Last month, I sat down for an interview with the Washington Post’s deputy opinion editor, James Hohmann, for a wide-ranging discussion about the Democrats, the DSA, working-class voters, the 2026 midterms, the 2028 election, and plenty more.
The phrase “trans rights” is doing too much work in this conversation, and it is time to retire it.
What the party actually absorbed is not a generic civil-rights add-on. It is self-ID: the claim that a person’s stated gender identity should rewrite sex in law, sports, prisons, shelters, medicine, and speech, and that disagreement is illegitimate. “Trans rights” hides the mechanism. Self-ID names it.
That is why the sports example keeps coming up and why Moulton had to walk it back. The fight is not over whether people can live as they wish. It is over whether institutions must treat sex as a feeling with legal force. Working-class voters can smell the difference even when the language won’t say it.
If Democrats want a Sister Souljah moment that is more than vibes, start there. Stop saying “trans rights agenda.” Say what the policy is: self-ID in law, male access to female categories, and a ban on noticing. Until the words match the thing, the party will keep arguing with a slogan while the country argues with the reality.
Most working class don't like their kids being told their gender and pronouns can be whatever they choose. The LGBTQ extremists have destroyed the Democrats.
And they probably don't like the pics they see of classrooms, covered in pride/progress flags, political statements, etc. When I was a kid the walls had maps, cursive examples...practice examples of what we were learning. Now the learning goals are different, but no less clear: political indoctrination.
Apparently the teachers unions have a lot to do with LGBTQ programming in schools.
Incidentally, the rate of kids IDing as trans is on the wane (giving credence to the social contagion theory), while teachers unions seem to be doubling down on curriculum that asks young kids to consider whether they have a gender.
I'm LGB by-the-way and am completely against what they're teaching kids in school.
But don't forget: You cannot, under any circumstance, self-ID with race (e.g., Rachel Dolezal). The Left has said for decades "race is a social construct" but, yet, unlike biological sex, it is absolute and unchangeable.
Wishful thinking, the word "socialism" will cost Dems many votes in swing states and red states where the word draws huge fear and scorn--especially in places like Florida where millions of residents fled socialism in Cuba and Venezuela. Democrats are just being stupid.
It will, but not in 2026 and probably not even in 2028. Everyone hated Biden when Biden was president, and everyone hates Trump now that he's president. You'd need a fabulous economy to keep independents from souring on the governing party.
The ultimate Rep secret weapon, will be 2 years of perpetual Impeachment of Trump and his Cabinet. Dems just cannot help themselves. Dem Congress people are seriously informing voters the Ballroom is grounds for Impeachment, before 6 other issues. Absent a Huey Long "live boy or dead girl" saga, there are not 67 Senate votes for conviction of anyone for anything.
That is before, Medicaid for All, Deportation for None, 100% student loan forgiveness, free childcare, all with a 32 hour work week, kick in, in earnest. Reps losing the House in Nov, will be their best 2028 play, by far.
Meanwhile, the Dem secret weapon is Trump. Even when his instincts are correct, he cannot stop repeatedly shooting himself in the foot, with a sawed off shotgun. Trump 1 streamlined drilling regs sparking an oil and gas boom. US oil production is up 20-25%. The economic energy suicidal tendencies of the Green New Deal are gone, for good, not even the Europeans believe them anymore.
The notion of Americans ever again tolerating the purposefully high oil and gas prices of Obama and Biden, to aid a mythological energy transition, are over. Hence Trump being slaughtered over what are arguably temporary oil prices, due to Iran, that still average less than Obama
At some point, Reps will counter Abolish ICE with a list of thousands of Americans who have suffered at the hands of the undocumented, purposefully or not. Even supposed moderate Dems refuse to cheer the deportation of child rapists and murders. Then there is basic Math. 10 million people require extra housing, MDs and speciality teachers, we do not have. More than 1/2 reside in a home enrolled in a welfare program.
Biden's greatest gift to Dems was conflating mass migration with orderly immigration. Long term, a lack of deportation turns the US into the world's home base. Hit US soil and never leave. Even Dems, like the Denmark Socialists, will eventually realize that is not remotely sustainable, but not before the issue returns to the voting booth.
Reps and Dems are both carrying millstones around their necks, but the Rep variety has an expiration date. Dems Socialists seemingly do not. Look for Reps to lose the 2026 battle , to win the 2028 war.
Re: the 'Republican Secret Weapon', I might agree if we were talking about 'conventional' corruption, or corruption on a scale we are used to--but what Trump has done since January 2025 is corruption on a historically unprecedented scale. He has essentially merged his personal commercial interests with the American government and the presidency.
Forget the ballroom--that's small-ball. I'm referring to things like:
...to give just a minute sampling of the larger list. It is graft of an order we have never seen before.
