I think it you mean in large leftist orgs etc and I understand what you're getting at but I don't fully agree. This is who could possibly be involved in something like this: DSA, the reform caucuses of several major labor unions, the actual present leadership of the UAW, really just tons of the more progressive unions, Justice Democrats, the many pro-Palestine movements such as PYM, USCPR, JVP etc. but most of all the probably millions of people who support and vote for Democrats to defeat Republicans but have politics that are far to the left of the Democratic Party
Never give up and dismissing every single strategy I bring up and saying none of them will work because Americans are brainwashed are kind of conflicting messages
The Democrats will not allow a primary against their incumbent. Just ask Marianne Williamson and RFK, Jr. This is just futile wish casting.
The fact that Bernie was so loved and lost in his primary efforts is evidence that the establishment wing of the party will not allow a left-wing candidate to represent it.
The Overton window has shifted too far to the right, and there is no pulling the Democrats back. They are too comfortable at the top of their pyramid of false promises and bread crumbs.
Thank you for your response. I really enjoy this newsletter, and promise to buy a copy of The Hammer!
The problem I see is that the left will never be able to out-fundraise the corporate Democratic Party apparatus. And when we have our little successes, eg, The Squad, they are mostly absorbed and co-opted into the establishment corporate wing of the party. I don’t know what happens in Mama Bear’s office, but I hate watching it. I feel like running in the Democratic party over and over is like the old saw about insanity and doing the same thing while expecting a different result.
As long as there is money in politics, I don’t see how we can even fancy having a democracy at all. It’s a plutocratic oligarchy.
I believe the only way for the left to have a voice is through separate, grassroots-organized, working-class, anti-capitalist party.
I don't mean to be too adversarial, but isn't the folding in of the Squad at least a somewhat good thing, in so far as they can pull legislation in a more left/progressive direction?
And I guess what I mean by that is, when people put up this binary choice of working within or without the political apparatus as it is, my answer is a resounding "why not both"? I think the idea would be to assert pressure from inside and outside.
I think it is a pretty good representation of the acceptable range of debate that the ruling class allows to engage in. The two-party duopoly fits square in the middle of that. They both represent the rich and powerful, who have no intention of becoming less so. This is an inherently right-wing ideology.
To quote Chomsky: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
Spot on. The rampant censorship of any pro-Palestine content on every single social platform says enough to anyone with ears to hear it. This hoping that the Dems are somehow malleable just takes away energy from real action, which at this point is grassroots organization and general resistance.
Right. We have to be organized nicely matter who is in charge of the NLRB.
The first article that got me reading this Substack was all about how rules are the tools of our rulers to keep everybody else down. We have to break some rules, not use the master’s tools to tear down the plantation.
I’m all in for mass organizing, a general strike, and revolutionary optimism. Voting Blue no matter who is the real nihilist take.
We need to focus on organizing a party for the working class, not one that is excited about Wall Street donors and neoconservative hall of fame war criminals endorsing them.
They’ve got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers. And we should probably get more guns.
The Republican Party has morphed, and the current Democratic Party is filling the void. That’s fine, but I don’t believe it will ever again represent the left in any meaningful way, except to scare us into voting for them every two to four years. They are the new Whig party, and should suffer a similar fate.
"democrats will never ..." "democrats will never ..." did anyone commenting read the goddamned article?
>After watching Democratic presidents freeze out the left for decades, I failed to anticipate Biden’s willingness to allow the left some real policy power. It was a political decision, and it doesn’t mean that Biden himself is a resounding progressive, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Biden presidency produced hugely important tangible victories for progressive economic values.
There is a very real chance that there are basically no primaries at all next election cycle.
I can see the Harris administration being a total disaster, but the party doing what they did this time, which was to tell everyone to shut up and re-nomimate Harris anyway. Stepping aside to allow for a second term has become the norm. And you know how obsessed the Democrats are with norms.
And if anyone challenges that, or criticizes Harris, they will be labeled racist, sexist, or both.
"If the left is pissed with the direction of the Democratic Party and the leftists launch a third party that sucks votes from the Democratic candidate, that hurts the Democratic Party."
1) Votes are earned. No one is entitled to any votes.
2) We need more than two parties for a truly representative democracy.
3) The Democratic Party is not run democratically, and is *impervious* to reform.
Keeping one foot in the Democratic Party means never committing to building alternatives.
