The election made me empathise with Democrats. What they're experiencing is what many of us liberal Indians have been experiencing for three decades now. Our version of the Democrats, Congress, have failed to learn their lessons and will keep on getting drubbed. Getting that successor who can inspire the masses before Trump finds one is all too important. JD Vance, for all his flaws, has the oratory streak that Trump was looking for and Democrats need to find a similar persona fast. It has to be someone who's not Ivy League educated. We are regretting our party's commitment to a Gandhi scion who's better at speaking in English than in Hindi.
One reason that the 7 reasons might well be totally irrelevant: Americans voted in a strongman surrounded by power-hungry billionaires and sycophants. Just like in Russia, Hungary and Turkey they may manipulate media, courts, civil servants, the economy and the voting system and win 'elections' over and over again. Poland narrowly escaped that fate in 2023 as the opposition united. Russia, Turkey and Hungary have until now had two decades of strongman rule. The Axis will do it's worst to ensure USA cannot escape the trap.
The major difference in the US is that the federal government doesn't run elections, so there isn't anything to corrupt. That and Trump doesn't like anyone else enough to appoint a successor.
This does complicate the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. If we adopted that, but then a really extreme GOP regime in Texas decides to just _make up_ its election results (and uses compliant county-level officials to whitewash whatever outcome it needs to ensure a "win"), how exactly would other states contest that? For now, we have folks like Raffensberger in Georgia, committed to running fair elections. But that may not always be the case.
I guess that's one thing to thank the Electoral College for: is the existence of such a body not a consequence of the fact that US federal elections are run overwhelmingly by the individual states?
Right, it’s hard for him to just fabricate vote counts or corrupt election machinery. But there are lots of other options!
o) Suborning the media and social-media companies into positive coverage and favorable treatment in feeds
o) criminal cases from AG Matt Gaetz against any Democrats who look too popular
o) “our great MAGA patriots certainly didn’t murder that Democrat congressman! Just to protect them from the deep state though, we’re going to pardon them all.”
I could go on. None of these are inevitable but they are possible. Honestly one of the most reassuring bits is how lazy and stupid he is. A Putin-like figure here (imagine Erik Prince leading MAGA) would be more effective.
Let's hope we still have a constitutional democracy and democratic allies (including a functioning NATO) in 2028! If Trump's nominees are all approved by Republican senators (afraid of Trump's displeasure), competent bureaucrats in multiple essential departments will either have resigned or been fired by 2028, replaced by Trump loyalists likely incompetent at best. The rule of law may be hanging by a thread if AG Gaetz is still in charge by 2028.
The things I am most worried about in terms of election integrity are:
-- Use of federal troops to "protect" the election through partisan intimidation
-- Proud Boys etc assaulting and intimidating campaigners and voters with impunity
-- Liberal leaning advocacy organizations being targeted for shutdown on bogus charges of "supporting terrorism" or similar
For now the best thing to do to push back on those dangers seems to be supporting Democracy Forward and similar organizations. But in truth we just don't know enough yet about how things will play out to know what good counters there will be.
2024 sounds to me a lot like the Brexit referendum of 2016, in that in both cases the reactionary side won by mobilizing low-propensity voters who weren't interested in conventional party politics.
That's a poor understanding of Brexit. The reason there were "low propensity" voters in the first place is that the policies people most wanted to vote for were illegal thanks to EU membership, so nobody was allowed to vote for them at all. Give people a vote that boils down to "would you like to extend the franchise so you can vote on stuff that matters" and it's no surprise it took a massive, dystopian campaign of intimidation to lose by only a few percent.
While leaving the EU is not inherently a reactionary cause (for example in the early 1980s it was a cause mainly of Labour Party socialists who supported the protectionist "Alternative Economic Strategy") in 2016 it was advocated overwhelmingly for reactionary reasons, chiefly opposition to immigration.