He has been able to do these things because the GOP has refused to restrain him in any capacity since he took office. Call it 'complicity through neglect'. If a new Dem majority provides that restraint, it will not be a net negative for anyone save for people in on the grift.
So even if there aren't enough votes for impeachment, exposing all that corruption to the light of day, and seeking to punish it, will be politically beneficial in multiple ways--most importantly by preventing the normalization of this kind of graft. Because normalizing corruption of this nature and scale, and permanently allowing the personal financial interests of the head of state to be blended seamlessly into the bureaucratic structure of the government, is what creates banana republics and mafia states. We are nearly there--but a good round of muck-raking may yet save us from sinking completely to that level.
Actually, minus some of the DSA kooks, I would say the Democratic Party is on the whole actually the *more* patriotic party right now, in that its leadership is driven by a belief in and allegiance to a set of ideals it believes the nation should embody. The Republican party leadership isn't driven by a belief in a set of national ideals, really; it is driven largely by a belief in, and allegiance to, a person. Equating the nation with a person, rather than a set of higher principles, is actually the *opposite* of patriotism.
As for non-crazy, you've got some weirdoes in the local house races, but at the national level the Dems have more 'patriotic, non-crazy' candidates than the GOP at this point. Jon Ossoff, Roy Cooper, Rob Sand, James Talarico, Mary Peltola, Josh Turek...there are lots more, but these are all very patriotic, 'normie' candidates. You could argue someone like AES is outside the 'non-crazy' category due to the Hasan Piker association, but then his opponent Mike Rogers is talking up election denialism on the campaign trail--and the concept that the 2020 election was stolen is about as crazy an idea as you can get at this point. So really when it comes to Michigan you just have two crazies running for the senate seat in general.
Good discussion, but I don’t think Rahm Emanuel is “moving the Overton window.” Like some other bright and more sensible Democrats, he’s trying to slow or at least cover up their collective lurch to the left, but I don’t see it having much effect. The DNC platform is simply at odds with what average voters want, while Trump and MAGA are much more aligned. For all the GOP stumbles, I think Trump plans to win the midterms, and I think Democrats are not in as good a position as some think. Average voters do not want endless immigration, criminals roaming free, and their kids taught gender ideology in the schools. Hating Trump and vague promises of “affordability” won’t cut it.
Every Dem needs to read "the Dentons Doc" the trans playbook for self-ID for youth.
The title: ONLY ADULTS? GOOD PRACTICES IN LEGAL GENDER RECOGNITION IN YOUTH: A report on the current state of laws and NGO advocacy in eight countries in Europe, with a focus on rights of young people
Reading through this interview one comes to the conclusion that the only way for Democrats to win back the working class and become more centrist is to reject the core issues of the Brahmin Left which define Democrat Party. In other words, the solution is to become Republicans who actually do represent the working class and traditional American values....not the radical beliefs of the anti-American Brahmin Left.
Please define "the ultra high end." And also tell us how the bottom 50% will pay taxes from now on, instead of getting a "earned tax credit" bonaza every year.
I keep waiting for Ruy to realize that the “right populists” he keeps demonizing are the same blue dog/Reagan Democrats he keeps saying the Dems need to win back.
Indeed, Ruy should consider the following. Democrats have made their focus on demonizing Donald Trump for the last decade in a fashion that resembles an ex-wife's hatred of her former husband. The truth is that for most of his life Donald Trump was a Democrat who would have fit in well with the blue dog/Reagan Democrats. That modern "Democrats" can demonize him for running on positions that they would have had in their platform not so long ago shows how twisted and demented the Brahmin Left has made the Democrat Party. We have seen this pattern before of course. Another party whose strongest support came from the universities led Germany into the horrors of National Socialism. Is it not surprising that both the modern Democrat Party and Nazi party are both patently antisemitic, push socialist redistribution and fascist nationalization of industries while allying with the Islamic world? Ruy et al need to face the facts that the Democrat party as it exists today has nothing in common with the working class or traditional American values. It is a racist, antisemitic, anti-capitalist, elitist, classist, communist party organized around envy, hate and delusional aspirations about reality. The further from power they are kept, the better for all it will be.
Ahh, no. Teixeira has done tons of analysis. Working class mostly refers to people who didnt go to college, which is most voters. Democrats lost all the Texas Border districts to trump in 2024. Teixeira has been watching that. The Biden democrats fucked that up royally. Minorities down South do want healthcare, they just know M4A is a pie in the sky socialist dream that wont happen for a long time. You are making a caricature yourself by implying that only DSA is for healthcare, when of course they are because they want everything good, whether possible or not. The southern working class wants expanded medicaid because it is attainable and right now they dont have anything, whereas Blue wealthier states do have expanded medicaid. its a huge difference being poor down south versus up north and most northerners are clueless and dreamy about M4A.. Teixeira understands this because he studies the South, which has the most poor and the most minorities. DSA is a northern, white college crowd mostly. Teixeira has listed out the stats in previous articles. Saying that Teixeira is all grievance, no analysis is way off.