My sense of it is that the Democratic party leaders really aren't vested in WINNING elections unless, of course, you have someone as off the walls as Trump on the other ticket. Being a leader in one the 2 major party political parties in the US is better than being cast to the sidelines by progressives - even if that would allow their party to win. The current leadership has to be thrown under the bus for the party to gain any long-term traction and they KNOW that. Therefore, they choose to remain leaders of an out-of-power party. Hey! It's all good as far as they are concerned!
That's all great in theory but the problem is these tiny leftist third (and fourth) parties have literally no chance of actually winning. (PSL people are at least honest about this). And yes I understand this is mostly because of the completely unfair and ridiculous ballot access processes set up by the duopoly. Voting for someone who's only going to get 1 percent of the vote or isn't on the ballot in every state isn't building anything.
Workers Strike Back and others have united behind the Stein / Ware ticket in an effort to get 5% of the vote, which would secure (IIRC) $20M and automatic ballot access in 2028.
Your position accepts the duopoly as immutable. There are plenty of people looking beyond November who think differently.
i'm sorry but they have been talking about doing this since at least 2000 (24 years ago). I don't accept the duopoly as immutable but some tiny party that can't even get 5 percent of the national vote is not what will change it. It's more likely that another structure will develop out of a breakup of the existing parties as has happened in the past.
Why would you dismiss minor parties for not having achieved more in the face of bipartisan voter choice suppression? You've already acknowledged the structural barriers. Read GRAND ILLUSION: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny by Theresa Amato for the full indictment.
I'd love it if Team Blue would realign of its own volition, but it's trying to maintain a Big Tent that it should've reassessed a generation ago.
Third parties are having a moment, and it'll continue past November.
Unfortunately, our first-past-the-post voting system makes 2-party rule almost impossible to surmount. In Europe, most countries require a true majority for the win. So the system lends itself to coalition building which is how smaller parties gain traction and a seat at the table.
You would need a constitutional amendment to change this. Do you want to open up the Constitution for amendment with all the inmates in charge of the asylum? This could lead to very dangerous and unforetold results. I'm just saying that fixing the system could be quite a challenge.
"Do you want to open up the Constitution for amendment with all the inmates in charge of the asylum?"
Yes, 100%. I believe in democracy. If we have truly democratic representation for all Americans, I do not fear the results of a (e.g.) a new Constitutional Convention.
Democrats have completely forgotten who they were when they represented the hopes of the working people they now despise.
Biden’s four years of rightwing warmongering has shifted the party almost as far left as the Nixon administration… except that Nixon, a careful bicoastal Republican of his era, would never have associated publicly with a lowbrow racist graft-hog like Biden.
Harris is sucking up to the likes of Cheney because there is zero ideological daylight between them; less even than there was between Obama and the neocons he imitated for eight long years while betraying every person who ever voted for him.
Why are these fake losers our candidates? Because we keep voting for them. Fifty years now I’ve been watching the party abandon its base, and people still think they’re going to reform this sewer by licking it clean. Good luck and bon appetit.
No real Democrat would vote for these anti-liberal creeps. Grow up and throw up, and stop enabling these criminal cretins.
"They have always been happy to cater to and accept the votes of the outright racists and loons, but that faction was never supposed to be in charge." Hamilton, I envy your writing.
Here in Michigan, the MIGOP had the loons in charge for a couple of years after Whitmer's re-election. The big GOP donors (e.g., the DeVos family) backed out, the state party almost went broke, and some less loony Rs kicked out the more loony Rs.
My observation of the national GOP is that they get a new wave of loons every 15 years or so, going back to Joe McCarthy, at least. One would think the Captains of Industry would run a tighter ship.
Basically what I am seeing Is a bunch of much smarter cynical right wing actors betting on the winning horse. The temporary silver lining here Is that these cynical actors know which way the wind is blowing, so on one hand it is a metric of what we can expect in November. A win by the Harris contingency. But there is a lot to unpack here. It is absolutely essential that Democrats view this alliance as a temporary one. Two opposing factions that want the same thing albeit for very different reasons. But reasons that are existentially differentially important. My concern is that feckless Summer Child democrats will trip all over themselves handing out the combination to the family safe simply because a handful of Transactional sociopaths put on their smiley faces while inculcating themselves into the predictably soft spots of our forgiving natures.
