Nate I disagree with you on this one. It’s not about being with billionaires or against them; it’s about ideas. What propelled Trump (both times) to the White House was ultimately his idea. He was the first major candidate to speak up about China, essentially calling them a predator (even in a praising way at times). He clumsily ascribed ill motive to “illegal immigrants”, but the idea, that (1) they’re taking jobs and creating a perverse privileged class that doesn’t pay taxes at the bottom, and (2) that some of them are violent, was embraced by America. And on and on.
So to ascribe “we’re either with them or against them” to a class of people with widely divergent ideas is misguided, IMO. Not as misguided as selecting that woke High School shooting kid as Vice Chair (whoa boy), but it’s still off base. Which is fine with me personally, because I absolutely love what Musk is doing at DOGE and with a few important exceptions (avoid the Middle East altogether!) am very happy with Trump 2.0 - so the Dems fumbling about might be good except the Republicans will inevitably go off the rails eventually, too - so we need a coherent alternative in this country. It sure as hell isn’t what the Left is putting together right now.
On top of that, to learn that USAID was funding Soros to fund these left wing causes, on top of all the other *insane* expenditures they’ve put up….maybe ya’ll don’t see it yet, but the people protesting the defunding of these agencies are tarring themselves and their party for an entire generation. At the admitted risk of using personal experience to make grand assumptions, I live in a *super* left wing area of wealthy people (I.e. the entire support base for Kamala) and *everybody* is stunned by what’s being uncovered. While the elites keep shouting from the ivory towers about the need to maintain these (very obviously rogue) agencies and pressing lawsuits, the rest of us are wondering why North Carolina went totally ignored for MONTHS when in a few weeks the new administration is getting it fixed up while doing all this other stuff, and the perceptions being created will be catastrophic for the next few years.
There is so much more to write but I hope the Democrats start taking these events to heart. They’ll need to learn eventually.
Haven't heard about USAID money to Soros. Sounds like a right-wing fantasy conspiracy theory but I'll look into it. Generally USAID is a force for good, builds goodwill for the US, and is a tiny a fraction of the cost of the DOD
It all depends where you get your news sources. The firing and rehiring of the nuclear administration wasn’t great. Red states aren’t happy with their institutions being defunded. I personally think that going line by line through the budget is a good idea. Yet I suspect they haven’t taken time to understand what the department does on a basic lev and I think politicizing it is a bad idea for the long term. I wish doge was independent like the fed and could scrutinize payments to match the law and if they did not could pause them (yes the principles need to be worked out). It also needs to be secure. All of this will require bipartisan support.
George Soros-made his money by short-selling the British pound causing financial volatility and disruption world-wide and then using his money to push idiotic and harmful progressive ideologies. Good Billionaire?
Elon Musk--Starlink military commo and SpaceX military satellites are the biggest contributors to "making the word safe for democracy" and preventing Russia from taking back Ukraine and the Baltics and the rest the eastern European countries as well as discouraging China from military exploits in Asia, especially Taiwan as well as preventing Iran from further destabilizing the Middle East; Tesla EV's and soon-to-be-ubiquitous RoboTaxis and RoboTrucks along with Tesla batteries and Tesla PV will mitigate global warming more than any climate treaty or conservation attempt. Bad Billionaire?
Soros had plenty of other trades that built up his wealth and his infamous shorting the British Pound in 92 was a near obvious trade in hindsight. There was no way that the Bank of England could maintain that unsustainable peg with respect to the German Mark. Moreover, Soros certainly can’t be blamed for the UK getting themselves into this mess, and currency speculators like himself are part of the mechanism for correcting these fiscal mistakes.
Matt, point taken. I was 46 in 1992 and had FX investments, so it's not completely abstract to me. The Soros trade did not just cause a re-balancing. It caused increased volatility and decreased liquidity and it had a large negative, disruptive impact on the world financial markets and world economy.
Speculation can play a significant role in increasing liquidity and balancing markets as in the futures markets, but there is good speculation and not-so-good speculation and hedge funds have often been in the not-so-good speculation category.
I was oversimplifying in order to make the point that Soros is a financial speculator who drained wealth from productive enterprises much like the traders in Morgan Stanley who caused the last financial crisis and Musk is actually creating jobs and wealth thru innovation and manufacturing, especially for the US.
I listened carefully to the Musk/Weidel conversation on youtube. It felt like she was blowing smoke up his butt and he was really enjoying it. This scared me some. It's true that afD was founded by Nazis and a lot of the anti-immigration sentiment in the party is racist. I think most of the anti-immigration sentiment in Germany is just common sense and not racist and the 25% of the electorate supporting afD is very similar to the fifty-one percent of the US electorate who voted against the woke authoritarianism and the destructive open border policies of the illiberal democrats.
After WWI the Soviet Union was very active in trying to spread its failed ideology with money and propaganda and the extended great depression created a large and willing coalition of unemployed workers, students, academics, and entertainers who embraced the Marxist ideologies. A lot of the same woke, anti-merit, anti-bourgeouis, anti-religion, anti-science ideas were included in these ideologies. Nazism was supported by the middle and upper classes who legitimately feared these ideologies. A real question is how it became so militaristic and racist and whether the same thing can happen with a party like the afD.
After the first world war the fall of the German tsar and the Great Depression, societal norms crumbled creating a lawless society which fostered militias and gangs, violence and riots. My guess is that the strong societal norms in Germany and the US will prevent this sort of behavior and prevent MAGA and afD from devolving into authoritarianism, militarism and outright racism.
I think Musk is closer to an enlightenment liberal progressive than to a fascist racist. His view seems to be that the illiberal left is more of a threat to humanity than the MAGA/afD anti-immigration, anti-woke parties, so he's holding his nose and supporting the afD.
The collapse of the center in america is concerning. In my youth I was fearful of the right--for instance, Goldwater, the John Birch Society, and the KKK with its combined anti-semitism and anti-minority racism.
It seemed like McCarthyism and the "Red Scare" were overdone--an over-reaction by far-right extremists. One could see that the Marxist ideology had some penetration into academia and into our media, especially Hollywood, but most people just viewed communists as Kooks because who would want to live under a Stalinist regime which was oppressive and poor. The rejection of McCarthyism felt like a triumph of the center over extremist hysteria.
In my old age now, I feel as though the post-modern, neo-Marxist identarian ideologies have not only penetrated but taken over K-12, Higher Education, the Media--including sports, news and entertainment, print and video-- and our federal, municipal, county and state bureaucracies, as well as having penetrated our corporations and military. Criticism, even rational and earned criticism of an identarian group is considered "hate speech". Truth has to give way to "Social Justice". There doesn't seem to be a center to rein in this extremist fury.
The younger me keeps whispering into the older Me's ear...be careful, don't forget that Naziism in the early 30's was embraced by the German bourgeoisie as a reaction to a similar penetration by Marxist ideology. How did that embrace become so deadly?
I've run across a free book on Audible, "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer. It's an attempt by the author to understand this very question in 1955 through hundreds of conversations with ten Nazi's from different backgrounds. I wish I could get Elon Musk to read it.
