Finished Eric Foner’s Reconstruction today and it’s a very worthwhile read, particularly regarding how Congressional coalitions evolved after the war. Beyond policy it left me even more convinced that Democrats should adopt an entirely new, 21st century party brand.

"If you like democracy, you must resist the peculiar Americanism of anti-partyism. Be pro-party—as many of them as possible." www.liberalcurrents.com/make-politic...

I'll just add that between handwringing Dem centrists and young Dem-adjacent socialists is a large group I would label "self-described liberals who are enraged/sick of this crap" and are ready to vote left/progressive. Don't underestimate them. And FFS don't scold them; they're also sick of that.

Before Diana DeGette, CO-1 was represented for 24 years by Pat Schroeder. In 1972, Schroeder was a 32-yr-old lawyer, an anti-war progressive insurgent who challenged the establishment Dem and then upset a GOP incumbent. Menat Kiros is a 29-yr-old lawyer and anti-war progressive insurgent. 1/2

Just how effing shortsighted and dumb this email looks now less than 24 hours later?

The Supreme Court set the stage today for the next Democratic President to fire every single Trump appointee across the federal government on Day One. I assume there won’t be any complaints.

If this means that Mr. Carville will no longer be sending me a half-dozen emails and texts every day, I will consider it a welcome development. DSA candidates are already improving my quality of life.

This is a great example of the journalistic rule to report what people do or say, not what they might feel. I don't know if Exxon CEO Lee Raymond "doubted climate change," and neither does Bloomberg. All we know is that he *promoted doubt" about climate change. www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

agree, and would add that the Democratic aversion to such orgs is partly driven by the hollowing of party (to quote Rosenfeld and Schlozman) - robustly organized parties aren't as vulnerable to concerns about orgs they share some affinity with but can't control.

"Dems and billionaires" can't "rebuild" something like ACORN. They have to be willing to support and respect organizing that emerges from community, even if it makes donors and elected Dems uncomfortable. Orgs don't exist to elect Dems & might not follow the donors' preferred issue priorities. 1/

This from Klobuchar exemplifies the language problem in Democratic messaging. It's not fancy words or academic jargon. It's that they yoke so many concepts together, with logical links that are almost impossible for anyone with a normal attention span to track. Don't be clever! Just say one thing!

I'm thrilled to have been asked to become the board chair of scholars.org, one of my favorite organizations, and also to appear on their podcast, No Jargon, to talk about the recent paper and conference on strengthening US political parties that we published at @polreformna.bsky.social

New, and I think important piece. Brainstorming policy ideas to address kitchen table issues is an important undertaking. But it is NOT the same thing as a Project 2025 analog, but for the pro-democracy movement to save the country. www.offmessage.net/p/project-20...

Project 2025 was never a public-facing policy platform. It was a technical plan, often from old memos, for dismantling democratic institutions. The section on college accreditation, for example, is being implemented right now. Dems don't need more policies, we need plans to reconstruct institutions.

It’s really important that Democrats have people like Talarico (and Warnock and others) providing this kind of theologically and spiritually rigorous counter to Christian nationalism. Consigning evangelicals to the far right is a terrible mistake. Every person Talarico reaches is a badly needed win

With growing interest on proportional representation in the US, thought I'd re-share this @newamerica.org piece on why I think this systems would be a major upgrade: www.newamerica.org/insights/eig...

Just noticed in TX GOP runoff, Paxton got about 4,000 more votes than in the multi-candidate March primary, in which he came in 2d, before Trump endorsed. Cornyn got *400,000 fewer* votes than in March. Trump didn't increase Paxton's base or get voters to switch. Cornyn's electorate simply vanished.

Any effort to understand current politics should start from this position of humility about what we know, even as we try to get beyond it.

To put the DNC's crappy "autopsy" in perspective, note that the RNC produced a much more careful, footnoted autopsy after Romney's 2012 defeat, which concluded the party had to moderate on immigration. Their next nominee did exactly the opposite. Meaning (1) things can change a lot in 4 yrs,

A thorough piece about the DOJ slush fund scam, including Trump's tactics in the lawsuit v. IRS to avoid any action that would trigger a role for the judge in approving a settlement. Really seems they schemed this all along, pretending to sue to give a false veneer of legitimacy to the payoff.

Journalists need to avoid making this category error

Trump did not reach a settlement with the government. There was no case to settle. He has not created a slush fund. He has colluded with Todd Blanche to steal money from the US Treasury. This is not a “deal.” This is a crime for which Trump & Blanche must be prosecuted. It ia a crime.

I’m a broken record, but it’s facially insane that the SCOTUS’s position is that the interest of a political party—an entity with no special constitutional protection—in gerrymandering is more important than black people’s right to vote, which we have several constitutional amendments addressing

The Roberts Court, the Trump White House, and the national GOP are acting like this is their one big shot. Either they secure the lasting end of US Constitutional democracy, or they’re in very serious trouble from the backlash. And they’ve already gone so far that there’s no other possibility.

Had a fun, smart conversation w/ @smotus.bsky.social & @perrybaconjr.bsky.social about the 2028 Democratic presidential field. Never too early to start the speculation. And lots of good candidates. And some great points beyond the horserace. newrepublic.substack.com/p/these-demo...

the US Treasury's ability to borrow is premised on decades of effective efforts to position the US as a good investment, based on practices and policies and relationships that are being willfully burned to the ground by people who used to whine about deficits www.nytimes.com/2026/05/07/b...

