"It seems like even Democratic presidents will have the same incentives to marginalize Congress."
While this has certainly been true at times in the past, I wouldn't assume it's necessarily reflective of the future – particularly if AOC runs, as you noted and which I suspect is a likely given. (Too soon to know if she'd prevail in the primaries, however.)
We *need* a non-dysfunctional Congress to right the ship, one that can work collegially to pass desperately needed legislation (e.g. restoring Medicaid funding) and eliminate Trump 2.0's insane excesses (e.g. DHS's $191 billion budget and our billion-bucks-a-day misadventure in Iran). I truly hope our ultimate presidential candidate understands that reality intrinsically.
"What people are coming to understand about DSA is that its power comes from its democracy."
I completely agree that this is the right message to be delivering, both in Valdez's own race as well as in general. Aside from some Boomers and older Gen Xers raised on a steady diet of Cold War angst, the Pavlovian distaste for all things "socialist" is dying out, much to The Wall Street Journal's likely dismay. Mamdani divined that reality early on, and used it to propel record turnout among Zoomers and younger millennials.
We obviously need massive corrective action: while there's no undoing Trump's actions, there's plenty that a Democratic-controlled Congress & White House can do to ensure no future tyrant abuses them. If Trump's accomplished anything, he's exposed the cracks in the system as it stands today; our next president's job will be to fix them.
"It seems like even Democratic presidents will have the same incentives to marginalize Congress."
While this has certainly been true at times in the past, I wouldn't assume it's necessarily reflective of the future – particularly if AOC runs, as you noted and which I suspect is a likely given. (Too soon to know if she'd prevail in the primaries, however.)
We *need* a non-dysfunctional Congress to right the ship, one that can work collegially to pass desperately needed legislation (e.g. restoring Medicaid funding) and eliminate Trump 2.0's insane excesses (e.g. DHS's $191 billion budget and our billion-bucks-a-day misadventure in Iran). I truly hope our ultimate presidential candidate understands that reality intrinsically.
"What people are coming to understand about DSA is that its power comes from its democracy."
I completely agree that this is the right message to be delivering, both in Valdez's own race as well as in general. Aside from some Boomers and older Gen Xers raised on a steady diet of Cold War angst, the Pavlovian distaste for all things "socialist" is dying out, much to The Wall Street Journal's likely dismay. Mamdani divined that reality early on, and used it to propel record turnout among Zoomers and younger millennials.
We obviously need massive corrective action: while there's no undoing Trump's actions, there's plenty that a Democratic-controlled Congress & White House can do to ensure no future tyrant abuses them. If Trump's accomplished anything, he's exposed the cracks in the system as it stands today; our next president's job will be to fix them.