That was a cataclysm. Electoral map wipeout. Senate D practical ceiling is now 52 seats. R's is 62.
Time to rebuild the left.
We are out of touch with the crisis of meaning/purpose fueling MAGA. We refuse to pick big fights. Our tent is too small.
1/ Some early thoughts:
2/ The left has never fully grappled with the wreckage of fifty years of neoliberalism, which has left legions of Americans adrift as local places are hollowed out, rapacious profit seeking cannibalizes the common good, and unchecked new technology separates and isolates us.
3/ The things that mattered are disappearing. We spend half as much time with friends as a generation ago. Hard work no longer guarantees economic mobility. Institutions (like churches) are delegitimized. Place based identity evaporates as we all become "global citizens."
4/ The left skips past the way people are feeling (alone, impotent, overwhelmed) and straight to uninspiring solutions (more roads! bulk drug purchasing!) that do little to actually upset the status quo of who has power and who doesn't.
5/ Does racism explain part of the attraction of the right's nativism? Of course. But mass deportation is a (terrible) response to Americans' real sense they are helpless in the face of global forces (like increased migration). The left largely ignores this pain.
6/ We don't listen enough; we tell people what's good for them.
And when progressives like Bernie aggressively go after the elites that hold people down, they are shunned as dangerous populists. Why? Maybe because true economic populism is bad for our high-income base. 😬
7/ Meanwhile, men tumble into a different kind of identity crisis, as the patriarchy, society's primary organizing paradigm for centuries, rightly crashes. The right pushes an alluring dial back. The left says "get over it". Again, a refusal to listen/offer responsible solutions.
8/ We cannot be afraid of fights - especially with the economic elites who have profited off neoliberalism. The right regularly picks fights with elites - Hollywood, higher ed, etc. Democrats (e.g. the Harris campaign) are tepid in our fights with billionaires and corporations.
9/ Real economic populism should be our tentpole.
But here's the thing - then you need to let people into the tent who aren't 100% on board with us on every social and cultural issue, or issues like guns or climate.
10/ Those are hard things for the left.
A firm break with neoliberalism.
Listen to poor and rural people, men in crisis. Don't decide for them.
Pick fights. Embrace populism.
Build a big tent. Be less judgmental.
But we are beyond small fixes.
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I went to the Senate floor to tell a story about Trump’s first 100 days - a story of daily, norm shattering corruption.
I laid out 40 different corrupt acts - each one alone could have taken down previous presidents.
1/ A 🧵 of my speech. People need to know this story.
2/ The Trump crypto coin - the biggest scandal in the history of the American presidency.
3/ Trump ends enforcement of the Foreign Agents Registration Act, so that his staff can more easily get paid on the side by foreign governments and companies seeking to bribe the Trump Administration.
The Trump-Supreme Court battle is not really the crisis.
The crisis is here now. Trump is enacting an insidious coordinated attack on our institutions of democratic accountability, designed to crater democracy before next fall.
1/ A long 🧵to explain the plan & how we stop it.
2/ First, just know that MAGA has given up on democracy. Wish it weren't true but it is. They would rather MAGA rule forever than run a fair election where a Democrat might win.
2/ Abrego Garcia came to the U.S. over 10 years ago. He married a U.S. citizen and has three U.S. citizen children.
But he put in removal proceedings because he didn't apply for asylum in time and because of alleged ties to drug gangs. He denies any gang affiliation.
3/ You can think whatever you want about the merits of him staying (his U.S. family, his steady job) or being deported (the alleged gang affiliation), there's really only one key fact:
A court ruled he CANNOT be deported to El Salvador bc he would face threat of death there.
In the wake of the stunning news that Trump is planning to take over Columbia University, I hope you’ll watch this speech I gave yesterday.
It details Trump’s plan to destroy democracy’s organs of accountability and dissent: the press, universities and lawyers.
1/ Intro
2/ The press is always the first target of an elected leader who wants to destroy dissent and stay in power forever. But Trump doesn’t just harass journalists; he tries to destroy the very idea of objective truth.
3/ The universities are next. Columbia is just the first target. Trump is trying to suppress student protest by forcing the universities to control campus speech. A key tool of autocrats.
Those trying to understand the tariffs as economic policy are dangerously naive.
No, the tariffs are a tool to collapse our democracy. A means to compel loyalty from every business that will need to petition Trump for relief.
1/ A 🧵 to explain his plan and how we fight back.
2/ This week you will read many confused economists and political pundits who won’t understand how the tariffs make economic sense.
That’s because they don’t. They aren’t designed as economic policy. The tariffs are simply a new, super dangerous political tool.
3/ You see, our founders created a President with limited and checked powers. They specifically put the power of spending and taxation in the hands of the legislature.
Why? Because they watched how kings and despots used spending and taxes to control their subjects.
2/ It started with the endorsement of political violence. By pardoning the Jan 6th protesters, Trump sent a clear signal that violence on his behalf would be protected.
Of course this quells citizens' enthusiasm to join the opposition - if there is a chance they could get hurt.
3/ Trump put his political fixers in charge of DoJ to hunt his political opposition. For instance, the D.C. U.S. Attorney is trolling critics online threatening arrest and pledging to arrest anyone who "interferes" (not a crime btw) with DOGE. newrepublic.com/post/191087/us…