Politicians are stating they're for "Medicare for All" when what they're really after is "MEDICAID for All." Of course they're aren't any journalists any more, or else they would point out that Medicare premium is over $200 a month for 80% coverage.
Grievance is substituted for analysis: “working class” becomes a synonym for cultural conservatism, while the DSA’s heterogeneous urban base is reduced to a cartoon of white grad students. Where is the evidence that Democrats lose because they support civil rights, climate action, or health care, rather than because voters face stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, high prices, and distrust in government? Triangulation by anecdote, imitate Trump on immigrants, trans people, fossil fuels, and AI, then call it “common sense”, is not a cure. It is nostalgia for a Clinton-era electorate that no longer exists.
If you are asking me personally if I believe life begins at conception, my answer is yes, I do believe that. I also do not believe in a nationwide ban on abortion. So everyone on the extremes hates me (for that point of view, I am otherwise quite charming).
Please tell us all (1) the definition of affordable housing and (2) how SPECIFICALLY any dem is going to achieve it? Affordable housing to a perpetual student who wants to live in NYC is different than affordable housing to a worker in the Midwest. And Dems will only use union members, raise the minimum wage to who knows what, and let the grifting NGOs manage the build - making things even more unaffordable. (And I'm sorry, the DSA IS cartoonish with that kind of platform and the incoherent leadership.)
The rise of the DSA is a major but perhaps not the biggest problem facing the Democratic Party. It’s the basic positions that the party itself has taken on a number of critical issues. Trump (as loathsome as he is) is correct on a number of national issues and the Democrats are stone wrong. Working class Americans (the deplorables) don’t want our borders open to illegals who undercut working class wages and compete for our limited housing stock. They don’t want men in women’s sports and showering with their daughters. They don’t want children who are confused about their sex to have their breasts or genitals removed. They don’t want people to be discriminated against on the basis of race or gender today because in the past we discriminated on the basis of race and gender. They don’t want their freedom of speech curtailed because what they say might hurt someone’s feelings. They don’t want criminal behavior and rampant homelessness (whatever the cause) to make our cities unlivable for regular people. If Democrats would moderate and seriously address these issues they would again win elections.
"If the Dems go nuts too" ????? Open borders, abolishing the Supreme Court, abolishing the Senate, defunding the police -- these policies aren't nuts??
As you think about moving to the center, consider the natural experiment in front of us. Germany where the SPD moved Right as the CDU moved Left into a de facto fusion party. Result is that both are being eaten alive by former supporters moving to Linke, BSW and AfD. Last I checked the Free Democrats hold no seats. So embrace the Left Populists and seek common ground with the Right Populists. It's there if people would get over party label partisanship.
I agree 100%; the real DSA problem is damaging our brand.
And the Sister Souljah moment is the classic answer, but hard to arrange. But here’s what’s missing — there’s a better way to draw the line.
It’s based on a technique used, with great success, by Eleanor Roosevelt’s ADA, founded in 1947, to expose CPUSA in unions and civic organizations. And it leverages the DNC’s own 2018 loyalty pledge — it’s just vastly simpler and more powerful.
The trick the ADA used was to get the CPers to out themselves. Force a vote on an anti-Stalin resolution, and CP members had to vote against it or be kicked out of the Communist Party. They exposed themselves.
We need to demand candidates sign this Straight-Talk Promise:
. . . I fight for fair capitalism. I am not a socialist.
That replaces the DNC’s arbitrary policy test. The DNC then refuses to work with those who don’t sign.
If it can get publicized, it will put pressure on the DNC to act. Otherwise, they prove to the world that the party welcomes anti-capitalist socialists — a truly terrible brand.
I’ve worked through the obvious questions. There’s more on my free-forever Substack: DareToKnow.Stoft.com (No sign-in)
> And the Sister Souljah moment is the classic answer
Sister Souljah lost the battle but won the war. Her comments were "If black people kill black people every day, why not take a week and kill white people?" The entire Democratic Party - and most particularly the white women - agree with her 100%.
Aside from the exaggeration, I agree. But that doesn't mean we should forget get how to win battles; it means we need to fight more battles like that. My proposal would fight that kind of battle against every candidate who's in DSA or adjacent. Of course it will take a fight to embed this in the Dem's worthless loyalty oath, but that fight itself would help expose the socialist frauds. It's important to admit we lost -- as you just did -- but only if that gets us moving.
