We've been rolled rightward for so long that normal, natural social progression has come to be seen as radical and dangerous. This must have been what it was like to come out of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. I would not apologize for standing for what the Right depicts as "open borders"; I would just explain it better. The only purpose of a border is to delineate responsibilities between governments, not to reinforce bigotry, fear and hatred. A person's status as a human being should not vary by which side of an artificial line they stand on.
That is exactly what a man who was a French soldier in World War 2 said to me, Jeffrey. He was sick of the idea that being born across a river meant you had to shoot at somebody else. But as far as "coming out" of the Middle Ages, that really was a very gradual process which took centuries across much of Western Europe and it was a long time before it really affected the working person, especially in rural areas. Printing was the big, but not the only, key here.
Maybe a better image is the shift in the early '60s to a more active, hopeful future that many people in America felt, however briefly or poorly founded it was. We really do need something like that; Obama touched a little on not just holding what you had but moving forward. Sadly, the only recent major candidate who has promised real change to a better America is Trump. Showing how he lied and failed and then giving a solid alternative program for everybody to get there is where the DNC has failed. Their message, "Trump bad, send money". Isn't helpful.
Dana Bash is right up there with Jake Tapper when it comes to balanced journalism. DSA is preferable to Schumercrats. The Senate is inherently undemocratic and getting more so as urban centers grow. The DNC isn’t broke because of the left wing, it’s broke because it clings to an ultimately self-destructive neoliberalism, an inability to stand for much of anything, and an insistence on allowing Repugnicans to fame every issue. Bernie, AOC, and I are members of the DSA because corporate establishment Democrats have failed miserably. Some DSA members have been driven to extremes because of that.
Actually, for most of its tenure, our government has been a combination of all of those things - capitalism to make money and accrue wealth, socialism to regulate and control capitalism, and representative voting to mesh all of these isms.
DSA may not be the best terminology for what we had (and would like to have again,) but It worked well until Reagan and the Republicans (in the 80's) decided that the oligarchs were not getting enough of capitalism's gains, and were able to so convince the mis and mal-informed (with their propaganda,) and so we've gone downhill since then.
Excellent point. The Democratic Party must learn to offset grievance and fear (hatred) with higher purpose, justice, optimism, the positive values America claims to value.
Employee funded benefits, that are paid by workers in every paycheck, are managed like an insurance company by the government. They keep the interest and use the principal to their benefit, while raising profits annually. And they also refuse to pay when needed. 401k is like the deductible. These are all investor funds controlled by the government. Successful when managed well; bankrupt when managed by greed.
Trump has a problem with the communism charge, and I recommend that we actually ignore it, because dwelling on it gives it legs and life, even the attempt to debunk it does that. Ignore it and will go away.
This why. Only us grey hairs, those that grew up diving under desks for nuclear drills, who were teenagers, or maybe pre teens in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down, have any memory of communism.
Hurling communist at todays crop of post 1989 Americans is like calling them Tories, or Whigs.
My personal reaction to being hurled a name is to own it, because I do not give a shit what somone calls me. I know who I am. I do take umbrage when I am falsely accused of something, but not when called a name.
By rising up in defense, you only validate the accusation. Shakespeare wrote that line for a reason" The lady doth complain too much"
Thank you Thom for this excellent summary of what everyone should be fighting for and expecting in our government. These points should be the basic floor of what a democracy looks like. From there we can grow into a creative, equitable future for our children and future generations.
My fear, Thom is that the corporatocracy, the morbidly rich, the poison of mega money, is so deep and wide that we won't be able to get enough FDR Democrats to run and win in time to prevent the chaos I think the MAGA world (and certainly its Steve Bannon wing) wants. A suicidal internecine war (calling it a civil war makes no sense for a variety of reasons) will simply destroy us, with no guarantee of a good outcome, and a probability of any number of bad ones.
Having said that, what you noted at the end is the best and least we can do. Get the message out, get those ballots in for November when the time comes, and keep pushing for a better country and world. We owe it not to ourselves, but to our children and grandchildren, everywhere. Because to be apathetic is to be a tool of the Epstein class. Who honestly wants to look in the mirror and see that?
