Post New

...due to security concerns.

https://jewishinsider.com/2025/03/chuck-schumer-ri...

Schumer book tour on antisemitism postponed
All of the Senate minority leader’s events this week, to promote his new book ‘Antisemitism in America,’ were postponed because of security concerns

How ironic.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/17/schumer-p...

“Due to security concerns, Senator Schumer’s book events are being rescheduled,” a spokesperson for Schumer said in a statement.

Websites for two of the events — in Baltimore and Washington — also noted Monday morning: “Senator Schumer’s book tour events during the week of March 17 are being postponed for security reasons. We will work to reschedule this event at a later date.”

Dope1: ...due to security concerns.

Bullshit. Schumer was afraid to face endless lines of unhappy democrats calling for his resignation as Minority Leader.

How ironic.

And possibly pretextual. He wants good PR for his book tour, not bad PR - and he's staring down the prospect of lots of protests at his events. So better to delay for a while until tempers cool, and it's much more palatable to cite "security concerns" than "most of the people who might show up to his events are really mad at Schumer right now."

Bullshit. Schumer was afraid to face endless lines of unhappy democrats calling for his resignation as Minority Leader.

LOL....the democrats have a DINO 🤭

and it's much more palatable to cite "security concerns" than "most of the people who might show up to his events are really mad at Schumer right now."

In the end, he IS just another politician. And the worst thing for a politician is bad publicity. They all lie at some point - but only a rare breed actually believe their own lies.

--Peter

LOL....the democrats have a DINO 🤭

Yup, LOLOLOLOL at him. The security threat would come from the endless lines of unhappy democrats calling for his resignation as Minority Leader.

As of 11 AM, he was still being touted as a guest on The View tomorrow. I wonder if that's now off as well.

And possibly pretextual. He wants good PR for his book tour, not bad PR - and he's staring down the prospect of lots of protests at his events. So better to delay for a while until tempers cool, and it's much more palatable to cite "security concerns" than "most of the people who might show up to his events are really mad at Schumer right now."

Sure. Because he did an extremely unpopular thing. I don't recall if it was here, or in a news article I read, but I saw a poll that indicated that the Dem constituency overwhelmingly wants the Dems to fight. No appeasement. Just fight. They've had enough of appeasement with an intransigent Rep party, and compromise that isn't really compromise. I tend to agree. Log-jam them. If they aren't going to include the other side of the aisle, then use the lack of supermajority in the Senate to filibuster everything. At least until they invite Dems to the table to negotiate...you know, the way politics is supposed to work.

Because he did an extremely unpopular thing. I don't recall if it was here, or in a news article I read, but I saw a poll that indicated that the Dem constituency overwhelmingly wants the Dems to fight. No appeasement. Just fight.

Of course. And Schumer didn't do that, because he knows more about how politics actually works than the "Dem constituency."

It makes things worse if you fight in the wrong spots. To take a recent example, progressives thought that Al Green's protest and the various little signs and protest stickers at the Joint Session were a worthwhile "fight" to bring to Trump. I'm sure they were correct in assessing that their "Dem constituency" preferred those performative objections to normalizing Trump by sitting there (and maybe cheering the kid with cancer). But that "fight" didn't actually do anything. It wasn't a fight. It didn't affect Trump at all. It didn't make the Democrats look firm or strong (I didn't see anyone on the Democratic side think that was a successful outcome). It didn't energize the Dem constituency, because it failed.

So if Schumer had voted down the CR, it wouldn't have been fighting - it would have just been failure. The government would shut down for 5-31 days or so, the GOP would not bargain, and the Democrats would eventually just have to approve the same CR anyway. Mostly because no one ever can use a shutdown as leverage. It never works. It didn't work for Gingrich, it didn't work when Cruz wanted to lever the shutdown into defunding Obamacare, it didn't work for the GOP trying to get border wall funding. Voters don't like it when the government shuts down, they don't want anyone trying to use it to gain leverage on policy matters.

Here, it's worse - because the shutdown helps the GOP. The Democrats would be "fighting" Trump the same way that Brer Bear and Brer Fox "fought" Brer Rabbit by tossing him in the briar patch. It's a good outcome for him. Once they passed the CR through the House, it would have been better for Trump to have the shutdown. All of the chaos in the federal government would get mixed in with the chaos of the shutdown, he would get to furlough all the employees he wants to fire instead of having to put them on administrative leave, more of them will have to resign because they're not getting paid, and if he can get the shutdown to last 30 days he basically gains massive new powers to fire tons of people. And eventually the Democrats would have had to vote for the CR anyway....which would just disillusion the Dem constituency even more than they're upset now.

It's just magical thinking. The Dem constituency wants to fight because they foolishly (and mistakenly) think they would win. But they wouldn't. Schumer knows it - he knows his members would not have been able to withstand the heat from being blamed for the shutdown. And while the Dem constituency thinks they'd be happier having fought and lost, that's not usually what happens - when you fight and it makes the other guy better off you end up feeling worse. They only reason they want to fight is because they're deluding themselves into thinking it would end with anything different than the same CR but Trump stronger for having the government shut down for a while. And they're wrong.

The Dem constituency wants to fight because they foolishly (and mistakenly) think they would win.

Probably some do. I am not that naive to think they could win. But if Reps can't get anything they want done, then they may have to consider wrangling some Dem votes to get legislation that can pass the filibuster. Wrangling Dem votes means giving them something. The Reps can declare victory, and Dems can say to their constituents that they got some concession of some kind.

Otherwise, Dems aren't even going to come out to vote. Why bother if your party won't fight? I do understand your point, but I think there is a balance between capitulation and winning. A middle ground that is neither, but shows your constituents that voting for you wasn't a blunder.