Interesting conversation that touched on a lot of things I've been curious about. I'm a spectator in that there are no competitive races here for me to vote on, not even close. Not a very good place when neither party is even thinking of pandering to the 60%.
This article and interview is so much ado about nothing. Whether dem candidates are demsoc or not, what they have been talking about is much more important than 'who' they are. These two did not have a discussion about the issues that have been resonating with voters in primaries and why, they chose to whine about the dems at all levels. There is no mention of big money at the national Dem level, and how that has influenced dems for years. The dem 'center' has collapsed because of the lack of intellectual rigor, as displayed here. Poo Poohing data center opposition is an elite talking head position that displays no understanding of the fundamental issues around opposition.
Oh, we're in a special moment alright. I just this in reply to someone else, but its so tragic how everything is sort of on autopilot, most all people and groupings are locked out of key processes by various means (means being pluralized is important, because key features of our current set up is a centralized academe and centralized press and so even info and deliberation are kept concealed), and AI is just a profoundly important subject across and within multiple civilizational dimensions. But all those who actually work in politics and related media and knowledge production, at least in the places that count here, are part of, at least effectively, hierarchical structures with aggressive incentive structures, and theyll just keep ticking along
If there has ever been a technology that MOST calls for widely and deeply federated governance, with wide and deep access to decision making regarding it, and the redundant, sometimes overlapping and sometimes not, institutional plurality and requisite regulatory and policy variability that enables those things; well, AI is that technology.
But current day Republicans (really a Conservative Party, for a very long time now) and current day Democrats (really just a technocracy party, and have been for a very long time now) wasnt its governance to be dictated by powerful centrally planning Centers, Republicans mainly through major corporations and Democrats through a full power system-scale unitary agency.
Neither of these current day parties have much at all genuine lower case "p" populism in any serious capacity within them. But of course they just represent powerful special interest groups and so "populism", "democracy", "free markets" (actually leaning towards *free*, I mean), well, these are entirely just slogans, underhanded sales pitches, and deceptions, thats what we have now. And since the general public is locked out of real decision making regarding these parties, and all those that are are people who do this for a career and are locked into its incentive structures and the likes, well, we're heading towards worse place if things dont change with the organizational designs and governance designs of our major institutions (parties, business landscape, governments, academe)
I think you mean *radical* professionals, not radial (though perhaps that's true too!). Stupid spellchecker fail.
What I would like to see is a discussion of the party's relationship to idealism, because it seems like a problem that most discussions with Democrats end with someone playing the idealism card, and calling the other person by one of the jargon epithets like racist or sexist, which is unfalsifiable because the words have no fixed meaning that anyone can be held to. A vague, general meaning, sure, but even then it's hard to have a rational talk about what is essentially emotional.
Wrong in so many ways. Practical Racism is not promoting worthy people in the military, red line housing, separating neighborhoods, stopping people for driving brown or black to name a few.
The "disparate impact" is de facto proof of racism tactic.
We went through this with defunding the police. The typical liberal thought anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 unarmed black men were shot and killed by police every year. The actual number was 10 and those involved aggressive behaviors that couldn't be deescalated.
The body cam movement proved that there wasn't systemic bias in policing.
Defund the Police was a few people shouting the slogan that got picked up and amplified by the various legacy and social media. And that caricuture labeled a movement to hold police accountable. Very few people believed in defunding the police, as is clear from multiple city budgets, but they did believe in accountability. It was a media hook. Defund the Police is akin to Bra Burning in the 60's; very few actually happened but was used to attack various femiinist issues.
The phrase “trans rights” is doing too much work in this conversation, and it is time to retire it.
What the party actually absorbed is not a generic civil-rights add-on. It is self-ID: the claim that a person’s stated gender identity should rewrite sex in law, sports, prisons, shelters, medicine, and speech, and that disagreement is illegitimate. “Trans rights” hides the mechanism. Self-ID names it.
That is why the sports example keeps coming up and why Moulton had to walk it back. The fight is not over whether people can live as they wish. It is over whether institutions must treat sex as a feeling with legal force. Working-class voters can smell the difference even when the language won’t say it.
If Democrats want a Sister Souljah moment that is more than vibes, start there. Stop saying “trans rights agenda.” Say what the policy is: self-ID in law, male access to female categories, and a ban on noticing. Until the words match the thing, the party will keep arguing with a slogan while the country argues with the reality.
Most working class don't like their kids being told their gender and pronouns can be whatever they choose. The LGBTQ extremists have destroyed the Democrats.
And they probably don't like the pics they see of classrooms, covered in pride/progress flags, political statements, etc. When I was a kid the walls had maps, cursive examples...practice examples of what we were learning. Now the learning goals are different, but no less clear: political indoctrination.
