One of the more amusing responses to the thread I posted last night is accusing me of attacking a straw man and then being like "look everybody, this guy wants to force people to go drinking." Yes, definitely, I want to have the Martini Stasi escort you to the cocktail bar. 1/ This isn't about me being "irritated" that people aren't going to restaurants. Seeing masks doesn't make me angry. I'm worried that the city I have come to love is in very serious long term trouble. You will not be insulated from the collapse of central business districts. 2/

God help me, but let's wade into the Yascha Mounk discourse, because apparently he's the main character today. There's been a lot of dunking on the "open everything" framing because indeed, nothing anywhere is closed except businesses that are gone and schools (temporarily). 1/ I don't know if now is the time to lift mask mandates. What I know is the idea that current restrictions in cities are no big deal is bananas. Please come to Chicago, where riding on the CTA is the Wild West - half-empty cars, people smoking, doing whatever. 2/

As voting reform efforts stall in (where else?) the Senate, we have to think about how to save democracy without Manchin and Sinema. There are probably only 3 things Dems can do to prevent an extra-judicial coup following the 2024 election. 1/ One, they could win so overwhelmingly, including in the tipping point states, that the military would for certain intervene on behalf of Biden/Harris in the event that the Republican plot succeeds on its own terms. 2/

I know some folks on the left are disappointed, and I'm not out here to defend every thing Harris did in her time as a prosecutor, but the cold fact is that she has been a top 5 progressive in the Senate since the day she took office. 1/ If someday, by chance or by election, she becomes the president, she would immediately be, by a hundred thousand miles, the most left-wing person ever to inhabit the office. 2/

Coming soon with @melvillehouse: my book on how voters under the age of 45 are on the verge of upending American politics. The Kids Are All Left explains why two full cohorts of Americans (Millennials and Gen Z) vote for Dems and have progressive policy views. 1/ You probably know young people tilt left these days. What you might not know is they've been voting for Dems by double digits more than the electorate as a whole since 2004. Some of those original left-leaners are now in their 40s. They aren't changing. 2/

This is from an old friend of mine who is now a pediatrician: 1/ Hi you guys. I'm a pediatrician. My husband is a pediatrician. All of our friends are doctors and nurses. This situation is, in fact, as dire as they're making it out to be on TV. 2/

For all three people hanging on my endorsement for President of These United States, I'll be voting for Bernie in the Illinois primary on 3/17. Warren was my first choice, and it was not at all close. But the show must go on. 1/ I'm not going to use this space to trash Joe Biden, who looks quite likely to be the nominee and for whom I imagine I'll be tweeting and making calls and knocking doors in a few months. 2/

Some impeachment questions for my Republican friends to ponder this Thanksgiving weekend:

1. If it was fine for Trump to ask for Zelensky/2016 investigations, why is it not now official policy to seek them? What new information emerged to make these investigations unnecessary? 2. If the Trump administration was not seeking these investigations from Ukraine in exchange for a White House visit, why does that visit remain unscheduled?

The hardest thing for certain kinds of Dems to come to terms with is that they will not spend the rest of their lives fighting a basically normal political party over tax rates and social expenditures and abortion. 1/ Instead, they face a long and exhausting struggle to wrest control of government away from an unpopular, anti-democratic, anti-system party whose power and authority is enhanced by the U.S. system design and entrenched by ostensibly non-partisan elites in the federal courts. 2/

I’m not sure what’s so hard to understand here. The presidency, the Senate and the Court are all in the hands of a political minority that will use any procedural escalation to preserve its power. 1/

https://twitter.com/seantrende/status/1173927971394084864

The conservative Court majority was obtained by a previously unthinkable maneuver and uses its power to reinforce Republican power and interests at every level across multiple domains. 2/

So grateful to have It's Time to Fight Dirty quoted here in this @thebafflermag article by @DaveADenison about the post-McConnell era. I thought I'd use this as an opportunity to expand on the roots of the Dem push for procedural radicalism.

Pull up a chair. 1/

https://twitter.com/thebafflermag/status/1105535948509667330

A lot of people are doing the audible gasp thing as people like Pete Buttigieg and Eric Holder ruminate about not just ditching the filibuster, but adding seats to SCOTUS and states to the union. 2/

I’m sad that John McCain is dying, because death sucks, and his family deserves our sympathy. What McCain does not deserve is the coming tributes about his bipartisanship. This man could have helped hold Trump accountable, and again and again he chose not to. 1/ Had McCain resigned his seat before May 30th, it would have triggered a November special election in Arizona, increasing the chances of a Dem takeover. By keeping his seat until the end, he demonstrated again that loyalty to the GOP > any real concern about Trump. 2/

Dem messaging on this SCOTUS opening is a loser. As always, it's reactive logic, seeking to apply new "McConnell rule" based on GOP refusal to consider Merrick Garland nomination. It’s transparently facetious. 1/13 No one is fooled by this. Rs are going to confirm any Federalist Society fruitcake anyway. They don’t care about hypocrisy and bad faith. 2/13