Cruz was an outlier. Even most of his own party didn't want him to do that.

i dont blame schumer either, although his messaging was poor when a book tour seemed a higher priority.

but i do blame all the dem pols, especially the ones like pelosi, piling on when they could be doing something else.

it was Dems message that a trump win would have catastrophic consequences, and i will say 100% dem voters have more than bought in.
so it is duty of every Dem pol to be in the face of every camera, making or responding on every media post, the details of each and every shenanigan.
i dont care how red, purple, or blue their region is, nor how much hatespeech gets slung, nor how little it affects MAGA. sure they can have other priorities, but this should be a 3xdaily task and built into their routine.

and in this, al green was just trying to get it into their cowardly hearts.
otherwise, we are hoping (futilely) for MAGA to fraction and destroy each other, when we know the matter ends as soon as trump takes any side.

Just for completeness...here's the article I read.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/dem...

I reiterate, the Dems can't win. But that shouldn't mean they just play dead.

but i do blame all the dem pols, especially the ones like pelosi, piling on when they could be doing something else.

Agreed. Schumer seems bad at messaging, as do many Dems. While criticism is certainly welcome, there does come a point when you're eating your own.

It makes things worse if you fight in the wrong spots. To take a recent example, progressives thought that Al Green's protest and the various little signs and protest stickers at the Joint Session were a worthwhile "fight" to bring to Trump. I'm sure they were correct in assessing that their "Dem constituency" preferred those performative objections to normalizing Trump by sitting there (and maybe cheering the kid with cancer). But that "fight" didn't actually do anything. It wasn't a fight. It didn't affect Trump at all. It didn't make the Democrats look firm or strong (I didn't see anyone on the Democratic side think that was a successful outcome). It didn't energize the Dem constituency, because it failed.
So if Schumer had voted down the CR, it wouldn't have been fighting - it would have just been failure. The government would shut down for 5-31 days or so, the GOP would not bargain, and the Democrats would eventually just have to approve the same CR anyway. Mostly because no one ever can use a shutdown as leverage. It never works. It didn't work for Gingrich, it didn't work when Cruz wanted to lever the shutdown into defunding Obamacare, it didn't work for the GOP trying to get border wall funding. Voters don't like it when the government shuts down, they don't want anyone trying to use it to gain leverage on policy matters.

If I read you correctly then, you think there is nothing that can be done for the next two years (at least) to change the trajectory, or at least ameliorate the worst excesses of what is happening?

I disagree. I don’t know exactly what it is, but I would think some “performance” could be used to energize the democratic base (in preparation for the future), to point out the rabid hypocrisy of what the Republicans are doing (“We’re the party of ‘get the government out of your lives <cough> abortion, school curricula, etc </cough>.

I agree that the feckless and occasional shouts or silly signs at the Trump speech were a failure, but that is a failure of imagination and of political will. It’s either that or we are doomed. I hope it’s not the latter, because that will leave me depressed for another 22 months, minimum.

If I read you correctly then, you think there is nothing that can be done for the next two years (at least) to change the trajectory, or at least ameliorate the worst excesses of what is happening?

There's lots of stuff to be done, but very little of it involves anything that Democratic members of Congress do on the floor of the House or Senate. They're out of power. They don't can't stop anything that doesn't "automatically" get stopped by the existence of the filibuster. Which is a ton of stuff, BTW, but because of the way the modern Senate rules are set up it doesn't require the Democrats to actually do anything. If the filibuster wasn't there, the GOP would be rewriting everything.

But they don't have power. The Democrats' strategy should not be worrying about, "How do we exercise the power we have?" - because they don't have any. It should be nearly entirely focused on "How do we get political power back?" The Democrats can't really alter what's going to happen in the next 22 months by the formal exercise of their authority as officeholders, because they have lost the last elections. That's what happens when you lose elections - you don't get to write the bills, you don't get to control the executive, you don't get to issue subpoenas, you don't get to have votes that matter. Political will is irrelevant when you're that far in the minority. The Democrats don't get to affect what happens in Congress over the next two years, other than forcing the GOP to unify their House majority and the omnipresent block of the filibuster.

Democrats should instead be working as hard as possible to change the political environment so they can win in two years. I've mentioned this from time to time, but IMHO literally the most important and consequential thing the GOP did to help themselves in both the 2022 and 2024 elections had nothing to do with Congress or even Trump. It was Gov. Abbott's initiation of busing migrants to blue cities in early 2022. The GOP changed the mind of the electorate. They had to endure two years of the Democrats being able to pretty much do what they wanted within the boundaries of the filibuster - but they released their centrist members to cross the aisle and support popular measures like the BIL and CHIPS Act, and worked to create conditions where they could win the midterms. They didn't fight in Congress - they fought in the electorate.

So do that. Go out and change minds, not engage in wishful thinking that there's an opportunity to resist what the GOP is doing over the next year. Set up an environment where Mike Johnson is genuinely concerned about losing the majority in the midterms so that he has to support his centrist members. Create a context where Trump is worried about losing the House, so that he trims his sails a bit on what he does and asks for. Engage in politics, not parliamentary fiddling that doesn't do much if you're in the minority in your Chamber.

Spoken like a true roll over and play dead Clinton possum.

What’s your Clintonite strategy of resistance? Hope John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett save democracy (if Trump doesn’t ignore them)? Cross your fingers for McConnell and three or four others see the light and vote to save the union?

Trump is already targeting Act Blue and democratic aligned law firms as adjuncts to terrorism. What’s your plan?

What’s your Clintonite strategy of resistance? Hope John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett save democracy (if Trump doesn’t ignore them)? Cross your fingers for McConnell and three or four others see the light and vote to save the union?

Trump is already targeting Act Blue and democratic aligned law firms as adjuncts to terrorism. What’s your plan?

Win back the House in the midterms. Get out there and change voters' minds about what the GOP is doing - especially among Black and Hispanic men, especially among young men. Engage in politics the way that the GOP did when they were facing a Democratic trifecta - attack the Administration for things you dislike, cross the aisle when appropriate, and get out there and make your case to the voters through incessant and continual outreach to voters.