What I fear is what they will EXPECT for their endorsements for Democrats, as if they have nothing to gain personally by dethroning Trump and Maga. Liz Cheney is a much more dangerous player than Trump, and she knows full well that she has no place in a Maga run Republican party. If she ever wants to hold power again, it is absolutely essential that this movement be shut down. Again, she and her kind benefit even more than we do at the removal of Trump and co, but they will definitely frame it as having done US a solid, bill for services rendered pending.
But there is another edge to this. One that at least explains Dick Cheney's Endorsement. Trump represents an existential threat to America's International military hegemony, which, to say the least, is a serious mixed bag at this moment. The moral crisis of continuing to support Israel is countered by the moral imperative to support Ukraine. In a sane world those imperatives could not exist in the same frame. But while a trump administration would give Netanyahu everything he wanted per Israel, he would also allow NATO to collapse which would essentially end our entire allied structure in Europe. So in this sense, Cheney is making a very pragmatic choice. And I think this is entirely the crux that his endorsement rests on. He is still old-school enough to see Russia as an existential threat to American power. And I hate to say it, rightfully so. It's all so very itchy. And while I actually think that Harris will hold Israel to account more than Trump would, and that it is far from sufficient, it's still a better bet for America's favorite ex vice presidential war monger.
Suffice it to say, that I will feel much more comfortable when Republicans become our enemy again. I just want Democrats to view this temporary alliance as transactional a business arrangement as Republicans clearly do. We don't have to be friends for fucks sake. Uneasy alliances are as old as human history. We just need to make sure to continue to view it as just that
Every time an incumbent is challenged by a member of their own party that party loses the general election. I do not think that would be a good outcome in 2028.
Furthermore, I think it is likely that if tfg loses (please god) R's will regroup around the non-MAGA wing. The Cheneys, Kinziger et al will leave off supporting Harris in a heartbeat and D's will have a serious problem even maintaining victory as incumbent. If she were to face a challenge from inside the party too there is no way she will be president on Jan 21, 2029.
That's technically true but the sample size is so small I don't think you can really extrapolate anything from it, though it does feel like having a challenger does reveal some sort of weakness in the incumbent
Supposing it's true that the slightly less evil wing of the GOP ditches Harris in 2028, maybe it means that she stops shitting on the left/pro-peace wing of the party. A boy can dream...
I understand the point. I just don't see anyone out there that can move the party left. There's nobody in Congress that is anything more than center left. I can't see anyone getting through the democratic party machine next election, especially if Kamala is the incumbant.
Hamilton notes at the beginning of the column: "...pull the Democratic Party to the right."
"Pull"? They've been yanked to the right. Kamala Harris said she was "honored" to receive Dick "Blood-n-Guts" Chenery's endorsement . Honored? She should have run and hid her face in shame.
The Democrats are already a corporate, pro-war fascist party. For godsake, just look at Biden and the Congressional dem record over the past four years.
And on a fundamental issue, let's say Biden had followed through on his promises of a $15/hr minimum wage and a public health care option and an Easter basket of other left goodies, NONE of that would have offset his active support, funding and participation in the US/Israel genocide in Gaza. NONE ... OF ... IT. There is no worse act of a government, party or politician than genocide. And remember, a government that is a willing participant of genocide will, in time, turn the same tactics against it's own population. There was no reforming the Nazi party and no reforming the Democratic Party. They passed a point of no return. To think otherwise is beyond naive. It is suicidal.
American politics are dead. Direct action -- union organizing, strikes, general strikes, targeted boycotts, mutual aid etc -- is our only course.
It's the Republocrats ... the one corporate uniparty.
I recently saw a video of man very emotionally asking how anyone can vote for Harris. The point he kept coming back to was along the lines of "what are you afraid of? You survived 4 years of Trump already! You'll be fine! My people are dying now!"
I started to write a comment about how people are worried that, along with all the horrible shit in Project 2025, trump will bring the war home in terms of directly targeting pro-Palestine demonstrator with state violence (more so), and we can't be so sure we'll survive another 4 years of trump.
Then I deleted the comment without posting.
Because I don't honestly know if it can get any worse, regardless of who sits in the white house. For the Middle East, Israel is going to war with Iran, and they're gonna keep fucking Gaza and the West Bank and Lebanon. That doesn't stop regardless of who wins next month. And, even if Harris governs similarly with Biden on domestic policy, their immigration policies still fucking suck in so far as it's a slightly more polite version of trump's policies. And as for economic policy, well, the judiciary has been bought and paid for, so it probably won't matter on that front either.