The phrase go woke and go broke really means go political and you could go broke. Musk went political and he can reap the rewards either way. Play with fire, don’t complain if you get burned.
Sorry Nate, the Democrats have a billionaire strategy, and have had it for years - and Soros exemplifies it. So they have the strategy, and the strategy is wrong. That’s it.
The Dems don’t need a billionaire strategy: they need A strategy, period. And it needs to start with a full post-mortem on the decision to run Biden and the complete capitulation of every member of the party (save Dean Phillips) to this decision despite ample evidence that it was a catastrophic political mistake FROM THE OUTSET. Even with the VERY recent political memory of an octogenarian overplaying her hand - and costing Americans dearly as a result - when a similar situation presented itself - except with MUCH higher stakes for the country - rather than a simple, hang on a sec there, Joe - the Dems meekly went along, with predictably disastrous results. And then they wonder why more than half the country thinks they’re feckless and stupid.
I wrote as much to Ken Martin and the DNC just the other day, and surprise surprise, I’ve yet to receive even a canned email reply. The party has ceased listening to the voters. So continue to squawk away about Trump and Elon and the DGE, dear Dems, but all it does is reinforce my resentment towards YOU for managing to lose an election to a 78-year-old convicted felon. You’ve stopped listening to me? Well, guess what - I’ve stopped listening to you, too.
Well sure. While we’re at it, let’s pretend it’s no big deal that the wishes of the majority of the voters were overridden by one man’s wish to cling to power, without any dissent from the party. No lessons to be learned here. Nancy Pelosi 2028. Sounds great.
Uh - Trump was also an unpopular incumbent. A historic anomaly unique to the US election that the Dems ALSO failed to recognize and seize on.
But you're right - parties shouldn't waste time evaluating candidate selection, since it's obviously irrelevant. Let's run Octomom 2028. If people vote for JD Vance instead, well, gosh, if only we'd improved our messaging.
Nah. I’m realized I’m just arguing with a typical Democrat. Respond derisively to those who question orthodoxy (CJ comment 1), blame externalities instead of contemplating your own culpability (CJ comment 2) and then gaslight your opponent by accusing them of being crazy instead of acknowledging your own message (CJ comment 3). I mean honestly, bro, it’s kinda impressive, no joke - you’re the prototype! I was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat until 2024. But no more. Anyway, no hard feelings. I’m gonna go watch the game. Have a good week.
I don't see what's incoherent about saying, "We have no problem with folks getting rich, we have problems with people trying to use their riches to rig the system to keep themselves and their heirs rich and lock anyone else out from following in their footsteps. It's fine to climb the ladder, but it's not fine to pull up the ladder behind you."
That's both Lina Khan, _and_ Mark Cuban. Cuban in particular has recently been trying to crack the cartel of the Pharmacy Benefit Managers, who are hated by pretty much everybody. Opening that market back up to competition is doing G*d's work, and I wish him well.
I was tepidly in support of Khan before the FTC accumulated an embarrassing track record under her tenure. In retrospect it was foolish to think that simply changing leadership could have a meaningful refocus in regulatory action within just 4 years. The FTC is a deep institution with lifetime staff who have been accumulated to certain procedures, with cases built and prosecuted in a certain way. Hence, there were staff revolts, motivation issues, and departures that only weakened the agency.
Secondly, many Khan-era FTC cases were discovered and built carelessly—possibly with the assumption they’d lose in court regardless and they just wanted a track record to justify new laws or a change in jurisprudence under a future, more-liberal SCOTUS. But this was embarrassing for those of us in favor of FTC regulation of anticompetitive behavior, and it even gets into Trumpish “abandon the rule of law” territory.
As exhibit A, I’d cite the July 2022 “FTC Seeks to Block Virtual Reality Giant Meta’s Acquisition of Popular App Creator Within”. [1] This was a worthless lawsuit because Meta was essentially acquiring a small, failed startup in order to get more VR talent. There was no competition risk because this was a niche market that “Within” (the company’s name) was failing to monetize effectively. Hence, in 2023 the courts allowed the merger. There was no point to this lawsuit other than adding another “FTC fails to fight Big Tech” to the list of justifications for changing antitrust laws.
For exhibit B, let’s consider the FTC’s blocking of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. [2] This was a far more substantial merger with serious anticompetitive considerations. Unfortunately, the FTC blew the case by focusing on the risk of Microsoft withdrawing Call of Duty from the PlayStation and other platforms. This obvious consideration was proactively addressed by Microsoft's lawyers with a multitude of long term agreements to continue offering Call of Duty everywhere. Microsoft also volunteered to enter into an FTC consent decree to further solidify this arrangement. Unfortunately, the FTC never offered up any other risks and the merger was allowed to go through.
By contrast, the UK’s Common Market Authority (CMA, their FTC equivalent) focused on Microsoft's stated goal of building a cloud gaming ecosystem. [3] The CMA required Activision to sell their cloud gaming rights to a third party, for which Microsoft acquired a non-exclusive license. This would allow other companies, like Sony, to easily also license these rights for Activision titles for their own cloud gaming platform, should that prove lucrative. Ie, the CMA addressed a real anti-competitive risk whereas the FTC carelessly built a case that they were guaranteed to lose in court.
Overall, the FTC under Khan’s leadership was a grave disappointment. At best it delayed some mergers that will now speed through the Trump FTC. Moreover, it antagonized tech leaders and investors, contributing to their defection to the Republicans—or at least their departure from the Democrats. We made no serious progress towards building mass public support for changing antitrust laws nor jurisprudence. This ended up being just another Biden failure based on appeasing his left flank, but disconnected from any concrete political strategy.
IANAL, so I'm not going to try to get into a deep debate whether Khan's FTC was _too_ aggressive and took swings at cases they shouldn't have.
I'd observe though that there are other folks who _do_ have serious legal backgrounds who seem to think that she and Jonathan Kanter were losing some cases just because they were bothering to try to bring things at all. It is natural that if you start pushing at the edges of the precedents, you'll lose some, but bringing the cases at all helps alert industry that they need to be more circumspect. You miss some of the swings you do take, but 100% of the swings you don't.
There's also an argument that a lot of the long-time staff at the FTC had built up a culture of deference to industry. (This is also a problem with DoJ not prosecuting white collar crime. See: The Chickenshit Club.) If folks were upset and disagreed, that's fine, and I'm glad that Khan, unlike Trump, didn't try to deal with that by trying to go outside normal civil service processes. If we had a concerted effort to revive antitrust doctrine for a decade, the staff would gradually come around, and/or be replaced through attrition with folks who are more enthusiastic about the new line.
Regardless, _even if_ it is correct that she was being sloppy, the answer to that is to get somebody who has the same commitment to fostering actual competition and long-term consumer welfare, but dots the i's and crosses the t's more thoroughly, not to just give up and let monopolists extract their rents.
But, again, they lost cases due to carelessness; not due to thoughtful challenges at the margins of established laws and existing jurisprudence. I could support them actually venturing into gray areas to “heighten the contradictions” of the current status quo. Instead, they just made the FTC look feckless and even called into question their commitment to the rule of law.