Rachel hit on something last night (7/27) that resonated with me: Elon Musk and trump's allowing him and his DOGE team run amuck--has been largely responsible for Minnesota's wildfires, measles return and trash in our national parks. I kept wondering how all those ICE agents knew where to target all those undocumented migrants who were working at jobs, had residences and were already in the system to become legal citizens. Musk's rogue hackers got all that information and ICE is now using it to terrorize the entire brown skinned migrant community. Did they also get all that personal and financial info on every Senator and House member and people in the judiciary? I hope one of the first laws a Democratic congress will pass is that "retribution" by an elected official against those who did not vote for him or her will be considered a "HIGH CRIME"(not a misdemeanor) punishable by immediate incarceration. Someone else should come up with an appropriately severe punishment! Disallowing a person from running for any public office or even holding any public office; stripping that person of voting ability. All the other things I can think of are unconstitutional or unlawful. :(
I used to think that that was what the Election Commission was supposed to do, but since 2016, have seen no evidence of their interest or motivation.It makes me wonder if Trump did one logical thing by firing them.
Medicare For All should be the issue that decides who is to be a Democratic candidate for the House or Senate. I find it hard to believe that there are candidates who oppose it for any reason other than campaign contributions. We have always had them. Few people knew that Biden had stated his opposition. His kingmaker, James Clyburn, takes big money from Big Pharma. He is the one that led the party to stop the 2020 primary, offering the pandemic as an excuse. Bernie won the first three primaries and then Biden won in Clyburn's own home state of South Carolina, a State that may never vote for a Democrat for President in anyone's lifetime. Game over? Clyburn is another leader, like Carville and Emanuel, who should not speak for us anymore. We should not pick any candidate who will not fully support MFA. Period.
The policies under attack were attacked by Democrats when Bernie was running for president. Hillary Clinton laughed off Democratic Socialism saying "we're not Denmark," Joe Biden repeatedly said "I'm a capitalist" and "I beat the socialist," and many in the party characterized Bernie as "the old hammer and sickle," just like your followers accuse me of being a Commie anytime I tell the truth about pretty much anything. You have supported the Red Scare not only in your ideology but in your support for Pelosi, calling her a "progressive," for Hillary Clinton as a "brilliant" Secretary of State, and for Biden as not suffering from dementia just having a stutter and for his being the most "progressive" president since FDR. You rarely if ever mentioned Mamdani, but now you see the writing on the wall. And what of genocide? When Thom will you ever mention the genocide that Biden and the Democrats aided and abetted?
Exactly, IMO that has been the strategy of the Democratic Party. In 1968 I saw it as the other side of the coin, and thus didn't vote, not until 2016, when I voted for Bernie, not because I liked him. I didn't think, that he was a leader, or as they say New England had the Moxie, but he was not an establishment clone. I was not sure that he had the power of the backing of congress to get his agenda through, but he wasn't Trump who scared the shit out of me., the man seethed, and still does, with hate and narcissism.
I agree with you, except at the commie comment. I and others have never accused you of being a commie, but a Marxist romanticist who has transferred his affection to the anti human criminal Vladimir Putin.
And you have committed a type 1 error, equating communism to socialism. That is why the right wing has been doing for ages, and now you do the same thing.
The two are not the same. You may indeed be a communist. I am a progressive, that is a socialist that realizes that society needs an incentive to invest in innovation and production, and the only way to do that is via capital, but regulated capital.
You see, you idiot, the problem is not socialism or capitalism. But either going to extremes.
Socialism to extremes tends state ownership of the means of production.
Capitalism to extremes tends to private ownership of the state.
Two evils.
And Thom has nevr called Pelosi a progressive. Again and again you lie.
Why does he have to mention Mamdani, is Thom to be condemned because he fails to mention someone. There are billions of politicians in the world, and millions of them in the US.
You are pathetic, you reach for logical fallacy after logical fallacy, to perpetuate your warped view and defend Putin.
"— Every person in America should be free to practice their own religion (or, like Thomas Paine, no religion) and raise their kids that way without government interference, government promotion, or their tax dollars subsidizing local megachurches’ religious schools. Like the Constitution says."
This statement and about twenty others in the series reflect that the Constitution is not understood and has been circumvented, twisted to allow all kinds of exception and violations, and completely ignored and disregarded by many people with money and power, especially those of the Republican persuasion. Our two-hundred-fiftieth year would be a good time for a national refresher course (such as in the book by a frequent commenter on MS NOW, Melissa Murray). We need a fire-breathing teacher to remind everyone what that document is all about and the highlights of its great controversial history. Trump will be successful in negating it entirely and totally trashing every word and element if more people are not made aware of how badly it has been stripped of its significance. There must be some way to get such a person into the headlines and such a project started.