So I don't think I can honestly say we'll better off if trump loses. Nothing really seems particularly hopeful right now, at least on a global level.
As I’ve said in the past, with this election we are being presented a choice between a cat turn and a dog turd. They are both ZioNazi fascists. In some ways, I believe Harris would be as bad — perhaps worse — than Trump. In my view, she revealed herself in that “I’m speaking” moment. If you focus in on her eyes you see a cold empty soul.
I won’t vote for either. As the boiled brain presidency of Biden (who really is in charge) has proven, who is president is pretty much irrelevant. We are being ruled by corrupt, vile deep state actors like the CIA.
I don't think it's true just based on all the details I've but that doesn't change the the Green Party's platform. Besides, I'm not voting for her anyway.
If you wanna talk about outside interference, check out how every politician backed by AIPAC tweet the same messages around the same time.
I agree that "stopping the party's rightward drift means having a real primary." However, the Party establishment at both national (DNC) and state levels, will do everything in their power to prevent even the possibility of another Bernie Sanders candidate. The corruption is within the party itself. Having a Presidential primary, at least here in Florida, was squashed by the DNC and FDP. This is the party that is going to save democracy(?)
You could argue that a Marianne Williamson did not have the kind of support that Bernie had, but those Dems that would have voted for her were disenfranchised. Protest voters and supporters of Williamson thought that Biden was not the right candidate for the party. In the end, they were right.
correct me if I’m wrong, but the “independent” and or “undecided” voter in the swing states are more right wing than we guess. they arent down the middle type people. they veer to wanting “someone tough on foreign policy” so Kamala is going for these. I wish one day that progressives and younger people could create voting blocs and were more reliable to vote and then we could start having some political power. Having money isnt the only way to win a campaign. Keep going Hamilton. I bought the hammer and I love it.
I'm convinced Harris was picked as a VP to keep AOC from running as a VP at a 2024 brokered convention. Nothing stopping her from pulling things to the left now, she will be old enough to run for president proper by 2028 I believe.
Sheer insanity. The Democratic Party has already proven, multiple times, that they control the "game" of the primary process; + we on the left will never be allowed to beat them at it. Once you do whatever you're gonna do with this election, not one dime, not one vote, not one...anything, should be further wasted by the left on the Democrats.
Their power is not our power.
Build a left party, bash a left-shaped hole in their Congressional + state legislature contingents in the 2026 midterms. Force both them and the Republicans to reckon with the fact that we are no longer synonymous with, nor contained by, the Democratic Party.
If we are not in their party, they no longer can control the "game" to freeze us out. And we can finally compete in American politics without handcuffs on.
There is no 'left' in USA politics so exactly who is going to do this?
This is my question. I feel like they’re more likely to push to make sure they never have another ‘Bernie incident’.
I think it you mean in large leftist orgs etc and I understand what you're getting at but I don't fully agree. This is who could possibly be involved in something like this: DSA, the reform caucuses of several major labor unions, the actual present leadership of the UAW, really just tons of the more progressive unions, Justice Democrats, the many pro-Palestine movements such as PYM, USCPR, JVP etc. but most of all the probably millions of people who support and vote for Democrats to defeat Republicans but have politics that are far to the left of the Democratic Party
Eric.
BUT the Americans HATE the idea of Socialism...........brainwashed people who know nothing other than what they have been told in Mainstream Media.
What has happened with the 'dockworkers' on the Eastern seaboard?
What has happened with the Railway workers? One person will be in charge of a mile long train?
The Unions are capitulating!
i guess we just give up then. Insert "shruggie"
Never ever give up..............it will take a long time
Never give up and dismissing every single strategy I bring up and saying none of them will work because Americans are brainwashed are kind of conflicting messages
YOU are brainwashed!
Obviously not all.............tell me, where is BRICS being discussed?
The Democrats will not allow a primary against their incumbent. Just ask Marianne Williamson and RFK, Jr. This is just futile wish casting.
The fact that Bernie was so loved and lost in his primary efforts is evidence that the establishment wing of the party will not allow a left-wing candidate to represent it.
The Overton window has shifted too far to the right, and there is no pulling the Democrats back. They are too comfortable at the top of their pyramid of false promises and bread crumbs.
