Contributor @washingtonmonthly.com. Bylines @theprospect & elsewhere. Elected DNC Member from CA. Progressive reformist. Dad of two. I run a qualitative research firm.
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"We need to reform zoning codes in order to increase housing supply" and "we don't want to step into the business of local government" and "dense cities are dangerous hellholes that we must pacify militarily" are three propositions that don't hang together at all
Here is an example: open.substack.com/pub/matthewy...
This is all part of the social-issues-reactionism that Silver/Yglesias do, the idea that Clinton was to the left of Sanders, etc. Whatever you think of that argument, it's a weird thing to tag Bluesky with. People are here because Elon rigs twitter for fascism. You can't win over there.
He means seminar-speak progressivism, but doesnt seem to understand that you rarely actually see that on Bluesky.
All kidding aside, it is so *insane* & *shocking* & *dangerous* that Corporate Media has collectively decided to completely bury objective fact that the President is uninformed, confused, and physically & mentally deteriorating.
Thanks!
Quant popularists like David Shor who want us to call fascism a "distraction" are using poor pseudoscience methods. Their messaging won't work in the midterms--and even if it did, ignoring fascism risks not having free midterms at all. My latest at WaMo: washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/01/f...
Despite what some political consultants advise, anti-Trump candidates can’t just focus on the economy. They need to put preserving democracy front and center. From @davidoatkins.bsky.social: washingtonmonthly.com/2025/09/01/f...
That is american explanation. The phenomenon is worldwide
It helped! Then the fascists had a hissy fit and they stopped.
Gotta use trumpian tactics to make social media companies to shift their algorithms to platform more responsible channels
Tulsi Gabbard is *very obviously* a foreign intelligence asset and I hope we all live long enough to see her tried and convicted for it.
Neoliberalism has its many faults, but neoliberalism didn't cause a worldwide fascist uprising. You can't even blame Fox and Murdoch outside the anglosphere. It is quite clearly an internet and social media phenomenon, and we need to deal with it accordingly.
He’s providing them with valuable mulching experience though.
This is the right take. Trump (or vance) *will* send ICE goons to intimidate people at polling places. We just need to do our work and vote them out en masse anyway. And I expect we will.
every day i see hundreds of comments of people spinning elaborate scenarios to explain how trump can control everything and all opposition is futile. a) i think a lot of you need to log off and stop following professional doomsayers. b) i think a lot of you are cowards
If you had told me in 2012 that Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign manager would be posting like this 13 years later i would not have believed you
This is appalling, criminal, and the GOP plan for everywhere: block cheap renewables in favor of expensive gas turbines. It won't even provide enough power, there's a 3-5 year backlog for turbines. We'll all pay far higher electricity bills to be sicker and to do more environmental damage.
Understanding the effects of the internet is really helped by familiarity with knowing a bit about 18th century France. (New technology for disseminating information. Great hopes for the enlightenment of all! Descent into conspiracy theories and publications about Marie Antoinette's lovers. Etc.)
The DNC and Ken Martin have zero influence on this. You want to talk to the county committee first, and state party second.
It's pretty clear that the state's Dem Party put more effort in defeating India Walton in 2021, than in finding a challenger to this GOP sheriff.
This thread helps contextualize where we landed in our conversation, but it also makes me think of this post I stumbled on yesterday, two degrees of separation from one of the podcast posts. If you’re basing your argument in “this is what the base wants”, you better be clear on what the base wants.
Sci-fi consistently overestimates fun hardware advances but underestimates boring software advances.
I really hope this becomes the black eye it deserves to be www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
To be fair to Republicans, even liberals are full of thoughts and prayers tonight.
At some point in the not too distant future the conventional wisdom will be that this was a period where the US focused on dumb shit while China took the lead in multiple domains
Yep
This is your reminder that whatever his electoral strengths or weaknesses, Vance is just as dangerous as Trump at a policy level.
Do you believe that GOP congressmen have more reach than Fox News, Charlie Kirk and Joe Rogan?
Its not about politicians at all. It's about the general info environment and what messages are getting out
Reuters repeating a falsehood here. Most of this money was already granted to intel under the chips act passed by Biden. The rest under other pre-Trump programs
ICE took 2 firefighters OFF THE FUCKING FIRE LINE!?
wtf is this nonsense? He thinks he can understand kid’s “mitochondrial challenges” just by looking at them? This is an insane person.
Omg. I am so sorry you are dealing with this.
Four more top #CDC officials have submitted their resignation in the past few hours - Debra Houry (chief medical officer), Demere Daskalakis (director of NCIRD), Daniel Jernigan (director of NCEZID) + Jen Layden (director of OPHDST) www.nbcnews.com/health/healt... It is horrifying
The same thing 27 senators did. It means we can support defensive measures like Iron Dome but not offensive weapons of death and displacement.
