The Democrats may well have a "good cycle" in November, but the arc of foreign policy of the party as it presents today makes it impossible for some of us to vote the way we did when you were running. And that is regardless of whether El Sayed "believes" what he is saying. Because some of us also believe what he, and other Democrats, are saying.
Too much of America, and not just the morbidly rich criminals at the top, think MAGA is normal. The "culture" of UFC, arrogant ignorance, anti-Christianity claiming otherwise, open bigotry against whatever the "other" may be--non-white, non-cis, non-male, not born in the USA going back at least three generations. There are tens of millions in what Hillary Clinton unfortuitously but accurately described as a "basket of deplorables".
I have no quarrel with them living their blighted lives as they wish. I do with allowing them to determine how me, my family, my friends get to live theirs. How are we going to return to a normal where that is the rule? Not in November. Not in 2028. Not when SCOTUS is cleansed of its corrupt members.
It will take a true overhaul of our educational system, our immigration apparatus, our drug and health care industries (because they ARE that, first and foremost). The only way to regain true normal is with a well-educated, not propagandized, citizenry. That is what the morbidly rich fear most of all, and have spent the last 50 years attacking, all while stealing $50 trillion dollars from the rest of us re socialism for the wealthy in the form of obscenely tilted tax laws.
All of which means it will take at least a generation or two to get back to where we were in 2016. And it will take resolve on the part of the young, to grasp the reins, and we old folks (I'm 78), to let go of them.
The "golden rule" for big money donors for the last at least two decades is that no gold goes to any candidate, from either party, that supports any platform stoking class consciousness. This is now changing, and the oligarchs are starting to get worried.
Imagine thinking it's "normal" to want to continue our failed system of caging human beings that only serves to ruin lives and futures without addressing the systemic root causes that lead to incarceration. Imagine thinking it's "normal" for the biggest provider of mental health services in the country is the prison system. The failure to want to fix the system by Democrats that are comfortable with the status quo is what will lose elections. Your privilege is on full display here.
Fascism began in earnest when George W. Bush stole 2000 and got away with it.
Any definition of "normal" that doesn't continue to demand Bush die disgraced and in prison and the police state he (and crypto-fascists like Joe Biden) ushered in after 9/11 be torn down is one I will never accept, and never forgive anyone cowardly or goldfish-brained enough to do so.
*: By some measures, even that is not going far enough: The absurdity that was Monica Lewinsky, the Ronald Reagan puppet-show, the long march to damnation assured by the Petrodollar adopted under Nixon, a blatant and still-unresolved coup in 1963...none of this should be considered "normal".
You’re a weak sister at best. Because of weak willed fools like you and Biden and especially Merrick Garland we have the most corrupt government in American history. Congratulations asshole, your centrist bullshit has ushered in our national nightmare.
Congrats, Christopher, you help Republicans whenever you say stuff like this. Joe Cunningham can't be blamed for Trump, and I'm glad we have folks like him who are able to win in very red districts. No leftist has yet to win in red America.
Joe, I take umbrage with the title of this substack. Return to Normal what?
What is Mormal? The status quo? A democratic party that since Clinton has drifted into what use to be Republican territory? Obama ran on hope and change, yet by 2012 he had not really changed much and hope was fading. He barely won that election and set up the defeat that was Hillary Clinton.
Why?
Because Hillary represented this "Normal" you seem to embrace. Since you mention Bernie Sanders, he went from just 1% in Iowa to starting to win against Clinton until the DNC put the thumb on the race and pushed him out. His message was simple, direct, and focused on working people and getting money out of politics. that should be the Normal. We can question Graham Platner's personal actions, but his message about affordability, Healthcare for all, money out of politics, and stopping support for Israel resonated with the people of Maine and it would seem, Mr. Jackson is mainly carrying that torch. Maybe that should be the new Normal. The same with Abdul El-Sayed who was not supported by the DNC until he won (opps) and carries the same message Sanders et al have been saying for years. He should be the Normal.
Centrist Democrats (aka republican lite) and MAGA attack Social Democrats like Sanders, AOC, El-Sayed with fringe and close to outlandish attacks so people begin to ignore that these candidates and politicians are actually fighting for issues the majority of the US population want:
Money out of Politics - get rid of Citizens United, get PACS out of politics, close to 75% want this
Affordability - Gain back control of actual capitalism by stopping mergers and take overs that kill competition and drive up prices. It is not regulations that hurt Americans, it is corporate greed.
Medicare for All - FFS, this is simple. If you remove private taxation of healthcare where American dollars go into corporate pockets, you increase FICA a small amount and remove the cap, the average American saves money. Healthcare for all is not an extra tax, it is a damn savings!
No more forever wars, control defense spending. Again, most Americans do not want us in stupid wars. Wars that now cost $1.5T in one damn year. We spend more on killing a few bad guys that have no direct threat yet cut spending on programs to feed hungry children in this country.
those are the easy ones, why are they not Normal?
