I have a friend involved with Indivisible, and I can say:
1. They are not a monolith.
2. They took much of their cue from the Tea Party in terms of effectively pressuring legislators.
3. They spent A LOT of time during Trump I focused on trying to get Congress to exert its power, protect the rule of law, and hold this country together. There is more than enough common ground there for an alliance.
"Issues" don't matter. Only one thing does: that chump and the gop are well down the road to fascism. That's our one and only issue, probably for the next 4 years.
What a disappointing article. We want “a democrat with a spine” to stand up to Republicans and channel the anger and fear we feel. No one cares about special interest groups right now when we don’t even feel confident about ever having a free and fair election again.
It is time for Congress, we’ll past the time they should have grown a spine! As a former legislator in NYS Assembly, I have been shocked by first term,schedule F no one reading Project 2025,no one following Jon Swan from AXIOS back in 2016! I am dumbfounded as to how democrats are so COWARDLY and REPUBLICANS,TOO! You all took oath to us,citizens of AMERICA,not Trump. He used naive Musk for DOGE so he could blame him when it exploded! Every union should be marching! There should have been an imprisonment of Trump with charges of insurrection,but what Adam and Liz had in courage lacked the rest of Congress! If he were properly vetted-all court cases filed by Jane Does Vs. Trump for sex assault,kidnapping,threatening of lives and more should have been printed! Media failed to expose Trump’s civil cases because of non disclosure notices. Covered up the orders of protection filed and upheld by courts against Trump, for his victims!
HE WAS NEVER FIT FOR OFFICE AND AS A FELON SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO RUN AGAIN! All elected officials, not just Congress, should be calling for impeachment or imprisonment for a mentally deranged criminal!
All Americans have to accept that our political system is defined by binary outcomes. I think too many people, especially those that grew up in a world of unconstrained e-commerce, think they can select political outcomes the way they fill their online shopping carts. Bespoke politics is not a thing. You cannot simply pick candidates that represent the exact bundle of policy/vibe preferences (idiosyncratic, undefined, odd, obscure, off-putting to many, ephemeral) that you cobbled together with "research" online. If they can't find "it", they throw up their hands, blame the system, and sit out elections.
So that is the Democratic demand side problem. On the supply side, Dem leadership is getting tied in knots trying to come up with platforms that will satisfy these bespoke voters. This is less an issue with the MAGA/Republican/Fox News/NewsMax political economy: instead of an ever-expanding and shifting basket of policy goods, that economy has largely coalesced around single policy "choice": Trump autocratic rule.
Democrats lose because 1) they are political chickenshits who are afraid to do or say anything that someone will disagree with 2) spend way too much time and money listening to DC consultants telling them what issues are important rather than listening to what the people in their districts say is important, and 3) don't really believe in or perhaps even understand many of the issues they campaign on. Their botched rollout of the ACA demonstrated that most of them had no idea of what health care costs or how provider networks, deductibles, and co-pays work. And they also seemed to not know that you can't sell people on a new, untried program that they won't benefit from for 2-4 years. Even now, when nearly 2/3 of voters want government health insurance for everyone, Democrats are still afraid to support it. The voters understand that their health care is being compromised as their premium dollars go to line the pockets of the insurance companies, but their Congresspeople don't seem to have caught on to that. Basically, the Democratic Party is just stupid and inept and cowardly.
The situation outlined in this article is exactly why I left the Democratic Party 20-years ago.
Only when Obama came in as a fresh candidate did the variant groups coalesce.
Thereafter, they didn't give a fiddler's fuque about winning elections.
2016 - Obama caved to the party insiders becuase he beat out Hillary in 2008 and she "deserved" her term.
She was the most hated personality in politics (most peoplw really didn't know Trump at that point).
Independents weren't going to flock to her.? SHE LOST!
2020 - Biden's turn...he was the oldest candidate to ever run for president.
Most people beleived him --- "I am a bridge candidate."
He did okay as president, then got high on his own hubris and arrogance, flames fanned by Jill, Biden siblings and staffers.
He had to be humiliated into turning over the reigns. HE LOST!
Those two elections prove that the Democrats are just as uncaring about the country!
FUQUE THE DEMOCRATS!
We are on our own folks, with two parties that give lip-service about caring about the country...and both only care about their dysfunctional desire for power.
