More from @brianbeutler

Brian Beutler

@brianbeutler

17 Sep

A common trope of Dem politics holds the party should heed centrists because of their deep insights into swing territory; but most of these members just win in waves then lose when the tide recedes. Letting them steer strategy leads to predictable fiascos. mailchi.mp/crooked.com/bi…

It’s not that heeding progressives would necessarily be a tremendous boon to Biden’s popularity, but the centrist approach has been a huge drag, all pundit canards about Afghanistan notwithstanding. crooked.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=88…

Contrast to the more recent, more confrontational Biden/Newsom approach to politics and governing, and it seems pretty clear we’d be better off if that had been the party-wide approach all along.

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Brian Beutler

@brianbeutler

27 Aug

NEW: The VA and CA elections can serve as test cases for how congressional Democrats should run next year. mailchi.mp/crooked.com/bi…

I’ve come around to Newsom’s “no backup plan” strategy, high risk as it is, but now he’s gotta scorch the earth around Larry Elder. crooked.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=88…

Mapping the Newsom/McAuliffe approach on to midterms will require, among other things, fully exposing the plot to overturn the elections. Good signs there from the select committee, some troubling ones from the administration.

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Brian Beutler

@brianbeutler

20 Aug

Botch, please… mailchi.mp/crooked.com/bi…

Before zooming out to the larger political context and lessons, here’s how I’ve reasoned through the past week’s events and how others have characterized them. crooked.us19.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=88…

Because it looks chaotic there’s a widespread assumption that there must be a better way, and then bad-faith critics who insist they would've pulled it off seamlessly. Given that backdrop, Biden is right to be unyielding.

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Brian Beutler

@brianbeutler

12 Aug

My take on this is that our political system makes it impossible for popular liberal majorities to enact solutions to problems before they become crises, even when their leaders have power, so their only recourse is to get louder in various ways. slowboring.com/p/fake-crisis

Had we let the people with solutions govern after they won, the climate crisis would be a more manageable climate problem; minorities would not be allowed to govern in perpetuity. But we didn’t.

Now, after years of ignoring problems, they have metastasized into acute crises. And the response is to hope that a clean energy standard can survive reconciliation, consecutive minoritarian gerrymanders don’t cost us another decade, and the insurrection fizzles out. Not great!

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Brian Beutler

@brianbeutler

6 Aug

Who is Viktor Orban’s Paul Manafort?

Yup, as Jeet writes, the sudden surge of commentary on and troll-farm like activity around Hungary doesn’t just stem from the American right’s natural affinity for a bigoted, corrupt autocrat. It’s also about $$$ — and just in time for elections there. jeetheer.substack.com/p/funding-a-cr…

Why are we witnessing an absurd discourse around the idea that Hungary is a better place than the U.S. in the middle of right-wing-junket-to-Hungary season? Who will crack this impenetrable mystery?

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