on the balance i think partisan gerrymandering is bad but the only way it ends is if democrats weaponize it against republicans everywhere they can. wiping out republican lawmakers in blue states might bring the GOP to the table to end the practice.

This is the bare minimum required to be a serious opposition. Yet most Democratic lawmakers -- including all of the party's current leadership -- are simply unwilling to go there.

Some tough love... The way I see it, virtually every major media outlet and the national Democratic leadership have *routinely and successfully* conned well-meaning liberals and mainstream Democratic voters out of both their money and their supposedly liberal values for decades. 1/6

I increasingly see the relationship between Democrats and Republicans as a highly toxic form of co-dependency, loosely analogous to Big Edie and Little Edie in Grey Gardens. There are differences, but either way we're stuck in a dilapidated, dysfunctional mad house and never getting out.

Yep. This is modern generational theory in a nutshell. It's one of many examples of generation-driven periodicity in history.

Bookmark this post for down the road. If 2027 brings a House Democratic majority, Jeffries will insist on outsourcing subpoena enforcement to Trump's lawless and illegitimate DOJ. Instead Democrats could modernize inherent contempt, empowering the House majority to punish defiant officials.

National politics is no longer a safe job. If you're not willing to literally pledge your life, your fortune or your sacred honor, do us all a favor and don't run for federal office.

Where I work, we measure corporate power in lots of ways. Just SOME of our metrics: -campaign & lobbying expenditures -corporate crime enforcement -revolving door appointments -favors for industry in a bill -meetings with regulators Never forget folks: Matty is ALWAYS completely full of shit.

Whatever you think of these demands, this is the behavior of a junior governing partner, not an opposition.

How will these restrictions be enforced, by whom, and will the penalties be harsh, swift, and certain enough to deter either the perpetrators or the administration officials behind them?

The US is collapsing into fascism and going to war with Europe and the opposition party is like “I’m here to talk about the important thing: how your average grocery bill has risen by two dollars over the last year, which I also have no plan or ability to fix”

Close to 100% of people have no clue how right-wing psychology works or how the modern world aggravates and fuels it. This guy gets it. Read this thread. Retain it. Base your strategies and tactics on it. If you do, you'll be about 50 years ahead of the curve.

"Congress" as described by civics classes, law professors, Democrats, and libertarians — an independent branch capable of executing designated responsibilities irrespective of the partisan balance of power — does not exist. It is a fiction. Every time these things happen, more Americans see that.

As a member of the domestic opposition who believes Donald Trump to be illegitimate and unconstitutional executive, I hereby consent to any foreign power entering the US through force of arms, abducting Trump, and trying him under the laws of your own nation. Since apparently this is how it works.

the biggest normalizer of gop extremism, aside from the media, is the democratic party. figures like biden and even obama talking about their good friends on the other side while the party literally undermines the fundamentals of americanism.

We are living in the answer to the question: If Congress never exercises or defends Article I powers, do they even exist?

I've been a repeatedly-proved-right Cassandra for over two decades on a great many things, so I can relate to this. newrepublic.com/article/2042...

EXCLUSIVE New research shows for first time the impact influencers have on politics. Key findings: • Creators are more impactful than traditional media • Apolitical influencers have more impact than political ones • Regular social media use pushes users to the right www.wired.com/story/the-mo...

It's quite common for aging leaders to groom hand-picked successors who aren't capable of breaking with their methods and goals. In practice, the successors function as an extension of corrupt, broken, sclerotic geriatric rule. Jeffries is a product of the gerontocracy -- not a break from it.

Most Democrats have chronic lawyer brain. They feel compelled to complicate straightforward political fights with arcane, legalistic, arduous, and unnecessary procedures. There is nothing in the constitution, the law, House rules, or history that requires any of this of impeachment.

The position on impeachment is wholly incompatible with fighting fascism, holding Trump accountable, and being a minimally competent opposition party.

Democrats remain unapologetically pro-corruption.

"Enjoy your media cycle" is the perfect distillation of the Democratic Party's institutional contempt for: -their own voters -comms and media -fighting -taking action -reality-based political strategy -holding anyone accountable -their jobs as elected officials www.axios.com/2025/12/11/i...

Democrats already own Cuellar's corruption. House Democratic appropriators will now hold a secret vote on whether to empower that corruption and make Cuellar's lawless, anti-immigrant, Trumpy policy agenda their own. www.politico.com/news/2025/12...

Fighting and ending fascism means -- among many things -- taxing billionaires and hundred-millionaires out of existence. How many Democrats in either chamber of Congress would vote to do that right now? You can count them on one hand, maybe two.

Centrists: Follow the polls and do what's popular! Polls: Abortion rights are overwhelmingly popular, and far more popular than Democrats, especially in swing districts and red states. Centrists: No, not that!