FDR did not take an "incremental" approach to save the United States of America. He did not try to reach across the isle to politicians who wanted to maintain power and control on the backs of citizens. He fought for ALL American's and his policies helped start a middle class. Even Eisenhower, a republican, understood that the country needed to tax wealth to help build a nation and grow a middle class. After Reagan blew that up, this county has been in a downslide and neither Clinton or Obama had the courage to stop it.
Pete Buttigeig, Bernie Sanders, AOC a few others go to Red states, red districts, they listen to republicans and almost always, they walk away showing that their causes match what those people want. the Normal for the democratic party should the ideal that FDR ran on and won on. the Normal needs to be candidates and politicians that say no to PACs that destroy people for their own interests, no to politics as usual, no to corruption and Yes to decency.
Since you mention Biden, he won in 2020 more because the nation was exhausted on Trump, saw the damage he did and took Joe Biden at his word for 1 term. He either lied or his hubris had him run again and we lost in 2024, not because Harris was a bad candidate, because Joe Biden lied, then dropped out leaving us with one choice, a corporatist choice and once again Trump capitalized on it with his lies. If the democratic party wins in 2026 and does nothing but make noise, if they they run a corporate democrat for president in 2028, we will lose (again) and after that, the DNC will not have many chances to win again.
I am not in your district, but if someone challenged you in a primary that took that stance against your corporatist democratic position, I'd vote for that person in a heartbeat. if someone challenged my MAGA representative in my district, I would tell them, hold town halls in every town and city in the district and talk to the people about those ideas above. I bet they'd have a good chance of winning even if a D in an R district. When it comes to my politics these days, I'd love a good debate with a real conservative Republican, but by God, I want a fight against MAGA. I want to see that party defeated and corporate capitulation won't cut it anymore.
I'm genuinely surprised to hear that you feel Obama didn't deliver change during his first term. Are you aware of the Affordable Care Act, which cut the uninsured rate from about 16% to under 10%? I also think Dodd-Frank in 2010 was pretty significant, and it has helped prevent another financial crisis.
Obama's first term was full of significant legislation, and it's just objectively wrong to suggest otherwise.
The line that stuck with me was that voters forgive a lot of disagreement when they trust the person making the argument. I think that's true well beyond campaigns. Most of us have someone in our life we disagree on some issues and still trust completely. And we manage it fine right up until it becomes a team we're supposed to hate. The trust was never really about the positions.
I think many, many people just want the insanity to stop!!! I voted for you every time you were on the ballot…and wish you’d run again!
The Democrats may well have a "good cycle" in November, but the arc of foreign policy of the party as it presents today makes it impossible for some of us to vote the way we did when you were running. And that is regardless of whether El Sayed "believes" what he is saying. Because some of us also believe what he, and other Democrats, are saying.
Too much of America, and not just the morbidly rich criminals at the top, think MAGA is normal. The "culture" of UFC, arrogant ignorance, anti-Christianity claiming otherwise, open bigotry against whatever the "other" may be--non-white, non-cis, non-male, not born in the USA going back at least three generations. There are tens of millions in what Hillary Clinton unfortuitously but accurately described as a "basket of deplorables".
I have no quarrel with them living their blighted lives as they wish. I do with allowing them to determine how me, my family, my friends get to live theirs. How are we going to return to a normal where that is the rule? Not in November. Not in 2028. Not when SCOTUS is cleansed of its corrupt members.
It will take a true overhaul of our educational system, our immigration apparatus, our drug and health care industries (because they ARE that, first and foremost). The only way to regain true normal is with a well-educated, not propagandized, citizenry. That is what the morbidly rich fear most of all, and have spent the last 50 years attacking, all while stealing $50 trillion dollars from the rest of us re socialism for the wealthy in the form of obscenely tilted tax laws.
All of which means it will take at least a generation or two to get back to where we were in 2016. And it will take resolve on the part of the young, to grasp the reins, and we old folks (I'm 78), to let go of them.
The "golden rule" for big money donors for the last at least two decades is that no gold goes to any candidate, from either party, that supports any platform stoking class consciousness. This is now changing, and the oligarchs are starting to get worried.
We have played to the Center long enough. People want real change not platitudes! Take a page out of Mayor Mandami’s playbook.
Imagine thinking it's "normal" to want to continue our failed system of caging human beings that only serves to ruin lives and futures without addressing the systemic root causes that lead to incarceration. Imagine thinking it's "normal" for the biggest provider of mental health services in the country is the prison system. The failure to want to fix the system by Democrats that are comfortable with the status quo is what will lose elections. Your privilege is on full display here.
Thank you. Why do these centrist assholes NOT GET IT?
"Normal" has not been a thing since 1999*.
Fascism began in earnest when George W. Bush stole 2000 and got away with it.
Any definition of "normal" that doesn't continue to demand Bush die disgraced and in prison and the police state he (and crypto-fascists like Joe Biden) ushered in after 9/11 be torn down is one I will never accept, and never forgive anyone cowardly or goldfish-brained enough to do so.