Even the few Labour MPs who supported Brexit were mostly from the right of the party, with essentially the sole left-wing exception being "Beast of Bolsover" Dennis Skinner. And note that he was among those defeated when Boris Johnson's Tories cemented their power in the December 2019 election.
My optimistic take is that many of the working class, the less educated, the less informed, the less politically inclined low-propensity voters who showed up for Trump in 2024 are still very much up for grabs. They are by definition not beholden to a party or ideology.
Democrats need better messengers, who don’t have a paper trail of statements and policy preferences out of alignment to the country as a whole, and who can embrace and exploit the new media ecosystem the way the GOP has done. And the great news is that we have a great and growing supply of high caliber emerging candidates to choose from.
Even AOC is wising up to the importance of realpolitik over progressive ideals. You need to get elected and govern well first, then you can earn the right to push the country in your ideological direction.
The Swinging pendulum is one of the key pieces that make democracy work. Fair and trusted regular elections elections is what allows the pendulum to swing. Once authoritarians are in charge and they just keep pushing the pendulum farther out of whack until the pressure finally builds enough to make it swing back the other way. That tendency seems to wind up swinging from ditch to ditch instead of shoulder to shoulder like a democracy. The best thing democracy has going for it right now is Trump's incompetence. Never has there been such a combination of arrogance and ignorance.
I appreciate the conception of a less wild swing when democracy is in force. This is important. We can try things that are more divergent because we will check them with an election. If they are too extreme, we can call them back. This s vital ! We are doomed if we cannot callback the decision of this election.
Democrats can be successful in non-presidential election years like 2026 because they turn out in greater numbers than trump voters.
How can they be successful in 2028? At least they won't have to run against Trump. But they still will have to penetrate the right-wing disinformation sphere to get their message through.
I argue that the Democratic Party could repair its fortunes by offering left-behind citizens a new right to lifelong job retraining. This concept is simple enough and exciting enough that it could penetrate the right-wing disinformation media bubble. It can fit on 100,000 billboards. See my substack post:
Isn't a lot of the right's success down to their ability to combine propaganda with entertainment, with the latter ensuring a large audience for the former?
Examples range from the UK's "Sun" newspaper (which is likely subsidized by revenue from Sky) to Fox News to right-wing influencers on YouTube.
I agree that the right success in the infosphere has everything to do with entertainment value. However, the Dems need to penetrate that fascination somehow with a gripping message.
I'd add Fox News and the four little podcasters who were secretly being paid by the Russians. There's also all the information being put out by Steve Bannon, Christian nationalists, Proud Boys, Three percenters, etc. Add whoever Mrs Alito and Mrs Clarence Brown are listening to.
Since I don't listen to these folks I don't have a great deal of detail.
would be a very useful site for the fifth column to Ally with
as we begin building communities from the ground up to slow down this mindless rush to the authoritarians who promised everything and will deliver nothing except what goes into their own pockets.
Related to this, Nate Silver wrote an article making the case that if Dems can retake the Presidency in 2028 (big if), then there is a viable scenario for retaking the Senate at the same time:
We have to take 3 out of 4 Senate races Maine (2026) North Caroline (2026), North Carolina (2028) and Wisconsin (2028) while holding our seats in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia. Three out of four sounds like the odds are against us, but why wouldn't we take NC and WI in 2028 at the Senate level if we are competing for them in Presidency? Of course we can't guarantee the presidency, but it means we have a fair shot at a return to power not just divided government again.
Not like Nate to give false hope to Democrats, - I think there is something to this.
the key word Wally mentioned several times is "overreach." Authoritarians are famous for that. They don't like advice, they don't take advice and underlings quit offering advice, because it's known to be hazardous to their health.
Point #5 -- Isn't Trump likely to face both higher inflation and higher interest rates, at least for some period of time, moderated only by a recession?
