nation" from the evil that Democrats would plunge us into just for their own political gain.
To shutdown the government won't help the Democrats and it won't hurt Trump and the Republicans.
I totally agree that they should either negotiate for things big and worthwhile or just oppse on refusing to fund the arbitrary wishes of an unreliable and corrupt autocrat and a feckless Congressional majority and a rapidly decaying judiciary. Perhaps they shouldn't show up to vote at all. They have their greatest power to garner public attention in committee meetings than they do on the Senate floor
Congress as body has the power of the purse not the Democratic Party and the Congressional majority is going to have its way and the American people will get what they voted for good and hard.
Democrats by and large have offered reasonable governing alternatives since 2016 and voters have turned their back on them.The Democrats have done all they could as a NORMAL political party. They have no superpower to counter the overwhelming mendacity of the 21st Century National Socialists. Where they find themselves today is where they will remain for decades to come.
Perhaps one day a resistant political movement will rise up but it won't be the Democrats.
People who think America is a democracy don't have any reason to oppose Trump, since that's what pretending to be a democracy has given us.
I think it's not so much a resistant political movement that is needed, but people who actually understand the subject of politics in the mainstream. This will help spread politically literate ideas, like rights-protecting government (AKA liberalism), which will require politicians, dem/GOP/it doesn't matter, to run on pro-liberty policies if they want to get elected.
As it stands, we have authoritarian's vs worse authoritarians. No one really opposes them, nor can even theoretically conceive of what that would even sound like.
The problem goes back further. For decades everyone has accepted a deal where things are acceptable, Rs break them, then Ds fix them. It was unsustainable. Now the Rs have discovered they can break things without losing through scorched-earth politics, while Ds can't or won't do that.
How to change that? Actually, getting rid of the filibuster and making elections count is a step in the right direction, albeit far too late. But more generally, take away every incentive to elect clowns by making people feel the results. It will take time, and it probably won't work, but that's the path that would work if there were one, I think.
"Once again, Washington is facing the prospect of a government shutdown when congressional appropriations lapse at the end of this month. But this is anything but a normal shutdown standoff. Against the backdrop of an administration that is waging an unprecedented war on free speech, ginning up corrupt prosecutions of its opponents, facilitating unimaginable levels of self-dealing and personal grift, and subjecting states and cities to military occupation, this standoff cannot help but take on a heightened valence. If ever there was a time for a legislature to wield its power of the purse against a power-grabbing executive, this is it."
Out of curiosity, were you as adamant that the Republicans in legislature should wield its power of the purse against power-grabbing executives when Obama and Biden were conducting wars on free speech (more applicable to Biden than Obama), ginning up corrupt prosecutions of its opponents, facilitating unimaginable levels of self-dealing and personal grift (again, grift is far more relevant to Biden than to Obama) and refusing to protect cities from violence during "mostly peaceful" demonstrations that were really riots? I have no problem with you highlighting the many failings of the Trump administration but I find it cynical and one-sided as you have no history of providing a similar dissection of the numerous outrageous actions of the Left.
Razor sharp analysis.
Two friendly notes:
(1) Please stop calling the regime authoritarian. It is fascist.
(2) Trump & his cronies are the sideshow. The technofascists, christofascists, and other "lien-holders," foreign and domestic are running things, and whether trump or Vance or Mike Johnson is in charge is irrelevant to the level of cruelty, destruction, and, yes, evil the regime is and will wreak. (Except Johnson reportedly wants to end the world so Jesus will come back?) (https://brownpoliticalreview.org/speaker-johnson-evangelical-theology/
You're recommending Marquess of Queensberry Rules in a street fight with anything handy as a weapon.
You can stand on principle, and go down getting blamed by a uneducated electorate. Pursue protections for the poor needing health insurance coverage, and then hit the road selling it to constituents. Go after new voters like never before. GET OUT THE VOTE. And win back at least the House if not both the House and Senate.
The ONLY way to take these guys down is at the ballot box. Period.
These guys will not be taken down at the ballot box. If that's the only way, then we're done here.
Agree in principle, but that recommendation presumes the US will continue to have free and fair elections.