Great article. I published a similar piece about this a few weeks ago, calling out the Republican Party platform of 1956 and its parallels to the democratic socialist policies that have gained so much support from Americans today. And so much animus from MAGA and to be fair, politicians on both sides of the aisle who depend on the donor class. I hope we can defang the current "Communism" fear tactics by reminding folks that these policies would deliver the real change that we, the 98%, are so in need of.
Bernie Sanders proved that politicians running for office dot need a "donor class". I had sent him $27 a sew times and his campaign was funded by We, the People.
Post script: I truly believe that he would have won the Presidency had it not been for "the powers that be" and we would have a much better and united country now.
NY Times 11/9/2016 reported the results of an Election Day poll by well-known Republican strategist Frank Luntz. Sanders would have beaten Trump by at least 8 points. Even as her VP choice, he would have carried Hillary across the finish line.
Yes, PAC money does not originate with constituents, rather it is often connected to corporations and even foreign dark money. We need to demand our elected senators and representatives represent their constituents .
There is a lot of confusion about the DSA movement. On one hand, the “NYC chapter” of the DSA, which would include. Mamdani, AOC and Bernie Sanders and the “National DSA” which through PSL and Red Star traces their roots back to the USSR (or union of Soviet socialist republics - ie the communist party) - this is the confusion!!!
Which one is going to become the REAL DSA? I am in favor of the Bernie, AOC, Mamdami version of the DSA which is opposed to the national (communist) DSA -
I would like to add the attached article by “letters from Mersault” which paints a completely different version of current DSA group trying to establish themselves as the new NATIONAL DSA- anyone interested in this subject please read the following article- thanks
USA needs a change: Back to Presidents that protected and defended the taxpayers.
Corporate’s biggest fear is socialism. Time to scare their pants off and empty their pockets.
We've been rolled rightward for so long that normal, natural social progression has come to be seen as radical and dangerous. This must have been what it was like to come out of the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. I would not apologize for standing for what the Right depicts as "open borders"; I would just explain it better. The only purpose of a border is to delineate responsibilities between governments, not to reinforce bigotry, fear and hatred. A person's status as a human being should not vary by which side of an artificial line they stand on.
That is exactly what a man who was a French soldier in World War 2 said to me, Jeffrey. He was sick of the idea that being born across a river meant you had to shoot at somebody else. But as far as "coming out" of the Middle Ages, that really was a very gradual process which took centuries across much of Western Europe and it was a long time before it really affected the working person, especially in rural areas. Printing was the big, but not the only, key here.
Maybe a better image is the shift in the early '60s to a more active, hopeful future that many people in America felt, however briefly or poorly founded it was. We really do need something like that; Obama touched a little on not just holding what you had but moving forward. Sadly, the only recent major candidate who has promised real change to a better America is Trump. Showing how he lied and failed and then giving a solid alternative program for everybody to get there is where the DNC has failed. Their message, "Trump bad, send money". Isn't helpful.
Well said!
Dana Bash is right up there with Jake Tapper when it comes to balanced journalism. DSA is preferable to Schumercrats. The Senate is inherently undemocratic and getting more so as urban centers grow. The DNC isn’t broke because of the left wing, it’s broke because it clings to an ultimately self-destructive neoliberalism, an inability to stand for much of anything, and an insistence on allowing Repugnicans to fame every issue. Bernie, AOC, and I are members of the DSA because corporate establishment Democrats have failed miserably. Some DSA members have been driven to extremes because of that.
Actually, for most of its tenure, our government has been a combination of all of those things - capitalism to make money and accrue wealth, socialism to regulate and control capitalism, and representative voting to mesh all of these isms.
DSA may not be the best terminology for what we had (and would like to have again,) but It worked well until Reagan and the Republicans (in the 80's) decided that the oligarchs were not getting enough of capitalism's gains, and were able to so convince the mis and mal-informed (with their propaganda,) and so we've gone downhill since then.
Excellent point. The Democratic Party must learn to offset grievance and fear (hatred) with higher purpose, justice, optimism, the positive values America claims to value.