Point #7 -- What the left may NOT learn in response: The ACLU in Oregon is responding with a petition campaign for a constitutional "Equal Rights Amendment" amendment that will prohibit "laws, policies, and actions that will discriminate, in intent or effect, based on" not just pregnancy and sexual orientation but also "gender identity and related health decisions." This will reprise the debate over trans girls in sports and the loss of parental control over children's gender affirming medical choices. Not exactly a winning strategy at the state level in 2026 and probably a welcome fight to have for the Rs at the national level in that same election year.
My concern with #5 and the issue of higher taxes or higher interest rates, is the causality won't necessarily happen fast enough to benefit Democrats. If Trump destroys the Fed's independence and forces the chairman to lower rates to juice the economy and support the budget, inflation won't rise in lockstep. If the Fed loses its independence on day 1 and on day 2 inflation spikes that's one thing. But likely inflation would remain lower until some other shock forced a rise in inflation. If at that point, the Democrats are in power, they will be blamed for higher inflation even if the issues leading to it were caused by Trump.
Democrats can win elections again by not being associated with groups the American people instinctively recoil from - such as campus protestors and radical transsexuals. It's really not much more complicated than that. Keep the crazies at arms length (don't say, when confronted by them like Kamala was, that "they have a point,") refuse to be cowed by your own staffers (like Kamala was when she refused to go on Joe Rogan's show, allegedly because some of her staffers would have been upset) and present a positive, broad-based abundance agenda to the American people.
I will guess the answer is that there have been and will continue to be many types of "campus protesters" which makes "campus protester" a better descriptor. And that while "anti-Zionist" might seem like a good descriptor for the most recent spate of campus protesters, certainly many (and possibly most) actually aren't anti-Zionist. Many seem to mostly be ill-informed, although I suppose you could deem them accidental anti-Zionists.
Because "anti-semitic" is a MUCH better descriptor for what I was talking about. Those opposed to the existence of Israel, the world's only Jewish state, are antisemites.
Except that they oppose Israel not because it is Jewish but because they see it as an illegitimate colonial implant in the Middle East, much like the medieval Crusader states.
They do have a point! It is genocide. And it is demonization. Can’t we be a little better than denying these humans their humanity in order to right our ship? Are we okay with winning an election that requires us to throw human beings under the proverbial bus? These are real human lives, mothers ,brothers sisters, fathers, that we cannot just throw in the fire to dissipate the stress of defending rights to life liberty and yes! Happiness. When we devalue some, we devalue all of hat it means to be human.
Kamala was not so far from being a Bill Clinton aspirant. She had more capacity to be an.Honest and trustworthy broker, of course, as he was a liar and cheat despite having a brain for policy and politics that might have served well. She spoke to many and with more time may have made her case. We lose if e don’t understand ow she broke barriers and inspired many. Clinton today is a dinosaur. Kamala was trying to progress our politics rutted in generalized despair. At minimum she showed a dramatic departure from the democrats stuck in the mud conceptions of what is possible.
The election made me empathise with Democrats. What they're experiencing is what many of us liberal Indians have been experiencing for three decades now. Our version of the Democrats, Congress, have failed to learn their lessons and will keep on getting drubbed. Getting that successor who can inspire the masses before Trump finds one is all too important. JD Vance, for all his flaws, has the oratory streak that Trump was looking for and Democrats need to find a similar persona fast. It has to be someone who's not Ivy League educated. We are regretting our party's commitment to a Gandhi scion who's better at speaking in English than in Hindi.
One reason that the 7 reasons might well be totally irrelevant: Americans voted in a strongman surrounded by power-hungry billionaires and sycophants. Just like in Russia, Hungary and Turkey they may manipulate media, courts, civil servants, the economy and the voting system and win 'elections' over and over again. Poland narrowly escaped that fate in 2023 as the opposition united. Russia, Turkey and Hungary have until now had two decades of strongman rule. The Axis will do it's worst to ensure USA cannot escape the trap.
The major difference in the US is that the federal government doesn't run elections, so there isn't anything to corrupt. That and Trump doesn't like anyone else enough to appoint a successor.