Moreover, that same mindset of “upsetting a bad status quo” could now apply to numerous Trump, Musk, et al. initiatives. Eg, who is to say that Musk and team isn’t actually committed to uncovering massive fraud and wasteful spending with their Treasury payments analysis? Eg, the rapid, forced return-to-office of federal employees, with allure of rich buyouts for holdouts, could be framed as a serious commitment to making the federal workforce more effective. If we abandon any continuity with the past, then a new administration can run wild in disrupting anything they dislike.
Worst of all, I just don’t see any lasting good coming from Kahn’s FTC. Some of the most promising cases prosecuted by her office were initiated under the Trump administration: A) Google search monopoly and B) Relitigation of Facebook/Meta acquisition of Instagram. The only noteworthy, credible tech case that began under Kahn was the Apple App Store monopoly case.
All three of those cases could’ve proceeded without Kahn’s ideological commitment and we may have even had stronger bipartisan support for reigning in the excesses of big tech. Instead, Khan’s FTC can be cast as just another Biden era excess easily dismissed.
What a load of horseshit. Transgenderism and adolescent genital mutilation; providing "sanctuary" status for illegal alien rapists, gang members and murderers; supporting biological men breaking woman's cheek bones in sports; the explicit racism of DEI; the Leftist grift that was USAID. The Left is f'king insane, and they will start to lose everywhere (in places like New Jersey) if they don't stop promoting and defending this insane list of horribles. What would they do with a a JD Vance in 2028? Attack Trump? Probably . . . good luck.
"Sanctuary" cities allows for better control of crime and public health in urban areas. Mayors are responsible for the safety of their people. If undocumented people in a community are scared to go to the doctor for infectious diseases because they think they or their family members will be targeted for deportation then the whole community suffers. Similarly, people won't call the cops to report crimes. Let the feds handle the border and do enforcement on immigration but cities and states should not be responsible for enforcement of federal immigration law.
Yes that's what the ads said the Dems are doing. And I think they have overreached. Dems do demonize or neglect certain groups in favor of others, and they lost voters. They need to figure that out. However, GOP also demonizes certain groups and lifts up others. They need to stop obsessing over people's genitalia.
In my opinion it's more of- can we accept that not everyone is a white cisgender male Christian, some are- we all may believe in things differently. And you don't have to understand or believe in it but you don't get a say in their civil rights if it's not hurting you. When it is, go from there.
Let's let sports leagues regulate who can join what team (I agree that in many cases its dangerous and unfair).
Let's actually protect children by supporting programs that help them thrive and protect them. Accessible health care, head start, protection of those with disabilities.
Let's actually protect women and help them thrive by helping them have access to reproductive care and maternal leave, and better justice against rapists. I'm a lot less scared of a trans woman in my bathroom than some of these MAGA men shouting "Your body, my choice" and a President who bragged about sexually assaulting women.
Let's let those actually medically trained to decide on health care with their patients - including reproductive care, gender care appropriate to age.
Let's have people who trained and researched for years help regulate public health. Not a wannabe influencer.
Let's keep accountability for all branches of government no matter who it is.
Let's not tax middle class harder so rich get a tax break.
Lets protect and tighten our borders. Deport criminals. But also give those tax paying immigrants a realistic path to citizenship not bogged down by a decade of paperwork. Oh let's actually keep citizens who are felons and violent criminals in jail... Oh wait.
Let's keep protection against hiring practices that let companies hire a mediocre person over one more experienced. Problem is it's usually a white person with connections hired over a qualified minority.
Let's let people decide for them and their families watch to watch a read, not banna book because it might have a boy wearing pink.
Let's have some regulation on guns - the 2nd Amendment did not mean everyone gets an AR-15 without any background checks.
Let's be firm, but not mock and bully other world leaders, not joke about taking over Canada.
Let's find waste, but actually look for it, not a wholesale elimination of departments because they hurt Trump's feelings or might hold him accountable.
They need to stop obsessing over people's genitalia and maybe everyone should leave people alone and let them make up their mind with the facts available.
"I suppose the proceedings didn’t shift my priors much ... Trump is probably going to make a mess, and voters are probably going to be unhappy about it."
Here is the assumption you need to change, what if Trump is successful, voters like Trump's policies after 4 years. How does your prior shift?
The general political assumption now about Trump among pundits is Trump failure. Yet did he fail as 45, will he fail as 47? How accurate has been pundit assumptions about Trump, with corresponding accurate outcome predictions?
The assumption that Trump will fail has to date been outcome bias, what should be true, doing corresponding damage to pundit opinion credibility.
Name a time you remember when voters thought a president was succeeding so much two years into his term, that they rewarded his party with more House seats (GWB’s dumb luck of getting a rally around the flag effect post-9/11 notwithstanding).
You can’t because other than GWB it hasn’t happened since 1934. Remember Obama in 2010? Clinton in 1994? They got shellacked. The great Ronald Reagan even lost 26 House seats in 1982.
So why should Trump be immune to this? He certainly wasn’t in 2018.
Because they are riding high on the hype train right now. It's the same shit as 2005, 2017, 2021. Everyone is ignoring the warning signs, as per usual, as the numbers start to slowly slide downward.
If you think this is bad for you, I literally have a pair of them who spent the entirety of my damn football party telling me how I'd 'come around by next year' and that I was being 'unreasonable, Trumps giving you everything you ever wanted'.
Meanwhile, I'm looking at the looting, the sovereign wealth fund, The Trump Cultural Revolution, all the thinly veiled socialism, and just shaking my head as they start working hard to annoy the entire ducking nation one bad idea at a time.
When I try to bring up the issues I have right now with conservatives, I either get silence in person with the phrase 'You gotta let it play out, it's all negotiating', or online they rant about how stupid the dems are and how dare I not want to talk about how dumb and racist the Democratic convention is.
This argument oversimplifies the dilemma Democrats face regarding billionaires. The real issue isn’t whether Democrats should embrace or reject billionaires—it’s how they address the structural imbalances in the economy. Focusing on individual wealth obscures the need for systemic reforms like stronger antitrust laws, fairer tax policies, and worker protections. A rigid “for or against billionaires” stance risks alienating business-friendly voters while failing to address the root causes of inequality. Democrats can support capitalism while ensuring it serves the broader public interest. A smarter strategy is to regulate wealth and power effectively, rather than engaging in rhetorical purity tests.
Musk is burning down the barn to rid it of rats. That appeals to the crazy base who have forgotten, if they ever knew, what a barn is for. According to your old haunts, Five Thirty Eight, a growing majority do not want this. It is too early for the protest voters (e.g. the anti-genocides), the price of eggs folks, the isolationists and the anything-but-the-status-quo vote, to admit a trifecta was a grievous mistake. The tech bro sociopaths will have their fun for a while. Even the Republican Congress is just waiting for it to get bad enough to have some cover for pushing back. Obama told a story about asking a respected colleague who he could work with as a novice senator. The colleague told him a third are knuckle draggers, another third are worried about being primaried. That leaves a third who can think about governing. I'm watching out for them. In such a closely divided Congress, it only takes a few.