Everyone in Dem circles needs to read this. It is 100% spot on. The biggest problem by far is the top-down consultant class in the party stifling authentic content that actually speaks to voters.
This entire thing is worth reading but my grand unified theory of Dem messaging incompetence is this: Dem consultants believe the public is not aligned with their actual values and therefore only the most carefully controlled and scripted messages will win. It is a politics of fear.
This is cursed
This imagery is the kind of thing you see in video games to let you know you’re in a totalitarian city or country.
If something happened to be daughter and in response I was told that she is now "with the person who loved her the most," you could not hold me legally liable for what I would do next.
I'm trying to help, and tried to help at resos. You will get nowhere treating your allies like enemies.
Result would have been the same either way. Literally no way to deal with resos since neither 3 nor 18 were even on the report. The key now is to make sure the task force meets and agrees on a redp quickly, including opposition to *offensive* arms support.
one that annoys me is that what these people think is cutting edge new political thinking is just warmed over slaveholder ideology
We just adjourned the DNC meeting early out of respect for the horrific shooting in MN today. My heart breaks for all the parents and grandparents today. This country needs a reckoning over its love affair with guns at the expense of kids. And we need to hold accountable those who refuse to act.
part of the reason i beat up so hard on democratic weakness is we need people who are tough on the monsters that continue to allow childrens brains to be splattered on the walls by gunshots. i dont want to make nice with these people. they're not "good friends" and "colleagues" on the other side.
Trump's two election wins were him benefiting from voters seeing the 2016 and 2024 elections as referendums on Democrats and on those voters underestimating how awful Trump would be. He is widely disliked, his policies hated, and voters are ready to revolt against him and MAGA.
National Guard soldiers called into service for President Trump's law enforcement surge in D.C. have been assigned to spread mulch at federal monuments. Normally the Park Service does that, but the administration laid off the workers. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
Yes in the minutes after the meeting wraps today.
Words/phrases Democrats should never use: * bipartisan * my Republican friends * real, valid, legitimate, serious, important (to describe issue raised by Republicans) * yea (when voting on Republican bills) * distraction (to describe bad thing Republicans did) * woke (in derogatory sense)
NEW RESULT: Democrats have flipped a state Senate in Iowa. This was a seat Trump carried by 11%, but Democratic nominee Catherine Drey has just won it by 10.4%. This is the second legislative flip by Dems in Iowa this year. It also means the GOP loses its supermajority in Iowa’s senate.
I’ve said it before but reading all the medieval history books I’ve been reading lately has been so comforting. Makes you realize that there have always been mad and incompetent kings and they almost always die in ignominy and everyone piles shit on them for centuries after they’re gone.
These guys are just teeing themselves up for lawsuits and prosecutions when they lose power. The next admin should aggressively hold them all accountable to the maximum extent of the law.
It is hard to enforce, yes. But resos are statements of values.
www.the-downballot.com/p/iowa-democ...
Dems just won an Iowa state senate seat by 11 points in a district Trump won by 11 points. If we have free and fair elections in 2026 Republicans are in deep, deep trouble.
One thing about this era is that when they lose power--and they will--the only proper answer to all those Old School Conservative Talking Points will be to laugh in their faces for eternity. This is now and forever will be who they are. The Trump Dictator Party.
The EU must use the anti coercion instrument now, or be humiliated. Europe must be free to enforce its own law on its own soil.
Tbf these guys never understood that Stephen Colbert or Homelander were satire, so...
"Small government" was always code for "i'm sad we lost the Civil War, and I want a Confederate/Robber Baron Emperor"
Again: They never, ever wanted 'small government.' They merely loathed the idea of a government doing things to benefit the people they hate. They love the idea of a government dedicated to pummeling the people they hate.
When local leaders start threatening ICE agents with prosecutions — like this — it *will* be effective
Let me know the last time "deadnaming" was used in voter facing communications, don quixote.
Yeah that's what I thought. "Deadnaming" isnt masters course in gender studies stuff. It isnt fully mainstream yet, but it is getting there. You can paraphrase and talk around it but it's inefficient.
Picking on them by doing what? Cmon man. Explain it.
Talks like what? If a Republican intentionally uses trans person's former name, what is your plan for how to talk about it? You can avoid the term "deadname" if you like, say, in a commercial. But also, language does change and new terms arise. In 20 years "deadname" will be widely understood.
And one lesson for NGOs is that candidates will just skip their questionnaires next time if they're doing that sort of thing
deploying highly trained soldiers at the cost of millions of dollars per day to do light janitorial duty really will make the capital cleaner and is the kind of thing they would impeach a democratic politician for doing. trump always gets to play on easy mode with the unlimited money cheat
I don't disagree that NGOs should be more careful in their demands of campaigns on both policy and language, but third ways memo is an absurd overreach utterly unsupported by data.