The Democrats do not have to "allow" a primary challenger. The left can field a primary challenger if they want to and if they can finance it.
Thank you for your response. I really enjoy this newsletter, and promise to buy a copy of The Hammer!
The problem I see is that the left will never be able to out-fundraise the corporate Democratic Party apparatus. And when we have our little successes, eg, The Squad, they are mostly absorbed and co-opted into the establishment corporate wing of the party. I don’t know what happens in Mama Bear’s office, but I hate watching it. I feel like running in the Democratic party over and over is like the old saw about insanity and doing the same thing while expecting a different result.
As long as there is money in politics, I don’t see how we can even fancy having a democracy at all. It’s a plutocratic oligarchy.
I believe the only way for the left to have a voice is through separate, grassroots-organized, working-class, anti-capitalist party.
I don't mean to be too adversarial, but isn't the folding in of the Squad at least a somewhat good thing, in so far as they can pull legislation in a more left/progressive direction?
And I guess what I mean by that is, when people put up this binary choice of working within or without the political apparatus as it is, my answer is a resounding "why not both"? I think the idea would be to assert pressure from inside and outside.
Absolutely. I don’t want to push for any false binaries, which is what I see when people push for moving the Democratic Party to the left.
That said, both major parties are genocidal parties. Working within them is tantamount to complicity in that policy.
Hard to argue with that.
Yep. Just like with unions, you don't ask permission. If that was the case, we would have been doomed over a century ago
The overton window is a dumb idea.
I think it is a pretty good representation of the acceptable range of debate that the ruling class allows to engage in. The two-party duopoly fits square in the middle of that. They both represent the rich and powerful, who have no intention of becoming less so. This is an inherently right-wing ideology.
To quote Chomsky: "The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum."
He wrote that in an age of mass media, not fragmented/targeted media.
True, but the mainstream media still operates under two flavors of capitalism—red and blue.
And the alternative media space is subject to the whims of the tech oligarchs who own it. We are just given the illusion of choice.
Spot on. The rampant censorship of any pro-Palestine content on every single social platform says enough to anyone with ears to hear it. This hoping that the Dems are somehow malleable just takes away energy from real action, which at this point is grassroots organization and general resistance.
Right. We have to be organized nicely matter who is in charge of the NLRB.
The first article that got me reading this Substack was all about how rules are the tools of our rulers to keep everybody else down. We have to break some rules, not use the master’s tools to tear down the plantation.
I’m all in for mass organizing, a general strike, and revolutionary optimism. Voting Blue no matter who is the real nihilist take.
Wait, why would we ever do anything if the Democrats can’t be moved and all media is controlled?
Ok, so what is your point then?
What is to be done?
We need to focus on organizing a party for the working class, not one that is excited about Wall Street donors and neoconservative hall of fame war criminals endorsing them.
They’ve got the guns, but we’ve got the numbers. And we should probably get more guns.
The Republican Party has morphed, and the current Democratic Party is filling the void. That’s fine, but I don’t believe it will ever again represent the left in any meaningful way, except to scare us into voting for them every two to four years. They are the new Whig party, and should suffer a similar fate.
What’s yours, respectfully?
"democrats will never ..." "democrats will never ..." did anyone commenting read the goddamned article?
>After watching Democratic presidents freeze out the left for decades, I failed to anticipate Biden’s willingness to allow the left some real policy power. It was a political decision, and it doesn’t mean that Biden himself is a resounding progressive, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the Biden presidency produced hugely important tangible victories for progressive economic values.
There is a very real chance that there are basically no primaries at all next election cycle.
I can see the Harris administration being a total disaster, but the party doing what they did this time, which was to tell everyone to shut up and re-nomimate Harris anyway. Stepping aside to allow for a second term has become the norm. And you know how obsessed the Democrats are with norms.
And if anyone challenges that, or criticizes Harris, they will be labeled racist, sexist, or both.
"If the left is pissed with the direction of the Democratic Party and the leftists launch a third party that sucks votes from the Democratic candidate, that hurts the Democratic Party."
1) Votes are earned. No one is entitled to any votes.
2) We need more than two parties for a truly representative democracy.
3) The Democratic Party is not run democratically, and is *impervious* to reform.
Keeping one foot in the Democratic Party means never committing to building alternatives.