Nate: The problem is not Capitalism vs Populism. The problem is Capitalism vs. Oligopolistic and Monopolistic domination. A real capitalist economy requires economic actors to possess bargaining power. Since the late 1990s, middle class, working class, and working poor Americans like my family have been losing economic bargaining power over the most important things in our lives.
One of the most obvious examples is healthcare. The choices on the Health Exchange do not meet our needs because insurance companies are exempt from antitrust laws, the insurance companies can raise their prices at anytime, and the government does not provide a public option to compete with a minimally regulated private sector. So, we are forced to accept whatever we are given and watch as our families suffer.
The challenge we face as Democrats is to offer meaningful proposals to address the Oligopolistic and Monopolistic forces we face so that we may exercise more power over our lives.
Respectfully yours,
Jonathan W. Fink, JD, Former Biden-Harris and Harris-Walz Utah Digital Media Co-Coordinator and Western States Volunteer Coordinator
A party that believes that Donald Trump isn't just the "wrong candidate", but a dire risk for all humanity, and yet whose "battle plan" is to try and cover up the growing soft spots in Biden's brain until last-minute panic-nominating Kamala, is, simply put, not fit to govern.
"Hold your nose and vote for us because at least we're more institutionally-competent than those buffoons" - probably not the greatest message in the world to begin with, but it's what Democrats were sort of reduced to - just doesn't work after a result like 2024.
I think the Ken Martin quote illustrates a deeper problem, the idea that being a liberal means never having to say you're sorry. You can take money from billionaires while excoriating the practice among Republicans just by calling your billionaires good and their billionaires bad. You don't have to choose between nuclear power and increased CO2 emissions, there's just "green" energy and bad energy. You can denounce the broad-based Bush and Trump tax cuts as giveaways to the rich, while fighting to uncap SALT deductions for your high-income supporters in deep blue jurisdictions and retaining carried interest treatment for private equity managers. You can support Israel and the people who want to destroy it. You can have sanctuary cities without taking responsibility for problems of unauthorized immigration. You can celebrate the accomplishments of great women athletes, and demand that their records be smashed by trans women who are only pretty good by male standards.
I don't claim the Republican party is a model of consistency, but at the moment it seems to be winning, and winning can keep strange bedfellows in line. Fiscal and social conservatives can make peace, militarists and non-interventionists, traditional patriots and tech bros. They don't have to like each other, just accept their share of the spoils.
In 2016, I thought the Democrats were in good shape. They still had a very strong leadership class, and a lot of young, energetic, attractive young progressives. All they needed to do was let Trump crash and burn, and heal the bad feelings caused by shoving Bernie Sanders aside for Hillary Clinton. In 2025, all that seems gone. The leadership seems worn out and discredited. The progressives are not so fresh and seem to have splintered, most to positions unelectable at the national level. The party seems in desperate need of a Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan to come in from the semi-outside with tough love and a clear message voters can believe.
" The party seems in desperate need of a Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan to come in from the semi-outside with tough love and a clear message voters can believe." So you are basically Democrats need .... Trump. But they will never be able to do that. They are a party of unworkable status quo, and Trump is all about breaking the rules of status quo and proposing something new.
First-term Trump was a complete outsider and lacked the experience and allies to be a Clinton or a Reagan. He ended up running a successful mild center-right administration but did not cause a generational shift in US politics.
Second-term Trump seems to have the experience and allies to attempt a Clinton/Reagan result, a re-alignment to the right that lasts for decades. We'll see. But even if that fails, the Republican party is in good shape for the future. It could coast along without a major shift in the electorate. Democrats are in a less comfortable position.
It’s crazy to me that you claim the party that has won the popular vote twice since 1988, and even then by a tiny margin, is in excellent shape, while the party that has won the popular vote 7 times in that span is somehow a disaster.
I didn't say the Republicans were stronger on average from 1988 to 2024, only that the Republican party appears in better shape now. In fact, I said the Democratic party looked stronger in 2017. Moreover I think you're being selective in looking only at the popular vote in Presidential campaigns. If you look at Congress, mayors and governors, you will see a more even contest.
Also, things change. Democrats might get their act together by 2026 or 2028--or Trump might crash and burn, taking Republicans down with him. But I suspect any Democratic renaissance will have to be led by a semi-outsider--the existing leadership and prominent progressives outside it don't seem to have a credible national candidate.
Having a debate about good and bad billionaires is loony tune politics....Debating socialism vs capitalism is plain nuts... No one cares.....Trump unfortunately had it right in '24....immigration and family expenses...We need to follow his smart advice as to what the issues are....in the language that the vast majority care about....We don't need crazy debates....useless debates.
“Our society, at the present time, seems to have sympathy only for the misfit, the ne’er-do-well, the maladjusted, the criminal, the loser. It is time to stand up for the doer, the achiever, the one who sets out to do something and does it. The one who recognizes the problems and opportunities at hand, and deals with them, and is successful, and is not worrying about the failings of others. The one who is constantly looking for more to do. The one who carries the work of the world on his shoulders. The leader. We will never create a good society, much less a great one, until individual excellence is respected and encouraged.”
This from 1970 sums up exactly what is wrong with the Democratic party. Until they accept reality nothing will change.
4 time convicted felon who murdered an old woman trying to steal some money so he could take another trip to Vegas and whore it up. "Oh you sweet precious gorgeous the justice department and society made you like this we need to release you immediately".
Self-made person who has built a company with hundreds of employees and serves as a leader in their community but argues for lower taxes on him and his industry, maybe had to lay-off some people during a recession, and worst of all said he doesn't care about DEI. "This asshole donkey belongs in jail if not with a bullet in his skull, fucking bootstrap loser".
Infinite excuses for criminals, zero excuses for people who just have a different opinion about some ID politics nonsense.
Democrats don’t need money, from billionaires, or from anyone, really. They need a mirror, and a compass. And then, a leader.
Nate I disagree with you on this one. It’s not about being with billionaires or against them; it’s about ideas. What propelled Trump (both times) to the White House was ultimately his idea. He was the first major candidate to speak up about China, essentially calling them a predator (even in a praising way at times). He clumsily ascribed ill motive to “illegal immigrants”, but the idea, that (1) they’re taking jobs and creating a perverse privileged class that doesn’t pay taxes at the bottom, and (2) that some of them are violent, was embraced by America. And on and on.
So to ascribe “we’re either with them or against them” to a class of people with widely divergent ideas is misguided, IMO. Not as misguided as selecting that woke High School shooting kid as Vice Chair (whoa boy), but it’s still off base. Which is fine with me personally, because I absolutely love what Musk is doing at DOGE and with a few important exceptions (avoid the Middle East altogether!) am very happy with Trump 2.0 - so the Dems fumbling about might be good except the Republicans will inevitably go off the rails eventually, too - so we need a coherent alternative in this country. It sure as hell isn’t what the Left is putting together right now.