Apparently the teachers unions have a lot to do with LGBTQ programming in schools.
Incidentally, the rate of kids IDing as trans is on the wane (giving credence to the social contagion theory), while teachers unions seem to be doubling down on curriculum that asks young kids to consider whether they have a gender.
I'm LGB by-the-way and am completely against what they're teaching kids in school.
Yes, it's self-identified-gender supremacy
100%.
But don't forget: You cannot, under any circumstance, self-ID with race (e.g., Rachel Dolezal). The Left has said for decades "race is a social construct" but, yet, unlike biological sex, it is absolute and unchangeable.
Wishful thinking, the word "socialism" will cost Dems many votes in swing states and red states where the word draws huge fear and scorn--especially in places like Florida where millions of residents fled socialism in Cuba and Venezuela. Democrats are just being stupid.
It will, but not in 2026 and probably not even in 2028. Everyone hated Biden when Biden was president, and everyone hates Trump now that he's president. You'd need a fabulous economy to keep independents from souring on the governing party.
But in the long run it will doom the Democrats.
True, the bandwagons don't last long.
The ultimate Rep secret weapon, will be 2 years of perpetual Impeachment of Trump and his Cabinet. Dems just cannot help themselves. Dem Congress people are seriously informing voters the Ballroom is grounds for Impeachment, before 6 other issues. Absent a Huey Long "live boy or dead girl" saga, there are not 67 Senate votes for conviction of anyone for anything.
That is before, Medicaid for All, Deportation for None, 100% student loan forgiveness, free childcare, all with a 32 hour work week, kick in, in earnest. Reps losing the House in Nov, will be their best 2028 play, by far.
Meanwhile, the Dem secret weapon is Trump. Even when his instincts are correct, he cannot stop repeatedly shooting himself in the foot, with a sawed off shotgun. Trump 1 streamlined drilling regs sparking an oil and gas boom. US oil production is up 20-25%. The economic energy suicidal tendencies of the Green New Deal are gone, for good, not even the Europeans believe them anymore.
The notion of Americans ever again tolerating the purposefully high oil and gas prices of Obama and Biden, to aid a mythological energy transition, are over. Hence Trump being slaughtered over what are arguably temporary oil prices, due to Iran, that still average less than Obama
At some point, Reps will counter Abolish ICE with a list of thousands of Americans who have suffered at the hands of the undocumented, purposefully or not. Even supposed moderate Dems refuse to cheer the deportation of child rapists and murders. Then there is basic Math. 10 million people require extra housing, MDs and speciality teachers, we do not have. More than 1/2 reside in a home enrolled in a welfare program.
Biden's greatest gift to Dems was conflating mass migration with orderly immigration. Long term, a lack of deportation turns the US into the world's home base. Hit US soil and never leave. Even Dems, like the Denmark Socialists, will eventually realize that is not remotely sustainable, but not before the issue returns to the voting booth.
Reps and Dems are both carrying millstones around their necks, but the Rep variety has an expiration date. Dems Socialists seemingly do not. Look for Reps to lose the 2026 battle , to win the 2028 war.
Re: the 'Republican Secret Weapon', I might agree if we were talking about 'conventional' corruption, or corruption on a scale we are used to--but what Trump has done since January 2025 is corruption on a historically unprecedented scale. He has essentially merged his personal commercial interests with the American government and the presidency.
Forget the ballroom--that's small-ball. I'm referring to things like:
-selling seats at a dinner with the president in exchange for billion-dollar investments in his private memecoin (https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-draws-global-crypto-investors-with-148-million-meme-coin-dinner-2025-05-22/)
-pardoning financial criminals that then immediately invest billions in his stablecoin holdings (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly1qrl9l1qo)
-having his family launch and expand major business projects in the Gulf and rake in hundreds of millions of dollars as he is setting Gulf foreign policy and dealing with its political leaders (https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/trump-family-rakes-in-cash-from-middle-east-deals-b91a9927)
-monetizing access to market-making Truth Social posts, e.g. formalizing insider trading (https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2026-08-13/trump-selling-early-access-posts-truth-social)
...to give just a minute sampling of the larger list. It is graft of an order we have never seen before.
He has been able to do these things because the GOP has refused to restrain him in any capacity since he took office. Call it 'complicity through neglect'. If a new Dem majority provides that restraint, it will not be a net negative for anyone save for people in on the grift.
So even if there aren't enough votes for impeachment, exposing all that corruption to the light of day, and seeking to punish it, will be politically beneficial in multiple ways--most importantly by preventing the normalization of this kind of graft. Because normalizing corruption of this nature and scale, and permanently allowing the personal financial interests of the head of state to be blended seamlessly into the bureaucratic structure of the government, is what creates banana republics and mafia states. We are nearly there--but a good round of muck-raking may yet save us from sinking completely to that level.