This does complicate the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. If we adopted that, but then a really extreme GOP regime in Texas decides to just _make up_ its election results (and uses compliant county-level officials to whitewash whatever outcome it needs to ensure a "win"), how exactly would other states contest that? For now, we have folks like Raffensberger in Georgia, committed to running fair elections. But that may not always be the case.
I guess that's one thing to thank the Electoral College for: is the existence of such a body not a consequence of the fact that US federal elections are run overwhelmingly by the individual states?
Right, it’s hard for him to just fabricate vote counts or corrupt election machinery. But there are lots of other options!
o) Suborning the media and social-media companies into positive coverage and favorable treatment in feeds
o) criminal cases from AG Matt Gaetz against any Democrats who look too popular
o) “our great MAGA patriots certainly didn’t murder that Democrat congressman! Just to protect them from the deep state though, we’re going to pardon them all.”
I could go on. None of these are inevitable but they are possible. Honestly one of the most reassuring bits is how lazy and stupid he is. A Putin-like figure here (imagine Erik Prince leading MAGA) would be more effective.
> Honestly one of the most reassuring bits is how lazy and stupid he is.
I think the most important point here is that he's too old to stay in power. Probably has four years left in him, but not eight.
Totally agree
Hopefully the power that US states possess and the American democratic spirit overall make for a stronger immune system than in those other countries.
Let's hope we still have a constitutional democracy and democratic allies (including a functioning NATO) in 2028! If Trump's nominees are all approved by Republican senators (afraid of Trump's displeasure), competent bureaucrats in multiple essential departments will either have resigned or been fired by 2028, replaced by Trump loyalists likely incompetent at best. The rule of law may be hanging by a thread if AG Gaetz is still in charge by 2028.
The things I am most worried about in terms of election integrity are:
-- Use of federal troops to "protect" the election through partisan intimidation
-- Proud Boys etc assaulting and intimidating campaigners and voters with impunity
-- Liberal leaning advocacy organizations being targeted for shutdown on bogus charges of "supporting terrorism" or similar
For now the best thing to do to push back on those dangers seems to be supporting Democracy Forward and similar organizations. But in truth we just don't know enough yet about how things will play out to know what good counters there will be.
2024 sounds to me a lot like the Brexit referendum of 2016, in that in both cases the reactionary side won by mobilizing low-propensity voters who weren't interested in conventional party politics.
The Boaty McBoatface election, only a hell of a lot less funny.
That's a poor understanding of Brexit. The reason there were "low propensity" voters in the first place is that the policies people most wanted to vote for were illegal thanks to EU membership, so nobody was allowed to vote for them at all. Give people a vote that boils down to "would you like to extend the franchise so you can vote on stuff that matters" and it's no surprise it took a massive, dystopian campaign of intimidation to lose by only a few percent.
While leaving the EU is not inherently a reactionary cause (for example in the early 1980s it was a cause mainly of Labour Party socialists who supported the protectionist "Alternative Economic Strategy") in 2016 it was advocated overwhelmingly for reactionary reasons, chiefly opposition to immigration.
Even the few Labour MPs who supported Brexit were mostly from the right of the party, with essentially the sole left-wing exception being "Beast of Bolsover" Dennis Skinner. And note that he was among those defeated when Boris Johnson's Tories cemented their power in the December 2019 election.
My optimistic take is that many of the working class, the less educated, the less informed, the less politically inclined low-propensity voters who showed up for Trump in 2024 are still very much up for grabs. They are by definition not beholden to a party or ideology.
Democrats need better messengers, who don’t have a paper trail of statements and policy preferences out of alignment to the country as a whole, and who can embrace and exploit the new media ecosystem the way the GOP has done. And the great news is that we have a great and growing supply of high caliber emerging candidates to choose from.
Even AOC is wising up to the importance of realpolitik over progressive ideals. You need to get elected and govern well first, then you can earn the right to push the country in your ideological direction.
