I'm so glad you (Ruy Teixeira and Michael Bahareen) are back! When The Liberal Patriot closed, I was positively heartbroken. Where else could I -- as a normie type, always an independent, but generally leaning Dem -- find sanity? So thank you for heading back into the fray. And I look forward to reading more on Welcome Stack. It's so nice to feel normal in a crazy political world!
To find what you and I would regard as "sanity" among the vast majority of members of a particular party, you should look into the Forward Party, and/or the centrist quasi-party, No Labels. America needs more than two parties that have become increasingly extreme, and which are likely to continue in that direction despite the efforts of some "traditionalists" such as Mr. Teixeira, Rahm Emmanuel, and John Fetterman to prevent the extremists from dominating the Democratic party.
The DSA WILL take over the Democratic party. The reason is that outside of a small handful such as Senator John Fetterman, there are no elected Democrats WILLING to fight them. They will adopt the radical positions out of expediency. It has already happened and will continue to happen until a time (if it ever comes) in which the party suffers a massive 80's style debacle.
I am a Republican who enjoys reading your sensible essays. In fact, you are so sensible (like Fetterman) I don' know why you remain a democrat. Tom Edsall sounds like a good Republican!
these are things that Bill Clinton could have freely advocated for back in the 90s. I think it would have been the Republicans screeching that it was a blanket amnesty plan etc. This is not ideal but provided there are ongoing policies that keep the border controlled I am all in. Reagan tried to do some of this but the border was never strengthened if I remember correcltly
A contingent of DSA occupy seats on the city council in Portland, Oregon. Apart from infecting council politics with the DSA animus against Israel, they have given Portland a ban on foie gras and an ordinance protecting polycules from discrimination. They're professionals only in the sense of being a royal pain in the ass.
Chicago passed then rescinded their foie gras ban. The time spent debating and voting the passage and rescision at least reduced the time available for voting new spending.
Welcome back. We missed the sanity. Spot on as always, but am not sure how much daylight really remains between the DSA and regular Dems. Spanberger seems a prime example, among others.
Kamala Harris, leading in most 2028 Dem Presidential polls, recently announced Dems must discuss packing the SCOTUS, adding DC and Puerto Rico as states and ending the Electoral College. Ms. Harris was the CA AG for years. She has to know the Electoral College will only end if the US Constitution is, literally, torched. It would require 2/3rds of the House and Senate and 3/4ths of the states to agree to end the EC. 2/3rds of Congress can't agree they love their Mothers. The notion Congress will join with 2/3rds of states, and decide to burn the main protection of small states, which vastly out number large ones, seems not just remote, but impossible.
This weekend Harris and the House Minority Leader, Jeffries, who has expressed the same thoughts, were joined by the Dem Great White Hope, Ky's supposedly moderate Andy Beshear. He too wishes to toss the Electoral College into the dustbin of history. For 2 years Dems have hawked nepo Andy as the Dem 2028 Savior. His bright Red legislature has tempered his most Progressive tendencies for years. Now Dems no longer seem concerned Andy even appear moderate.
That may mean, the ship has already sailed on Immigration, Crime and Trans gender issues . . . and is unlikely to return, anytime soon, because Dems are hunting the proverbial White Whale. Forgive the over use of metaphors, but Dems appear to be pushing all their chips into the middle of the table, in anticipation of a honest to God 2028 Revolution. Sometimes that works, the US 1776. Most of the time it does not.
Harris simply repeated accepted positions with DP. Harris highly unlikely to be the '28 nominee -- such an eventuality would be too absurd and unjust. As far as the so-called label attached to Beshear? We and the country and the world desperately need to rid the white h ouse of MAGA Republicans. If Beshear can help do it, the sane approach is to support him. Or some other viable sane Democrat -- Shapiro; Klobuchar (yes, I know she said she was not interested); Buttigieg; Whitmere. Etc. As far as pushing their chips to the middle. The country and the planet face existential issues of war, climate catastrophe, famine, pandemic (RFK pushing us closer), we better be pushing to the center. It is, as article points out, the only viable path to defeating MAGA Republicans.