Everything the regime does clearly signals they intend to remain in power forever -- or at least until their project of dissolving the country and society is completed so they can loot what's left.
Schumer is making the best of a bad situation. But the democrats need a better option to offer the American people and so far they haven’t. Kamala give me a break! Read her book and recent interviews and tell me the democrats really offered a great alternative. Ditto with Clinton and Biden. The democrats need to really offer someone who is for the people, like Mamdani!!!
Thank you Mr. Craig. This political conflict is no longer about policy or debating issues. That era is gone. Trump's Project 2025 is designed to become a permanent political regime which never relinquishes power. Democrats are still clinging to their identity politics and the belief that policy prevails. Policy as a political force is gone. The Democrats' fantasy of MediCare for All is a pipe dream that will not win even if there is another election. And all those government employees that would lose their jobs during a shutdown? Trump'll fire them anyway. That's the plan. He fired the Congress. He pretty much has fired the Supreme Court. The separation between the DOJ and the president is gone. The independence of the FBI is gone. The game is up unless the Democrats hold their ground and play hardball.
Exactly! Ds are so afraid of breaking the government they plan to inherit that they are missing the fact that they will not inherit it. They want to play back-slapping politics while Rs are at war.
But who's gonna' get blamed for the disasters it unleashes? And the Rs can bundle anything else that fails into the same "It's because of the government shutdown the Dems caused." and who will argue with them?
And how did that work out for the Rs the last time they did it?
Any lessons there?
Righteousness is OK. Winning is better. Based on past history this is a BIG vote loser, though "past performance is no guarantee of future results."
It was bad enough for Ds to accept a situation where shutdowns are blamed on Ds regardless who is in charge during more approximately normal times. It is national suicide to allow that now. Not saying it's easy to change that, but we can't just accept it.
It's a consequence of being the party that wants things to actually work, and of voters judging parties against their own goals, not objectively. But we need to do something about it.
"We" don't have a choice. Faux News and the Fauxed up people who watch it will make sure of that. Just like ThRump, we got no ammo so we end up taking one for ... the team? The people? You decide.
Don't do anything Fox News and the GOP will attack you for implies don't do literally anything. There's no scenario where Dems cave and get a bunch of credit and favorable coverage from right-wing media for it.
Absolutely True!
The crucial difference is that in THIS case Faux and Friends will be CORRECT! I know, hard to believe, but true. And it's not the MAGA-heads that matter. You'll never get them onside. Lost cause.
It's the Swingers who hold the power. If the Swingers decide to double-check what they're hearing or consume any non-Faux source, and they find that what Faux says is true, game over. "EVERYONE says that it IS the Damn Dems who shut it down and caused us all this horror. Nutz on them!" The TP folks had the support of Faux and Friends when they did their shutdown and they still paid a huge price for that.
Well, I'd say we're taking one against the people. If we allow the model of Rs break, Ds fix, to persist in this age, the country will not survive.
I'd say you're right! On both counts.
Seems to me all we can hope for is:
• Dems to get their caca together and make the tent bigger, MUCH bigger. Talk about ALL of us, not each interest group one speech at a time. Make some coalitions. "We understand you. We support you. But we will NOT say that in public. You have NO future with 'the other guys'. Stay with us and help us get in a position to help YOU."
• I don't think they need a policy plan. NOBODY in any country on earth knows how to fix this digital revolution mess. There is no clear way to "a path of predictable progress" that we've lost, and the sooner they realize that and instead work on bigger, more personal/emotional issues, the better. TALK to the people!!!
• ThRump has to massively fail. That won't bring over the 30% but it will convince some of the Swingers so that the Ds can return to power and stop the slaughter of our country and liberal system. NOTHING can happen until he fails. He's got all the ammo.
Sounds about right. I'd add a 4th that's corrolary to 2: have ideas. If you're not going to be a policy wonk, at least have some high-level ideas. I hear this from young people all the time - they, or their friends, are leaning right because the left is out of ideas. We had liberalism, they say, and we got high divorce rates and Chapel Roan winning a Grammy, and now they'd like something else.
More to follow. Please send me a chat comment at Substack to continue this in a different manner if that's OK with you.
✊💙✊