An “existential sense of betrayal”
Democratic leaders have finally figured out that “The Bern” has “tapped into the zeitgeist of college-age voters, a key demographic for the party in a presidential election year,” Politico reported...
View ArticleSaturday! Saturday! Saturday!
Want the skinny on how the fall elections go down in Buncombe Co., NC? Precinct Meeting/Volunteer Recruitment Event Posted by paul swann 301.20sc on January 24, 2016 An organized and functional...
View ArticlePrimarily Al Jazeera
South Carolina Democrats hold their primary today. There were neither Bernie nor Hillary campaigners hanging around my Greenville, SC hotel like Ted Cruz supporters last week. It seems Clinton spent...
View ArticleThe GOP’s reckoning
Much digital ink has been spread about how Republicans created Donald Trump and now are paying the price for it. But Trump is not the only nemesis they helped create. First, writing yesterday from...
View ArticleShort Attention Span Theater
After several years of delays, Short Attention Span Theater will again resume production on Repatriation Tax Holiday 2. Robert Reich flagged District Studios’ announcement yesterday on Facebook: I’ve...
View ArticleWeak tea
It will take more than fear of Donald Trump for Democrats to win this fall. They need a message. This article from Harold Meyerson after monumental losses in 2014 summed it up: What, besides raising...
View ArticleCynicism is easy. Changing the culture is hard.
At Political Animal, Nancy LeTourneau comments on Rebecca Solnit’s essay on cynicism in Harpers. She writes that when Barack Obama entered the White House riding on a message of hope and change, that...
View ArticleI’d buy that for a dollar
Moving left again: [A]s she tries to clinch the nomination, Mrs. Clinton is moving to the left on health care and this week took a significant step in her opponent’s direction, suggesting she would...
View ArticleStanding Ovation
I’m an inside/outside player. On the outside, I get to throw stones at the Democratic Party on national blogs when I get a bug up my ass. On the inside, as someone who helps get local and statewide...
View ArticleNot a good look
Social media has largely taken over the family-and-friends propaganda market from email. I’ve mentioned my collection of over 200 specimens of right-wing “pass-it-on” emails. You know the ones: the...
View ArticleWhither the Democrats?
A story about California Governor Jerry Brown in the New York Times comes as friends ponder just where the Democratic Party goes in the wake of the 2016 presidential primary. (I’m not the one here to...
View ArticleHow political pressure works
President Barack Obama’s recent shift towards expanding Social Security provides an example both of how political pressure from below works and of the limits of a president’s ability to impose his...
View ArticleWhat’s fair is fair
Rep. Gwen Moore (D-WI) of Milwaukee plans to introduce a bill this week requiring drug testing for anyone claiming large tax deductions in a given year. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker wants to require...
View ArticleSuper-delicate situation
Democratic members of the Congressional Black Caucus are vehemently opposed to abolishing so-called superdelegates from the presidential nominating process. Setting the stage for a possible...
View Article“You’ve got to stand for something if you want to win”
The 2014 midterm elections were a disaster for Democrats across the country. Appearing on Meet the Press afterwards, former DNC chair Gov. Howard Dean complained about their lack of message, “Where the...
View ArticleTired of feeling like roadkill?
Matt Taibbi last week took on the “lesser evilism” of a Democratic Party that seems to believe “all people who fall within a certain broad range of liberal-ish beliefs owe their votes and their loyalty...
View ArticleEnforcing norms of reciprocity
Reducing human decision-making to a binary this or that choice turns humans into Flatlanders with no other dimensions to their thinking. So the rush to explain last week’s Brexit vote as simple...
View ArticleCan you hear us now?
“Out of touch” is a perennial criticism of candidates from both major parties. The Brexit vote in the UK was an exercise in politicians misreading their voters. This year, however, the presence of...
View ArticleWarren broadens her attack
Last Saturday’s post addressed ways to disrupt commercial the forces undermining our democracy. Ways to restore balance to the Force, if you will. Today, please look at Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s speech...
View ArticleMore to it than platforms and candidates
The Twitter thread yesterday from the DNC’s platform committee meeting in Orlando was pretty entertaining. There was a lot of passion from the Bernie Sanders delegation. The debate on fracking was...
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