How sad is it - that given all that - Democrats still can't float a patriotic, non-crazy candidate?
Actually, minus some of the DSA kooks, I would say the Democratic Party is on the whole actually the *more* patriotic party right now, in that its leadership is driven by a belief in and allegiance to a set of ideals it believes the nation should embody. The Republican party leadership isn't driven by a belief in a set of national ideals, really; it is driven largely by a belief in, and allegiance to, a person. Equating the nation with a person, rather than a set of higher principles, is actually the *opposite* of patriotism.
As for non-crazy, you've got some weirdoes in the local house races, but at the national level the Dems have more 'patriotic, non-crazy' candidates than the GOP at this point. Jon Ossoff, Roy Cooper, Rob Sand, James Talarico, Mary Peltola, Josh Turek...there are lots more, but these are all very patriotic, 'normie' candidates. You could argue someone like AES is outside the 'non-crazy' category due to the Hasan Piker association, but then his opponent Mike Rogers is talking up election denialism on the campaign trail--and the concept that the 2020 election was stolen is about as crazy an idea as you can get at this point. So really when it comes to Michigan you just have two crazies running for the senate seat in general.
Good discussion, but I don’t think Rahm Emanuel is “moving the Overton window.” Like some other bright and more sensible Democrats, he’s trying to slow or at least cover up their collective lurch to the left, but I don’t see it having much effect. The DNC platform is simply at odds with what average voters want, while Trump and MAGA are much more aligned. For all the GOP stumbles, I think Trump plans to win the midterms, and I think Democrats are not in as good a position as some think. Average voters do not want endless immigration, criminals roaming free, and their kids taught gender ideology in the schools. Hating Trump and vague promises of “affordability” won’t cut it.
Every Dem needs to read "the Dentons Doc" the trans playbook for self-ID for youth.
The title: ONLY ADULTS? GOOD PRACTICES IN LEGAL GENDER RECOGNITION IN YOUTH: A report on the current state of laws and NGO advocacy in eight countries in Europe, with a focus on rights of young people
https://womenspeaktas.au/2025/09/25/analysis-of-the-dentons-document-a-how-to-manual/ talks about it.
Some key techniques it recommends:
Incremental change: Introduce reforms step by step rather than all at once, to avoid backlash.
Piggybacking on other causes: Attach trans rights to broader equality, diversity, or anti-discrimination initiatives to normalise them.
Strategic framing: Use language that resonates positively (e.g., “equality,” “human rights”) and avoid terms that may provoke opposition.
Youth mobilisation: Position young people as the face of reform efforts, emphasising innocence and urgency to gain public sympathy.
Litigation and legal tools: Where possible, bring test cases to courts to compel governments to adapt laws.
Reading through this interview one comes to the conclusion that the only way for Democrats to win back the working class and become more centrist is to reject the core issues of the Brahmin Left which define Democrat Party. In other words, the solution is to become Republicans who actually do represent the working class and traditional American values....not the radical beliefs of the anti-American Brahmin Left.
Actually not.
The Democrats still hold some values that have never been co opted by the populist right.
A huge increase in the min wage.
A universal health care that covers all.
A return to taxes to pay for things and actually reduce the debt including very high taxes at the ultra high end, especially inheritance tax.
The new right has done some good things with immigration and tariffs, but old style libertarian Cato R's don't like them at all.
All failed policies like the rest of the DSA driven agenda.
Please define "the ultra high end." And also tell us how the bottom 50% will pay taxes from now on, instead of getting a "earned tax credit" bonaza every year.
I keep waiting for Ruy to realize that the “right populists” he keeps demonizing are the same blue dog/Reagan Democrats he keeps saying the Dems need to win back.
Indeed, Ruy should consider the following. Democrats have made their focus on demonizing Donald Trump for the last decade in a fashion that resembles an ex-wife's hatred of her former husband. The truth is that for most of his life Donald Trump was a Democrat who would have fit in well with the blue dog/Reagan Democrats. That modern "Democrats" can demonize him for running on positions that they would have had in their platform not so long ago shows how twisted and demented the Brahmin Left has made the Democrat Party. We have seen this pattern before of course. Another party whose strongest support came from the universities led Germany into the horrors of National Socialism. Is it not surprising that both the modern Democrat Party and Nazi party are both patently antisemitic, push socialist redistribution and fascist nationalization of industries while allying with the Islamic world? Ruy et al need to face the facts that the Democrat party as it exists today has nothing in common with the working class or traditional American values. It is a racist, antisemitic, anti-capitalist, elitist, classist, communist party organized around envy, hate and delusional aspirations about reality. The further from power they are kept, the better for all it will be.