Voting down the CR isn't "resistance." It's a thing the Democrats could have done, but it wouldn't have accomplished anything useful - any more than the little signs and Al Green's tirade did. It would only damage their own party and the people they claim to want to help (users of government services) - and would have put Trump in a better position than he is today.

Is that satisfying? No! It sucks to be in the minority of a trifecta. It sucks when the opposing party gets to control the agenda, write all the bills, control the Executive, and do whatever they want that doesn't need to surmount a filibuster. But the way to "resist" that is to win elections - not engage in a circular firing squad within the party after you've lost, because one faction is unwilling to damage the party's prospects further in order to make another faction have better "feels."

Democrats should instead be working as hard as possible to change the political environment so they can win in two years.

I think perhaps it’s possible to do both. I’m not sure what the “busing migrant to blue cities” equivalent will be/could be/should be, but I disagree that you have to lay down, prostrate, and let the Republicans walk all over you.

As Jon Stewart agrees:

(You could skip the opening 3:00 if you like, or even start at 4:00, but the takedown of Shumer’s total surrender starts at 7:00 in. Wherever you start, there’s something here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8OFrDQkfjM

“Democrats should instead be working as hard as possible to change the political environment so they can win in two years.”

This is quaint. It assumes there will be elections in two years, but the party in power is using its power to assure that the opposition won’t be able to contest an election in the future. Suspending habeas corpus, effectively debarring democratic law firms, defining civil protest as domestic terrorism, investigating Act Blue for fraud. All these baby steps point very clearly to the battle lines being drawn. Democrats like Schumer continue to politely play by the rules, biding their time until the inevitable pendulum swing, not realizing that the rules are changing.

We needed different thinking about how to confront Trumpism, but the sclerotic leadership of the Democratic Party has no answers for the change before them.

Where, for example, where is the coordinated attack—performative or otherwise—on the billionaire class? A sneering reference to “the oligarchy” is not enough. Fox News points out Schumer’s hypocrisy when he “worries about the oligarchs”. We know the centrists dependency on the billionaires is the reason for their constraint.

Crossing your fingers for two years is not a real strategy for addressing the change before us.

I think perhaps it’s possible to do both. I’m not sure what the “busing migrant to blue cities” equivalent will be/could be/should be, but I disagree that you have to lay down, prostrate, and let the Republicans walk all over you.

Refusing to do something damaging to your party and your prospects in the next election isn't "laying down, prostrating, and letting the GOP walk all over you." It's avoiding something stupid. If the only alternative to doing something that makes you worse off is to do nothing, then you should do nothing. Yes, doing nothing leads to bad outcomes - but if the only alternative is worse, then doing nothing is the right call.

There was no endgame for voting down the CR. If they voted down the CR, they would have just had to approve the exact same thing within one to five weeks later. There's no leverage. The GOP would not have paid much of a price for the shutdown, Trump would have been much better off with the shutdown, and the Democrats would have been buried under the pressure of millions of people suffering during the shutdown. You don't gain leverage by saying "no" to something you basically want. Democrats want the government to run, they don't want Trump to keep chainsawing it - so shutting it down is the equivalent of Brer Bear and Fox throwing Brer Rabbit in the briar patch. It's something they can convince themselves is actually punishing to the rabbit, but it's really more what the rabbit wants and is bad for them.

Stewart is funny, but he's wrong - and Schumer's right. You fight back against the Republicans by engaging in politics that will make them less popular and more likely to lose their seats. And shutting down the government doesn't do that. The fact that there isn't an easy and high-visibility alternative to voting down the CR that would make them less popular doesn't change that - the absence of a good alternative doesn't make the self-damaging choice any less self-damaging.

“Win back the House in the midterms.”

So you don’t believe anything is fundamentally changing, and that Trump and his regime won’t do the kinds of things they’re promising to do? The direct assault on habeas corpus and judicial review isn’t a prelude to an imperial presidency? Elections will solve this present assault on our constitutional order?

Gee, let me possum up and hope you’re right. Schumer is the man to get us out of this mess.

Crossing your fingers for two years is not a real strategy for addressing the change before us.

But neither is voting down the CR. Which also wouldn't have done any of the things you argue are necessary to be done. In fact, it would have made it worse - because shutdowns are unpopular, and the President has more actual authority to start whacking the government if Congress has failed to fund it than he does in ordinary circumstances.

No one is claiming that the Democrats have landed on a successful strategy for pushing back on Trump. That doesn't mean that it would have been smart to vote down the CR.

The sclerotic leadership of the Democratic Party has "answers" for Trumpism - win back power. That's not satisfying for the Democratic base, that wants to be told that there's a way for them to push back on Trump now. They want to engage in wish-fulfillment fantasies, that losing both chambers of Congress and the Presidency can't result in a massive change in the country, that there has to be a way to stop him if Democrats only fought more.

But it's not true. Pushing back on the GOP will be a long, slow, arduous slog that is unlikely to result in any cathartic moments of visible resistance any time in the next year - and if you don't want to be in the exact same position after the 2026 election, you need to forego the quick sugar hit of meaningless and ultimately self-defeating "protest" actions and avoid doing things that will be unpopular. Like forcing the country into a government shutdown.

“You fight back against the Republicans by engaging in politics that will make them less popular and more likely to lose their seats.”

But that’s the point, a Sclerotic Clintonite leadership beholden to billionaires and centamillionaires is not going to embrace a strategy that cuts to the heart what’s wrong with Trumpism. They are the reason that “not Trump” was the best we could offer last November. It looks like “still not Trump” is their strategy for 2026.

possum up

A new term in my lexicon. If you came up with it, congrats!
If not, congrats anyway!

Regardless, I’m stealing it.