“How did American democracy backslide?” “Two ways: gradually, then suddenly” Trump is the culmination of GOP trends that have been accelerating since at least Ford’s pardon, then Reagan’s rogue pre-presidency foreign policy & Iran-Contra, through everything in the GWB admin. All of it unpunished.

Once a country backslides into a hybrid regime or personalist dictatorship, it takes AT LEAST a generation -- roughly 20 years -- to dislodge it and more likely two or three. I reached this conclusion in late 2020. Experienced anti-authoritarian activists agree. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Democrats will not be able to govern in 2029 without rapid court expansion. Judging by their official actions, 100% of House and Senate Democrats are 100% fine with that.

No Democratic president will be able to govern without rapid Supreme Court expansion in January 2029. Democrats will need to do more than just dispense with the filibuster and pass the law. They'll need to add all the new justices within months, if not weeks, in the face of an enraged GOP.

Most liberals and leftists are blind to this, can't make any sense of it, and even if they could wouldn't act on it. It's because their core ideological premises about human political behavior preceded the existence of psychology -- and still largely exclude it except as epicycles at the margins.

Nearly a year into this Congress, Democrats still haven't reintroduced legislation to expand the Supreme Court in either chamber. The message that sends couldn't possibly be any clearer: Whether Democrats win or lose, dictatorship by the Supreme Court is here to stay.

I've been thinking the same thing for years. Yet I would still advocate for primaries against these few good lawmakers every cycle -- even if I'd side with the incumbents. There are lots of reasons I've come to support universal primaries, and this is one of them.

Will House Democrats modernize their enforcement powers so they can hold Trump officials accountable? Or would they rather be impotent and powerless? If you remember how this went the last time, you already know the answer.

MAGA is the reason why Pantone had to settle on Cloud Dancer as their color of the year. They were already sold out of Klan Robe, Hillbilly, and Supremacist White.

Schumer must go, but the Schumer problem is at the same time a whole-caucus problem. Anyone who replaces him is likely to be almost as bad and almost as incompetent, because Schumer's approach embodies what the members want.

Here is the House Democratic leader openly defending corruption. Democratic voters are simply in denial about the endemic corruption of their party and leaders.

People often say Democrats should run against corruption, and indeed they should. The problem is that most Democratic incumbents are IN FAVOR OF CORRUPTION when it's on their own side. Far too many Democratic voters remain deep in denial about this, blinded by partisanship, so nothing changes.

Look, I've regularly called for Senate Democrats to oust Schumer since the mid 2010s. Yet these 8 senators won't even go that far, even in hushed tones. It's a measure of the vast distances Democrats still have to go to become an effective force against the right. www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/u...

folks, your faves are in the club. are they as bad as the worst people in the club? no. but theyre in the fucking club and that allegiance is thicker than blood.

Republicans learned Democrats are cowards a very long time ago. I repeatedly pointed it out during Obama's presidency and throughout Trump's first term. It's Democratic voters who are belatedly realizing their leaders aren't cut out for a fight.

i don’t think people realize how straight up delusional a solid proportion of democratic senators are regarding our politics. i don’t mean that as hyperbole. they are actually untethered from reality

As I privately told colleagues all summer long, the objectively correct strategy for Republicans was to cut Democrats out of the process and refuse all their demands. The Senate Democratic surrender confirmed that this was -- and remains -- the correct strategy.

Since 2022, I've maintained a whip count of which senators support and oppose a filibuster carveout to protect abortion rights. For years, Kaine has dodged taking a position. My whip count treats him as an opponent of protecting abortion rights, because he says things like this.

Elite impunity is one of the many forces fueling civic collapse. As I regularly pointed out for over a decade, there is a nearly exhaustive bipartisan consensus in favor of it. You can count the exceptions on one or two hands.

The people & institutions who might have some ability to impose consequences on Trump -- even if only political consequences -- are fucking cowards. They could just impose the consequences now, but they don't want to, even though, as I said, it's all already quite clear. So they're waiting.

Schumer must go. But the Schumer problem is also a whole caucus problem. He's just the current face of it. Primary all of them every time they're up for reelection -- no exceptions ever.

Biden and congressional Democrats prioritizing infrastructure spending over protecting democracy was already a world-historical mistake, as many of us pointed out at the time. These findings make it look even worse.

The right -- especially the religious right -- has a gigantic and persistent problem with pedophiles and sex predators in their ranks and among their leaders. They may deny it in public and to anyone outside their tribe, but I think they know it as well as anyone. Here's why I say that...

Calling on an official to resign without fighting to remove them is passive-aggressive cowardice and empty moral posturing. In an era defined by shameless public officials who rarely step down willingly, it's also completely ineffective most of the time.