I agree wholeheartedly with Suozzi & Gluesenkamp Perez's comments here. Its too easy to blame "the groups" while essentially letting the candidates/elected off the hook.
I once worked for a NYC version of one of these groups early in my career (this is 20+ years ago now). I will never forget what a somewhat gruff & long serving State Senator told me once (in the process of kicking me out of his office): "Anyone with letterhead and a fax machine can claim to be an advocacy group."
I want every possible voice to stand up and say "NO" tothe trump/Project 2025 administration without regard to "feelings". The truth is what matters and reaching people Democrats have been missing is even more important. Quit fighting with and judging others who are fighting for our democracy. Support all the voices pleading for stopping the encroaching fascism.
With regard to the Dems enlisting Musk - hell no. The Dems should continue to reintroduce legislation to reverse Citizens United; impeach Thomas and Alito; reinstate the FCPA; rehire the Inspector Generals: ice the Qatar jet; alter NASA's mission to quit looking for god and black holes; alter the rules for presidential pardons; remove Insurrectionists Graham and Jordan from their control of the judiciary committees; and impeach Trump.
They should require Russ Vought to list Musk payments and contracts
Less corruption and bribery is desired - I wish Bezos saw the importance.
I'm no David Hogg fan, but DNC Chair Ken Martin’s words got me wondering if the "everything has been feminized" bros aren't onto something. Grow a pair.
In language only a Groups attorney could love, Section II(c)(5) of the "Rules of Procedure for the Election of DNC Officers":
"In the election of the three remaining Vice Chairpersons, provision will be made to elect the appropriate number of persons of each gender to ensure that, with the exception of the National Chairperson and the President of the Association of State Democratic Committees (“ASDC”), the officers shall be as equally divided as practicable according to gender in accordance with Article 3, Section 1(e) of the Charter. In the case of gender non-binary candidates and Officers, they shall not be counted as either a male or female, and the remainder of the Officer positions shall be equally divided. At the discretion of the Chair, voting for each Vice Chairperson position will be conducted one at a time among all candidates of the appropriate gender."
Fan, no fan. Doesn't matter. What's really happening is breaking things. The GOP lead the way, the Dems may as well catch up. It appears that the consensus has emerged that stagnation is more dangerous than chaos, and that all those status quos have to go. Do I think Hogg would make a crackerjack Senator? I have no idea. But he's the young guy out front saying shit nobody in the power structure wants to hear, as they coddle Schumer and his "very strongly-worded letters". The collapse is happening, Hogg just wants to rip the Band-Aid fast rather than slow.
Well said George. Hogg is right. The status quo has not and is not working. Died in the wool felon lovers will never abandon him because they share his bigotry and nativism. The Dems have to bring in new people who will develop dialogs with people by asking what it is they want or feel a need for. It sounds simple but it has to be tried.
What did I miss? I thought that the conclusion of the David Hogg Affair was that his election was being challenged and that he'd end up doing his own thing as a former Vice Chair. No?
I don't know when that meeting happened, but a grown man in a position of leadership saying out loud that he doesn't know if he wants the position and isn't able to lead because of a guy in his 20s, who is or at least was in a subordinate position, is weak AF.
"The Groups" just do the things that they're organized for, and that they have a right to do. As the article says, politicians DO have agency, and they have responsibilities to the common good that transcend the narrow interests of "The Groups". If the politicians yield to pressure rather than standing up to it, the blame is on them.
"the groups". Yes. I call it the non-profit industrial complex.
Lots of well-meaning, poorly-paid, and mostly ineffective staff members; managed by crusading egotists who are doing quite well for themselves; funded by well-off donors to absolve their latent guilt.
They are terrible proxies for the interests of the constituents, and they play right into the tropes about over-educated do-gooders that Vance, Rufo, et al are eager to exploit. And 90% of them are just terribly inefficient allocations of resources, regardless of their collective place in politics.
1. Apologize to every Democrat for covering up for Biden's OBVIOUS condition.
2. Apologize to Harris for not letting her criticize Biden's OBVIOUS FAILURE on the border. Vow to control the borders!
3. Rewrite the platform, this time ignoring the elitist ACLU and stop thinking that America is ready to pass a Sociology test OR that you can FORCE the electorate.