So you don’t believe anything is fundamentally changing, and that Trump and his regime won’t do the kinds of things they’re promising to do? The direct assault on habeas corpus and judicial review isn’t a prelude to an imperial presidency? Elections will solve this present assault on our constitutional order?

Elections are the best option to address the present assault on our constitutional order. Certainly a much better option than voting down the CR. Win back power, undermine the popularity of the current administration, get control of the House again.

Interrupting the President's speech, holding up silly little signs - and voting down the CR - don't do anything to slow the "present assault on our constitutional order." Again, voting down the CR makes it worse, since the office of the President gets more power if there's no appropriations and we go into shutdown.

“The sclerotic leadership of the Democratic Party has "answers" for Trumpism - win back power.”

How?

There are alternatives to the “not Trump” platform the possum wing of the party wants to pursue.

But that’s the point, a Sclerotic Clintonite leadership beholden to billionaires and centamillionaires is not going to embrace a strategy that cuts to the heart what’s wrong with Trumpism.

I'm not claiming that current leadership's strategy is going to cut to the heart of what's wrong with Trumpism. I'm arguing that voting down the CR also wouldn't have cut to the heart of what's wrong with Trumpism, and would have made it worse.

On this issue Schumer made the right call.

How?

Step one is to not do self-destructive things like vote down the CR and precipitate a government shutdown.

Step two is to allow the GOP to own the inevitably bad consequences to Trump's chaos, rather than taking ownership of it by contributing to the chaos.

Step three is to recruit and support candidates in swing districts that are centrist enough to win a purple electorate, and to do tamp down the more extreme elements of the national party that advocate performative stances on unpopular measures that make it harder for those folks to win races. Excellent example from the GOP - what Trump did to the hardcore pro-life movement. They want their leaders to "fight" also, and wanted to get the national party to take an affirmative stand in favor of measures that would prevent abortions in blue states - and Trump basically declared that was a stupid and politically self-destructive idea and told them to F off, wrote all that stuff right out of the national platform.

Win the House. Don't focus energy on primarying safe seats in the Senate, don't spend time on internecine warfare over whether the country is ready for a hardcore progressive party (it's probably not). Capitalize on the general thermostatic trend among the electorate to turn out the party that's been given a trifecta, get good candidates and give them the room they need to run a race that can win in their district.

What’s the definition of insanity?

What’s the definition of insanity?

Repeating something and expecting different results.

Yet the result of the Clinton campaign was....the Democrats retook the White House, and had a governing trifecta. Which would be a pretty decent outcome.

Meanwhile, let's flip that back on claims that Schumer should have voted down the CR and precipitated a government shutdown. Each of the last times that a party has tried to use a looming shutdown as leverage, it's failed miserably. The Republicans tried it in 2018 to try to force border wall funding: they took the hit for the shutdown, got nothing, and just had to cave in the end. The GOP tried it in 2013 to try to force reductions in Obamacare funding - again, they were punished politically for the shutdown, got nothing, and just had to cave in the end and just accept the bill. The GOP tried it in 1995-1996 under Gingrich to change spending on health care and education: they also lost popularity due to the shutdown, got crushed by the pressure, and had to cave in the end and just accept Clinton's budget. Oh, and that one was so bad it helped propel Clinton to re-election in 1996.

So the big idea that Schumer's being criticized for not implementing is....using a looming shutdown as a leverage attempt? When that's worked out so horribly for everyone that's tried it?

Yeah, the definition of insanity....

The times have changed, my friend. It’s time to show the working class that the Democratic Party is their party. Clinton’s election was a disaster for the working class. NAFTA, PRWRA, Graham-Leach, “Reinventing” Government Initiative, various “Incarcerate black Americans” initiatives, the Telecommunications Act, etc. one looks at this list of legislative achievements under Clinton and wonders if he wasn’t a Republican president. Is it any wonder working class Americans have given up on your version of the Democratic Party in favor of good old fashioned fascism?

A CR fight would’ve at least been a fight, something the democrats have failed to show for far too long. Trump is going to trample the constitution and wreck havoc on working class people regardless of whether dems vote for or against the CR. Schumer fed the right wing narrative about spineless democrats. We were owned once again, accepting pennies on the dollar for our self esteem.

A CR fight would’ve at least been a fight, something the democrats have failed to show for far too long.

And if your house is on fire, shooting a grenade launcher into it would be at least be something. But it won't keep your house from burning down. It obviously would make matters much much worse, in fact.

This would have been a disastrous fight to have, and it wouldn't have had the effect that Democrats imagine it would. They would have strengthened Trump and eventually would have had to accept the exact same CR anyway....which is what happened in every other prior "fight" trying to leverage a shutdown. You're not fighting back against the other party by punching yourself in the face - and the constituents who today are itching for a "fight" are only doing so because they are deluding themselves into thinking that it would have a good outcome. When they lose the fight, they'll feel worse. When the actual outcome ends up happening, and they get the same CR but are in a much worse position, then they will be even more disillusioned for having gone through it.

I completely agree that the Democrats need to regain support among the working class (though I imagine we might have different ideas on what would be an effective strategy for doing that). But the voting down the CR just for the sake of a "fight" would have been a disastrous start to that - much like the antics at the Joint Session, but with far more drastic consequences.

A CR fight would’ve at least been a fight,

But it would have been a fight that not only loses, but plays into Trump's agenda.

Remember that Trump is doing his best to cut out all sorts of pieces of the federal government. With a shutdown, even more parts of government shut down. And there's the possibility that the House GOP just doesn't bother to bring any bill forward to reopen government for quite a while. Because exactly what they want is happening with the shutdown.

I hate that it came down to supporting a CR and not fighting right then and there. But that was not the right time and place for a fight. You've got to pick fights you have a good chance of winning, not a fight that you're going to lose.

The other problem is that Schumer's messaging on this was abysmal. Kind of a broad problem across much of the Democratic party, save for the most progressive - like Sanders and AOC.

