Absolutely. My best learning experiences in life - both collaborative like mentoring/educational setting, or competitive like sports - have been when I was massively outclassed. Because if you put aside your lizard-brain feelings of being less than or inferior and listen/observe, you can see how it’s working for them and understand what it is you are/aren’t doing or do/don’t know.

Observe. Ask. Understand. Decide… and Review.

But humility is understated. It doesn’t sell on TV, it doesn’t captivate a crowd or rally the masses. “I don’t have the answer, but let’s find out” is honest but doesn’t have the same pull as “the problem is clear, and I know the solution”

And all he had to do was shut up, and take credit for the federal apparatchik doing all the work for him with COVID. Blather at a press conference to his followers to stay home and ‘beat the China virus so America stays strong’ - and then play golf. Push on industry and suppliers to build ventilators, hospital capacity, and facilitate lockdowns and remote school/work.

Imagine if instead of nearly a million direct deaths, we had a mortality similar to Europe - better even as we bought our way to the front of the vaccine line. An actual ‘America first’ in recovery from COVID and the economic slowdown, instead of fumbling the ball so hard in his fourth year and making Biden president.

How anyone thought that he would be the right choice to manage any crisis, let alone economic woes is dumbfounding. The ‘smartest person’ in every room he enters, he’s incapable of anyone else to having the right answer.

Manchin glazing Trump at his 2024 inauguration speaks words, even without his problematic voting record on immigration, the border wall, or routinely blocking the Democratic agenda - to me runs beyond the ‘sensible silent majority’ centrism tropes, and veers to bedfellows of fascism:

I also extend my congratulations to [President Trump on his victory. He is our President, and I am committed to supporting him in moving this country forward…

As we reflect on this election, one lesson stands out clearly: The candidate who appeals to the sensible majority of Americans – the center – wins… In this 2024 election, Trump was again the candidate better able to connect with the concerns of the sensible majority – prioritizing the economy, securing our borders, and responding to the core needs of working Americans.

Hardly. How about letting ‘moderate’ reactionaries stay in your club?

Manchin wasn’t ejected from the caucus despite his numerous blocking votes and hostage holding, but they did cut off party fund disbursements . Never kicked out of the party, despite him leaning into Trump.

Sinema wasn’t ejected, but they did cut her off party funds after 2019. But never threw her out of the party either.

A Nazi sit down at a table with 10 others, and nobody leaves. How many Nazis are now sat at the table?

The Democrats should whip their members harder instead of giving members ‘outs’ that makes the party as whole look uncommitted - Pelosi managed to do it for years, even with those ‘pesky progressives’.

Use the billion dollars of DNC leverage and lean on them - just like Elon’s unlimited money has openly threatened to primary anyone “disloyal” on the right.

As a lurker who ends up rubbing shoulders with right wing culture spaces, I have to disagree. The right has heresy tests for their politicians, the left tests for their voters. However the left expects competency in government (because they actually believe in it) and will sacrifice ideals or policies, while the right can afford the luxury of rejecting good governance because they’re expressly transactional when it comes to politics.

Rightwing voters are willing to cut off their nose in spite and become single issue voters - and it works for them. Pro-life or you’re dead to them. Pro-gun or you’re dead to them. Non-Christian? Dead. They get the political rhetoric and efforts they demand, which has left them severely ripe for opportunist political grifters who say whatever gets them access power. Like the MAGAs who build nothing, but hand out bones to voting blocs. Abortion overturned. No new gun laws. Ten Commandments in school and state houses. “Hurting the right people”. Migrants deported. Culture wars.

Or in the more extreme examples, they’ll just outright co-opt the structures of power and governance to fit the voters whims. It’s why we have the political maximalist lobbying NRA of today, instead of the humbler sportsman’s advocacy group of yesteryear. Or Trump.

“The president does not have unilateral authority to shut down an expenditure, or instrumentalities funded by Congress, without the authorization of Congress.”

The Korean politicians literally put their lives on the line, and called the coup’s bluff by doing so. Posting on Twitter ‘man, Congress outta do something about that Doge’ when he is a Congressional leader while kicking the issue to the courts to ‘work it out’ is political theatre. Stand up, or step off Chuck.

If lawmakers don’t challenge DOGE, by passing new laws or going to court, they risk losing the powers Congress has held for two and a half centuries. Driesen and other legal experts said judges might consider the lack of congressional opposition as they decide cases on this question.

I said leadership, because yes the individual politicians do not have the ability to whip votes in Congress or create a cross-party platform. That Jeffries’, Schumer’s, and the DNC’s job. That’s who I’m mad at for refusing to recognize the new meta that Trump has tapped into - populist messaging.

People have been failed by late stage capitalism, and are mad about seeing their children have fewer chances in life and less hope, or that the lifestyle their parents were able to achieve is now a fantasy for many. They may not recognize the why, but they are pissed about it. Trump peddles easy to consume lies that offer no real solution to the problem, call him out and provide a real alternative, not more milquetoast centrism subservient to Wall Street. Voters want change and a new social contract. Become the party they want to vote for, instead of crafting districts to meet the DNC’s stance.