4. Most Americans want abortion to be legal, 80% of those Americans want limits on abortion, why not respect them? Put a 12 week limit unless there are extenuating circumstances.
5. Reform and restructure student loans instead of screaming FREE TUITION.
6. Most Americans do not want trans boys competing in girl's sports. Why not be realistic and fair about this?
7. $25,000 for a down payment? Do you not know that it would only pour gas on the inflationary fire? Build more Senior housing, older people are tired of homeownership and upkeep. There are waiting lists everywhere. They pay for themselves.
8. Start wanting to WIN instead of being high and mighty and self righteously right.
8. Have a convention and speak to all of this... Promise honesty
Ideally, the Democratic Party is a Center LEFT party. This is not a Center Left plan, and it's too focused on the past. I'm not a Democrat, so I'll stop here.
The Democratic Party has never been a Center Left party. It is a Center Right Party and the Republicans are a Fascist Party. There aren't enough Center Left people in the US to matter.
I think that Hakeem Jeffries, Tammy Baldwin, Chris Murphy, and a lot of other Democratic officeholders, candidates, and party officials would disagree with your characterization of them as "Center Right".
Hilarious, huh? All that "bold thinking" about leading the Dems out of their Confused Disarray(TM) by tossing all those inconvenient victim-people under the bus. For the good of the party, of course! Look, there are what, 12? 120? trans athletes in the USofA,. It would be wise chess to jettison them so you can save the tens of millions of elder and disabled people on Medicare. Ohhhh, here come the 'wise voices', who question if maybe that would be a 'false choice'. Tell you what, game that all out, I'll wait.
I have a friend involved with Indivisible, and I can say:
1. They are not a monolith.
2. They took much of their cue from the Tea Party in terms of effectively pressuring legislators.
3. They spent A LOT of time during Trump I focused on trying to get Congress to exert its power, protect the rule of law, and hold this country together. There is more than enough common ground there for an alliance.
"Issues" don't matter. Only one thing does: that chump and the gop are well down the road to fascism. That's our one and only issue, probably for the next 4 years.
What a disappointing article. We want “a democrat with a spine” to stand up to Republicans and channel the anger and fear we feel. No one cares about special interest groups right now when we don’t even feel confident about ever having a free and fair election again.
It is time for Congress, we’ll past the time they should have grown a spine! As a former legislator in NYS Assembly, I have been shocked by first term,schedule F no one reading Project 2025,no one following Jon Swan from AXIOS back in 2016! I am dumbfounded as to how democrats are so COWARDLY and REPUBLICANS,TOO! You all took oath to us,citizens of AMERICA,not Trump. He used naive Musk for DOGE so he could blame him when it exploded! Every union should be marching! There should have been an imprisonment of Trump with charges of insurrection,but what Adam and Liz had in courage lacked the rest of Congress! If he were properly vetted-all court cases filed by Jane Does Vs. Trump for sex assault,kidnapping,threatening of lives and more should have been printed! Media failed to expose Trump’s civil cases because of non disclosure notices. Covered up the orders of protection filed and upheld by courts against Trump, for his victims!
HE WAS NEVER FIT FOR OFFICE AND AS A FELON SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN ALLOWED TO RUN AGAIN! All elected officials, not just Congress, should be calling for impeachment or imprisonment for a mentally deranged criminal!
All Americans have to accept that our political system is defined by binary outcomes. I think too many people, especially those that grew up in a world of unconstrained e-commerce, think they can select political outcomes the way they fill their online shopping carts. Bespoke politics is not a thing. You cannot simply pick candidates that represent the exact bundle of policy/vibe preferences (idiosyncratic, undefined, odd, obscure, off-putting to many, ephemeral) that you cobbled together with "research" online. If they can't find "it", they throw up their hands, blame the system, and sit out elections.
So that is the Democratic demand side problem. On the supply side, Dem leadership is getting tied in knots trying to come up with platforms that will satisfy these bespoke voters. This is less an issue with the MAGA/Republican/Fox News/NewsMax political economy: instead of an ever-expanding and shifting basket of policy goods, that economy has largely coalesced around single policy "choice": Trump autocratic rule.