--Peter

Elections are the best option to address the present assault on our constitutional order. Certainly a much better option than voting down the CR. Win back power, undermine the popularity of the current administration, get control of the House again.

OK, but if you don’t make some noise about it, how is the Right going to know? Fox isn’t reporting on the controversy, indeed it’s doing just the opposite: hosannahs to Dear Leader. The Wall Street Journal has said a couple things, so the 12 people who read the editorial might know, and 4 might care, meanwhile the steamroller continues to flatten the Constitution.

You really think a stink shouldn’t be made?

You really think a stink shouldn’t be made?

Of course a stink should be made. But if you don't do it smartly, it will end up making things worse. Again, the ridiculous (and ridiculed) performance of House Dems during the Joint Session is a small-bore example of that. Voting down the CR, and triggering a shutdown, is a larger-scale appallingly self-destructive way to do it. Schumer realized that, and tried to save the Democrats from making that mistake.

What can they do? I don't know what will be effective, TBH, because I'm old. At least, old relative to the people they need to get to. They're bleeding support from voters that aren't especially engaged with politics and old media. People who read newspapers or watch political news on TV aren't the ones that you need to reach, for the most part. I like the way David Schor put it:

We used to live in this world where in order to get your message out there, you had to get people who write really well to absorb your message and put it out. And now, we’re in a world where anyone can make a video and if that video is appealing, it’ll get out there. And this is naturally bad for the left, simply because the people who write really well are a lot more left-wing than the overall population.

https://archive.ph/kaMSQ#selection-1177.0-1177.409

"Write" in this context isn't just books or newspapers - it's people who write for television as well, the folks who wrote the copy for Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw or whoever. Voters are less and less consuming information about politics (or society) that has been written. Less and less of the information that reaches them has passed through the brain of a person who is paid to write. So doing the sorts of things that would normally engage the "writer class" isn't going to work, because the viewers of content with writers are skewing old and Democratic already.

I don't know, personally, what creates a "stink" these days among the audience you need to reach. Doing something on the floor of the Congress that will be covered a lot by the political press is almost certainly not it, which is why the Joint Session antics failed so thoroughly. Flooding the town halls might be working - but again, I get my news from sources that appeal to an old phart like me, so I have no idea whether that's actually penetrating or not.

But it's not true. Pushing back on the GOP will be a long, slow, arduous slog...

And how do they do that, precisely? I suspect sitting back and just saying "look what you voted for" isn't enough, even though it should be for most thinking people. I have a "Trump" filter on my news, but still I get enough stories (POTUS is an important news item, and is in a lot more stuff than one might expect) to see the disaster and chaos, and know that almost anyone would be a better choice. And any congress-slime that supports any of his actions should be ousted. However, based on input just from this board, I'm assuming most of the right-wing doesn't see it that way. If they aren't the "burn it all down" type, that's what they're getting anyway. And, yes, I know some of the right does want to burn it all down.

Couple that with the Felon's willingness to ignore court orders (evidently with impunity), and I don't know that Dems can do anything in two years, or even four years. The only check is Congress, and they are too spineless to speak out even when they disagree with the Felon.

1poorlady has a different perspective, being born in the Philippines. She lived through Marcos, and has told me that she thinks the Felon may be trying to create chaos so he can declare martial law, just as Marcos did. If that were to happen, we'd probably lose our democracy forever as all the institutions of democracy (those that survive the present onslaught) would be dissolved. Even if the courts issued orders, he would just ignore them, and Congress appears to be complicit in anything he does. There literally is nothing to stop him.

Don't focus energy on primarying safe seats in the Senate,...

OK. With you so far. Don't waste money and effort on safe seats (though be absolutely sure they're safe, both Rep and Dem).

...don't spend time on internecine warfare over whether the country is ready for a hardcore progressive party (it's probably not)...

OK, though it is perhaps a uniquely Dem problem that a not-perfect candidate is "just as bad as a Rep", and then they don't show up to vote. See Sanders voters for example. How do you get them to show up if AOC or Sanders isn't the candidate?

Capitalize on the general thermostatic trend among the electorate to turn out the party that's been given a trifecta, get good candidates and give them the room they need to run a race that can win in their district.

Can you be a little more specific? Maybe take an example you're familiar with, and give some detail? Maybe a district in FL (since you're probably very familiar with FL, compared to AZ) that is potentially up for grabs if Dems handle it correctly?

And how do they do that, precisely?

It will vary from place to place, community by community. One technique that worked well for the GOP here in Florida was one of their efforts to increase support among Latino voters. They went hardcore into those neighborhoods, years before the elections and outside of campaigns, and opened up community centers to just do constant outreach to those voters:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/gop-hispanic...

I have a "Trump" filter on my news, but still I get enough stories (POTUS is an important news item, and is in a lot more stuff than one might expect) to see the disaster and chaos, and know that almost anyone would be a better choice.

I don't think the Democrats can get the change they want through "news" coverage. They need to communicate through non-news channels. And channels that are consumed by people who aren't already already Democrats. That's a tall order. I don't know how you would go about building that up, but that's where the political battles of the next few decades are going to be fought. The age of political pamphlets moved to the age of newspapers to the age of radio to the age of television - and now it's moved on to whatever it is the current generations are doing. So the Democratic party needs to get there.

What’s the definition of insanity? - PP

-------------------

Ignoring the will of the people and then doing it harder as a roadmap to regaining support.

Can you be a little more specific? Maybe take an example you're familiar with, and give some detail? Maybe a district in FL (since you're probably very familiar with FL, compared to AZ) that is potentially up for grabs if Dems handle it correctly?

I don't, because Florida doesn't have many competitive districts any more. Florida's moved red in a big way, the GOP has been in charge of redistricting through enough cycles to completely gerrymander, and we have enough of a minority population that the Voting Rights Act gerrymander effect makes it even worse. Not a lot of toss-ups here, any more. The real battles are going to be elsewhere.