Ths article focuses on the issues that separate the traditional Democrats from the radical wing, which is going more leftward by the day. The same is happening with candidate preferences. AOC is now becoming the prefered candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.
Despite her claim that wokism is a thing of the past, AOC will always believe that trans women are not in fact biological men; that climate change will destroy the planet; that white culture is the root of all of our ills; etc. etc. In other words, she is more left than Kamala.
She will lose to either JD Vance or Marco Rubio. It is not just her politics. She speaks like a 14 year old, which voters will see as infantile.
Regarding the trans issue: I'm convinced we will not change our stance simply because there are many parents of trans kids within the Democratic leadership base who will not allow any movement toward the center. They do not have the luxury of following the evolving science because it would mean admitting a grievous error. If people like me are correct the trans "fad" will fade (Jean Twenge suggested it peaked in 2023) but it may be a long wait to return to "two sexes." The alternative is a break away party that defines itself with actual working class concerns.
Glad you are back. It is indeed interesting (and more than a little scary) to witness the DSA platform, candidates and wins. I disagree that El Sayed is favored to win though. Recent polls have the Republican up about 4-5 points. We will see. In the meantime, people like Van Jones, Steven A. Smith and Bill Maher seem to be the voice of reason - calling out their crazy platform. Will we ever settle in the middle? From a “moderate” conservative.
Yes. NYT had article by Nate S. who said 4 points -- Mike Rogers over El Sayed. Nate S. also said that the Michigan senate seat should have been an automatic win for Dems. Not so with far left Democratic candidate. When will the Democratic Party voters ever learn?
Thank you for essay. I read that Edsall article. Your warning against the DSA and its platform desperately needed as Democrats may be sleepwalking into defeat when they should be wiping the floor with MAGA Republicans. More Democrats are voting independently. And for good reason. DT and MAGA will try to paint the Democratic party as wildly out of touch with working Americans. And this across ethnic lines and gender. Look at stats from '24 election: 49% Latinos, DT; 33% Blacks, DT; 46% women, DT. Yet the far left continues to push because they are professional organizers. Look at recent NYT article on those House members who did most stock trading -- Pelosi and Ro Khanna. Latter wants to seek Democratic nomination for president. The chapter deleted from the Democratic Party autopsy, later leaked and released, stated outright that Democratic Party is run by politicians who are getting rich being Democrats. Though greed and corruption not as frightening as ideological purity. If the Democratic Party does not get it together -- and Edsall's three items are a good start for the platform -- it will in time get replaced by a third way. What it will look like? Dan Osborne in Nebraska may be a prequel to the answer to his question. He rejects both parties as out of touch.
My father was IBEW, middle name Eugene after Debbs. Harrington's work the with Catholic Worker connected with my blue collar family. DSA members I know today do not have knowledge of the importance of Debbs, Dorothy Day or Harrington to DSA origins of the party.
These DSA primary victories are invariably in blue districts and are the product of intense ground game GOTV efforts in generally low turnout primaries. Voters don't expect anything to genuinely change so vote at something like a 20% level.
If you are a mainstream Dem seeking election or re-election, so long as you do not openly defy them, the DSAers are valuable as foot soldiers. Their limited numbers means you can reach them personally pretty easily. They are probably unlikely to consume or even encounter news reporting that would include hard questions put to mainstream Democrat candidates.
To me the most operative dimension of the phenomenon is what I like to call, somewhat winkingly, the “gentrification of the working class” - basically, the DSA self-concept does not allow itself to acknowledge it’s a movement of affluent educated professionals or downwardly mobile failsons, so it just expands the definition of ‘working class’ ever upward until it includes “me personally and everyone less wealthy than me”.