My sense of it is that the Democratic party leaders really aren't vested in WINNING elections unless, of course, you have someone as off the walls as Trump on the other ticket. Being a leader in one the 2 major party political parties in the US is better than being cast to the sidelines by progressives - even if that would allow their party to win. The current leadership has to be thrown under the bus for the party to gain any long-term traction and they KNOW that. Therefore, they choose to remain leaders of an out-of-power party. Hey! It's all good as far as they are concerned!
That's all great in theory but the problem is these tiny leftist third (and fourth) parties have literally no chance of actually winning. (PSL people are at least honest about this). And yes I understand this is mostly because of the completely unfair and ridiculous ballot access processes set up by the duopoly. Voting for someone who's only going to get 1 percent of the vote or isn't on the ballot in every state isn't building anything.
Workers Strike Back and others have united behind the Stein / Ware ticket in an effort to get 5% of the vote, which would secure (IIRC) $20M and automatic ballot access in 2028.
Your position accepts the duopoly as immutable. There are plenty of people looking beyond November who think differently.
i'm sorry but they have been talking about doing this since at least 2000 (24 years ago). I don't accept the duopoly as immutable but some tiny party that can't even get 5 percent of the national vote is not what will change it. It's more likely that another structure will develop out of a breakup of the existing parties as has happened in the past.
Why would you dismiss minor parties for not having achieved more in the face of bipartisan voter choice suppression? You've already acknowledged the structural barriers. Read GRAND ILLUSION: The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny by Theresa Amato for the full indictment.
I'd love it if Team Blue would realign of its own volition, but it's trying to maintain a Big Tent that it should've reassessed a generation ago.
Third parties are having a moment, and it'll continue past November.
oKay. good luck with all that
Unfortunately, our first-past-the-post voting system makes 2-party rule almost impossible to surmount. In Europe, most countries require a true majority for the win. So the system lends itself to coalition building which is how smaller parties gain traction and a seat at the table.
Work on voting method rand other needed reforms. Don’t accept the system as immutable.
You would need a constitutional amendment to change this. Do you want to open up the Constitution for amendment with all the inmates in charge of the asylum? This could lead to very dangerous and unforetold results. I'm just saying that fixing the system could be quite a challenge.
"Do you want to open up the Constitution for amendment with all the inmates in charge of the asylum?"
Yes, 100%. I believe in democracy. If we have truly democratic representation for all Americans, I do not fear the results of a (e.g.) a new Constitutional Convention.
Democrats have completely forgotten who they were when they represented the hopes of the working people they now despise.
Biden’s four years of rightwing warmongering has shifted the party almost as far left as the Nixon administration… except that Nixon, a careful bicoastal Republican of his era, would never have associated publicly with a lowbrow racist graft-hog like Biden.
Harris is sucking up to the likes of Cheney because there is zero ideological daylight between them; less even than there was between Obama and the neocons he imitated for eight long years while betraying every person who ever voted for him.
Why are these fake losers our candidates? Because we keep voting for them. Fifty years now I’ve been watching the party abandon its base, and people still think they’re going to reform this sewer by licking it clean. Good luck and bon appetit.
No real Democrat would vote for these anti-liberal creeps. Grow up and throw up, and stop enabling these criminal cretins.
If Bernie is your example you have to note that he never primaried an incumbent President.
"They have always been happy to cater to and accept the votes of the outright racists and loons, but that faction was never supposed to be in charge." Hamilton, I envy your writing.
Here in Michigan, the MIGOP had the loons in charge for a couple of years after Whitmer's re-election. The big GOP donors (e.g., the DeVos family) backed out, the state party almost went broke, and some less loony Rs kicked out the more loony Rs.
My observation of the national GOP is that they get a new wave of loons every 15 years or so, going back to Joe McCarthy, at least. One would think the Captains of Industry would run a tighter ship.
I think the Captains of Industry (band name) overestimate their ability to the keep the loons under control.
The Gerrymandering chickens came home to roost.
Absolutely on point.
Two words
Price
Tag
This is my major concern as well.
Basically what I am seeing Is a bunch of much smarter cynical right wing actors betting on the winning horse. The temporary silver lining here Is that these cynical actors know which way the wind is blowing, so on one hand it is a metric of what we can expect in November. A win by the Harris contingency. But there is a lot to unpack here. It is absolutely essential that Democrats view this alliance as a temporary one. Two opposing factions that want the same thing albeit for very different reasons. But reasons that are existentially differentially important. My concern is that feckless Summer Child democrats will trip all over themselves handing out the combination to the family safe simply because a handful of Transactional sociopaths put on their smiley faces while inculcating themselves into the predictably soft spots of our forgiving natures.