There are only three GOP Reps that won seats in districts that Harris won. To take back the majority, the Democrats will need to reclaim seats in districts that Trump won. Which means they need candidates that can run well in a purple-shading-towards-red district. Which means that the national party needs to be able to support some candidates - strongly - that might not match up entirely with the profile, positions, or priorities of the base of the party.

On this issue Schumer made the right call.

And this is true. Shutting down the government upsets all but a few. You DO end up voting for a CR that's the same or similar. This time government employees are furloughed though, so they get hurt. No one's happy, and the Democrats get the blame. Trying to convince a bunch of angry folks that it was the right thing to do when nothing was accomplished is not something anyone wants to do.

And he's right that we need to look forward and build for the next elections. Our only ticket out is to take the House and the Senate. That's the only practical way/

I'm happy to get these observations.

We used to live in this world where in order to get your message out there, you had to get people who write really well to absorb your message and put it out. And now, we’re in a world where anyone can make a video and if that video is appealing, it’ll get out there. And this is naturally bad for the left, simply because the people who write really well are a lot more left-wing than the overall population.

I think this misses the mark. When people rely on social media for their news, and that "news" can be written by anyone with a social media account without a requirement (or expectation) for fact-checking and verifying sources, then you can't expect people to be grounded in reality. Couple that with the social media algorithms that present you with stuff that will make you happy -keeping in mind that it is not vetted for truth or facts-, and you have an easily-manipulated and uninformed populace.

I know issues of free speech are involved, and I revere free speech, but something needs to be done to hold social media accountable for what is on their platforms. Otherwise, it's just a question of time before we have leaders that dismantle everything, and then rebuild it in their image. Then, there will be really tight controls on speech that would clearly violate the 1st Amendment, but nothing could be done at that point.

I get the irony...we have to find a way to restrict speech that conforms to the 1A so that we can save the 1A from a future "Ministry of Truth". Yeah, 1984 again, but it just seems so incredibly relevant to what we're seeing today.

My only thought about how to approach it is that anyone claiming something is "news" has to show their work. They have to have sources, vet those sources, and fact-check. Otherwise, they cannot use the label "news". That wouldn't restrict "speech", but would put limits on how you can label your speech so others know whether it is news or opinion or something else.

I think this misses the mark. When people rely on social media for their news, and that "news" can be written by anyone with a social media account without a requirement (or expectation) for fact-checking and verifying sources, then you can't expect people to be grounded in reality. Couple that with the social media algorithms that present you with stuff that will make you happy -keeping in mind that it is not vetted for truth or facts-, and you have an easily-manipulated and uninformed populace.

Right - but how is that missing the mark?

If the populace is no longer consuming "news" that has been written by a person (whether with a social media account or not), but is just getting their information about the world from watching unscripted videos or livestreams or podcasts, then the Democrats are going to do poorly using their traditional communication channels. Holding up some little paddles during the President's speech will get you covered on the nightly news, but that's no longer as important a communication medium today. It's not going to get you talked about on a podcast or livestream, except if you get derided through people memeing you to death.

If you're trying to get back support among the working class, and the working class isn't watching scripted news (whether sourced or not, whether labeled as news or opinion or not), then you can't rely on scripted news as your way back to them. Democrats are losing support among the people who don't make their political decisions based on "news" - they're doing fine with people who consume news, but getting hammered among people who don't. Again, from Schor:

The most important thing is that we saw incredible polarization on political engagement itself. There’s a bunch of different ways to measure this: There’s how many elections you vote in, or how important politics is to your identity. There’s how closely you follow the news. But across all of these, there’s a consistent story: The most engaged people swung toward Democrats between 2020 and 2024, despite the fact that Democrats did worse overall.

Meanwhile, people who are the least politically engaged swung enormously against Democrats. They’re a group that Biden either narrowly won or narrowly lost four years ago. But this time, they voted for Trump by double digits.
And I think this is just analytically important.

People have a lot of complaints about how the mainstream media covered things. But I think it’s important to note that the people who watch the news the most actually became more Democratic. And the problem was basically this large group of people who really don’t follow the news at all becoming more conservative.

You can't win back those voters by gaining news coverage of the stuff you do - because they're not consuming news. You have to work hard to meet them where they are, to show up in the stuff they do consume. Ground game politics, showing up in non-news, unconventional media channels that aren't aimed at the folks that are already all voting for you.

It's missing the mark because the people are victims of misinformation fed to them by algorithms. Those algorithms assure that they will seldom see something they don't like. How can Dems (or even Reps) penetrate that? A 'red' person like Dope is only going to "follow" content he agrees with, and any algorithms are only going to suggest content he will like (which won't be Elizabeth Warren). Similarly, a 'blue' person will get lots of Elizabeth Warren, but probably no Mike Johnson.

Which is why I was trying to make the point that social media itself needs to be held somewhat accountable for what they host on their platforms. Otherwise, you get more armed nutjobs storming pizza parlors looking for child sex slaves. He was well-intentioned (I'm against child sex slaves, too), but grossly misinformed, largely by social media. If social media is where people get their info, then there needs to be some mechanism that helps to assure it is at least accurate.

I wasn't going to post this, but it seems a bit relevant now. John Oliver doing a dive on content moderation. Yes, HBO/MAX isn't an old-time news source. But, as with some YouTubers like Perun, they do their homework and can show it (and often do as part of their programs). That is the difference between them, and someone like Alex Jones or Hegseth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nf7XHR3EVHo

So the big idea that Schumer's being criticized for not implementing is....using a looming shutdown as a leverage attempt? When that's worked out so horribly for everyone that's tried it?

I disagree.

The examples you gave were Republicans supporting positions that were highly unpopular.

There was no support for a wall except for MAGA extremists.

Obamacare was more popular than tax cuts!