Noah: please move to Bluesky.
Especially for those of us who nuked our X accounts when we heard Trump won.
Instead of talking about the horse race in 2026, we should be talking about how to make sure there is an election in 2026.
The Swinging pendulum is one of the key pieces that make democracy work. Fair and trusted regular elections elections is what allows the pendulum to swing. Once authoritarians are in charge and they just keep pushing the pendulum farther out of whack until the pressure finally builds enough to make it swing back the other way. That tendency seems to wind up swinging from ditch to ditch instead of shoulder to shoulder like a democracy. The best thing democracy has going for it right now is Trump's incompetence. Never has there been such a combination of arrogance and ignorance.
I appreciate the conception of a less wild swing when democracy is in force. This is important. We can try things that are more divergent because we will check them with an election. If they are too extreme, we can call them back. This s vital ! We are doomed if we cannot callback the decision of this election.
Democrats can be successful in non-presidential election years like 2026 because they turn out in greater numbers than trump voters.
How can they be successful in 2028? At least they won't have to run against Trump. But they still will have to penetrate the right-wing disinformation sphere to get their message through.
I argue that the Democratic Party could repair its fortunes by offering left-behind citizens a new right to lifelong job retraining. This concept is simple enough and exciting enough that it could penetrate the right-wing disinformation media bubble. It can fit on 100,000 billboards. See my substack post:
Dems can win by selling ONE BIG Idea
Lifelong job training for all American citizens
https://kathleenweber.substack.com/p/dems-can-win-by-selling-one-big-idea
Isn't a lot of the right's success down to their ability to combine propaganda with entertainment, with the latter ensuring a large audience for the former?
Examples range from the UK's "Sun" newspaper (which is likely subsidized by revenue from Sky) to Fox News to right-wing influencers on YouTube.
I agree that the right success in the infosphere has everything to do with entertainment value. However, the Dems need to penetrate that fascination somehow with a gripping message.
What is the right wing disinformation media bubble? Joe Rogan and X?
I'd add Fox News and the four little podcasters who were secretly being paid by the Russians. There's also all the information being put out by Steve Bannon, Christian nationalists, Proud Boys, Three percenters, etc. Add whoever Mrs Alito and Mrs Clarence Brown are listening to.
Since I don't listen to these folks I don't have a great deal of detail.
Far-right content on YouTube has its reach enhanced by the algorithm, and there are also far-right news channels such as Newsmax and OANN.
Recommendations
Robert Reich's Coffee Klatch
https://youtu.be/wPWr_UKxd60?si=Ktvy2hYUZaBNW8K6
would be a very useful site for the fifth column to Ally with
as we begin building communities from the ground up to slow down this mindless rush to the authoritarians who promised everything and will deliver nothing except what goes into their own pockets.
https://youtu.be/hV8wD5RhFwA?si=PG-0yVGpnHcf7sO5
Lifelong job training? You mean, the Democrats should say "learn to code"?
Learn to fix pipes.
When Clinton lost in 2016, nothing but crazy shit out of her delusional supporters.
When Trump lost in 2020, nothing but crazy shit out of his delusional supporters.
When Harris lost in 2024, here we go again ...
Related to this, Nate Silver wrote an article making the case that if Dems can retake the Presidency in 2028 (big if), then there is a viable scenario for retaking the Senate at the same time:
https://www.natesilver.net/p/its-2004-all-over-again
We have to take 3 out of 4 Senate races Maine (2026) North Caroline (2026), North Carolina (2028) and Wisconsin (2028) while holding our seats in Arizona, Nevada, Georgia. Three out of four sounds like the odds are against us, but why wouldn't we take NC and WI in 2028 at the Senate level if we are competing for them in Presidency? Of course we can't guarantee the presidency, but it means we have a fair shot at a return to power not just divided government again.