First it's great to have you guys back. As a son of the Reagan Revolution, while I don't agree with a lot of your more specific policy provisions, I admire and respect your patriotism, fairness and intellectual honesty. I also share your disdain for the extremes of the DSA/woke left and MAGA right. I do fear that the Democratic Party is in real danger of succumbing as the Republicans did to Trump. We need two sane political parties and right now we have maybe one and that one is teetering on the edge.
To that end, I see what should be four political parties - (1) the DSA/Socialist/Woke, (2) the Normie/Clinton Democrats, (3) the Normie/Reagan/Bush Republicans and (4) MAGA - all housed within two parties. This is a highly unstable situation and will require a massive change in circumstances to fix. One can hope that the end of Trump will take away the oxygen from DSA and MAGA. Otherwise Lord help us all.
I'd like to offer one more motivation for how people vote.
For the person who only follows politics superficially there is a "pox on both their houses" type attitude. That can come out as anti incumbency or even anti our own party. To some extent this was the "Bernie Sanders or Trump" folks in 16. Things are so bad people want to tip over the table.
Is there a name for children of the Brahmins? Can I suggest Brahmanistas? Brahmanitos?
Here's an observation from a centrist with an economics background. Asking people in a poll whether they prefer "socialism" or "capitalism" is forcing them to select one of two economic "systems" that in reality are substantially blended in the U.S. and other countries that are democratic republics. The U.S., in particular, has "socialistic" programs such as free public education, Medicaid, Social Security/Medicare, SNAP food subsidies, and communal services such as roads, parks, fire protection and police protection, together with a tax system that is quite progressive overall. As one of the "educated elite" who has also done my share of "physical work," I regard the existing system as being reasonably "fair," but would support certain changes to better address "progressive" goals. Those include reducing after-tax "income inequality" (especially as it applies to certain minority groups) and reducing consumption of fossil fuels. But I don't trust leftist ideologues to make these changes rationally and fairly when they refuse to acknowledge all of the government programs and economic incentives that already exist to address these issues.
I'm so glad you (Ruy Teixeira and Michael Bahareen) are back! When The Liberal Patriot closed, I was positively heartbroken. Where else could I -- as a normie type, always an independent, but generally leaning Dem -- find sanity? So thank you for heading back into the fray. And I look forward to reading more on Welcome Stack. It's so nice to feel normal in a crazy political world!
To find what you and I would regard as "sanity" among the vast majority of members of a particular party, you should look into the Forward Party, and/or the centrist quasi-party, No Labels. America needs more than two parties that have become increasingly extreme, and which are likely to continue in that direction despite the efforts of some "traditionalists" such as Mr. Teixeira, Rahm Emmanuel, and John Fetterman to prevent the extremists from dominating the Democratic party.
The DSA WILL take over the Democratic party. The reason is that outside of a small handful such as Senator John Fetterman, there are no elected Democrats WILLING to fight them. They will adopt the radical positions out of expediency. It has already happened and will continue to happen until a time (if it ever comes) in which the party suffers a massive 80's style debacle.
I am a Republican who enjoys reading your sensible essays. In fact, you are so sensible (like Fetterman) I don' know why you remain a democrat. Tom Edsall sounds like a good Republican!
these are things that Bill Clinton could have freely advocated for back in the 90s. I think it would have been the Republicans screeching that it was a blanket amnesty plan etc. This is not ideal but provided there are ongoing policies that keep the border controlled I am all in. Reagan tried to do some of this but the border was never strengthened if I remember correcltly
A contingent of DSA occupy seats on the city council in Portland, Oregon. Apart from infecting council politics with the DSA animus against Israel, they have given Portland a ban on foie gras and an ordinance protecting polycules from discrimination. They're professionals only in the sense of being a royal pain in the ass.
They are not the first to enact a foie gras ban. Sounds like big liver got to someone
Chicago passed then rescinded their foie gras ban. The time spent debating and voting the passage and rescision at least reduced the time available for voting new spending.
Portland too busy being blackmailed by subprime car lenders
Welcome back. We missed the sanity. Spot on as always, but am not sure how much daylight really remains between the DSA and regular Dems. Spanberger seems a prime example, among others.