Healthcare and education are also quite popular with most Americans.

I think the Democrats should have said they would only support a CR if full funding, including restoring full staffing and offices, for the Social Security Administration, Veterans Affairs, and Medicare. All of these programs are extremely popular with Americans.

This would have forced the Republicans to defend the draconian cuts being made to these programs. Personally, I would have a few more programs, but let’s just stick with these three.

I believe that the vast majority of Americans would strongly support maintaining these programs at current levels and the pressure would be on Republicans to support these programs. In other words, put up or shut up.

As for Trump getting more power, I don’t think you’re paying attention. Trump is already doing anything he wants. He’s ignored orders from federal judges. And mark my words, Trump will at some point ignore rulings from the Supreme Court.

Lastly, a threat of a shutdown over these three programs would show every day Americans that Democrats are willing to fight on their behalf for programs they like. That seems to be something Americans are really looking for and want.

I don't know what will be effective, TBH, because I'm old.

I suffer from the same problem. I have been impressed by the following that AOC has gathered and the skills she demonstrates in terms of engaging an audience. My concern is that she's a little too far left to reach the big money that is needed to help multiple candidates around the country. But she does reach voters.

What the Democrats really need is someone in their late 20s to early 30s whose positions are closer to Katie Porter than AOC. Someone media and video savvy who is center left rather than far left.

I know what doesn't work is a bunch of old folks trying to reach young voters. That's why Pelosi stepping down and turning the reins of the party over to the next generation is so important. Schumer needs to do the same thing. I'd welcome him as a behind the scenes mentor to a younger Senate leader.

--Peter

Off the current thread topic, but the few reviews on Amazon are brutal. Could be "haters" though. Also, several reviews complain of the book having no spine: that is, no physical spine on the book they received. Not sure what that means!

It's missing the mark because the people are victims of misinformation fed to them by algorithms. Those algorithms assure that they will seldom see something they don't like. How can Dems (or even Reps) penetrate that?

Easy - you go on the channels that appeal to the opposing side. You especially go on every channel that's neutral or a "leaner."

Democrats have a hard time doing this, and it's caused them problems, because of some of the peculiar "rules" that the caucus imposes on itself. A lot of the "new media" channels they need to get access to are unprofessional, coarse, and imperfect - and the national party is loathe to see itself 'platforming' those folks. Hence, when Bernie Sanders was endorsed by Joe Rogan (who was originally the answer to how the Democrats could get their own Joe Rogan), he caught shit from the progressives in the party:

Rogan has a loyal following of millions of men, many of whom aren't particularly political and might be open to a Sanders campaign built around his us-against-the-system economic populism. It represents a largely untapped pool of potential voters in the Democratic primaries - ones who may have voted for Donald Trump's establishment-smashing pitch in 2016 and are shopping around again this year.

The blowback risk to Sanders is real, however. Some of Rogan's past comments have been viewed as derogatory toward women. Given that Sanders critics - including, most recently, 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton - have said the Vermont senator has been too tolerant of misogyny among his followers, his celebration of the Rogan endorsement could amplify those concerns.

Sanders is walking a fine line - but in a tight race just over a week before the first primary contest starts, he appears to have deemed the potential to expand his electoral coalition to be worth the risk.

Responding to the backlash, the Sanders campaign said it is trying to "build a multi-racial, multi-generational movement that is large enough to defeat Donald Trump".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-51241462

If you get "backlash" just for showing up on a popular program just because the host can't pass your party's internal purity test, you're not going to be able to reach the people you need.

I believe that the vast majority of Americans would strongly support maintaining these programs at current levels and the pressure would be on Republicans to support these programs. In other words, put up or shut up.

But the CR did that! It maintained the funding for those programs at current levels! It didn't change the funding for those programs. It's a continuing resolution - it just continues existing levels of funding. That's why the whack-jobs on the far right of the GOP caucus (like Massie and Roy) had to have their arms twisted to vote for it. Because they didn't want to continue Biden levels of spending and wanted cuts to lots of programs, and Trump told them they had to get in line. The programs you're talking about were maintained at current levels.

That's why the Democrats were going to get crushed if the shut the government down over this. There >b>were things in the bill that they claimed (perhaps correctly) made it not a "clean" CR - some extra border enforcement and defense funding, a few billion in cuts to domestic programs - but nothing that could realistically be explained to voters as a reason for fighting the CR.

That's why Schumer went along with it. This was a trap! The GOP passed a CR that didn't do anything significant to current funding levels and dared the Democrats to vote against it in the Senate. The Democrats wanted to add stuff to the CR to reign in DOGE, and they might have had a chance (though doubtful) to do that if the bill had died in the House. But it didn't, and the GOP always had 50+ votes in the Senate for the CR, so the Dems were done for - they couldn't blame the GOP for not having the votes to pass their own bill, which meant they'd take a bunch of the blame for the shutdown.

This was the CR, not the budget bill. That will have a lot of cuts and changes which the Democrats can attack....but that's going through reconciliation, so the GOP doesn't need any Dem votes in the Senate if they can agree amongst themselves.

But the CR did that!

I think you missed one of my paragraphs:

I think the Democrats should have said they would only support a CR if full funding, including restoring full staffing and offices, for the Social Security Administration, Veterans Affairs, and Medicare.

I think the Democrats should have said they would only support a CR if full funding, including restoring full staffing and offices, for the Social Security Administration, Veterans Affairs, and Medicare.

But that's not the status quo - so they'd get killed for trying to get that into the CR. The CR doesn't change anything about the status quo for staffing and offices. If the existing law requires a certain level of staffing or offices, the CR wouldn't affect that. Everything continues.

What the Democrats would have liked is to have new language added to the CR that would reign in DOGE. They want a new law that puts new limits on the Executive's power over those agencies. But that's not what CR's generally do. They preserve the status quo, not include new substantive policy changes.

