Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[Jacob]

Part of Putin's playbook (and Orban's?) is to have tame "opposition" parties who can channel opposition sentiment, while never becoming truly dangerous. When push comes to shove, they line up and/ or undermine organized opposition.

Given the big tent nature of American parties, the analogue is not fake opposition parties but rather factions or individuals within the Democrats who can serve the same purpose.

The Trumpist destruction of democracy becomes more effective if the opposition party is kept in disarray and infighting, in addition to undermining the rule of law and the various instutions and processes required to carry out the practices of democracy.

I suppose that's what we're seeing here.

[viper37]

The GOP went all in on an empty hand. The Dems knew the GOP were holding nothing, and still folded

So now what is the rallying cry for the midterms?  We are brave sir Robin who runs away?

Dems in the House are pushing on AOC to primary Schumer.

[Valmy]

The GOP went all in on an empty hand. The Dems knew the GOP were holding nothing, and still folded

So now what is the rallying cry for the midterms?  We are brave sir Robin who runs away?

Dems in the House are pushing on AOC to primary Schumer.

Yeah but even if that happens no way she will be the leader.

Besides look at the random collection of people they got to vote yes? It doesn't even make any sense. They found a few people in super safe seats who were able to take the hit so everybody else could safely vote no to save themselves from retribution so even if we somehow kept the voters thinking about this for years and primaries all these people whenever their seats come up again, we don't know who else was in on it.

[dist]

Apparently, the Senate Democrats reneged on an agreement with the House Dems. At the moment, Schumer selling the Dems out for nothing obvious as all the ingredients to potentially start a leadership and internal fight, which could lead the party to finally coalesce into an opposition force. We will see. In any case, the fallout of yesterday vote will be interesting to follow. The stakes and passions are high and I cannot imagine nothing will come out of it.

[jimmy olsen]

The GOP went all in on an empty hand. The Dems knew the GOP were holding nothing, and still folded

So now what is the rallying cry for the midterms?  We are brave sir Robin who runs away?

After so many Dems in swing states in the house went out on a limb and voted no. Just stabbed them in the back.

I hope AOC primaries him.

[Admiral Yi]

The rallying cry is "we didn't shut the government down, all this economic distress you're feeling is because of Trump."

[Admiral Yi]

I was curious about Squeeze's claim so I looked it up.  Interesting blend of safe Democratic seats and battleground seats.

"The Democrats who voted to advance the measure were: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.), Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) and Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Maggie Hassan (N.H.), John Fetterman (Pa.), Gary Peters (Mich.), Brian Schatz (Hawaii), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.) and Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.). Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats, also voted to advance the measure. "

from The Hill

[grumbler]

The rallying cry is "we didn't shut the government down, all this economic distress you're feeling is because of Trump."

That's not nearly as powerful as "we are willing to vote for a clean CR, and if the Republicans won't, then it can't pass."  If that has been the Democratic rallying cry, the blame for the shutdown would have fallen on the Republicans.

Those ten Democrats did a lot of damage.

[The Minsky Moment]

Schumer has to go.

[HVC]

Who'd replace him?

[Habbaku]

I'm sure we can find a young, 73 year old Senator to take over from him somewhere.

[The Minsky Moment]

"Columbia didn't do enough [to respond to pro-Palestinian agitation].  I criticized them . . .[W]hen it shades over to violence and antisemitism, the colleges had to do something, and a lot of them didn't do enough.  They shrugged their shoulders, looked the other way. Columbia among them. So what did they do?  They took away $400 million."

Schumer, quoted in the NYT.

At this point Howdy Doody would be a step up as a replacement.

[The Minsky Moment]

Trump admin has followed up on its easy success and lack of pushback to pull funding from Penn.  They are systematically destroying the academic independence of the entire American university system, institution by institution.  The appeasers need to be shoved aside.

[The Minsky Moment]

Columbia is caving per the WSJ.  According to the report, the demand to place an entire academic department in receivership on Presidential demand is on the table for active consideration.

Battle lost before it was fought.

[dist]

Battle lost before it was fought.

Which is the entire feeling I get from the US at the moment. And I still don't think it's just a problem of leadership.