Who uses "unhoused" or "birthing" people on the campaign trail outside of deep blue areas? This is mostly academic/NGO space language, especially the latter. But in the case of "unhoused" versus "homeless" i very much doubt there is any evidence showing harmful electoral effects there.
I dont know what that even means. If a republican deadnames a trans person, I already know if I want to talk to voters about that I have to explain the attack on their dignity and personal choice, not just rely on the term. But that also doesnt mean abandoning mainstreaming the term over time.
Literally their memo has nothing to do with winning elections or talking to voters, as no one uses most of these terms with voters. They are trying to ban speech that specifically attacks and disempowers Third Way in intramural debates far away from campaigns and electoral messaging.
Yes, i'm sure Cabinet Member Brain Worms has discovered the cause of autism that has eluded actual scientists for decades.
It really depends on the term. The insane/stupid Third Way memo wants us to avoid "LGBTQ", "Overton Window" and "Body shaming." Come on. The right constantly talks about "subverting norms" (e.g., Last Jedi). There are no alt terms for "dead naming" or "cis" so that's just erasing trans people.
I just do not understand the general reaction to Trump by Democrats. Pritzker throws one punch and he's clearly freaked out. Standing up to bullies has been a thing for thousands of years for a reason. It works. And yet! Democrats remain in a defensive crouch.
"Scholars of authoritarianism tell us that the existence of cadres of willing accomplices who are not just eager to bend or break laws to carry out the leader’s designs, but also come to see themselves as utterly unconstrained by any prospect of accountability, is itself a telltale sign of descent."
Yes. Love that it lost the sycophancy, not thrilled that it has the memory of a goldfish.
If Trump commands the fed, and forces interest rates down to 1.5% while keeping his tariffs, we will genuinely have a runaway economic cataclysm that will take a decade to crawl out from at best.
This is so obviously pathetic. But also, incredible to think that this tinpot dictator idiocy is atop the government of the United States.
If Donald Trump is this casual about calling himself a dictator we can and should acknowledge how you have to force dictators out of power.
The Kelce/Swift romance is wholesome, sweet and an example of positive masculinity on Kelce's part. There are good role models for men out there.
Good for them
Excellent piece on that foolish and toxic Blue Rose memo
Americans paid a record $30B (or $360B annualized) in tariffs this month, as the costs of Trump's trade war continue to escalate. Tariff revenues are now up more than 230% from this time last year and still rising.
DNC Resos Committee passes resolution affirming commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. :-)
Ominous: Trump and Stephen Miller are very clearly working to acclimate Americans to the spectacle of US troops in US cities, to the idea of the military carrying out domestic enforcement on US citizens. Harrowing stuff from @vermontgmg.bsky.social in this exchange: newrepublic.com/article/1995...
Japan Post just announced they will no longer deliver mail to the United States, joining Germany, Austria, Denmark, Italy, France, and Sweden.
DNC Resolutions Committee passes resolutions condemning both antisemitism and islamophobia
Yep. This is the key. It's a media environment issue.
Just casually laying the groundwork for violent repression of the opposition
This is about our own internal primaries, where some extremely hostile organizations with bad intentions are throwing their weight and money around to determine our candidates.
The thing that all aspiring dictators try to do eventually is ban opposition political parties. Stephen Miller is trying to lay the groundwork for that.
DNC Resolution 4 opposing dark money in presidential primaries passes unanimously at DNC Resolutions Committee. This is a victory decades in the making after long years of opposition and struggle. Much appreciation to Chair Ken Martin.
Resolution 3 to end the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, secure a ceasefire and affirm commitment to a two-state solution, passes unanimously at DNC.
Oh look, it's the thing every fascist government says about the opposition party before they dissolve them and turn the country into a one party state.
Resolution #1 to alleviate the housing affordability crisis by increasing the supply of housing passes unanimously out of DNC Resolutions Committee. Another yimby win!
People hate what Trump is doing--41% approval here and down to 35% elsewhere. And the economy is only getting worse due to his sabotage. He can be stopped and will be stopped if we oppose him fiercely enough.
".. unless Pulte somehow had particular knowledge about issues with Cook's application, which is unlikely, then one has conclude that Pulte handed Fannie and Freddie a list of political enemies and asked for their loan files for review."
I keep seeing the Trump-Intel deal called socialism, but there’s a term for this. This parallels what Mussolini did—the Italian state was one of the world’s largest industrial owners while keeping private companies. Nazi Germany did this too. So did Francoist Spain. It’s called state corporatism.
Do i look like I post often enough here to be engagement farming, dh? I'm making a specific point about not treating fascist goons as a distraction because it's more important to underpants gnomes to win elections. The fascist goons are coming for elections, too.