Source? I can’t find anything linking the legislative schedule to a snap change, just dry press releases of ‘here’s the planned calendar’ and official announcements.

He’s making wild power grabs by EO because they’re not being challenged - outside some judges blocking the most egregious overreaches.

Congress has the lion’s share of the government power - the purse string - if they choose to use it. Nothing moves or happens without money in America.

THIS is what a politician fighting to stop fascism looks like.

Not a press conference, not ‘barricading’ the door before meekly letting the DOGE lakeys in after they call the DC police, not Chuck fucking Schumer folding to Trump’s budget demands after the House stood tall and members in D+1 districts risked their position.

It’s still politics as usual for most of the leadership. Not ‘the fight to save our democracy’ like they campaigned and fundraised on.

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I voted in each primary, midterm, ballot and election - every chance I got. I was also one of the many who was warning that a shuffling corpse was a terrible candidate, that Harris wasn’t doing enough to differentiate from Biden in a meaningful way, and that constantly arming Israel’s genocide with our money was going to cost voter enthusiasm, swing states, and likely the election.

And here we are, still blaming voters. While Schumer folds on the CR or Jeffries refuses to whip votes - Pelosi at least ran a tight ship and wielded the House gavel. The Democratic leadership is waffling and waiting out for the midterms, where they’re hoping enough people are pissed off to flip the House/Senate. They’re willing to wait two years to act. Two years of deportations, two years of norms destroyed, two years of institutions gutted, allies snubbed, economic self-injury.

Can you wait two years on a political gamble? Can the country? When are we going to hold our political leadership to the fire and demand action?

Because for the right, the concept of people coming together as a grassroots movement and setting aside some political differences to unite as a group, was unheard of until Tea Party/MAGA.

It’s an implicit admission - how else could ‘those radical lefties/gays/immigrants/etc’ get these crowd sizes except by astroturfing like the right has to?

Let the ‘hog die the graceful end it deserves - in the hearts and memories of ground pounders. The Frogfoots are getting wrecked in Ukraine when they try to do CAS, that mission is over unless you’re splattering goat herders, and even militants have MANPADs now.

Super Tucano is all you need for low intensity/asymmetrical conflict and COIN, otherwise busting tanks is better done by ATGMs and AT mines.

As a lurker who ends up rubbing shoulders with right wing culture spaces, can confirm. The right has heresy tests for their politicians, the left tests for their voters. However the left expects competency in government (because they actually believe in it) and will sacrifice ideals or policies, while the right can afford the luxury of rejecting good governance because they’re expressly transactional when it comes to politics.

Rightwing voters are willing to cut off their nose in spite and become single issue voters - and it works for them. Pro-life or you’re dead to them. Pro-gun or you’re dead to them. Non-Christian? Dead. They get the political rhetoric and efforts they demand, which has left them severely ripe for opportunist political grifters who say whatever gets them access power. Like the MAGAs who build nothing, but hand out bones to voting blocs. Abortion overturned. No new gun laws. Ten Commandments in school and state houses. “Hurting the right people”. Migrants deported. Culture wars.

Or in the more extreme examples, they’ll just outright co-opt the structures of power and governance to fit the voters whims. It’s why we have the political maximalist lobbying NRA of today, instead of the humbler sportsman’s advocacy group of yesteryear. Or Trump.

Everything I don’t like is a psyop

It’s not wrong to say that the right/outside actors made the issue more pervasive, but let’s not exonerate the “adults in the room” who decided it was better policy to unflinchingly support war criminals and a slow motion genocide, instead of defusing the wedge issue and forcing Bibi’s hand. Israel is nothing without US political support and weapons. Recognize “who’s the fucking superpower” and act like it when your client state gets out of line in a way that’ll cost you domestically. China does it with North Korea all the time when they got testy. Russia routinely interferes with domestic politics of CSTO members.

Nor should we pretend that all criticism was astroturfing. Some of us wanted to drop Biden before “we beat Medicare” made him obviously unelectable. And called it that Harris was going to lose swing states like Michigan for maintaining Biden’s posture on Israel. If team blue is all I can realistically vote for, I’m going to call out shitty policy that loses elections and kills voter enthusiasm. It’s up to you to listen and understand that we need to do better

Give them something to vote for.

This. We saw the energy and joy when Biden dropped out, and it was reflected by Harris almost matching Obama’s small donor numbers. Hope. Change. They were simple campaign slogans, but people coming out of the Bush era wanted to believe, and had a candidate to believe in.

It’s a damning indictment that my most genuine electoral engagement, in my entire adult life, was voting “Uncommitted” in the 2024 Democratic primary. That was my most enthusiastic, “I 100% support this” vote ever, because almost every other time has been against something/one, or accepting lesser. From ballot initiatives, Senate races, down to the local comptroller chair.

Contrast that to my vote for Kamala in the general afterwards. It’s so unbelievably hollow to say “our democracy is strong” when the choice is always ‘well they’re better than them’.