1. A lot of people wonder why I'm constantly harping on the Democrats when Trump is in the White House. One of the reasons is the old Democratic establishment protected Susan Collins.
2. Susan Collins has always portrayed herself as a moderate. And she is soft-spoken and nice, which is appealing to voters. She speaks openly about being pro-choice, and talked up working with Senators like Ted Kennedy.
3. There are some useful things Collins has done. For example, in 2010, she put in a requirement that larger banks have higher capital requirements. hsgac.senate.gov/media/minority…
4. But her general position represents the failure of Democrats to frame what politics means. In 1996, she ran as a moderate, and won on the platform of tax cuts. In 1998, she voted for a Constitutional amendment requiring a super-majority to raise taxes.
5. She has generally speaking voted to cut capital gains taxes, estate taxes, and so forth. ontheissues.org/Economic/Susan…
6. Last year she accused opponents of Trump's tax cuts of being conspiracy theorists, even as journalists wrote about how this moderate supported the Trump tax cuts. She got a 'deal' to get a vote on ACA fixes, which McConnell reneged on. She didn't care. thehill.com/policy/finance…
7. Last time she ran for office, in 2014, the only candidate who would run against Susan Collins was Shenna Bellows, a former ACLU official who ran on gay rights and breaking up the banks. Did the Democratic establishment support Bellows? I think you can see what's coming.
8. Both the League of Conservation Voters and the Human Rights Campaign supported Susan Collins. This was presumably so they could cash in chits later, though really it's because they don't mind her economic track record. washingtonpost.com/news/post-poli…
9. EMILY's List, which ostensibly supports pro-choice Democratic women, barely put a toe in the water. Again, this is because they have no interest in Collins and class politics. Bellows was put on a list of candidates to watch. She was crushed.
10. And the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee would not even endorse Bellows until late in the contest. This is the committee ostensibly set up to build a Senate majority. huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/25/dsc…
11. Political power is not about winning the debate, it's deciding what the debate is about. Collins is a moderate because Bill Clinton's generation redefined Democratic politics to a West Wing-ish vision of being nice, soft-spoken, 'authentic,' and friendly with the other side.
12. When I say Democrats do not want to wield power, this is what I mean. And this is systemic. In 2007, Moveon ran an ad calling Petraeus a liar. The Senate passed a resolution condemning Moveon. Obama wouldn't even vote on the resolution. nytimes.com/2007/09/21/us/…
13. Moveon learned its lesson. The group has never tried to wield power again. Reframing politics, wielding power, means doing things that cause controversy, that attack existing norms of power. Democrats, for instance, hate Avenatti because he doesn't care about their norms.
14. Democrats will occasionally say things like "Susan Collins is no moderate, she voted against hiking the minimum wage and that makes her an extremist." But you can't make that case if you've never made the argument that politics is about class. Voters won't buy it.
15. I'm not someone who thinks organizing is the answer. That's an excuse that lets Democratic leaders off the hook. The answer is to actually make an argument taking on power. That's what Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren did vis-a-vis Amazon.
16. It's what Trump did in 2016 when he talked about empty factories and how bad the Bush and Obama administration had been. He was lying about what he sought, but he was willing to use power because he was willing to change the political topic.
17. In 2000, the Supreme Court stole an election from Al Gore. And he didn't fight. His campaign chair, Bill Daley, told a friend of mine after the election that "the right man won," meaning that Daley was glad Bush had won. This was a legal coup. And yet Dems don't mention it.
18. We have been in a political and Constitutional crisis since 1998, when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a blowjob. Brett Kavanaugh was a low-level henchman then. Because we didn't acknowledge the crisis, it just worse. Now Kavanaugh is on the Supreme Court.
19. Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi understand this. They get it. They also think that people who bring it up as if this is a political problem are crazy losers who don't understand politics. Obama has contempt for liberals. He thinks it is morally wrong to wield public power.
20. Many of our leaders and voters will die rather than give up their illusions. I mean that literally. Our food system will collapse and climate change is going to kill us all if we don't act, act aggressively, and act soon. This is not a game. And yet, Collins is a moderate.
21. I'll end with optimism. I just did research for an upcoming book coming out on the history of monopoly. And one thing none of us have seen in our lifetimes is a Democratic Party that fights power. But that is one powerful political institution, if we can get it going.