On top of that, to learn that USAID was funding Soros to fund these left wing causes, on top of all the other *insane* expenditures they’ve put up….maybe ya’ll don’t see it yet, but the people protesting the defunding of these agencies are tarring themselves and their party for an entire generation. At the admitted risk of using personal experience to make grand assumptions, I live in a *super* left wing area of wealthy people (I.e. the entire support base for Kamala) and *everybody* is stunned by what’s being uncovered. While the elites keep shouting from the ivory towers about the need to maintain these (very obviously rogue) agencies and pressing lawsuits, the rest of us are wondering why North Carolina went totally ignored for MONTHS when in a few weeks the new administration is getting it fixed up while doing all this other stuff, and the perceptions being created will be catastrophic for the next few years.
There is so much more to write but I hope the Democrats start taking these events to heart. They’ll need to learn eventually.
Haven't heard about USAID money to Soros. Sounds like a right-wing fantasy conspiracy theory but I'll look into it. Generally USAID is a force for good, builds goodwill for the US, and is a tiny a fraction of the cost of the DOD
What is the thing about North Carolina that you're referring to?
The right wing loons think Biden slow walked aid after hurricane Helene.
It all depends where you get your news sources. The firing and rehiring of the nuclear administration wasn’t great. Red states aren’t happy with their institutions being defunded. I personally think that going line by line through the budget is a good idea. Yet I suspect they haven’t taken time to understand what the department does on a basic lev and I think politicizing it is a bad idea for the long term. I wish doge was independent like the fed and could scrutinize payments to match the law and if they did not could pause them (yes the principles need to be worked out). It also needs to be secure. All of this will require bipartisan support.
George Soros-made his money by short-selling the British pound causing financial volatility and disruption world-wide and then using his money to push idiotic and harmful progressive ideologies. Good Billionaire?
Elon Musk--Starlink military commo and SpaceX military satellites are the biggest contributors to "making the word safe for democracy" and preventing Russia from taking back Ukraine and the Baltics and the rest the eastern European countries as well as discouraging China from military exploits in Asia, especially Taiwan as well as preventing Iran from further destabilizing the Middle East; Tesla EV's and soon-to-be-ubiquitous RoboTaxis and RoboTrucks along with Tesla batteries and Tesla PV will mitigate global warming more than any climate treaty or conservation attempt. Bad Billionaire?
Soros had plenty of other trades that built up his wealth and his infamous shorting the British Pound in 92 was a near obvious trade in hindsight. There was no way that the Bank of England could maintain that unsustainable peg with respect to the German Mark. Moreover, Soros certainly can’t be blamed for the UK getting themselves into this mess, and currency speculators like himself are part of the mechanism for correcting these fiscal mistakes.
Matt, point taken. I was 46 in 1992 and had FX investments, so it's not completely abstract to me. The Soros trade did not just cause a re-balancing. It caused increased volatility and decreased liquidity and it had a large negative, disruptive impact on the world financial markets and world economy.
Speculation can play a significant role in increasing liquidity and balancing markets as in the futures markets, but there is good speculation and not-so-good speculation and hedge funds have often been in the not-so-good speculation category.
I was oversimplifying in order to make the point that Soros is a financial speculator who drained wealth from productive enterprises much like the traders in Morgan Stanley who caused the last financial crisis and Musk is actually creating jobs and wealth thru innovation and manufacturing, especially for the US.
The reality is probably a lot more nuanced.
The nuance is that the pound was so overvalued that private investment could destabilize it.
Sounds like you were swimming with the sharks in the FX investment pool and were surprised to learn you were mixed in with the chum.
He did better before he waded into global politics. You with him on support for afD in Germany?
I listened carefully to the Musk/Weidel conversation on youtube. It felt like she was blowing smoke up his butt and he was really enjoying it. This scared me some. It's true that afD was founded by Nazis and a lot of the anti-immigration sentiment in the party is racist. I think most of the anti-immigration sentiment in Germany is just common sense and not racist and the 25% of the electorate supporting afD is very similar to the fifty-one percent of the US electorate who voted against the woke authoritarianism and the destructive open border policies of the illiberal democrats.
After WWI the Soviet Union was very active in trying to spread its failed ideology with money and propaganda and the extended great depression created a large and willing coalition of unemployed workers, students, academics, and entertainers who embraced the Marxist ideologies. A lot of the same woke, anti-merit, anti-bourgeouis, anti-religion, anti-science ideas were included in these ideologies. Nazism was supported by the middle and upper classes who legitimately feared these ideologies. A real question is how it became so militaristic and racist and whether the same thing can happen with a party like the afD.
After the first world war the fall of the German tsar and the Great Depression, societal norms crumbled creating a lawless society which fostered militias and gangs, violence and riots. My guess is that the strong societal norms in Germany and the US will prevent this sort of behavior and prevent MAGA and afD from devolving into authoritarianism, militarism and outright racism.
I think Musk is closer to an enlightenment liberal progressive than to a fascist racist. His view seems to be that the illiberal left is more of a threat to humanity than the MAGA/afD anti-immigration, anti-woke parties, so he's holding his nose and supporting the afD.
If illiberal left and AfD-type illiberal right parties are our only options, we are in trouble. I am concerned but not that resigned to despair.
The collapse of the center in america is concerning. In my youth I was fearful of the right--for instance, Goldwater, the John Birch Society, and the KKK with its combined anti-semitism and anti-minority racism.
It seemed like McCarthyism and the "Red Scare" were overdone--an over-reaction by far-right extremists. One could see that the Marxist ideology had some penetration into academia and into our media, especially Hollywood, but most people just viewed communists as Kooks because who would want to live under a Stalinist regime which was oppressive and poor. The rejection of McCarthyism felt like a triumph of the center over extremist hysteria.
In my old age now, I feel as though the post-modern, neo-Marxist identarian ideologies have not only penetrated but taken over K-12, Higher Education, the Media--including sports, news and entertainment, print and video-- and our federal, municipal, county and state bureaucracies, as well as having penetrated our corporations and military. Criticism, even rational and earned criticism of an identarian group is considered "hate speech". Truth has to give way to "Social Justice". There doesn't seem to be a center to rein in this extremist fury.
The younger me keeps whispering into the older Me's ear...be careful, don't forget that Naziism in the early 30's was embraced by the German bourgeoisie as a reaction to a similar penetration by Marxist ideology. How did that embrace become so deadly?
I've run across a free book on Audible, "They Thought They Were Free" by Milton Mayer. It's an attempt by the author to understand this very question in 1955 through hundreds of conversations with ten Nazi's from different backgrounds. I wish I could get Elon Musk to read it.
The phrase go woke and go broke really means go political and you could go broke. Musk went political and he can reap the rewards either way. Play with fire, don’t complain if you get burned.
Sorry Nate, the Democrats have a billionaire strategy, and have had it for years - and Soros exemplifies it. So they have the strategy, and the strategy is wrong. That’s it.
Nowhere in this article do you actually make an argument for why the middling strategy is worse than the other two.
My comment was meant to be a comment on the main article. I didn’t mean to reply to any specific comment. My bad.