The problem w/ how Dems communicate isn't big words. It's that they often create complex two-beat logics to get to what they think voters care about: eg, "For the cost of the Iran War, we could fund health care for 30 million people"--not wrong, but two points, tenuously related. Just say one thing!

The average population of a congressional district is ~760K. There are a number of cities that could fit neatly in a single district, but are sliced up into rural- and R-dominant districts: -Oklahoma City -Jacksonville -Nashville -Austin (1 D rep) -soon Memphis -and DC also unrepresented others?

It should be political malpractice to enact a “jungle primary” without also including a consensus-forcing mechanism like approval voting or ranked choice. All this drama in California over a nonpartisan primary would be a non-issue if the rules actually captured which candidates have widest appeal.

Starting to think there's strategy behind constant absurd claims about voter ID. We sputter, "That's not true--you don't need ID to walk into a restaurant!," but the idea that the SAVE Act is about voter ID is reaffirmed. But it's not ID--it's a proof-of-citizenship requirement, a vastly higher bar!

If money is really why Janet Mills dropped her campaign, it's a prime example of the idea that US parties are both too strong and too weak--strong enough to recruit her, and to force out most other candidates, but unable to generate the resources for a small-state campaign. This is a hollow party.

Given the argument that ended the VRA, I think it’s time liberals did some self reflection about the now decades long obsession with partisan polarization as the problem, as opposed to authoritarianism, extremism, oligarchy, and racism

The answer is proportional representation. Proportional representation enables equal representation to minority voters as a structural feature, not as a litigated favor any future court can take away.

This is a nice visual presentation of our New America/Political Reform program report on how to build a healthier system of political parties -- both existing parties, and potentially more.

#ResistanceRoots Harris Wofford was born on this day in 1926 in New York. He was a Democratic politician, civil rights activist and a major architect of national service programs in the U.S. He is known for advocating for healthcare as a right and elevating the concept to the national stage. /1

One of my biggest worries about post-Trump policy is that we'll be right back in the world of debt-and-deficit obsession, circa 2011, w/ its stultifying blue-ribbon commissions and deadly budget deals. It's a comfort zone for many D's. Made worse by the new Dem zeal for tax cuts.

@cnn.com and @dailybeast.bsky.social reporting that Jeanine Pirro has "lost the jury pool" as US Atty for DC, as shown by high # of acquittals. I wrote about this and how essential it is for the jury to trust the prosecutor, after serving on a DC jury last summer: www.newamerica.org/insights/dc-...

Tax invisibility is a scourge in our politics > Public childcare isn't free, it's tax-funded. > People buying $34 burgers pay taxes. > Believe $34 burger eaters should pay more? wait until you hear about this idea "progressive taxation" Wow, problem solved, thanks taxes! 😀

I'm a bit of a broken record on this, but usurping the power of the purse isn't just one constitutional violation among all the many others. It is, uniquely and singularly, the death of constitutional government altogether. Game over, end of story, you now live in an autocracy.

Political parties are essential to democracy—but in the U.S., they’re struggling to do their most basic jobs. Our new report explores what’s gone wrong and how experts think we can fix it. www.newamerica.org/insights/a-b... @leedrutman.bsky.social @didikuo1.bsky.social @mschmitt9.bsky.social

Reposting my review of @vanessawilliamson.bsky.social 's wonderful book about taxation and citizenship, following her appearance on @hcrichardson.bsky.social's podcast: democracyjournal.org/magazine/79/...

if think tanks acknowledge what trumpism is (incoherent and vibes-based), they have to face their own crisis of relevance as institutions that pump out policy papers and provide advice to movers and shakers. pretending there's some policy process that makes sense is a way to avoid grappling w this

Underrated that the era of neoliberal globalism characterized by fierce defense of intellectual property as rents, patents, and copyrights gave way so quickly to a new paradigm marked by the blithe plunder of all human creativity for LLM training data.

A point in Robert Mueller's career that I haven't seen mentioned much: In 1995, having been Asst Atty General, he left a law firm and returned to the DC US Atty's office as an AUSA prosecuting homicides--a role often held by recent law school graduates. Homicide rate in DC was almost 3x recent #s

As always @jesspish.bsky.social is essential reading here.

Was interested to see the name Tim Canova here as one of the schemers behind this draft EO on elections. I remember him as a critic from the left of the Federal Reserve ~2010-12, who then primaried Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz in 2016, ran as an indy in 2018, then declared both elections rigged

Tax proposals by @vanhollen.senate.gov and @booker.senate.gov to eliminate income tax for households with incomes below median are a terrible way to address affordability, in part because lots of people, esp. young ppl w/ kids, federal tax already isn't a major expense, or none at all. But also,

If confirmed, Markwayne would be the first cabinet member without a B.A. since...? I'm having trouble finding it. Truman and McKinley had no degrees, so there are probably cabinet examples from the 50s or later, none recently. Most probably served in the military, though, which Mullin also did not.

you can have a dinner that celebrates the First Amendment or a dinner that features Donald Trump but you cannot have both