Kamala Harris, leading in most 2028 Dem Presidential polls, recently announced Dems must discuss packing the SCOTUS, adding DC and Puerto Rico as states and ending the Electoral College. Ms. Harris was the CA AG for years. She has to know the Electoral College will only end if the US Constitution is, literally, torched. It would require 2/3rds of the House and Senate and 3/4ths of the states to agree to end the EC. 2/3rds of Congress can't agree they love their Mothers. The notion Congress will join with 2/3rds of states, and decide to burn the main protection of small states, which vastly out number large ones, seems not just remote, but impossible.
This weekend Harris and the House Minority Leader, Jeffries, who has expressed the same thoughts, were joined by the Dem Great White Hope, Ky's supposedly moderate Andy Beshear. He too wishes to toss the Electoral College into the dustbin of history. For 2 years Dems have hawked nepo Andy as the Dem 2028 Savior. His bright Red legislature has tempered his most Progressive tendencies for years. Now Dems no longer seem concerned Andy even appear moderate.
That may mean, the ship has already sailed on Immigration, Crime and Trans gender issues . . . and is unlikely to return, anytime soon, because Dems are hunting the proverbial White Whale. Forgive the over use of metaphors, but Dems appear to be pushing all their chips into the middle of the table, in anticipation of a honest to God 2028 Revolution. Sometimes that works, the US 1776. Most of the time it does not.
Harris simply repeated accepted positions with DP. Harris highly unlikely to be the '28 nominee -- such an eventuality would be too absurd and unjust. As far as the so-called label attached to Beshear? We and the country and the world desperately need to rid the white h ouse of MAGA Republicans. If Beshear can help do it, the sane approach is to support him. Or some other viable sane Democrat -- Shapiro; Klobuchar (yes, I know she said she was not interested); Buttigieg; Whitmere. Etc. As far as pushing their chips to the middle. The country and the planet face existential issues of war, climate catastrophe, famine, pandemic (RFK pushing us closer), we better be pushing to the center. It is, as article points out, the only viable path to defeating MAGA Republicans.
Ths article focuses on the issues that separate the traditional Democrats from the radical wing, which is going more leftward by the day. The same is happening with candidate preferences. AOC is now becoming the prefered candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028.
Despite her claim that wokism is a thing of the past, AOC will always believe that trans women are not in fact biological men; that climate change will destroy the planet; that white culture is the root of all of our ills; etc. etc. In other words, she is more left than Kamala.
She will lose to either JD Vance or Marco Rubio. It is not just her politics. She speaks like a 14 year old, which voters will see as infantile.
Regarding the trans issue: I'm convinced we will not change our stance simply because there are many parents of trans kids within the Democratic leadership base who will not allow any movement toward the center. They do not have the luxury of following the evolving science because it would mean admitting a grievous error. If people like me are correct the trans "fad" will fade (Jean Twenge suggested it peaked in 2023) but it may be a long wait to return to "two sexes." The alternative is a break away party that defines itself with actual working class concerns.
Glad you are back. It is indeed interesting (and more than a little scary) to witness the DSA platform, candidates and wins. I disagree that El Sayed is favored to win though. Recent polls have the Republican up about 4-5 points. We will see. In the meantime, people like Van Jones, Steven A. Smith and Bill Maher seem to be the voice of reason - calling out their crazy platform. Will we ever settle in the middle? From a “moderate” conservative.
Yes. NYT had article by Nate S. who said 4 points -- Mike Rogers over El Sayed. Nate S. also said that the Michigan senate seat should have been an automatic win for Dems. Not so with far left Democratic candidate. When will the Democratic Party voters ever learn?