The Dems don’t need a billionaire strategy: they need A strategy, period. And it needs to start with a full post-mortem on the decision to run Biden and the complete capitulation of every member of the party (save Dean Phillips) to this decision despite ample evidence that it was a catastrophic political mistake FROM THE OUTSET. Even with the VERY recent political memory of an octogenarian overplaying her hand - and costing Americans dearly as a result - when a similar situation presented itself - except with MUCH higher stakes for the country - rather than a simple, hang on a sec there, Joe - the Dems meekly went along, with predictably disastrous results. And then they wonder why more than half the country thinks they’re feckless and stupid.
I wrote as much to Ken Martin and the DNC just the other day, and surprise surprise, I’ve yet to receive even a canned email reply. The party has ceased listening to the voters. So continue to squawk away about Trump and Elon and the DGE, dear Dems, but all it does is reinforce my resentment towards YOU for managing to lose an election to a 78-year-old convicted felon. You’ve stopped listening to me? Well, guess what - I’ve stopped listening to you, too.
By all means, let's have a collective navel gazing session. That will fix things.
Maybe they can live stream it.
Well sure. While we’re at it, let’s pretend it’s no big deal that the wishes of the majority of the voters were overridden by one man’s wish to cling to power, without any dissent from the party. No lessons to be learned here. Nancy Pelosi 2028. Sounds great.
Blah blah blah.
Blame whoever you want, but the reality is that incumbents world wide lost, and the US economy had not completed its turnaround.
This is the fault of the people who stayed home or voted for Trump.
Uh - Trump was also an unpopular incumbent. A historic anomaly unique to the US election that the Dems ALSO failed to recognize and seize on.
But you're right - parties shouldn't waste time evaluating candidate selection, since it's obviously irrelevant. Let's run Octomom 2028. If people vote for JD Vance instead, well, gosh, if only we'd improved our messaging.
Who said any of that? Are you arguing with voices in your head?
Nah. I’m realized I’m just arguing with a typical Democrat. Respond derisively to those who question orthodoxy (CJ comment 1), blame externalities instead of contemplating your own culpability (CJ comment 2) and then gaslight your opponent by accusing them of being crazy instead of acknowledging your own message (CJ comment 3). I mean honestly, bro, it’s kinda impressive, no joke - you’re the prototype! I was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat until 2024. But no more. Anyway, no hard feelings. I’m gonna go watch the game. Have a good week.
Will it start with a Lint Acknowledgement?
I don't see what's incoherent about saying, "We have no problem with folks getting rich, we have problems with people trying to use their riches to rig the system to keep themselves and their heirs rich and lock anyone else out from following in their footsteps. It's fine to climb the ladder, but it's not fine to pull up the ladder behind you."
That's both Lina Khan, _and_ Mark Cuban. Cuban in particular has recently been trying to crack the cartel of the Pharmacy Benefit Managers, who are hated by pretty much everybody. Opening that market back up to competition is doing G*d's work, and I wish him well.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/inside-the-mafia-of-pharma-pricing
https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/episode-3-the-revolt-of-the-pharmacists
https://www.organizedmoney.fm/p/episode-4-the-revolt-of-the-pharmacists
There's a bipartisan bill to go after them, led by Warren and Hawley.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshuacohen/2024/12/16/lawmakers-want-to-break-up-healthcare-conglomerates-force-shedding-of-pharmacies/
We want to see fair competition, not middlemen who find a way to set up a tollbooth at some chokepoint in the supply chain and extract unearned rents.
I was tepidly in support of Khan before the FTC accumulated an embarrassing track record under her tenure. In retrospect it was foolish to think that simply changing leadership could have a meaningful refocus in regulatory action within just 4 years. The FTC is a deep institution with lifetime staff who have been accumulated to certain procedures, with cases built and prosecuted in a certain way. Hence, there were staff revolts, motivation issues, and departures that only weakened the agency.
Secondly, many Khan-era FTC cases were discovered and built carelessly—possibly with the assumption they’d lose in court regardless and they just wanted a track record to justify new laws or a change in jurisprudence under a future, more-liberal SCOTUS. But this was embarrassing for those of us in favor of FTC regulation of anticompetitive behavior, and it even gets into Trumpish “abandon the rule of law” territory.
As exhibit A, I’d cite the July 2022 “FTC Seeks to Block Virtual Reality Giant Meta’s Acquisition of Popular App Creator Within”. [1] This was a worthless lawsuit because Meta was essentially acquiring a small, failed startup in order to get more VR talent. There was no competition risk because this was a niche market that “Within” (the company’s name) was failing to monetize effectively. Hence, in 2023 the courts allowed the merger. There was no point to this lawsuit other than adding another “FTC fails to fight Big Tech” to the list of justifications for changing antitrust laws.
For exhibit B, let’s consider the FTC’s blocking of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision. [2] This was a far more substantial merger with serious anticompetitive considerations. Unfortunately, the FTC blew the case by focusing on the risk of Microsoft withdrawing Call of Duty from the PlayStation and other platforms. This obvious consideration was proactively addressed by Microsoft's lawyers with a multitude of long term agreements to continue offering Call of Duty everywhere. Microsoft also volunteered to enter into an FTC consent decree to further solidify this arrangement. Unfortunately, the FTC never offered up any other risks and the merger was allowed to go through.
By contrast, the UK’s Common Market Authority (CMA, their FTC equivalent) focused on Microsoft's stated goal of building a cloud gaming ecosystem. [3] The CMA required Activision to sell their cloud gaming rights to a third party, for which Microsoft acquired a non-exclusive license. This would allow other companies, like Sony, to easily also license these rights for Activision titles for their own cloud gaming platform, should that prove lucrative. Ie, the CMA addressed a real anti-competitive risk whereas the FTC carelessly built a case that they were guaranteed to lose in court.
Overall, the FTC under Khan’s leadership was a grave disappointment. At best it delayed some mergers that will now speed through the Trump FTC. Moreover, it antagonized tech leaders and investors, contributing to their defection to the Republicans—or at least their departure from the Democrats. We made no serious progress towards building mass public support for changing antitrust laws nor jurisprudence. This ended up being just another Biden failure based on appeasing his left flank, but disconnected from any concrete political strategy.
[1] https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2022/07/ftc-seeks-block-virtual-reality-giant-metas-acquisition-popular-app-creator-within
[2] https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings/2210077-microsoftactivision-blizzard-matter
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-22/microsoft-s-activision-deal-set-to-get-uk-s-cma-approval
IANAL, so I'm not going to try to get into a deep debate whether Khan's FTC was _too_ aggressive and took swings at cases they shouldn't have.
I'd observe though that there are other folks who _do_ have serious legal backgrounds who seem to think that she and Jonathan Kanter were losing some cases just because they were bothering to try to bring things at all. It is natural that if you start pushing at the edges of the precedents, you'll lose some, but bringing the cases at all helps alert industry that they need to be more circumspect. You miss some of the swings you do take, but 100% of the swings you don't.
There's also an argument that a lot of the long-time staff at the FTC had built up a culture of deference to industry. (This is also a problem with DoJ not prosecuting white collar crime. See: The Chickenshit Club.) If folks were upset and disagreed, that's fine, and I'm glad that Khan, unlike Trump, didn't try to deal with that by trying to go outside normal civil service processes. If we had a concerted effort to revive antitrust doctrine for a decade, the staff would gradually come around, and/or be replaced through attrition with folks who are more enthusiastic about the new line.