What I fear is what they will EXPECT for their endorsements for Democrats, as if they have nothing to gain personally by dethroning Trump and Maga. Liz Cheney is a much more dangerous player than Trump, and she knows full well that she has no place in a Maga run Republican party. If she ever wants to hold power again, it is absolutely essential that this movement be shut down. Again, she and her kind benefit even more than we do at the removal of Trump and co, but they will definitely frame it as having done US a solid, bill for services rendered pending.
But there is another edge to this. One that at least explains Dick Cheney's Endorsement. Trump represents an existential threat to America's International military hegemony, which, to say the least, is a serious mixed bag at this moment. The moral crisis of continuing to support Israel is countered by the moral imperative to support Ukraine. In a sane world those imperatives could not exist in the same frame. But while a trump administration would give Netanyahu everything he wanted per Israel, he would also allow NATO to collapse which would essentially end our entire allied structure in Europe. So in this sense, Cheney is making a very pragmatic choice. And I think this is entirely the crux that his endorsement rests on. He is still old-school enough to see Russia as an existential threat to American power. And I hate to say it, rightfully so. It's all so very itchy. And while I actually think that Harris will hold Israel to account more than Trump would, and that it is far from sufficient, it's still a better bet for America's favorite ex vice presidential war monger.
Suffice it to say, that I will feel much more comfortable when Republicans become our enemy again. I just want Democrats to view this temporary alliance as transactional a business arrangement as Republicans clearly do. We don't have to be friends for fucks sake. Uneasy alliances are as old as human history. We just need to make sure to continue to view it as just that
Politics make for strange bedfellows, after all...
Every time an incumbent is challenged by a member of their own party that party loses the general election. I do not think that would be a good outcome in 2028.
Furthermore, I think it is likely that if tfg loses (please god) R's will regroup around the non-MAGA wing. The Cheneys, Kinziger et al will leave off supporting Harris in a heartbeat and D's will have a serious problem even maintaining victory as incumbent. If she were to face a challenge from inside the party too there is no way she will be president on Jan 21, 2029.
That's technically true but the sample size is so small I don't think you can really extrapolate anything from it, though it does feel like having a challenger does reveal some sort of weakness in the incumbent
Supposing it's true that the slightly less evil wing of the GOP ditches Harris in 2028, maybe it means that she stops shitting on the left/pro-peace wing of the party. A boy can dream...
Who's even out there to pull the party left? Bernie sold his soul and is 80.
You have missed the entire point of Nolan’s work.
I understand the point. I just don't see anyone out there that can move the party left. There's nobody in Congress that is anything more than center left. I can't see anyone getting through the democratic party machine next election, especially if Kamala is the incumbant.
Center left is an extinct species in the modern Democratic Party of Dick Cheney!
Rashida Tlaib, AOC who I think will be old enough and I know is divisive, non-politicians like Shawn Fain or Sara Nelson
Claudia De la Cruz, Cornel West, Jill Stein
In the Democratic party?
Chuckle, Chuckle and Chuckle.
Hamilton notes at the beginning of the column: "...pull the Democratic Party to the right."
"Pull"? They've been yanked to the right. Kamala Harris said she was "honored" to receive Dick "Blood-n-Guts" Chenery's endorsement . Honored? She should have run and hid her face in shame.
The Democrats are already a corporate, pro-war fascist party. For godsake, just look at Biden and the Congressional dem record over the past four years.
And on a fundamental issue, let's say Biden had followed through on his promises of a $15/hr minimum wage and a public health care option and an Easter basket of other left goodies, NONE of that would have offset his active support, funding and participation in the US/Israel genocide in Gaza. NONE ... OF ... IT. There is no worse act of a government, party or politician than genocide. And remember, a government that is a willing participant of genocide will, in time, turn the same tactics against it's own population. There was no reforming the Nazi party and no reforming the Democratic Party. They passed a point of no return. To think otherwise is beyond naive. It is suicidal.
American politics are dead. Direct action -- union organizing, strikes, general strikes, targeted boycotts, mutual aid etc -- is our only course.
It's the Republocrats ... the one corporate uniparty.