Thank you for essay. I read that Edsall article. Your warning against the DSA and its platform desperately needed as Democrats may be sleepwalking into defeat when they should be wiping the floor with MAGA Republicans. More Democrats are voting independently. And for good reason. DT and MAGA will try to paint the Democratic party as wildly out of touch with working Americans. And this across ethnic lines and gender. Look at stats from '24 election: 49% Latinos, DT; 33% Blacks, DT; 46% women, DT. Yet the far left continues to push because they are professional organizers. Look at recent NYT article on those House members who did most stock trading -- Pelosi and Ro Khanna. Latter wants to seek Democratic nomination for president. The chapter deleted from the Democratic Party autopsy, later leaked and released, stated outright that Democratic Party is run by politicians who are getting rich being Democrats. Though greed and corruption not as frightening as ideological purity. If the Democratic Party does not get it together -- and Edsall's three items are a good start for the platform -- it will in time get replaced by a third way. What it will look like? Dan Osborne in Nebraska may be a prequel to the answer to his question. He rejects both parties as out of touch.
I wish this Substack had a tip jar. Would like to contribute but I am wary of subscriptions.
My father was IBEW, middle name Eugene after Debbs. Harrington's work the with Catholic Worker connected with my blue collar family. DSA members I know today do not have knowledge of the importance of Debbs, Dorothy Day or Harrington to DSA origins of the party.
These DSA primary victories are invariably in blue districts and are the product of intense ground game GOTV efforts in generally low turnout primaries. Voters don't expect anything to genuinely change so vote at something like a 20% level.
If you are a mainstream Dem seeking election or re-election, so long as you do not openly defy them, the DSAers are valuable as foot soldiers. Their limited numbers means you can reach them personally pretty easily. They are probably unlikely to consume or even encounter news reporting that would include hard questions put to mainstream Democrat candidates.
To me the most operative dimension of the phenomenon is what I like to call, somewhat winkingly, the “gentrification of the working class” - basically, the DSA self-concept does not allow itself to acknowledge it’s a movement of affluent educated professionals or downwardly mobile failsons, so it just expands the definition of ‘working class’ ever upward until it includes “me personally and everyone less wealthy than me”.
First it's great to have you guys back. As a son of the Reagan Revolution, while I don't agree with a lot of your more specific policy provisions, I admire and respect your patriotism, fairness and intellectual honesty. I also share your disdain for the extremes of the DSA/woke left and MAGA right. I do fear that the Democratic Party is in real danger of succumbing as the Republicans did to Trump. We need two sane political parties and right now we have maybe one and that one is teetering on the edge.
To that end, I see what should be four political parties - (1) the DSA/Socialist/Woke, (2) the Normie/Clinton Democrats, (3) the Normie/Reagan/Bush Republicans and (4) MAGA - all housed within two parties. This is a highly unstable situation and will require a massive change in circumstances to fix. One can hope that the end of Trump will take away the oxygen from DSA and MAGA. Otherwise Lord help us all.
I'd like to offer one more motivation for how people vote.
For the person who only follows politics superficially there is a "pox on both their houses" type attitude. That can come out as anti incumbency or even anti our own party. To some extent this was the "Bernie Sanders or Trump" folks in 16. Things are so bad people want to tip over the table.
Is there a name for children of the Brahmins? Can I suggest Brahmanistas? Brahmanitos?
Here's an observation from a centrist with an economics background. Asking people in a poll whether they prefer "socialism" or "capitalism" is forcing them to select one of two economic "systems" that in reality are substantially blended in the U.S. and other countries that are democratic republics. The U.S., in particular, has "socialistic" programs such as free public education, Medicaid, Social Security/Medicare, SNAP food subsidies, and communal services such as roads, parks, fire protection and police protection, together with a tax system that is quite progressive overall. As one of the "educated elite" who has also done my share of "physical work," I regard the existing system as being reasonably "fair," but would support certain changes to better address "progressive" goals. Those include reducing after-tax "income inequality" (especially as it applies to certain minority groups) and reducing consumption of fossil fuels. But I don't trust leftist ideologues to make these changes rationally and fairly when they refuse to acknowledge all of the government programs and economic incentives that already exist to address these issues.