Regardless, _even if_ it is correct that she was being sloppy, the answer to that is to get somebody who has the same commitment to fostering actual competition and long-term consumer welfare, but dots the i's and crosses the t's more thoroughly, not to just give up and let monopolists extract their rents.
But, again, they lost cases due to carelessness; not due to thoughtful challenges at the margins of established laws and existing jurisprudence. I could support them actually venturing into gray areas to “heighten the contradictions” of the current status quo. Instead, they just made the FTC look feckless and even called into question their commitment to the rule of law.
Moreover, that same mindset of “upsetting a bad status quo” could now apply to numerous Trump, Musk, et al. initiatives. Eg, who is to say that Musk and team isn’t actually committed to uncovering massive fraud and wasteful spending with their Treasury payments analysis? Eg, the rapid, forced return-to-office of federal employees, with allure of rich buyouts for holdouts, could be framed as a serious commitment to making the federal workforce more effective. If we abandon any continuity with the past, then a new administration can run wild in disrupting anything they dislike.
Worst of all, I just don’t see any lasting good coming from Kahn’s FTC. Some of the most promising cases prosecuted by her office were initiated under the Trump administration: A) Google search monopoly and B) Relitigation of Facebook/Meta acquisition of Instagram. The only noteworthy, credible tech case that began under Kahn was the Apple App Store monopoly case.
All three of those cases could’ve proceeded without Kahn’s ideological commitment and we may have even had stronger bipartisan support for reigning in the excesses of big tech. Instead, Khan’s FTC can be cast as just another Biden era excess easily dismissed.
What a load of horseshit. Transgenderism and adolescent genital mutilation; providing "sanctuary" status for illegal alien rapists, gang members and murderers; supporting biological men breaking woman's cheek bones in sports; the explicit racism of DEI; the Leftist grift that was USAID. The Left is f'king insane, and they will start to lose everywhere (in places like New Jersey) if they don't stop promoting and defending this insane list of horribles. What would they do with a a JD Vance in 2028? Attack Trump? Probably . . . good luck.
"Sanctuary" cities allows for better control of crime and public health in urban areas. Mayors are responsible for the safety of their people. If undocumented people in a community are scared to go to the doctor for infectious diseases because they think they or their family members will be targeted for deportation then the whole community suffers. Similarly, people won't call the cops to report crimes. Let the feds handle the border and do enforcement on immigration but cities and states should not be responsible for enforcement of federal immigration law.
Nailed it. They show zero signs of changing either.
Yes that's what the ads said the Dems are doing. And I think they have overreached. Dems do demonize or neglect certain groups in favor of others, and they lost voters. They need to figure that out. However, GOP also demonizes certain groups and lifts up others. They need to stop obsessing over people's genitalia.
In my opinion it's more of- can we accept that not everyone is a white cisgender male Christian, some are- we all may believe in things differently. And you don't have to understand or believe in it but you don't get a say in their civil rights if it's not hurting you. When it is, go from there.
Let's let sports leagues regulate who can join what team (I agree that in many cases its dangerous and unfair).
Let's actually protect children by supporting programs that help them thrive and protect them. Accessible health care, head start, protection of those with disabilities.
Let's actually protect women and help them thrive by helping them have access to reproductive care and maternal leave, and better justice against rapists. I'm a lot less scared of a trans woman in my bathroom than some of these MAGA men shouting "Your body, my choice" and a President who bragged about sexually assaulting women.
Let's let those actually medically trained to decide on health care with their patients - including reproductive care, gender care appropriate to age.
Let's have people who trained and researched for years help regulate public health. Not a wannabe influencer.
Let's keep accountability for all branches of government no matter who it is.
Let's not tax middle class harder so rich get a tax break.
Lets protect and tighten our borders. Deport criminals. But also give those tax paying immigrants a realistic path to citizenship not bogged down by a decade of paperwork. Oh let's actually keep citizens who are felons and violent criminals in jail... Oh wait.
Let's keep protection against hiring practices that let companies hire a mediocre person over one more experienced. Problem is it's usually a white person with connections hired over a qualified minority.
Let's let people decide for them and their families watch to watch a read, not banna book because it might have a boy wearing pink.
Let's have some regulation on guns - the 2nd Amendment did not mean everyone gets an AR-15 without any background checks.
Let's be firm, but not mock and bully other world leaders, not joke about taking over Canada.
Let's find waste, but actually look for it, not a wholesale elimination of departments because they hurt Trump's feelings or might hold him accountable.
They need to stop obsessing over people's genitalia and maybe everyone should leave people alone and let them make up their mind with the facts available.
"I suppose the proceedings didn’t shift my priors much ... Trump is probably going to make a mess, and voters are probably going to be unhappy about it."
Here is the assumption you need to change, what if Trump is successful, voters like Trump's policies after 4 years. How does your prior shift?
The general political assumption now about Trump among pundits is Trump failure. Yet did he fail as 45, will he fail as 47? How accurate has been pundit assumptions about Trump, with corresponding accurate outcome predictions?
The assumption that Trump will fail has to date been outcome bias, what should be true, doing corresponding damage to pundit opinion credibility.
Name a time you remember when voters thought a president was succeeding so much two years into his term, that they rewarded his party with more House seats (GWB’s dumb luck of getting a rally around the flag effect post-9/11 notwithstanding).
You can’t because other than GWB it hasn’t happened since 1934. Remember Obama in 2010? Clinton in 1994? They got shellacked. The great Ronald Reagan even lost 26 House seats in 1982.
So why should Trump be immune to this? He certainly wasn’t in 2018.
Because they are riding high on the hype train right now. It's the same shit as 2005, 2017, 2021. Everyone is ignoring the warning signs, as per usual, as the numbers start to slowly slide downward.
If you think this is bad for you, I literally have a pair of them who spent the entirety of my damn football party telling me how I'd 'come around by next year' and that I was being 'unreasonable, Trumps giving you everything you ever wanted'.
Literally. Did. Not. Notice. That. Everyone. Else. Wanted. Them. To. Shut. UP.
Meanwhile, I'm looking at the looting, the sovereign wealth fund, The Trump Cultural Revolution, all the thinly veiled socialism, and just shaking my head as they start working hard to annoy the entire ducking nation one bad idea at a time.
When I try to bring up the issues I have right now with conservatives, I either get silence in person with the phrase 'You gotta let it play out, it's all negotiating', or online they rant about how stupid the dems are and how dare I not want to talk about how dumb and racist the Democratic convention is.
https://presidentialgreatnessproject.com/
It isn't just "pundits" who say Trump failed in his first term.
This argument oversimplifies the dilemma Democrats face regarding billionaires. The real issue isn’t whether Democrats should embrace or reject billionaires—it’s how they address the structural imbalances in the economy. Focusing on individual wealth obscures the need for systemic reforms like stronger antitrust laws, fairer tax policies, and worker protections. A rigid “for or against billionaires” stance risks alienating business-friendly voters while failing to address the root causes of inequality. Democrats can support capitalism while ensuring it serves the broader public interest. A smarter strategy is to regulate wealth and power effectively, rather than engaging in rhetorical purity tests.