Democrats lose because 1) they are political chickenshits who are afraid to do or say anything that someone will disagree with 2) spend way too much time and money listening to DC consultants telling them what issues are important rather than listening to what the people in their districts say is important, and 3) don't really believe in or perhaps even understand many of the issues they campaign on. Their botched rollout of the ACA demonstrated that most of them had no idea of what health care costs or how provider networks, deductibles, and co-pays work. And they also seemed to not know that you can't sell people on a new, untried program that they won't benefit from for 2-4 years. Even now, when nearly 2/3 of voters want government health insurance for everyone, Democrats are still afraid to support it. The voters understand that their health care is being compromised as their premium dollars go to line the pockets of the insurance companies, but their Congresspeople don't seem to have caught on to that. Basically, the Democratic Party is just stupid and inept and cowardly.
See: Gavin Newsom, June 9, 2025.
The situation outlined in this article is exactly why I left the Democratic Party 20-years ago.
Only when Obama came in as a fresh candidate did the variant groups coalesce.
Thereafter, they didn't give a fiddler's fuque about winning elections.
2016 - Obama caved to the party insiders becuase he beat out Hillary in 2008 and she "deserved" her term.
She was the most hated personality in politics (most peoplw really didn't know Trump at that point).
Independents weren't going to flock to her.? SHE LOST!
2020 - Biden's turn...he was the oldest candidate to ever run for president.
Most people beleived him --- "I am a bridge candidate."
He did okay as president, then got high on his own hubris and arrogance, flames fanned by Jill, Biden siblings and staffers.
He had to be humiliated into turning over the reigns. HE LOST!
Those two elections prove that the Democrats are just as uncaring about the country!
FUQUE THE DEMOCRATS!
We are on our own folks, with two parties that give lip-service about caring about the country...and both only care about their dysfunctional desire for power.
"he was the oldest candidate to ever run for president"
There was an even older candidate for Vice President: Henry G. Davis, 1904.
Love to be historical polywoged, Charles.
I agree wholeheartedly with Suozzi & Gluesenkamp Perez's comments here. Its too easy to blame "the groups" while essentially letting the candidates/elected off the hook.
I once worked for a NYC version of one of these groups early in my career (this is 20+ years ago now). I will never forget what a somewhat gruff & long serving State Senator told me once (in the process of kicking me out of his office): "Anyone with letterhead and a fax machine can claim to be an advocacy group."
Today you don't even need the letterhead!
I want every possible voice to stand up and say "NO" tothe trump/Project 2025 administration without regard to "feelings". The truth is what matters and reaching people Democrats have been missing is even more important. Quit fighting with and judging others who are fighting for our democracy. Support all the voices pleading for stopping the encroaching fascism.
With regard to the Dems enlisting Musk - hell no. The Dems should continue to reintroduce legislation to reverse Citizens United; impeach Thomas and Alito; reinstate the FCPA; rehire the Inspector Generals: ice the Qatar jet; alter NASA's mission to quit looking for god and black holes; alter the rules for presidential pardons; remove Insurrectionists Graham and Jordan from their control of the judiciary committees; and impeach Trump.
They should require Russ Vought to list Musk payments and contracts
Less corruption and bribery is desired - I wish Bezos saw the importance.
None of those pieces of legislation are going to go anywhere in this Congress.
I'm no David Hogg fan, but DNC Chair Ken Martin’s words got me wondering if the "everything has been feminized" bros aren't onto something. Grow a pair.
In language only a Groups attorney could love, Section II(c)(5) of the "Rules of Procedure for the Election of DNC Officers":
"In the election of the three remaining Vice Chairpersons, provision will be made to elect the appropriate number of persons of each gender to ensure that, with the exception of the National Chairperson and the President of the Association of State Democratic Committees (“ASDC”), the officers shall be as equally divided as practicable according to gender in accordance with Article 3, Section 1(e) of the Charter. In the case of gender non-binary candidates and Officers, they shall not be counted as either a male or female, and the remainder of the Officer positions shall be equally divided. At the discretion of the Chair, voting for each Vice Chairperson position will be conducted one at a time among all candidates of the appropriate gender."
Fan, no fan. Doesn't matter. What's really happening is breaking things. The GOP lead the way, the Dems may as well catch up. It appears that the consensus has emerged that stagnation is more dangerous than chaos, and that all those status quos have to go. Do I think Hogg would make a crackerjack Senator? I have no idea. But he's the young guy out front saying shit nobody in the power structure wants to hear, as they coddle Schumer and his "very strongly-worded letters". The collapse is happening, Hogg just wants to rip the Band-Aid fast rather than slow.