Employee funded benefits, that are paid by workers in every paycheck, are managed like an insurance company by the government. They keep the interest and use the principal to their benefit, while raising profits annually. And they also refuse to pay when needed. 401k is like the deductible. These are all investor funds controlled by the government. Successful when managed well; bankrupt when managed by greed.
Trump has a problem with the communism charge, and I recommend that we actually ignore it, because dwelling on it gives it legs and life, even the attempt to debunk it does that. Ignore it and will go away.
This why. Only us grey hairs, those that grew up diving under desks for nuclear drills, who were teenagers, or maybe pre teens in 1989 when the Berlin Wall came down, have any memory of communism.
Hurling communist at todays crop of post 1989 Americans is like calling them Tories, or Whigs.
My personal reaction to being hurled a name is to own it, because I do not give a shit what somone calls me. I know who I am. I do take umbrage when I am falsely accused of something, but not when called a name.
By rising up in defense, you only validate the accusation. Shakespeare wrote that line for a reason" The lady doth complain too much"
Thank you Thom for this excellent summary of what everyone should be fighting for and expecting in our government. These points should be the basic floor of what a democracy looks like. From there we can grow into a creative, equitable future for our children and future generations.
My fear, Thom is that the corporatocracy, the morbidly rich, the poison of mega money, is so deep and wide that we won't be able to get enough FDR Democrats to run and win in time to prevent the chaos I think the MAGA world (and certainly its Steve Bannon wing) wants. A suicidal internecine war (calling it a civil war makes no sense for a variety of reasons) will simply destroy us, with no guarantee of a good outcome, and a probability of any number of bad ones.
Having said that, what you noted at the end is the best and least we can do. Get the message out, get those ballots in for November when the time comes, and keep pushing for a better country and world. We owe it not to ourselves, but to our children and grandchildren, everywhere. Because to be apathetic is to be a tool of the Epstein class. Who honestly wants to look in the mirror and see that?
Rachel hit on something last night (7/27) that resonated with me: Elon Musk and trump's allowing him and his DOGE team run amuck--has been largely responsible for Minnesota's wildfires, measles return and trash in our national parks. I kept wondering how all those ICE agents knew where to target all those undocumented migrants who were working at jobs, had residences and were already in the system to become legal citizens. Musk's rogue hackers got all that information and ICE is now using it to terrorize the entire brown skinned migrant community. Did they also get all that personal and financial info on every Senator and House member and people in the judiciary? I hope one of the first laws a Democratic congress will pass is that "retribution" by an elected official against those who did not vote for him or her will be considered a "HIGH CRIME"(not a misdemeanor) punishable by immediate incarceration. Someone else should come up with an appropriately severe punishment! Disallowing a person from running for any public office or even holding any public office; stripping that person of voting ability. All the other things I can think of are unconstitutional or unlawful. :(
I used to think that that was what the Election Commission was supposed to do, but since 2016, have seen no evidence of their interest or motivation.It makes me wonder if Trump did one logical thing by firing them.
Medicare For All should be the issue that decides who is to be a Democratic candidate for the House or Senate. I find it hard to believe that there are candidates who oppose it for any reason other than campaign contributions. We have always had them. Few people knew that Biden had stated his opposition. His kingmaker, James Clyburn, takes big money from Big Pharma. He is the one that led the party to stop the 2020 primary, offering the pandemic as an excuse. Bernie won the first three primaries and then Biden won in Clyburn's own home state of South Carolina, a State that may never vote for a Democrat for President in anyone's lifetime. Game over? Clyburn is another leader, like Carville and Emanuel, who should not speak for us anymore. We should not pick any candidate who will not fully support MFA. Period.
The policies under attack were attacked by Democrats when Bernie was running for president. Hillary Clinton laughed off Democratic Socialism saying "we're not Denmark," Joe Biden repeatedly said "I'm a capitalist" and "I beat the socialist," and many in the party characterized Bernie as "the old hammer and sickle," just like your followers accuse me of being a Commie anytime I tell the truth about pretty much anything. You have supported the Red Scare not only in your ideology but in your support for Pelosi, calling her a "progressive," for Hillary Clinton as a "brilliant" Secretary of State, and for Biden as not suffering from dementia just having a stutter and for his being the most "progressive" president since FDR. You rarely if ever mentioned Mamdani, but now you see the writing on the wall. And what of genocide? When Thom will you ever mention the genocide that Biden and the Democrats aided and abetted?