Musk is burning down the barn to rid it of rats. That appeals to the crazy base who have forgotten, if they ever knew, what a barn is for. According to your old haunts, Five Thirty Eight, a growing majority do not want this. It is too early for the protest voters (e.g. the anti-genocides), the price of eggs folks, the isolationists and the anything-but-the-status-quo vote, to admit a trifecta was a grievous mistake. The tech bro sociopaths will have their fun for a while. Even the Republican Congress is just waiting for it to get bad enough to have some cover for pushing back. Obama told a story about asking a respected colleague who he could work with as a novice senator. The colleague told him a third are knuckle draggers, another third are worried about being primaried. That leaves a third who can think about governing. I'm watching out for them. In such a closely divided Congress, it only takes a few.
Nate: The problem is not Capitalism vs Populism. The problem is Capitalism vs. Oligopolistic and Monopolistic domination. A real capitalist economy requires economic actors to possess bargaining power. Since the late 1990s, middle class, working class, and working poor Americans like my family have been losing economic bargaining power over the most important things in our lives.
One of the most obvious examples is healthcare. The choices on the Health Exchange do not meet our needs because insurance companies are exempt from antitrust laws, the insurance companies can raise their prices at anytime, and the government does not provide a public option to compete with a minimally regulated private sector. So, we are forced to accept whatever we are given and watch as our families suffer.
The challenge we face as Democrats is to offer meaningful proposals to address the Oligopolistic and Monopolistic forces we face so that we may exercise more power over our lives.
Respectfully yours,
Jonathan W. Fink, JD, Former Biden-Harris and Harris-Walz Utah Digital Media Co-Coordinator and Western States Volunteer Coordinator
A party that believes that Donald Trump isn't just the "wrong candidate", but a dire risk for all humanity, and yet whose "battle plan" is to try and cover up the growing soft spots in Biden's brain until last-minute panic-nominating Kamala, is, simply put, not fit to govern.
"Hold your nose and vote for us because at least we're more institutionally-competent than those buffoons" - probably not the greatest message in the world to begin with, but it's what Democrats were sort of reduced to - just doesn't work after a result like 2024.
I think the Ken Martin quote illustrates a deeper problem, the idea that being a liberal means never having to say you're sorry. You can take money from billionaires while excoriating the practice among Republicans just by calling your billionaires good and their billionaires bad. You don't have to choose between nuclear power and increased CO2 emissions, there's just "green" energy and bad energy. You can denounce the broad-based Bush and Trump tax cuts as giveaways to the rich, while fighting to uncap SALT deductions for your high-income supporters in deep blue jurisdictions and retaining carried interest treatment for private equity managers. You can support Israel and the people who want to destroy it. You can have sanctuary cities without taking responsibility for problems of unauthorized immigration. You can celebrate the accomplishments of great women athletes, and demand that their records be smashed by trans women who are only pretty good by male standards.
I don't claim the Republican party is a model of consistency, but at the moment it seems to be winning, and winning can keep strange bedfellows in line. Fiscal and social conservatives can make peace, militarists and non-interventionists, traditional patriots and tech bros. They don't have to like each other, just accept their share of the spoils.
In 2016, I thought the Democrats were in good shape. They still had a very strong leadership class, and a lot of young, energetic, attractive young progressives. All they needed to do was let Trump crash and burn, and heal the bad feelings caused by shoving Bernie Sanders aside for Hillary Clinton. In 2025, all that seems gone. The leadership seems worn out and discredited. The progressives are not so fresh and seem to have splintered, most to positions unelectable at the national level. The party seems in desperate need of a Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan to come in from the semi-outside with tough love and a clear message voters can believe.
" The party seems in desperate need of a Bill Clinton or Ronald Reagan to come in from the semi-outside with tough love and a clear message voters can believe." So you are basically Democrats need .... Trump. But they will never be able to do that. They are a party of unworkable status quo, and Trump is all about breaking the rules of status quo and proposing something new.
First-term Trump was a complete outsider and lacked the experience and allies to be a Clinton or a Reagan. He ended up running a successful mild center-right administration but did not cause a generational shift in US politics.
Second-term Trump seems to have the experience and allies to attempt a Clinton/Reagan result, a re-alignment to the right that lasts for decades. We'll see. But even if that fails, the Republican party is in good shape for the future. It could coast along without a major shift in the electorate. Democrats are in a less comfortable position.
It’s crazy to me that you claim the party that has won the popular vote twice since 1988, and even then by a tiny margin, is in excellent shape, while the party that has won the popular vote 7 times in that span is somehow a disaster.
I didn't say the Republicans were stronger on average from 1988 to 2024, only that the Republican party appears in better shape now. In fact, I said the Democratic party looked stronger in 2017. Moreover I think you're being selective in looking only at the popular vote in Presidential campaigns. If you look at Congress, mayors and governors, you will see a more even contest.
Also, things change. Democrats might get their act together by 2026 or 2028--or Trump might crash and burn, taking Republicans down with him. But I suspect any Democratic renaissance will have to be led by a semi-outsider--the existing leadership and prominent progressives outside it don't seem to have a credible national candidate.
He’s appointing only strong loyalists. He learned that from his first term.
Agreed. It's not just learning, in his first term he didn't have the number of qualified--or allegedly qualified anyway--strong loyalists to appoint.
Having a debate about good and bad billionaires is loony tune politics....Debating socialism vs capitalism is plain nuts... No one cares.....Trump unfortunately had it right in '24....immigration and family expenses...We need to follow his smart advice as to what the issues are....in the language that the vast majority care about....We don't need crazy debates....useless debates.
From Vince Lombardi via The Free Press this AM:
“Our society, at the present time, seems to have sympathy only for the misfit, the ne’er-do-well, the maladjusted, the criminal, the loser. It is time to stand up for the doer, the achiever, the one who sets out to do something and does it. The one who recognizes the problems and opportunities at hand, and deals with them, and is successful, and is not worrying about the failings of others. The one who is constantly looking for more to do. The one who carries the work of the world on his shoulders. The leader. We will never create a good society, much less a great one, until individual excellence is respected and encouraged.”
This from 1970 sums up exactly what is wrong with the Democratic party. Until they accept reality nothing will change.
The Democrats:
4 time convicted felon who murdered an old woman trying to steal some money so he could take another trip to Vegas and whore it up. "Oh you sweet precious gorgeous the justice department and society made you like this we need to release you immediately".
Self-made person who has built a company with hundreds of employees and serves as a leader in their community but argues for lower taxes on him and his industry, maybe had to lay-off some people during a recession, and worst of all said he doesn't care about DEI. "This asshole donkey belongs in jail if not with a bullet in his skull, fucking bootstrap loser".
Infinite excuses for criminals, zero excuses for people who just have a different opinion about some ID politics nonsense.
So how come Republicans are the ones who voted for a convicted felon?