Ahh, no. Teixeira has done tons of analysis. Working class mostly refers to people who didnt go to college, which is most voters. Democrats lost all the Texas Border districts to trump in 2024. Teixeira has been watching that. The Biden democrats fucked that up royally. Minorities down South do want healthcare, they just know M4A is a pie in the sky socialist dream that wont happen for a long time. You are making a caricature yourself by implying that only DSA is for healthcare, when of course they are because they want everything good, whether possible or not. The southern working class wants expanded medicaid because it is attainable and right now they dont have anything, whereas Blue wealthier states do have expanded medicaid. its a huge difference being poor down south versus up north and most northerners are clueless and dreamy about M4A.. Teixeira understands this because he studies the South, which has the most poor and the most minorities. DSA is a northern, white college crowd mostly. Teixeira has listed out the stats in previous articles. Saying that Teixeira is all grievance, no analysis is way off.
Politicians are stating they're for "Medicare for All" when what they're really after is "MEDICAID for All." Of course they're aren't any journalists any more, or else they would point out that Medicare premium is over $200 a month for 80% coverage.
Grievance is substituted for analysis: “working class” becomes a synonym for cultural conservatism, while the DSA’s heterogeneous urban base is reduced to a cartoon of white grad students. Where is the evidence that Democrats lose because they support civil rights, climate action, or health care, rather than because voters face stagnant wages, unaffordable housing, high prices, and distrust in government? Triangulation by anecdote, imitate Trump on immigrants, trans people, fossil fuels, and AI, then call it “common sense”, is not a cure. It is nostalgia for a Clinton-era electorate that no longer exists.
> "support civil rights"
Is a fetus of a woman a living member of the species Homo sapiens?
If you are asking me personally if I believe life begins at conception, my answer is yes, I do believe that. I also do not believe in a nationwide ban on abortion. So everyone on the extremes hates me (for that point of view, I am otherwise quite charming).
Please tell us all (1) the definition of affordable housing and (2) how SPECIFICALLY any dem is going to achieve it? Affordable housing to a perpetual student who wants to live in NYC is different than affordable housing to a worker in the Midwest. And Dems will only use union members, raise the minimum wage to who knows what, and let the grifting NGOs manage the build - making things even more unaffordable. (And I'm sorry, the DSA IS cartoonish with that kind of platform and the incoherent leadership.)
The rise of the DSA is a major but perhaps not the biggest problem facing the Democratic Party. It’s the basic positions that the party itself has taken on a number of critical issues. Trump (as loathsome as he is) is correct on a number of national issues and the Democrats are stone wrong. Working class Americans (the deplorables) don’t want our borders open to illegals who undercut working class wages and compete for our limited housing stock. They don’t want men in women’s sports and showering with their daughters. They don’t want children who are confused about their sex to have their breasts or genitals removed. They don’t want people to be discriminated against on the basis of race or gender today because in the past we discriminated on the basis of race and gender. They don’t want their freedom of speech curtailed because what they say might hurt someone’s feelings. They don’t want criminal behavior and rampant homelessness (whatever the cause) to make our cities unlivable for regular people. If Democrats would moderate and seriously address these issues they would again win elections.
The Dems are "winning" because the GOP has gone nuts. But if the Dems go nuts too, then it's a crapshoot.
Whoever normies the best wins.
"If the Dems go nuts too" ????? Open borders, abolishing the Supreme Court, abolishing the Senate, defunding the police -- these policies aren't nuts??
As you think about moving to the center, consider the natural experiment in front of us. Germany where the SPD moved Right as the CDU moved Left into a de facto fusion party. Result is that both are being eaten alive by former supporters moving to Linke, BSW and AfD. Last I checked the Free Democrats hold no seats. So embrace the Left Populists and seek common ground with the Right Populists. It's there if people would get over party label partisanship.
I agree 100%; the real DSA problem is damaging our brand.
And the Sister Souljah moment is the classic answer, but hard to arrange. But here’s what’s missing — there’s a better way to draw the line.
It’s based on a technique used, with great success, by Eleanor Roosevelt’s ADA, founded in 1947, to expose CPUSA in unions and civic organizations. And it leverages the DNC’s own 2018 loyalty pledge — it’s just vastly simpler and more powerful.
The trick the ADA used was to get the CPers to out themselves. Force a vote on an anti-Stalin resolution, and CP members had to vote against it or be kicked out of the Communist Party. They exposed themselves.
We need to demand candidates sign this Straight-Talk Promise:
. . . I fight for fair capitalism. I am not a socialist.
That replaces the DNC’s arbitrary policy test. The DNC then refuses to work with those who don’t sign.