So you run right into the trap of "holding the government hostage" rhetoric. If you've lost the Presidential election and you're in the minority in Congress, you don't get to have your policy choices put in place. You're not in charge. And the voters hate when you try to hold up a must-pass funding provision as a way to get leverage to force a policy that you don't have the votes to put in place through conventional channels.

The GOP would eat the Democrats' lunch on that. If what Trump is doing ends up being unpopular, then the GOP will pay the price at that time - but the CR itself doesn't have anything unpopular in it, and the GOP will crucify the Democrats for causing a shutdown over a bill that itself doesn't have anything they can point to that's worth shutting the government over.

Which is why I was trying to make the point that social media itself needs to be held somewhat accountable for what they host on their platforms.

Perhaps no so much accountable for what they host but what they deliver. The content isn't necessarily the problem - a great deal of the content you or I don't like is still protected free speech.

The problem is not the content, but the selective filtering of the content. The problem is that when I click on, say, CNN in my feed, I will get more CNN in my feed. If I click on Fox in my feed, I get more Fox in my feed. And that happens even without doing something like subscribing or requesting more of that content.

I'd like to see those algorithms restricted in some way. I have no problem with social media giving me more of things I've subscribed to or requested or friended or whatever. It's when the algorithm sends me more similar items just because I clicked on them that is the problem.

Of course, I understand that the issue is advertising. If the social media sites can get more ad revenue by providing targeted ads to their users, that's better for them even if it's bad for society as a whole. And they accomplish that by providing more links that will have ads that a particular user is likely to click on. And that means algorithms.

Perhaps it's time to put the needs of a democratic society above the needs of corporations to make ever higher profits. Now there's a radical idea for sure.

--Peter

Trump will at some point ignore rulings from the Supreme Court.

I don't doubt that.

But I think that the better question is will his Cabinet Secretaries ignore the rulings? Will the Assistant Secretaries and others just down the chain of command?

Because while Trump may be immune from criminal prosecution, those folks aren't.

Sure, some may think that they'll get a pardon. And some may ask for a promise of a pardon before they ignore court rulings. But we all know how good Trump's promises are - and some number of those folks know that, too. And some are simply too dumb to know what personal risk they are taking.

Trump, or any President for that matter, can't do much at all without the organization below him doing as he says. And when the refusals start, the court orders will be followed to some extent despite the childish whining of Trump.

--Peter

“ What’s the definition of insanity?”

Off topic, but that meme is stupid. Often, if you’re trying to accomplish something difficult, you have to attempt it and fail over and over again until you finally get it right. Also, like “the straw that broke the camel’s back,” the response to repeated inputs can be highly nonlinear: nothing happens until all of a sudden, boom!

Often, if you’re trying to accomplish something difficult, you have to attempt it and fail over and over again until you finally get it right.

I think that's true, but...when you "attempt it and fail over and over until you finally get it right" doesn't mean doing the exact same thing that got you to the failure. You have to tweak the attempts, otherwise you're doing the same thing over and over expecting to get a different result.

Pete

I wrote: Also, several reviews complain of the book having no spine: that is, no physical spine on the book they received. Not sure what that means!

Ok, I'm a moron. The "no spine" quips were insults about Schumer having none either!

Ok, I'm a moron.

I hate to break this to you, g, but you're not a moron. You figured out that you made a mistake and acknowledged it. Our local actual morons have to double down on their mistakes to protect their fragile egos and keep up a good front.

--Peter

<< I think that's true, but...when you "attempt it and fail over and over until you finally get it right" doesn't mean doing the exact same thing that got you to the failure. You have to tweak the attempts, otherwise you're doing the same thing over and over expecting to get a different result.>>

True. But to the typical outside observer it may look like you’re simply doing the same thing over and over. I’ve certainly had people tell me I’m “insane” for trying repeatedly and failing to accomplish something … until I did it.

“I don't think the Democrats can get the change they want through "news" coverage. They need to communicate through non-news channels.”

What do democrats want? What is the message they intend to communicate?

What do democrats want? What is the message they intend to communicate?

They want a host of different things (and different Democrats differ on what they want) - but the prime thing they all want in the immediate short-term is for Trump to stop dismantling the federal government. They think that's bad policy, and they think he's going about it incompetently.

It will be almost impossible for them to do anything about it, though. Trump was elected, so he gets to make nearly all of the decisions relating to the executive branch. What few decisions are reserved by the Constitution to Congress (like the confirmation power) are given to the Senate, which the Democrats don't control. The major levers that Congress has over the Presidency (legislation, budget, oversight) are unavailable to the minority party.

At this point, though, Trump is still more popular than he was last time around at this point in his Administration. And he shrewdly focused his early efforts on the less popular parts of government, at a time when the electorate (globally!) is looking for change. Which makes the Democrats' message very difficult - they want to attack the way he's doing this, but have to avoid looking like they're claiming that the status quo doesn't need changing.

Meanwhile, the Democrats also want to litigate internally whether they want to be a center-left party or a left-populist party. Which doesn't necessarily interfere with being an effective opposition party, but it makes it very hard to start promoting an affirmative agenda rather than state objections to the current Administration.

Apparently Schumer is getting pressure to step down. Because he appears to be ineffective. Even if he made the right call with the vote, the Dem base did not see any resistance from him, and so are displeased.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/23/ch...

Perception is everything with an uninformed public. Whether it's this, or climate change (arguably the most potent threat to our economy in the long term...remediation will cost trillions over the next many decades), or whatever else, people don't know the details (and don't seem to want to). They just see the surface, and react.

So even if a shutdown was a bad idea, he didn't even put on a show of a fight. And now people want him gone. That's poor politics on his part.

he didn't even put on a show of a fight

On the contrary, he spent the time rounding up votes so it could pass.

And he got NOTHING in return.

I’m sure Republicans think he’s a patsy, and now so do Democrats. I’m one of them.

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