Third Way's multimillion-dollar offensive threatens Medicare for All, labor rights, climate action, and the progressive movement driving the party's energy…
The problem with the Democratic Party is not Democratic voters. It is the DNC leadership that is the problem For example, they ejected young David Hogg for suggesting the party force retirements among do-nothing Democrat geezers, then about 6 weeks later, the DNC starts enabling Hogg's suggestion to primary geezer Dems into not running again. They cannot seem to let go of Israel right-or-wrong, and insist on clinging to AIPAC money and sustaining Middle East chaos. For crying out loud, Harris likely lost because she said she would continue to support the apparent genocide America was enabling, and still is enabling. Voters are fed up with pointless undeclared wars and paying twice as much for everything. The Party leadership could care less as long as it has millions of AIPAC campaign cash.
reading through this I am so thoroughly confused of who is who and what is what its all about. Maybe this is not for the average democrates, that just want normal coverage health care and not like now where we have useless insurance companies taking high premiums and high deductables and covering nothing. Its insane that CEO`s are making huge bonuses and regular people are dying from not getting the treatment they need to survive, and that is excatly why a CEO got murdered and so many people thought the guy that did the shooting was a hero and it shows we are sick and tired of these insurance companies are being able to conduct business that way. So how can we get information that is understandable and give a clear advise on what to do and how to go about it. This is just the tip of the problems in america, that we regular democrates are unhappy with. One huge thing Ive heard from many others, is why didnt anyone on the higher rang of democrates do something when both Trump and Elon Musk admitted they used Elon`|s technology to change the outcome of votes in 2 swing states. If they cheated why wasnt it investigated, like trump went through in the previous election and we paid so much for numereous counting of votes like in AZ, and there was no cheating. Why isnt something being done about this world wide scandal of a criminal running our country, stealing our tax dollars for his elaborate lifestyle. This is probably not the place to discuss this,I just dont know where to address this huge problem.
The Greens and Working Families Party should not be scapegoated here for causing corporate Democrats to lose to evangelical/corporate Republicans. Those minority parties were the vanguard of a resurgent Left that is now poised to take over the Democratic party and restore its populist progressive identity. That causes the corporate accommodationists to panic and throw money at the "problem" of the people standing up for themselves.
Yes, and thank you for a re-cap of what happened and who is behind it, including the "Republican-lite" brigade in the Democratic hierarchy, principally the Clintons, Obama, Biden, et. al. and their supporting consultants -- Carville at the top.
But, as I have been asking everyone asking me for money, daily, over the last two years:
"What's the !@?& plan?!"
Having worked in business for 40 years, a lot in sales and marketing, Progressives need a message and a strategy to frame that message. And there needs to be a product that can sell.
God, how we could use FDR right now. He knew how to sell....
I think the Republicon Brahmins ought to remember something said by our Irish Brahmin president, that is, JFK. He said it about Latin America but it seems all too applicable to us today:
"Those who make peaceful reform impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Hey GOP, like the idea of your heads being held up with the ancient roar, 'Behold the head of a traitor!'?
Abdul El-Sayed’s victory is as epic as Zorhan Mamdani’s. The Repugnicans, the Third Way types, the feckless establishment corporate Democrats, perhaps united in their desire for power over the populace, are offering up increasingly transparent, hysterical, self-serving rhetoric in response (“commies!”). Repugnican incompetence and corruption, met by chronic Democratic acquiescence, are making the case for fundamental reform - and discrediting the notion of moderate, centrist, counterproductive “bi-partisanship”, the disingenuous call of those dedicated to safeguarding the status quo. The recent victories of DSA and DSA-leaning candidates reveal a growing hunger for a national rebirth. Every utterance by every nay-sayer of either party must be heard for the reactionary lie it is. Mega donors, most notably AIPAC, dark money from multiple sources, Repugnicans, DINOs, are losing to a grass roots movement that won’t be stopped. We’re on the right course.
Thank you for highlighting this “third way” group. I hadn’t heard about it but it suddenly makes sense of the weak DNC and establishment democrats in congress. The dots are starting to connect up! We must not only fight off Trumps evil crime syndicate but the corporate democrats as well. Government for the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, not the oligarchs!
Donald Trump has launched a new federal review. This review threatens the future of how California’s coastline is managed. Trump is proposing to expand offshore oil drilling and restart offshore oil pipeline infrastructure. To comment on this insane proposal please communicate with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There are two ways to do this.
Include “Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program” in the subject line. Written and email comments received by 11:59 p.m. PT on August 22, 2026, will be accepted.
All comments must be received by 8/22/26
My comment
Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program
NOAA Office For Coastal Management,
I am very concerned about the Trump Administration’s plan to renew drilling and exploration for oil and gas off the coast of California. The administration wants to give lease sales to oil corporations that would allow them to drill and use seismic exploration across huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean.
This will expose whales, dolphins, fish, seabirds and fragile marine habitats to risks from oil spills and seismic exploration. If finalized, these lease sales could allow oil companies to drill across vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean—putting marine wildlife, coastal communities at risk. It would very likely accelerate the worse effects of climate change
The results of oil drilling and exploring for oil off the California coast have already been disastrous. In 1969, a blowout of a Union Oil drilling rig platform off the coast of Santa Barbara resulted in a spill of 4.2 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean and onto nearby shores.
In 1971, 800,000 gallons of bunker fuel spilled in San Francisco Bay. In Huntington Beach in 1990, the American Trader oil tanker spilled more than 416,000 gallons of crude oil, killing an estimated 3,400 birds. On May 19, 2015 a crude oil pipeline spilled 100,000 gallons into the ocean at Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. On October 1, 2021, a pipeline from an Amplify Energy oil platform off the Orange County coast leaked oil into the ocean and onto beaches.
California’s economy is very dependent on tourism and fishing. In Fort Bragg, California the fishing industry has already declined severely because of low numbers of fish that can be found off the coast. Fisherman have to sail farther and farther away from land to find fish.
President Trump’s proposed increase of oil exploration and extraction would result in more spills and pollution. That would make the California coastline less appealing and lower significantly the number of tourists that come here to enjoy the beauty of the Pacific Ocean and its beaches.
More use of fossil fuels for energy is the wrong direction. The United States is already the world’s largest producer of oil and gas. Domestic oil production is at 90 percent of America’s all-time, pre-pandemic high, and the U.S. is producing more than twice as many barrels of oil per day as it produced in 2008.
Our country must switch to renewable energy sources consisting of: solar, wind energy, geothermal energy, hydropower, biomass energy and conservation to address the effects of climate change (global warming). Big new oil projects are not fast, safe or long-term solutions.
Climate change’s higher temperatures are already devastating many states in the U.S. They have caused numerous wildfires in the U.S, Canada, Spain, France and Greece. They have caused the most severe water crisis in U.S. recorded history. This is due to megadrought and a record low snowpack in the Rocky Mountains.
The Colorado River supplies water to approximately 40 million people in seven states. It is 20 percent lower than when the Colorado River water was first divided up. California, Arizona and Nevada will be forced to lower their water use between 16 and 20 percent through 2028. All This will cause less food to be grown in the U.S.
Increasing leasing and permitting rates even beyond their current historically high levels will lock the United States into fossil fuel dependence for decades to come. The U.S. must invest in clean, renewable energy sources to lower energy prices and address climate change.
If only we had an educated audience. I am afraid that many many find all the info they need on their American Dildo. What’s climate change? Oh, that can’t bother me!!! Duh duh duh 🙄
Bill Clinton, a Republican in Democratic clothing, his wife was /is no different. if she had beat Trump, I am sure that would have been the end of progressivism in the Democratic Party, as is her loss kept progressivism alive and growing. This is the first election in which progressive candidates are beating "moderates" and so call "moderates" are lining up with Republicans to blast progressives with filthy negative adds.
With friends like that you don't need enemies. Looking at you Gretchen Whitmer, Debbi Stabinow
Because so many who could have stood up to The Third Way by refusing to support their "centrist" candidates capitulated and pretended they were somehow "progressive" or noble.
Wow, Thom. This piece landed especially hard for me because at this very moment I’m listening to your book--Who Killed the American Dream? and can't put it down. There, and here, you connect the historical dots in a way that makes our present moment so much easier to understand.
I grew up in the America you’re describing. My father was a union worker. My parents were able to buy a home, raise a family, send their children to college, and believe that if we worked hard, our lives could be better than theirs. That wasn’t socialism. That was the American Dream—and public policy and organized labor helped make it possible for millions of ordinary families like mine.
What troubles me most about the Third Way offensive you describe is the idea that the Democratic Party should respond to this moment by moving closer to the very corporate interests that helped create the economic inequality Americans are rebelling against. I spend my days with college students. I don't see them rejecting democracy; I see them asking why it so often seems incapable of delivering for them and for ordinary people. They’re asking why health care can bankrupt a family, why college means decades of debt for them, why housing is increasingly beyond their reach, and why billionaires and corporations have so much more influence over their government than they do.
Your book and your articles here and on the Commonwealth Report have helped me understand something that connects so much of what I care about and have been writing about: we cannot repair our democracy without confronting the enormous concentration of economic and political power that has hollowed it out.
The awareness you're raising gives me something increasingly precious in this dark moment: Hope. Understanding how we got here reminds us that none of this was inevitable. These were choices, policies and decisions made over decades—and different choices can be made over the next ones.
Your work is an important reminder that if enough Americans understand how we allowed corporate and billionaire power to overwhelm the power of ordinary citizens—and refuse to accept this emerging oligarchy as irreversible—we can reclaim not only the American Dream, but the democracy that made it possible.
The morbidly rich and corporate billionaires have long been hedging their bets by supporting both party candidates. It’s always good to have a friend in politics and it’s always good for a few favors in a tight vote in Congress. Now, they are just being blatant with their “contributions” but it’s still not always evident who owes who and what “favors” will be granted.
The DNC and the billionaires are now seeing how a lot of people are on to them, and are supporting candidates who do not take PAC money, and do not owe “favors” to the big corporations who control them.
It’s important that people understand that politicians who take corporate PAC money, no matter what the explanation of need is, owes something to the corporate donor—not the people. Regardless of Citizens United, corporations are not persons, and their interests do not coincide with the best interest of the general public, but rather to quarterly profits, laws that allow them to pollute, and continued profitable management of health insurance, and prison for profit.
Are we still talking about democracy with this “third way” middle of the sweatshop proposition? We know Republicans have abandoned democracy. For a decade we have been talking about democracy non-stop. But do we need to refresh ourselves on what democracy means? I’ve been working on that.
Can we all agree that, in our splendid and extraordinary 250-year history, even the “best people”, to use Nicole Wallace’s term, have somehow failed in maintaining for the whole nation a unitary appreciation for the core conceptual values of democracy?
These most fundamental values are, in a nutshell I believe, maximum possible individual autonomy and the capacity of ordinary citizens to influence official policy, and for science and rational objective thought to apply in what we all experience mutually as reality, which marks a similar devotion to the conditional and temporary but useful validation of ideas and theories through the ability of ordinary individuals to independently confirm the authenticity of those ideas and theories by observing, duplicating and repeating experiments, or rigorous peer review (the scientific method).
The Enlightenment elevated the public and cultural appreciation for these core values, and there were more or less immediate positive benefits for organized society, one of which was the formation of our democratic government. However, there have always been and will always be those who are not at all comfortable with the ideas of full and free autonomy for individuals or for scientific rationality and process to have precedence over superstition or emotion-driven irrational thinking.
Those reticent people who never bought into enlightenment thinking were not going to be ignored or outdone. They did not necessarily have a uniform strategic or conscious intentional plan, nor did they probably collude or organize. Each did what they were accustomed to doing. Some of the more zealous or purposeful who saw the potential to promote their common approach, attitudes, and interests through actions, for what they were ostensibly worth, took them and sold them to all who were likeminded or to all who could be persuaded of their importance. They knew what they wanted.
First, they institutionalized what they believed to be education by promoting taxpayer-funded schools for a large part of the population. Education was highly valued. Their conception of education originally happened to include many elements of the science of the day according to the common and popular imagery of knowledge of that time, as well as incorporating the philosophy, social customs and habits, national identity, and various expressions of specific religious and superstitious tradition and thinking which became a formalized curriculum.
The design of the schooling had minimal leeway to allow change. Indeed, change has occurred at glacial speed. Soon after, they established laws which made attendance in their institutions meant for inculcation and indoctrination mandatory (indoctrination was not a secret or stealthy, nor was it frowned upon generally; it was purposeful).
In both instances, meaningful and practical autonomy for individuals was lessened as an essential feature and as a component in the experience and minds or perceptions of youth. The spirit of the pioneering Yankee who forged ahead according to his or her own instincts and ambitions was significantly tamed and suppressed.
In the first instance, the institutions or schools merely diluted autonomy as numbers, space, and time dictated that the attention and focus of individuals be divided to distribute resources and to accommodate the group. That was simply a recognition of the value of society and sharing of assets and resources. But when schooling became mandatory as a matter of law denying and usurping parental mastery or sovereignty over their own progeny, the essential control, coercion, and divided focus in those staid and revered institutions transformed what had been educational endeavors and activities into something completely different.
Autonomy was not just compromised; it was devalued by default and effectively replaced by that old standby, dependence on external and superior entities and authorities. Control was an essential feature where the state assumed responsibility for the health, welfare, education, discipline, and ambitions of children and where there was the expectation of developmental progress.
Almost no one today recognizes how profoundly this affects our democratic system. Democracy is totally reliant on citizens who are not only well-educated, well-informed, and aware of the state of affairs at any given time. It is equally reliant on citizens whose frame of mind is centered on the need for, value of, and experience with autonomy. Freedom and liberty are empty expressions if citizens take them for granted or if they lack the spirit and spunk to apply them in their normal regular relations with those in power or with those who have the capacity to control their destiny. Students who are inept and apathetic clog the gears of democracy.
I have waited years for someone to affirm this simple truth and to demonstrate an understanding of the implications of this reality. Instead, the reality and facts, backed up by documentation, research, history, and sound logic are dismissed out of hand as if they are merely my stubborn subjective opinion. Am I dealing with science-minded, rational adults? I have to keep asking myself why I have hit an impenetrable brick wall, while democracy continues to decline.
I am neither a purist, a perfectionist, nor a Utopian. I do know right from wrong and reality from unreality, however. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it hundreds of times. Trump was not elected twice by well-educated citizens. Neither was Nixon, Reagan, or Bush the lesser. Schools coach students, sometimes for months, to perform in programs to make an impression on parents and grandparents, eliciting great emotional responses and confidence in the institution. They bring out star pupils and special programs to show for families and media and they incorrigibly ‘teach to the test’ to boost meaningless test scores. Unfortunately, when we look at actual proficiencies, knowledge, competencies, life and work skills, habits, intellectual depth, character, etc., we are regularly and profoundly disappointed.
Make this make sense. We talk every day about our love for and belief in democracy. We enthusiastically celebrate 250 years of democracy. We are willing to fight, risk going to prison, or dying for the idea of democracy. Yet, we have laws which make it practically impossible to have a democratic architecture in our public schools where our children are immersed in an authoritarian milieu for twelve interminable years. They live and learn a way of life and attitudes which effectively eliminate choice, autonomy, agency, self-respect, scientific process, and common sense.
I will say it one more time. Those who delude themselves and deny that our schools are a major source of the ignorance about, appreciation for, and devotion to the institutions of democracy are in denial and cling to a view of schools which is highly erroneous and childlike. “Informed political judgments” are not emanating from these sterile institutions. Can anyone say with a straight face that they believe that the lack of civics and history classes is the reason we have people talking with intention about giving autocracy, oligarchy, theocracy, or a moderate form of fascism a try?
This is from an article entitled, “Democracy in the Classroom?” published in Academic Exchange Quarterly (2006 Summer) by Paul R. Carr, Youngstown State University.
“,,,most respondents admitted to not having a truly democratic educational experience during their high school years… most of the students viewed democracy in education as being uniquely or primarily associated with elections.”
Do bright people really believe that phenomenally few people read books and literature for pleasure or for meaningful information and knowledge acquisition now solely because ubiquitous videos and other electronic devices and media have become substitutes for the printed word? Four out of ten read no books at all in the course of a year, as reported by Susan Jacoby in “The Age of American Unreason” (2008). Jacoby speculates about a future “Magazine for People Who Hate to Read.” In a later section about a study of Internet use by young people, she states that title of the report “might as well have been, “Ignorant and Proud of it.”
Cmon people. Get real. Schools have turned students off to reading for generations because they have another agenda which has nothing whatsoever to do with intellectual development or cultural preservation, and certainly not with democracy. Kids have an aversion to reading because it has come to represent drudgery, paternalism, and boredom in a prison-like atmosphere.
When will we stop talking in platitudes about children learning about democracy and start talking about how children absorb and acquire as instinctive or involuntary rituals and behaviors obedience, conformity, cynicism, compliance, passivity, and trivial pursuit, instead? Democracy must be lived and breathed to be real.
Is this a site about democracy, or is it about feeling good about ourselves because we are not like those dummies who were too lazy or too dumb to complete homework assignments? Just asking for a friend.
The problem with the Democratic Party is not Democratic voters. It is the DNC leadership that is the problem For example, they ejected young David Hogg for suggesting the party force retirements among do-nothing Democrat geezers, then about 6 weeks later, the DNC starts enabling Hogg's suggestion to primary geezer Dems into not running again. They cannot seem to let go of Israel right-or-wrong, and insist on clinging to AIPAC money and sustaining Middle East chaos. For crying out loud, Harris likely lost because she said she would continue to support the apparent genocide America was enabling, and still is enabling. Voters are fed up with pointless undeclared wars and paying twice as much for everything. The Party leadership could care less as long as it has millions of AIPAC campaign cash.
Yes, and if you dare speak out against AIPAC you are labeled an antisemite.
These people are highly destructive and I am deeply concerned about the damage they might do.
reading through this I am so thoroughly confused of who is who and what is what its all about. Maybe this is not for the average democrates, that just want normal coverage health care and not like now where we have useless insurance companies taking high premiums and high deductables and covering nothing. Its insane that CEO`s are making huge bonuses and regular people are dying from not getting the treatment they need to survive, and that is excatly why a CEO got murdered and so many people thought the guy that did the shooting was a hero and it shows we are sick and tired of these insurance companies are being able to conduct business that way. So how can we get information that is understandable and give a clear advise on what to do and how to go about it. This is just the tip of the problems in america, that we regular democrates are unhappy with. One huge thing Ive heard from many others, is why didnt anyone on the higher rang of democrates do something when both Trump and Elon Musk admitted they used Elon`|s technology to change the outcome of votes in 2 swing states. If they cheated why wasnt it investigated, like trump went through in the previous election and we paid so much for numereous counting of votes like in AZ, and there was no cheating. Why isnt something being done about this world wide scandal of a criminal running our country, stealing our tax dollars for his elaborate lifestyle. This is probably not the place to discuss this,I just dont know where to address this huge problem.
The Greens and Working Families Party should not be scapegoated here for causing corporate Democrats to lose to evangelical/corporate Republicans. Those minority parties were the vanguard of a resurgent Left that is now poised to take over the Democratic party and restore its populist progressive identity. That causes the corporate accommodationists to panic and throw money at the "problem" of the people standing up for themselves.
Yes, and thank you for a re-cap of what happened and who is behind it, including the "Republican-lite" brigade in the Democratic hierarchy, principally the Clintons, Obama, Biden, et. al. and their supporting consultants -- Carville at the top.
But, as I have been asking everyone asking me for money, daily, over the last two years:
"What's the !@?& plan?!"
Having worked in business for 40 years, a lot in sales and marketing, Progressives need a message and a strategy to frame that message. And there needs to be a product that can sell.
God, how we could use FDR right now. He knew how to sell....
D. Laghezza
I think the Republicon Brahmins ought to remember something said by our Irish Brahmin president, that is, JFK. He said it about Latin America but it seems all too applicable to us today:
"Those who make peaceful reform impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." Hey GOP, like the idea of your heads being held up with the ancient roar, 'Behold the head of a traitor!'?
Abdul El-Sayed’s victory is as epic as Zorhan Mamdani’s. The Repugnicans, the Third Way types, the feckless establishment corporate Democrats, perhaps united in their desire for power over the populace, are offering up increasingly transparent, hysterical, self-serving rhetoric in response (“commies!”). Repugnican incompetence and corruption, met by chronic Democratic acquiescence, are making the case for fundamental reform - and discrediting the notion of moderate, centrist, counterproductive “bi-partisanship”, the disingenuous call of those dedicated to safeguarding the status quo. The recent victories of DSA and DSA-leaning candidates reveal a growing hunger for a national rebirth. Every utterance by every nay-sayer of either party must be heard for the reactionary lie it is. Mega donors, most notably AIPAC, dark money from multiple sources, Repugnicans, DINOs, are losing to a grass roots movement that won’t be stopped. We’re on the right course.
Thank you for highlighting this “third way” group. I hadn’t heard about it but it suddenly makes sense of the weak DNC and establishment democrats in congress. The dots are starting to connect up! We must not only fight off Trumps evil crime syndicate but the corporate democrats as well. Government for the PEOPLE, by the PEOPLE, not the oligarchs!
Donald Trump has launched a new federal review. This review threatens the future of how California’s coastline is managed. Trump is proposing to expand offshore oil drilling and restart offshore oil pipeline infrastructure. To comment on this insane proposal please communicate with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). There are two ways to do this.
Email: Send written comments to NOAA's Office for Coastal Management, at czma.california-evaluation@noaa.gov
regular mail at:
NOAA Office for Coastal Management
2234 South Hobson Ave
Charleston, SC 29405-2413
Include “Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program” in the subject line. Written and email comments received by 11:59 p.m. PT on August 22, 2026, will be accepted.
All comments must be received by 8/22/26
My comment
Comments on Performance Evaluation of the California Coastal Management Program
NOAA Office For Coastal Management,
I am very concerned about the Trump Administration’s plan to renew drilling and exploration for oil and gas off the coast of California. The administration wants to give lease sales to oil corporations that would allow them to drill and use seismic exploration across huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean.
This will expose whales, dolphins, fish, seabirds and fragile marine habitats to risks from oil spills and seismic exploration. If finalized, these lease sales could allow oil companies to drill across vast stretches of the Pacific Ocean—putting marine wildlife, coastal communities at risk. It would very likely accelerate the worse effects of climate change
The results of oil drilling and exploring for oil off the California coast have already been disastrous. In 1969, a blowout of a Union Oil drilling rig platform off the coast of Santa Barbara resulted in a spill of 4.2 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean and onto nearby shores.
In 1971, 800,000 gallons of bunker fuel spilled in San Francisco Bay. In Huntington Beach in 1990, the American Trader oil tanker spilled more than 416,000 gallons of crude oil, killing an estimated 3,400 birds. On May 19, 2015 a crude oil pipeline spilled 100,000 gallons into the ocean at Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County. On October 1, 2021, a pipeline from an Amplify Energy oil platform off the Orange County coast leaked oil into the ocean and onto beaches.
California’s economy is very dependent on tourism and fishing. In Fort Bragg, California the fishing industry has already declined severely because of low numbers of fish that can be found off the coast. Fisherman have to sail farther and farther away from land to find fish.
President Trump’s proposed increase of oil exploration and extraction would result in more spills and pollution. That would make the California coastline less appealing and lower significantly the number of tourists that come here to enjoy the beauty of the Pacific Ocean and its beaches.
More use of fossil fuels for energy is the wrong direction. The United States is already the world’s largest producer of oil and gas. Domestic oil production is at 90 percent of America’s all-time, pre-pandemic high, and the U.S. is producing more than twice as many barrels of oil per day as it produced in 2008.
Our country must switch to renewable energy sources consisting of: solar, wind energy, geothermal energy, hydropower, biomass energy and conservation to address the effects of climate change (global warming). Big new oil projects are not fast, safe or long-term solutions.
Climate change’s higher temperatures are already devastating many states in the U.S. They have caused numerous wildfires in the U.S, Canada, Spain, France and Greece. They have caused the most severe water crisis in U.S. recorded history. This is due to megadrought and a record low snowpack in the Rocky Mountains.
The Colorado River supplies water to approximately 40 million people in seven states. It is 20 percent lower than when the Colorado River water was first divided up. California, Arizona and Nevada will be forced to lower their water use between 16 and 20 percent through 2028. All This will cause less food to be grown in the U.S.
Increasing leasing and permitting rates even beyond their current historically high levels will lock the United States into fossil fuel dependence for decades to come. The U.S. must invest in clean, renewable energy sources to lower energy prices and address climate change.
Ed Oberweiser
If only we had an educated audience. I am afraid that many many find all the info they need on their American Dildo. What’s climate change? Oh, that can’t bother me!!! Duh duh duh 🙄
Bill Clinton, a Republican in Democratic clothing, his wife was /is no different. if she had beat Trump, I am sure that would have been the end of progressivism in the Democratic Party, as is her loss kept progressivism alive and growing. This is the first election in which progressive candidates are beating "moderates" and so call "moderates" are lining up with Republicans to blast progressives with filthy negative adds.
With friends like that you don't need enemies. Looking at you Gretchen Whitmer, Debbi Stabinow
Because so many who could have stood up to The Third Way by refusing to support their "centrist" candidates capitulated and pretended they were somehow "progressive" or noble.
Wow, Thom. This piece landed especially hard for me because at this very moment I’m listening to your book--Who Killed the American Dream? and can't put it down. There, and here, you connect the historical dots in a way that makes our present moment so much easier to understand.
I grew up in the America you’re describing. My father was a union worker. My parents were able to buy a home, raise a family, send their children to college, and believe that if we worked hard, our lives could be better than theirs. That wasn’t socialism. That was the American Dream—and public policy and organized labor helped make it possible for millions of ordinary families like mine.
What troubles me most about the Third Way offensive you describe is the idea that the Democratic Party should respond to this moment by moving closer to the very corporate interests that helped create the economic inequality Americans are rebelling against. I spend my days with college students. I don't see them rejecting democracy; I see them asking why it so often seems incapable of delivering for them and for ordinary people. They’re asking why health care can bankrupt a family, why college means decades of debt for them, why housing is increasingly beyond their reach, and why billionaires and corporations have so much more influence over their government than they do.
Your book and your articles here and on the Commonwealth Report have helped me understand something that connects so much of what I care about and have been writing about: we cannot repair our democracy without confronting the enormous concentration of economic and political power that has hollowed it out.
The awareness you're raising gives me something increasingly precious in this dark moment: Hope. Understanding how we got here reminds us that none of this was inevitable. These were choices, policies and decisions made over decades—and different choices can be made over the next ones.
Your work is an important reminder that if enough Americans understand how we allowed corporate and billionaire power to overwhelm the power of ordinary citizens—and refuse to accept this emerging oligarchy as irreversible—we can reclaim not only the American Dream, but the democracy that made it possible.
The morbidly rich and corporate billionaires have long been hedging their bets by supporting both party candidates. It’s always good to have a friend in politics and it’s always good for a few favors in a tight vote in Congress. Now, they are just being blatant with their “contributions” but it’s still not always evident who owes who and what “favors” will be granted.
The DNC and the billionaires are now seeing how a lot of people are on to them, and are supporting candidates who do not take PAC money, and do not owe “favors” to the big corporations who control them.
It’s important that people understand that politicians who take corporate PAC money, no matter what the explanation of need is, owes something to the corporate donor—not the people. Regardless of Citizens United, corporations are not persons, and their interests do not coincide with the best interest of the general public, but rather to quarterly profits, laws that allow them to pollute, and continued profitable management of health insurance, and prison for profit.
Are we still talking about democracy with this “third way” middle of the sweatshop proposition? We know Republicans have abandoned democracy. For a decade we have been talking about democracy non-stop. But do we need to refresh ourselves on what democracy means? I’ve been working on that.
Can we all agree that, in our splendid and extraordinary 250-year history, even the “best people”, to use Nicole Wallace’s term, have somehow failed in maintaining for the whole nation a unitary appreciation for the core conceptual values of democracy?
These most fundamental values are, in a nutshell I believe, maximum possible individual autonomy and the capacity of ordinary citizens to influence official policy, and for science and rational objective thought to apply in what we all experience mutually as reality, which marks a similar devotion to the conditional and temporary but useful validation of ideas and theories through the ability of ordinary individuals to independently confirm the authenticity of those ideas and theories by observing, duplicating and repeating experiments, or rigorous peer review (the scientific method).
The Enlightenment elevated the public and cultural appreciation for these core values, and there were more or less immediate positive benefits for organized society, one of which was the formation of our democratic government. However, there have always been and will always be those who are not at all comfortable with the ideas of full and free autonomy for individuals or for scientific rationality and process to have precedence over superstition or emotion-driven irrational thinking.
Those reticent people who never bought into enlightenment thinking were not going to be ignored or outdone. They did not necessarily have a uniform strategic or conscious intentional plan, nor did they probably collude or organize. Each did what they were accustomed to doing. Some of the more zealous or purposeful who saw the potential to promote their common approach, attitudes, and interests through actions, for what they were ostensibly worth, took them and sold them to all who were likeminded or to all who could be persuaded of their importance. They knew what they wanted.
First, they institutionalized what they believed to be education by promoting taxpayer-funded schools for a large part of the population. Education was highly valued. Their conception of education originally happened to include many elements of the science of the day according to the common and popular imagery of knowledge of that time, as well as incorporating the philosophy, social customs and habits, national identity, and various expressions of specific religious and superstitious tradition and thinking which became a formalized curriculum.
The design of the schooling had minimal leeway to allow change. Indeed, change has occurred at glacial speed. Soon after, they established laws which made attendance in their institutions meant for inculcation and indoctrination mandatory (indoctrination was not a secret or stealthy, nor was it frowned upon generally; it was purposeful).
In both instances, meaningful and practical autonomy for individuals was lessened as an essential feature and as a component in the experience and minds or perceptions of youth. The spirit of the pioneering Yankee who forged ahead according to his or her own instincts and ambitions was significantly tamed and suppressed.
In the first instance, the institutions or schools merely diluted autonomy as numbers, space, and time dictated that the attention and focus of individuals be divided to distribute resources and to accommodate the group. That was simply a recognition of the value of society and sharing of assets and resources. But when schooling became mandatory as a matter of law denying and usurping parental mastery or sovereignty over their own progeny, the essential control, coercion, and divided focus in those staid and revered institutions transformed what had been educational endeavors and activities into something completely different.
Autonomy was not just compromised; it was devalued by default and effectively replaced by that old standby, dependence on external and superior entities and authorities. Control was an essential feature where the state assumed responsibility for the health, welfare, education, discipline, and ambitions of children and where there was the expectation of developmental progress.
Almost no one today recognizes how profoundly this affects our democratic system. Democracy is totally reliant on citizens who are not only well-educated, well-informed, and aware of the state of affairs at any given time. It is equally reliant on citizens whose frame of mind is centered on the need for, value of, and experience with autonomy. Freedom and liberty are empty expressions if citizens take them for granted or if they lack the spirit and spunk to apply them in their normal regular relations with those in power or with those who have the capacity to control their destiny. Students who are inept and apathetic clog the gears of democracy.
I have waited years for someone to affirm this simple truth and to demonstrate an understanding of the implications of this reality. Instead, the reality and facts, backed up by documentation, research, history, and sound logic are dismissed out of hand as if they are merely my stubborn subjective opinion. Am I dealing with science-minded, rational adults? I have to keep asking myself why I have hit an impenetrable brick wall, while democracy continues to decline.
I am neither a purist, a perfectionist, nor a Utopian. I do know right from wrong and reality from unreality, however. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it hundreds of times. Trump was not elected twice by well-educated citizens. Neither was Nixon, Reagan, or Bush the lesser. Schools coach students, sometimes for months, to perform in programs to make an impression on parents and grandparents, eliciting great emotional responses and confidence in the institution. They bring out star pupils and special programs to show for families and media and they incorrigibly ‘teach to the test’ to boost meaningless test scores. Unfortunately, when we look at actual proficiencies, knowledge, competencies, life and work skills, habits, intellectual depth, character, etc., we are regularly and profoundly disappointed.
Make this make sense. We talk every day about our love for and belief in democracy. We enthusiastically celebrate 250 years of democracy. We are willing to fight, risk going to prison, or dying for the idea of democracy. Yet, we have laws which make it practically impossible to have a democratic architecture in our public schools where our children are immersed in an authoritarian milieu for twelve interminable years. They live and learn a way of life and attitudes which effectively eliminate choice, autonomy, agency, self-respect, scientific process, and common sense.
I will say it one more time. Those who delude themselves and deny that our schools are a major source of the ignorance about, appreciation for, and devotion to the institutions of democracy are in denial and cling to a view of schools which is highly erroneous and childlike. “Informed political judgments” are not emanating from these sterile institutions. Can anyone say with a straight face that they believe that the lack of civics and history classes is the reason we have people talking with intention about giving autocracy, oligarchy, theocracy, or a moderate form of fascism a try?
This is from an article entitled, “Democracy in the Classroom?” published in Academic Exchange Quarterly (2006 Summer) by Paul R. Carr, Youngstown State University.
“,,,most respondents admitted to not having a truly democratic educational experience during their high school years… most of the students viewed democracy in education as being uniquely or primarily associated with elections.”
Do bright people really believe that phenomenally few people read books and literature for pleasure or for meaningful information and knowledge acquisition now solely because ubiquitous videos and other electronic devices and media have become substitutes for the printed word? Four out of ten read no books at all in the course of a year, as reported by Susan Jacoby in “The Age of American Unreason” (2008). Jacoby speculates about a future “Magazine for People Who Hate to Read.” In a later section about a study of Internet use by young people, she states that title of the report “might as well have been, “Ignorant and Proud of it.”
Cmon people. Get real. Schools have turned students off to reading for generations because they have another agenda which has nothing whatsoever to do with intellectual development or cultural preservation, and certainly not with democracy. Kids have an aversion to reading because it has come to represent drudgery, paternalism, and boredom in a prison-like atmosphere.
When will we stop talking in platitudes about children learning about democracy and start talking about how children absorb and acquire as instinctive or involuntary rituals and behaviors obedience, conformity, cynicism, compliance, passivity, and trivial pursuit, instead? Democracy must be lived and breathed to be real.
Is this a site about democracy, or is it about feeling good about ourselves because we are not like those dummies who were too lazy or too dumb to complete homework assignments? Just asking for a friend.