*: By some measures, even that is not going far enough: The absurdity that was Monica Lewinsky, the Ronald Reagan puppet-show, the long march to damnation assured by the Petrodollar adopted under Nixon, a blatant and still-unresolved coup in 1963...none of this should be considered "normal".
You’re a weak sister at best. Because of weak willed fools like you and Biden and especially Merrick Garland we have the most corrupt government in American history. Congratulations asshole, your centrist bullshit has ushered in our national nightmare.
Congrats, Christopher, you help Republicans whenever you say stuff like this. Joe Cunningham can't be blamed for Trump, and I'm glad we have folks like him who are able to win in very red districts. No leftist has yet to win in red America.
Joe, I take umbrage with the title of this substack. Return to Normal what?
What is Mormal? The status quo? A democratic party that since Clinton has drifted into what use to be Republican territory? Obama ran on hope and change, yet by 2012 he had not really changed much and hope was fading. He barely won that election and set up the defeat that was Hillary Clinton.
Why?
Because Hillary represented this "Normal" you seem to embrace. Since you mention Bernie Sanders, he went from just 1% in Iowa to starting to win against Clinton until the DNC put the thumb on the race and pushed him out. His message was simple, direct, and focused on working people and getting money out of politics. that should be the Normal. We can question Graham Platner's personal actions, but his message about affordability, Healthcare for all, money out of politics, and stopping support for Israel resonated with the people of Maine and it would seem, Mr. Jackson is mainly carrying that torch. Maybe that should be the new Normal. The same with Abdul El-Sayed who was not supported by the DNC until he won (opps) and carries the same message Sanders et al have been saying for years. He should be the Normal.
Centrist Democrats (aka republican lite) and MAGA attack Social Democrats like Sanders, AOC, El-Sayed with fringe and close to outlandish attacks so people begin to ignore that these candidates and politicians are actually fighting for issues the majority of the US population want:
Money out of Politics - get rid of Citizens United, get PACS out of politics, close to 75% want this
Affordability - Gain back control of actual capitalism by stopping mergers and take overs that kill competition and drive up prices. It is not regulations that hurt Americans, it is corporate greed.
Medicare for All - FFS, this is simple. If you remove private taxation of healthcare where American dollars go into corporate pockets, you increase FICA a small amount and remove the cap, the average American saves money. Healthcare for all is not an extra tax, it is a damn savings!
No more forever wars, control defense spending. Again, most Americans do not want us in stupid wars. Wars that now cost $1.5T in one damn year. We spend more on killing a few bad guys that have no direct threat yet cut spending on programs to feed hungry children in this country.
those are the easy ones, why are they not Normal?
FDR did not take an "incremental" approach to save the United States of America. He did not try to reach across the isle to politicians who wanted to maintain power and control on the backs of citizens. He fought for ALL American's and his policies helped start a middle class. Even Eisenhower, a republican, understood that the country needed to tax wealth to help build a nation and grow a middle class. After Reagan blew that up, this county has been in a downslide and neither Clinton or Obama had the courage to stop it.
Pete Buttigeig, Bernie Sanders, AOC a few others go to Red states, red districts, they listen to republicans and almost always, they walk away showing that their causes match what those people want. the Normal for the democratic party should the ideal that FDR ran on and won on. the Normal needs to be candidates and politicians that say no to PACs that destroy people for their own interests, no to politics as usual, no to corruption and Yes to decency.
Since you mention Biden, he won in 2020 more because the nation was exhausted on Trump, saw the damage he did and took Joe Biden at his word for 1 term. He either lied or his hubris had him run again and we lost in 2024, not because Harris was a bad candidate, because Joe Biden lied, then dropped out leaving us with one choice, a corporatist choice and once again Trump capitalized on it with his lies. If the democratic party wins in 2026 and does nothing but make noise, if they they run a corporate democrat for president in 2028, we will lose (again) and after that, the DNC will not have many chances to win again.
I am not in your district, but if someone challenged you in a primary that took that stance against your corporatist democratic position, I'd vote for that person in a heartbeat. if someone challenged my MAGA representative in my district, I would tell them, hold town halls in every town and city in the district and talk to the people about those ideas above. I bet they'd have a good chance of winning even if a D in an R district. When it comes to my politics these days, I'd love a good debate with a real conservative Republican, but by God, I want a fight against MAGA. I want to see that party defeated and corporate capitulation won't cut it anymore.
I'm genuinely surprised to hear that you feel Obama didn't deliver change during his first term. Are you aware of the Affordable Care Act, which cut the uninsured rate from about 16% to under 10%? I also think Dodd-Frank in 2010 was pretty significant, and it has helped prevent another financial crisis.
Obama's first term was full of significant legislation, and it's just objectively wrong to suggest otherwise.
The line that stuck with me was that voters forgive a lot of disagreement when they trust the person making the argument. I think that's true well beyond campaigns. Most of us have someone in our life we disagree on some issues and still trust completely. And we manage it fine right up until it becomes a team we're supposed to hate. The trust was never really about the positions.