I recently saw a video of man very emotionally asking how anyone can vote for Harris. The point he kept coming back to was along the lines of "what are you afraid of? You survived 4 years of Trump already! You'll be fine! My people are dying now!"
I started to write a comment about how people are worried that, along with all the horrible shit in Project 2025, trump will bring the war home in terms of directly targeting pro-Palestine demonstrator with state violence (more so), and we can't be so sure we'll survive another 4 years of trump.
Then I deleted the comment without posting.
Because I don't honestly know if it can get any worse, regardless of who sits in the white house. For the Middle East, Israel is going to war with Iran, and they're gonna keep fucking Gaza and the West Bank and Lebanon. That doesn't stop regardless of who wins next month. And, even if Harris governs similarly with Biden on domestic policy, their immigration policies still fucking suck in so far as it's a slightly more polite version of trump's policies. And as for economic policy, well, the judiciary has been bought and paid for, so it probably won't matter on that front either.
So I don't think I can honestly say we'll better off if trump loses. Nothing really seems particularly hopeful right now, at least on a global level.
As I’ve said in the past, with this election we are being presented a choice between a cat turn and a dog turd. They are both ZioNazi fascists. In some ways, I believe Harris would be as bad — perhaps worse — than Trump. In my view, she revealed herself in that “I’m speaking” moment. If you focus in on her eyes you see a cold empty soul.
I won’t vote for either. As the boiled brain presidency of Biden (who really is in charge) has proven, who is president is pretty much irrelevant. We are being ruled by corrupt, vile deep state actors like the CIA.
I'm very sad these days.
I can identify. I bounce between sadness and white hot anger.
Republocrats sounds extremely correct.
It really bothers me that we keep discussing the Dems as if they just need a bit of fine tuning and not a collective trip to The Hague.
This guy gets it.
West and Stein will be almost 80 by the next election.
Well Claudia will only be like 50 or so
These losers are not the future. Fain and Nelson maybe. Tlaib maybe. People who have actually delivered for working people.
Not with that attitude. I see PSL doing a lot of good for the country even outside of elections.
Their attractiveness to working people does not depend on my attitude, I assure you.
Dude, seriously, search "Jill Stein Russia." I'll wait.
She has addressed those rumours many times. Most recently, last month on The Breakfast Club.
Yes, and the Tenet Media goobers "addressed" the issue of their paychecks being funded by Russia. Doesn't mean it isn't true.
I don't think it's true just based on all the details I've but that doesn't change the the Green Party's platform. Besides, I'm not voting for her anyway.
If you wanna talk about outside interference, check out how every politician backed by AIPAC tweet the same messages around the same time.
I agree that "stopping the party's rightward drift means having a real primary." However, the Party establishment at both national (DNC) and state levels, will do everything in their power to prevent even the possibility of another Bernie Sanders candidate. The corruption is within the party itself. Having a Presidential primary, at least here in Florida, was squashed by the DNC and FDP. This is the party that is going to save democracy(?)
You could argue that a Marianne Williamson did not have the kind of support that Bernie had, but those Dems that would have voted for her were disenfranchised. Protest voters and supporters of Williamson thought that Biden was not the right candidate for the party. In the end, they were right.
correct me if I’m wrong, but the “independent” and or “undecided” voter in the swing states are more right wing than we guess. they arent down the middle type people. they veer to wanting “someone tough on foreign policy” so Kamala is going for these. I wish one day that progressives and younger people could create voting blocs and were more reliable to vote and then we could start having some political power. Having money isnt the only way to win a campaign. Keep going Hamilton. I bought the hammer and I love it.
I'm convinced Harris was picked as a VP to keep AOC from running as a VP at a 2024 brokered convention. Nothing stopping her from pulling things to the left now, she will be old enough to run for president proper by 2028 I believe.
Sheer insanity. The Democratic Party has already proven, multiple times, that they control the "game" of the primary process; + we on the left will never be allowed to beat them at it. Once you do whatever you're gonna do with this election, not one dime, not one vote, not one...anything, should be further wasted by the left on the Democrats.
Their power is not our power.
Build a left party, bash a left-shaped hole in their Congressional + state legislature contingents in the 2026 midterms. Force both them and the Republicans to reckon with the fact that we are no longer synonymous with, nor contained by, the Democratic Party.
If we are not in their party, they no longer can control the "game" to freeze us out. And we can finally compete in American politics without handcuffs on.