If it can get publicized, it will put pressure on the DNC to act. Otherwise, they prove to the world that the party welcomes anti-capitalist socialists — a truly terrible brand.
I’ve worked through the obvious questions. There’s more on my free-forever Substack: DareToKnow.Stoft.com (No sign-in)
> And the Sister Souljah moment is the classic answer
Sister Souljah lost the battle but won the war. Her comments were "If black people kill black people every day, why not take a week and kill white people?" The entire Democratic Party - and most particularly the white women - agree with her 100%.
Aside from the exaggeration, I agree. But that doesn't mean we should forget get how to win battles; it means we need to fight more battles like that. My proposal would fight that kind of battle against every candidate who's in DSA or adjacent. Of course it will take a fight to embed this in the Dem's worthless loyalty oath, but that fight itself would help expose the socialist frauds. It's important to admit we lost -- as you just did -- but only if that gets us moving.
Interesting conversation that touched on a lot of things I've been curious about. I'm a spectator in that there are no competitive races here for me to vote on, not even close. Not a very good place when neither party is even thinking of pandering to the 60%.
Osborn v. Ricketts?
This article and interview is so much ado about nothing. Whether dem candidates are demsoc or not, what they have been talking about is much more important than 'who' they are. These two did not have a discussion about the issues that have been resonating with voters in primaries and why, they chose to whine about the dems at all levels. There is no mention of big money at the national Dem level, and how that has influenced dems for years. The dem 'center' has collapsed because of the lack of intellectual rigor, as displayed here. Poo Poohing data center opposition is an elite talking head position that displays no understanding of the fundamental issues around opposition.
Oh, we're in a special moment alright. I just this in reply to someone else, but its so tragic how everything is sort of on autopilot, most all people and groupings are locked out of key processes by various means (means being pluralized is important, because key features of our current set up is a centralized academe and centralized press and so even info and deliberation are kept concealed), and AI is just a profoundly important subject across and within multiple civilizational dimensions. But all those who actually work in politics and related media and knowledge production, at least in the places that count here, are part of, at least effectively, hierarchical structures with aggressive incentive structures, and theyll just keep ticking along
If there has ever been a technology that MOST calls for widely and deeply federated governance, with wide and deep access to decision making regarding it, and the redundant, sometimes overlapping and sometimes not, institutional plurality and requisite regulatory and policy variability that enables those things; well, AI is that technology.
But current day Republicans (really a Conservative Party, for a very long time now) and current day Democrats (really just a technocracy party, and have been for a very long time now) wasnt its governance to be dictated by powerful centrally planning Centers, Republicans mainly through major corporations and Democrats through a full power system-scale unitary agency.
Neither of these current day parties have much at all genuine lower case "p" populism in any serious capacity within them. But of course they just represent powerful special interest groups and so "populism", "democracy", "free markets" (actually leaning towards *free*, I mean), well, these are entirely just slogans, underhanded sales pitches, and deceptions, thats what we have now. And since the general public is locked out of real decision making regarding these parties, and all those that are are people who do this for a career and are locked into its incentive structures and the likes, well, we're heading towards worse place if things dont change with the organizational designs and governance designs of our major institutions (parties, business landscape, governments, academe)
I think you mean *radical* professionals, not radial (though perhaps that's true too!). Stupid spellchecker fail.
What I would like to see is a discussion of the party's relationship to idealism, because it seems like a problem that most discussions with Democrats end with someone playing the idealism card, and calling the other person by one of the jargon epithets like racist or sexist, which is unfalsifiable because the words have no fixed meaning that anyone can be held to. A vague, general meaning, sure, but even then it's hard to have a rational talk about what is essentially emotional.
Yup. See the evolution of "racism."
In the 1960s, racism was Bull Conor spraying protestors for integration with water cannons.
In the 2020s, racism is complimenting a black woman's hair and growing cauliflower.
Wrong in so many ways. Practical Racism is not promoting worthy people in the military, red line housing, separating neighborhoods, stopping people for driving brown or black to name a few.
The "disparate impact" is de facto proof of racism tactic.
We went through this with defunding the police. The typical liberal thought anywhere from 1,000 to 10,000 unarmed black men were shot and killed by police every year. The actual number was 10 and those involved aggressive behaviors that couldn't be deescalated.
The body cam movement proved that there wasn't systemic bias in policing.
Defund the Police was a few people shouting the slogan that got picked up and amplified by the various legacy and social media. And that caricuture labeled a movement to hold police accountable. Very few people believed in defunding the police, as is clear from multiple city budgets, but they did believe in accountability. It was a media hook. Defund the Police is akin to Bra Burning in the 60's; very few actually happened but was used to attack various femiinist issues.