Not like Nate to give false hope to Democrats, - I think there is something to this.
ost:
the key word Wally mentioned several times is "overreach." Authoritarians are famous for that. They don't like advice, they don't take advice and underlings quit offering advice, because it's known to be hazardous to their health.
This isn't a reply to myself it's just a way to get a second chance to send it to notes
But I guess I don't get a second chance. I hope that's not true for democracy,
If you completely delete your two remarks, and repost the original one, you will have a chance to make a note of it.
Point #5 -- Isn't Trump likely to face both higher inflation and higher interest rates, at least for some period of time, moderated only by a recession?
Point #7 -- What the left may NOT learn in response: The ACLU in Oregon is responding with a petition campaign for a constitutional "Equal Rights Amendment" amendment that will prohibit "laws, policies, and actions that will discriminate, in intent or effect, based on" not just pregnancy and sexual orientation but also "gender identity and related health decisions." This will reprise the debate over trans girls in sports and the loss of parental control over children's gender affirming medical choices. Not exactly a winning strategy at the state level in 2026 and probably a welcome fight to have for the Rs at the national level in that same election year.
That was the essence of NY's Prop 1, which just passed overwhelmingly. It is highly a illiberal decimation of sex-based rights and parental rights.
My concern with #5 and the issue of higher taxes or higher interest rates, is the causality won't necessarily happen fast enough to benefit Democrats. If Trump destroys the Fed's independence and forces the chairman to lower rates to juice the economy and support the budget, inflation won't rise in lockstep. If the Fed loses its independence on day 1 and on day 2 inflation spikes that's one thing. But likely inflation would remain lower until some other shock forced a rise in inflation. If at that point, the Democrats are in power, they will be blamed for higher inflation even if the issues leading to it were caused by Trump.
Democrats can win elections again by not being associated with groups the American people instinctively recoil from - such as campus protestors and radical transsexuals. It's really not much more complicated than that. Keep the crazies at arms length (don't say, when confronted by them like Kamala was, that "they have a point,") refuse to be cowed by your own staffers (like Kamala was when she refused to go on Joe Rogan's show, allegedly because some of her staffers would have been upset) and present a positive, broad-based abundance agenda to the American people.
Why did you use the ambiguous "campus protestors" rather than a term (like "anti-Zionists") which actually describes the objectionable belief itself?
I will guess the answer is that there have been and will continue to be many types of "campus protesters" which makes "campus protester" a better descriptor. And that while "anti-Zionist" might seem like a good descriptor for the most recent spate of campus protesters, certainly many (and possibly most) actually aren't anti-Zionist. Many seem to mostly be ill-informed, although I suppose you could deem them accidental anti-Zionists.
Because "anti-semitic" is a MUCH better descriptor for what I was talking about. Those opposed to the existence of Israel, the world's only Jewish state, are antisemites.
Except that they oppose Israel not because it is Jewish but because they see it as an illegitimate colonial implant in the Middle East, much like the medieval Crusader states.
They do have a point! It is genocide. And it is demonization. Can’t we be a little better than denying these humans their humanity in order to right our ship? Are we okay with winning an election that requires us to throw human beings under the proverbial bus? These are real human lives, mothers ,brothers sisters, fathers, that we cannot just throw in the fire to dissipate the stress of defending rights to life liberty and yes! Happiness. When we devalue some, we devalue all of hat it means to be human.
The democrats need to find a modern day Clinton. I don't know who that is. Preferably one not interested in cigars, but details.
Kamala was not so far from being a Bill Clinton aspirant. She had more capacity to be an.Honest and trustworthy broker, of course, as he was a liar and cheat despite having a brain for policy and politics that might have served well. She spoke to many and with more time may have made her case. We lose if e don’t understand ow she broke barriers and inspired many. Clinton today is a dinosaur. Kamala was trying to progress our politics rutted in generalized despair. At minimum she showed a dramatic departure from the democrats stuck in the mud conceptions of what is possible.