Maybe we will finally be able to vote for a candidate we believe in rather than the lesser of two evils.
Exactly, IMO that has been the strategy of the Democratic Party. In 1968 I saw it as the other side of the coin, and thus didn't vote, not until 2016, when I voted for Bernie, not because I liked him. I didn't think, that he was a leader, or as they say New England had the Moxie, but he was not an establishment clone. I was not sure that he had the power of the backing of congress to get his agenda through, but he wasn't Trump who scared the shit out of me., the man seethed, and still does, with hate and narcissism.
I agree with you, except at the commie comment. I and others have never accused you of being a commie, but a Marxist romanticist who has transferred his affection to the anti human criminal Vladimir Putin.
And you have committed a type 1 error, equating communism to socialism. That is why the right wing has been doing for ages, and now you do the same thing.
The two are not the same. You may indeed be a communist. I am a progressive, that is a socialist that realizes that society needs an incentive to invest in innovation and production, and the only way to do that is via capital, but regulated capital.
You see, you idiot, the problem is not socialism or capitalism. But either going to extremes.
Socialism to extremes tends state ownership of the means of production.
Capitalism to extremes tends to private ownership of the state.
Two evils.
And Thom has nevr called Pelosi a progressive. Again and again you lie.
Why does he have to mention Mamdani, is Thom to be condemned because he fails to mention someone. There are billions of politicians in the world, and millions of them in the US.
You are pathetic, you reach for logical fallacy after logical fallacy, to perpetuate your warped view and defend Putin.
Thanks for helping to inform and educate every day. Looking forward to the new book to add to the collection of Hartmann books.
"— Every person in America should be free to practice their own religion (or, like Thomas Paine, no religion) and raise their kids that way without government interference, government promotion, or their tax dollars subsidizing local megachurches’ religious schools. Like the Constitution says."
This statement and about twenty others in the series reflect that the Constitution is not understood and has been circumvented, twisted to allow all kinds of exception and violations, and completely ignored and disregarded by many people with money and power, especially those of the Republican persuasion. Our two-hundred-fiftieth year would be a good time for a national refresher course (such as in the book by a frequent commenter on MS NOW, Melissa Murray). We need a fire-breathing teacher to remind everyone what that document is all about and the highlights of its great controversial history. Trump will be successful in negating it entirely and totally trashing every word and element if more people are not made aware of how badly it has been stripped of its significance. There must be some way to get such a person into the headlines and such a project started.
Great article. I published a similar piece about this a few weeks ago, calling out the Republican Party platform of 1956 and its parallels to the democratic socialist policies that have gained so much support from Americans today. And so much animus from MAGA and to be fair, politicians on both sides of the aisle who depend on the donor class. I hope we can defang the current "Communism" fear tactics by reminding folks that these policies would deliver the real change that we, the 98%, are so in need of.
https://danismart.substack.com/p/is-this-communism
Bernie Sanders proved that politicians running for office dot need a "donor class". I had sent him $27 a sew times and his campaign was funded by We, the People.
Post script: I truly believe that he would have won the Presidency had it not been for "the powers that be" and we would have a much better and united country now.
NY Times 11/9/2016 reported the results of an Election Day poll by well-known Republican strategist Frank Luntz. Sanders would have beaten Trump by at least 8 points. Even as her VP choice, he would have carried Hillary across the finish line.
Yes, PAC money does not originate with constituents, rather it is often connected to corporations and even foreign dark money. We need to demand our elected senators and representatives represent their constituents .
There is a lot of confusion about the DSA movement. On one hand, the “NYC chapter” of the DSA, which would include. Mamdani, AOC and Bernie Sanders and the “National DSA” which through PSL and Red Star traces their roots back to the USSR (or union of Soviet socialist republics - ie the communist party) - this is the confusion!!!
Which one is going to become the REAL DSA? I am in favor of the Bernie, AOC, Mamdami version of the DSA which is opposed to the national (communist) DSA -
I would like to add the attached article by “letters from Mersault” which paints a completely different version of current DSA group trying to establish themselves as the new NATIONAL DSA- anyone interested in this subject please read the following article- thanks
https://patricemersault.substack.com/p/part-2-i-went-to-a-meeting-of-young?r=46duah&utm_medium=ios