Well said George. Hogg is right. The status quo has not and is not working. Died in the wool felon lovers will never abandon him because they share his bigotry and nativism. The Dems have to bring in new people who will develop dialogs with people by asking what it is they want or feel a need for. It sounds simple but it has to be tried.
Maybe. Or maybe he has hit upon a message that raises money from blue voters in safe districts but doesn’t actually win elections in contested ones.
What did I miss? I thought that the conclusion of the David Hogg Affair was that his election was being challenged and that he'd end up doing his own thing as a former Vice Chair. No?
I don't know when that meeting happened, but a grown man in a position of leadership saying out loud that he doesn't know if he wants the position and isn't able to lead because of a guy in his 20s, who is or at least was in a subordinate position, is weak AF.
Martin should stop his whining and enlist Hogg to help create a new message. The old one sure as hell is not working.
"The Groups" just do the things that they're organized for, and that they have a right to do. As the article says, politicians DO have agency, and they have responsibilities to the common good that transcend the narrow interests of "The Groups". If the politicians yield to pressure rather than standing up to it, the blame is on them.
"the groups". Yes. I call it the non-profit industrial complex.
Lots of well-meaning, poorly-paid, and mostly ineffective staff members; managed by crusading egotists who are doing quite well for themselves; funded by well-off donors to absolve their latent guilt.
They are terrible proxies for the interests of the constituents, and they play right into the tropes about over-educated do-gooders that Vance, Rufo, et al are eager to exploit. And 90% of them are just terribly inefficient allocations of resources, regardless of their collective place in politics.
WANTED: 12+ million Americans with some spine flooding the streets, protesting peacefully on (at least) June 14th - and beyond.
____________________
The DNC - here's a plan.
1. Apologize to every Democrat for covering up for Biden's OBVIOUS condition.
2. Apologize to Harris for not letting her criticize Biden's OBVIOUS FAILURE on the border. Vow to control the borders!
3. Rewrite the platform, this time ignoring the elitist ACLU and stop thinking that America is ready to pass a Sociology test OR that you can FORCE the electorate.
4. Most Americans want abortion to be legal, 80% of those Americans want limits on abortion, why not respect them? Put a 12 week limit unless there are extenuating circumstances.
5. Reform and restructure student loans instead of screaming FREE TUITION.
6. Most Americans do not want trans boys competing in girl's sports. Why not be realistic and fair about this?
7. $25,000 for a down payment? Do you not know that it would only pour gas on the inflationary fire? Build more Senior housing, older people are tired of homeownership and upkeep. There are waiting lists everywhere. They pay for themselves.
8. Start wanting to WIN instead of being high and mighty and self righteously right.
8. Have a convention and speak to all of this... Promise honesty
REBRAND the Party.
_____________________
"Build more Senior housing"
That requires Democrats to stop bashing developers and to stop protecting single family homeowners from the horror of having apartments nearby.
Ideally, the Democratic Party is a Center LEFT party. This is not a Center Left plan, and it's too focused on the past. I'm not a Democrat, so I'll stop here.
The Democratic Party has never been a Center Left party. It is a Center Right Party and the Republicans are a Fascist Party. There aren't enough Center Left people in the US to matter.
I think that Hakeem Jeffries, Tammy Baldwin, Chris Murphy, and a lot of other Democratic officeholders, candidates, and party officials would disagree with your characterization of them as "Center Right".
No.
You may want to try the Fox news site though.
So become the pre-Trump Republican party.
No thanks.
Hilarious, huh? All that "bold thinking" about leading the Dems out of their Confused Disarray(TM) by tossing all those inconvenient victim-people under the bus. For the good of the party, of course! Look, there are what, 12? 120? trans athletes in the USofA,. It would be wise chess to jettison them so you can save the tens of millions of elder and disabled people on Medicare. Ohhhh, here come the 'wise voices', who question if maybe that would be a 'false choice'. Tell you what, game that all out, I'll wait.
If you think that 120 trans athletes are the hill to die on, you will die. Listen to Renee Richards and Martina Navratilova instead.