Now that it looks like Trump might run in 2024, is the media prepared to cover a fundamentally anti-democracy candidate who employs rampant disinformation as a deliberate strategy? Some media insiders are sounding the alarm. I offered a few ideas here: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
My suggestions:
First, let's stop saying that Trump and/or his supporters" actually believe" the 2020 election was stolen.
This has the effect of whitewashing away the seriousness of the ongoing threat to democracy:
Third, when Republicans hit on a way to feed Trump's lies about our elections while offering a softer pitch to suburbanites, let's stop saying this constitutes "clever positioning."
These are strange times for liberals. With BBB we're nearing the most transformative victory in decades. Yet the GOP is entrenching minority rule, political violence is rising, and authoritarianism is on the march.
We're in a really strange split screen moment for American liberals. On one side there's cause for celebration. On the other there's cause for deep despair:
I tried to go really big picture here, putting BBB in the context of the last 50 years of liberal advancement, retrenchment, and, now, equal parts optimism and despair:
The SALT provision is a serious issue, and not just substantively. It also points to a real coalitional problem Democrats face, with some House members coming from wealthy suburban districts:
Here's my proposal in the wokeness wars: Let's ground our response to the right in egalitarian liberalism. This provides a way to recapture the center, articulate a real vision of our own, and unmask the ugly truth about the right's real goals. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Chris Rufo tweeted that "it's time to clean house in America" and "lay siege to universities" and "overturn school boards."
This messianism about purging subversive cultural leftism creates an opening for liberals to occupy the center of this debate:
Instead of cowering defensively and screaming for purges of "wokeness," Dems should make Republicans pay a political price for their ugly anti-CRT tactics, the deeper aims they embody, and the degradations they’ve inflicted on our national life. My latest: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
Important:
DCCC chair Sean Maloney tells me emphatically that in 2022, Dems will avoid the pitfall of non-engagement that cost them in VA.
“Children need to learn their history — all of it — without censorship or politics limiting what they can learn."
I call BS on the idea that Dem losses were caused by the BBB agenda straying too far left. This is entirely out of touch with how electoral politics works. And Biden *ran on* the BBB agenda. My response to that bad NYT editorial and other centrists: washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…
The @nytopinion editorial and some centrists are saying Dem losses are partly due to the overreaching ideological ambition of BBB and its alleged departure from Biden's 2020 platform.
Here's a thought experiment that, in my view, blows this idea up: