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Can Democratic Leadership Get ANYHTING Right? (Yes, Sort of) [1]
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Date: 2025-09-15
I had just written a series of diaries, critical of our Democratic Leadership for failing to understand the moment we’re in:
The angrier I got, the more caps I used in the title. Forgive me. The series really just reflects my growing anger at Democratic Leadership for unnecessary servile and obsequious behavior towards an actually (very weak) President.
We saw Democrats voting for Trump’s nominees. We saw Democrats voting for “bipartisan” legislation that Trump wants. And we saw this most recently, this past week, with the gushing Democratic eulogies for right wing podcaster Charlie Kirk, who not only didn’t hold elected office, but claimed black women lacked intellectual capacity to compete with white men, setting off a rightwing panic, leading to the claim that any (black) woman pilot was a DEI hire(1). Charlie Kirk did not hide his bigoted views. Democrats previously praised for standing up to and fighting Trump in the list of diaries, above, like Gov. Newsom and Gov. Pritzker, were part of the overly emotional response, hoping rightwing violence won’t come for them eventually. All the while, we have the approaching shutdown fight over the continuing resolution, after Democrats caved this past spring.
x think a key thing about the chattering class type reactionary centrists is they have been looking for an excuse to give up for like a decade at this point
[image or embed] — Reconstructionist (@unavaleable.bsky.social) September 12, 2025 at 4:12 PM
x I’ve been a huge fan of Gov. Whitmer for years and she did a fantastic job of standing up to Trump & MAGA for her first 6 years as Governor, but it feels like last November broke her spirit. It’s not just the embarrassing WH visit or the half-hug last spring. There seems to be more to it. 1/ — Charles Gaba (@charlesgaba.com) September 11, 2025 at 10:41 PM
I’d like to point out that elected officials have the full protection of their state police and national guard. Elite journalists make well over $200,000 a year and should be protected by their wealthy corporations. Us ordinary citizens aren’t so lucky.
Meteor Blades offered the following comment to one of the diaries I wrote criticizing Democratic Leadership:
Meteor Blades Sep 05, 2025 at 09:17:30 AM While I agree with most of this, NFS, I think it would be good to have such criticisms paired with a diary touting the elected/appointed Democrats who ARE fighting back. There are plenty of them, and most are not as visible as Reps. Jasmine Crockett or AOC or Sen. Elizabeth Warren, or Sen. Bernie Sanders. Those more obscure fighters should get the spotlight, too.
Yes, yes they are.
We see rank and file Democrats risking their jobs to stand up to fascism.
In Iowa, a Town Supervisor refused to lower the flags to half mast for Charlie Kirk, saying:
“I condemn Kirk’s killing, regardless of who pulled the trigger or why,” he wrote on the social media platform. “But I will not grant Johnson County honors to a man who made it his life’s mission to denigrate so many of the constituents I have sworn an oath to protect, and who did so much to harm not only the marginalized, but also to degrade the fabric of our body politic.” Green, a Democrat, noted he would “accept any consequence, whether legal or electoral, for my decision. It is mine alone.”
Meanwhile, Isaiah Martin is running for Congress to represent a district in Houston:
A town supervisor and a candidate for congress understand the moment, each in their own way. The problem is, we live in a media environment completely captured by billionaires and wholly censorious towards liberalism. Finding other contributions will be harder, so their stories will have to wait a little longer.
Our National Democratic politicians have also shown a little more fortitude as of late. Not to harp on the Zohran Mamdani mayoral run again, but the reaction of Democratic Leadership has been nothing short of abject cowardice. Sen. Van Hollen calls out “spineless politics”:
x 🚨👀 Seems like a BFD - Sen Van Hollen calls out New Yorkers like Chuck Schumer, Kirsten Gillibrand, Hakeem Jeffries for “spineless politics” bc of not endorsing Mamdani. Great to see CVH speaking w moral clarity w/o fear. More of this please. 🔥
[image or embed] — Murshed Zaheed (@murshedz.bsky.social) September 13, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Good for him. I’d like to also point out that Sen. Van Hollen led the charge into El Salvador to completely undercut the Trump Administration’s case against Kilmar Garcia, that was, until Leader Jeffries asked Democrats to stop, because … reasons.
Meanwhile, Sen. Schumer had been blocking the lesser of Trump’s agency nominees at a supposedly “unprecedented” rate. Time is the most precious commodity to the Senate, and Republicans have now wasted 8 months trying to approve Trump’s lower nominees thanks to Sen. Schumer. This is good. This was also a common tactic during Democratic Administrations to hamper the function of the Government. But Sen. Schumer held his caucus together and took the blockage to a supposedly “egregious” level.
Uh oh. Grandpa’s angry
Once Trump got involved, Republicans eliminated the filibuster on nominees. Lest you think Democrats got owned here, Sen. Schumer was deliberately stalling for time to eat up as much of the Senate calendar as possible, and then pulled a Br’er rabbit move with Republicans. These nominees would be approved anyways, but the next Democratic Administration will be able to confirm all their nominees on Day 1 instead of the 8 months it took the Republicans. Sen. Schumer has also been doing a great job on recruitment for 2026. But bright spots get a little harder to find from here on out...
Blocking an unpopular President’s nominees is the base case; what should be expected. The really big question for Democrats is: do they truly understand this moment? I keep coming back to this quote from 1984:
“We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power. What pure power means you will understand presently. We are different from the oligarchies of the past in that we know what we are doing.” — 1984, by George Orwell
And the big test for whether Democrats understand this moment right now is the vote on the continuing resolution. Basically, Republicans need Democratic votes to avoid a Government Shutdown — Democrats are under no obligation (except in their own heads) to provide these votes. This (in theory) gives Democrats leverage, in that they could extract concessions from Republicans in exchange for the votes Republicans need to avoid a shutdown.
In fairness to Democratic Leadership, I must first acknowledge the following two points:
Democrats could get blamed for a government shutdown. No Party shutting down the government has ever won the argument. I can’t find the TV clip from the 90’s, but an interview with Roger Ailes revealed that it was his fury over Newt Gingrich losing the government shutdown feud with Bill Clinton that inspired him to found FOX News. Now Democrats aren’t shutting down the government here — they are simply not giving their votes. Republicans also have unified control of the government unlike past times. It’s a big difference. But we’re also in a media environment now where it’s illegal to question Charlie Kirk right now. How it would play out in the media is a jump ball. Democrats feel they are in a good position to retake the house and maybe even the Senate in 2026. That would be earth shattering, and end the Trump Presidency. They are worried about point #1 messing up point #2 here. And it is true that all that matters is winning in 2026.
Lost amongst the Charlie Kirk news, it does appear Democrats have maybe decided to not completely cave this time and would require concessions from Republicans in exchange for their votes to pass the continuing resolution. On one hand, we have our more notorious cowardly Democrats, like Sen. Fetterman and Sen. Cortez Masto, running to The Hill to complain that “progressives” are forcing them to “do things”, like take a stand, and that they will not withhold their votes. On the other hand, Sen. Schumer and Leader Jeffries have seemed to focus on requiring extension of the Obamacare subsidies cut by the Big Beautiful Bill as a concession. If you weren’t aware, in order to fund tax cuts for billionaires, Republicans cut Obamacare subsidies with the Big Beautiful Bill. But these cuts don’t happen right away. They go into effect at the beginning of 2026, meaning many Americans will face skyrocketing healthcare costs, thanks to Republicans, right before the midterm elections. Republicans themselves are even nervous about this cost increase. So if this sounds to you like Democrats deciding between: a) surrender, or b) bailing Republicans out of their own mess, you’d be right. Democrats aren’t really fighting for anything here. It’s a choice between asking for something they’d likely get, or refusing to fight at all. Worse, Democrats are perhaps settling for only a temporary extension of the Obamacare subsidies until after the election. Please follow our friend Charles Gaba for a more detailed account of the expiration of Obamacare subsidies:
I am a big proponent of Obamacare, and do not want to run afoul of our friend Charles Gaba. There is an ethical point to be made that extending the Obamacare subsidies, even temporarily, is the right thing to do because it will avoid pain and suffering, primarily among people who voted for Trump in the first place, and save lives.
But the argument Democrats should just do the right thing sounds to me like cries from the farmers who voted for Trump, but who are now complaining that they have nowhere to sell their soybeans, because China cancelled all their orders over Trump’s tariffs. Oh, and they now want another multi-billion dollar bailout.
Now there is no talk about adding a soybean bailout to the concessions Democratic seek for their votes. But how would it be any different than the Obamacare bailout?
I mean no disrespect to the people whose subsidies will go up, perhaps being priced out of healthcare, but Republicans control all three branches of government -- it is not Democrats jobs to bail them out of their bad governance. If Republicans are nervous about the Obamacare subsidies ending, let them pass something to reinstate them on their own. I am sure Democrats would be able to join them. Democrats’ concession being aid to Republicans shows Democrats still do not understand this moment. Deliverism does not work. Joe Biden just gave a 4 year master class in deliverism — voters hated it. There is zero chance any voter will reward Democrats at the polls in 2026 for extending their Obamacare subsidies. So why not make your concession hurt Trump?
Josh Marshall identifies three things Democrats could be asking for instead:
1) Forcing Trump to get Congress to pass a law making his tariffs legal 2) Force him to end his rescissions and make him follow the congressionally passed budget. 3) End the invasions of American cities.
I could add a fourth: unmasking ICE. Ban ICE agents from concealing their faces. Watch Steven Miller’s recruitment drop way off, making his goal of whitening America impossible.
All of these four things (tariffs, recissions, invasion of cities, ICE masking) are already deeply unpopular and it would show Democrats are not only willing to fight and are responding to their base, but also actually understanding the moment . Yes, I’m glad Democrats responded to pressure and are at least thinking about asking for concessions. Checkmark on the first half of what they have to do. But they are doing so blindly, because ultimately, they just want to go back to business as usual, something Americans detested and which in part has led us to this moment.
Josh Marshall has more on what Democrats timidity about the shutdown fight really reveals:
If you are this worried about a two- or three-month budget standoff and shutdown that you may take some short-term political hit from, you aren’t going to have the stomach to do [what is needed to end authoritarianism in America]. And if you’re not, this new system in creation under Trump II is not going anywhere. We need elected officials who are as ruthless on behalf of civic democracy as their opposites are on behalf of authoritarianism.
In contrast, check out this image from the battleship U.S.S. New Jersey, painted on a bulkhead:
A little grim, but what happened to the people who had this passion?
More from Josh Marshall:
The question I have is what kind of opposition in power you’re going to have? How focused will it be? How fierce a fight will they put up? The muscles and habits the anti-Trump opposition will have in 2027 with a Democratic Congress or in 2029 with a Democratic presidency will be the muscles and habits they learn and start acting on now.
This all reminds me of the Democratic rush to support George W. Bush and the Iraq War, before it was revealed to be a disaster, and ended up costing Hillary Clinton the Presidency in 2008. Here is Santiago Mayer of Voters of Tomorrow, an organization helping to mobilize young voters:
x At this point abolishing ICE and reforming the Supreme Court have to be non-negotiables for every 2028 Dem. — Santiago Mayer (@santiagomayer.com) September 8, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Are these Democrats willing to pack the court? Abolish ICE? Make it so no authoritarian can cause so much harm again? Right now, they may be showing a little more fortitude, but they’re also showing no, they are not willing to go that far. And if they don’t go that far, the fever will never break.
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(1) The qualifications to become a commercial airline pilot are of course strictly objective. DEI has nothing to do with it.
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