They are still counting votes in California, but at least we know that Democrat Xavier Becerra will advance to the general election. I would think that would make him a huge favorite to be the next governor. The number two spot is still uncertain, but MAGA Steve Hilton is slightly ahead of Dem Tom Steyer.
I need to take a break from complaining about Trump, so I will instead complain about that other scourge of contemporary America, centrist Dems. There’s a great piece by Monica Potts at The New Republic about a recent gathering of a center-left political action committee called Welcome PAC. I’m not sure I’ve ever heard of it, but I take it it’s been around for a while. Something that comes across in Potts’s insightful writing is how reactive the centrists are. There’s an emptiness to them. They define themselves entirely by declaring what they are not. It’s as if they have no fixed core of values or goals other than winning elections.
“Centrism, in reality, is almost always defined by where it lies on the spectrum between two extremes: Its politics are almost monomaniacally focused on arguing that those who stand apart have gone too far,” Potts writes. And I’m thinking back to the 1970s and 1980s, when the New Deal coalition was coming apart and the New Left was fading, and Reaganism was on the rise. The response from the Democrats was the New Democrats, led by Bill Clinton, which turned its back on the muscular anti-poverty programs of the New Deal and Great Society and instead looked to market-based solutions to hardship, ways to tweak the economy to maybe make it work a bit better for poor folks (while making more money for rich folks).
Alex Pareene wrote back in 2022 that “Clintonites taught their party how to talk about helping people without actually doing it.”
The crew that would come to take over the Democratic Party organized themselves, in the 1980s, around the idea that the party had become discredited among the public because it was in thrall to its more liberal elements. These “New Democrats” gravitated toward Gary Hart, who unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic Party nomination in 1984, positioned as the candidate of “new ideas” against Walter Mondale, ostensibly the embodiment of stale Great Society liberalism. Hart, along with allies like Representative Tim Wirth, articulated what Geismer calls “larger generational skepticism with large institutions and bureaucracy.” In practice, “large institutions” tended to mean unions and government agencies. The New Democrats were similarly allergic to “transactional politics” and “special interest groups,” which Geismer helpfully defines as “African Americans, women, white farmers, and, especially, organized labor.”
As the Republican Party moved further right through the 1900s and into the 21st century, the Democrats seemed to lose any identity at all. Who are their constituents? They tend to attract people who are better educated, but is that because of what the Democrats offer or because at least they are not Republicans? And meanwhile, in large swaths of working-class America people at least hear Republicans directly addressing their problems, even if what the Republicans say is often nuts if not hateful. If you don’t understand economics it’s easier to believe that minorities are taking your jobs and stealing your money, somehow, than to grasp what’s really going on. Especially when you don’t see the other party going out of its way to help you all that much.
And now it’s 2026. Potts describes a Welcome PAC speaker on health care reform: “On this last point, Mark Cuban spoke at length about his ideas for health care, which rely largely on hoary ideas like HSA spending accounts—like a man who missed the yearslong health care debate leading up to the election of President Barack Obama and the passage of the Affordable Care Act.”
Most of the people in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party today came up through the ranks during the New Democrat era and are pretty much stuck in its thinking. I see the New Democrats as less about an ideology than a strategy. When movement conservatism was on the rise and gaining popularity, Bill Clinton and others positioned themselves just to the left of, but not directly in opposition to, Republican policies. And that worked for a time. It was a useful strategy.
But now the GOP has just plain gone bat guano crazy and so far Right to a place where democracy cannot survive. And the centrists don’t know how to do real opposition. It’s not in their nature. It’s why they’ve been so ineffectual and so slow to stand up to Trump. And just where is the center any more? If you’re defining center as a mid-point between two ends, the center is way to the right of where it used to be. The so-called “far left,” on the other hand, would have been right at home in the New Deal.
At the New York Times Jamelle Bouie has a new column following up the one I wrote about a couple of days ago (which I could tell from your comments most of you didn’t read, btw), The new column is about what must be done after Trump. When Trump is finally gone, Bouie writes, what will be needed is not a restoration but a reconstruction. And for inspiration he looked to the Congress that saw the end of the Civil War and brought us the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. This was the Congress of the “Radical Republicans.” They were not shy about using every scrap of power the Constitution gave them while keeping a conservative Supreme Court and a useless President Andrew Johnson in their places. Yes, eventually much of their work would be undone and Reconstruction would be unfinished. But It was an amazing thing for a while. Bouie:
As I wrote, should Democrats have control of the White House and both branches of Congress in 2029, they will be faced with a project of reconstruction, not restoration. You could do worse in those circumstances than to ask: What would Charles Sumner do? What would Thaddeus Stevens do? What would John Bingham do?
They wouldn’t stand by and allow their project to be destroyed by the hostile forces arrayed against them. They would look to the Constitution which, for all of its flaws, gives Congress the power and authority to make its vision reality.
But that’s going to require leaders who have vision and some core convictions that are not just a reaction to what the other side is up to. I don’t think the current leadership of the Democratic Party is up to it.
I get you. In 1776, all of Europe was ruled by monarchies paired with a national religion. Some had an elected legislature with some power to limit the king. In some cases, the state-sponsored religion was the only one allowed. Other countries were almost tolerant of minority religions. The US redefined the formula of governance instead of tweaking the components of a system that always contained the elements of a despotism.
The US allowed ALL religions and made them equal. (I'm not saying religious persecution in the US never happened – it was never institutional, like having a Church of England.) They substituted loyalty to an individual with loyalty to a document, the US Constitution. This was radical and foundational. The Civil War Amendments were transformative. The philosophy behind the New Deal was a fundamental change in the role of government. Who can be banned from or required to use a public restroom is not.
I submit – and you can disagree – that a ban on big money in politics is radical. It entirely changes what's possible because the vast majority in government, particularly the legislature, will not and can not be in the grip of corporations and the ultra-rich when big money can’t buy the outcome.. Stupid ideas will still be proposed, and some will pass, but a good idea won't die because corporations murdered it through the hit men who fat cats positioned in key jobs.
I think AOC gets it. “My ambition is to change this country. Presidents come and go, Senate, House seats, elected officials, come and go, but single-payer healthcare is forever. A living wage is forever. Workers’ rights are forever. Women’s rights — all of that.”
The first craft to land on the moon was a wonderful assembly of unique inventions – gadgets. All that stuff was placed in the service of a grand vision – putting a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. It's easy to conflate, by accident or design (Fox, I'm looking at you.) the gismos for the vision. They are not the same thing.
I loved Bouie when I was a regular reader of the NYT. He is spot on, as usual when he compares what's coming to Reconstruction. Eventually, it will be a rebirth of America, but an America different than before. I have to believe there are various liberal think tanks – not those trapped in centricism – who will appear with multiple plans to right the ship, stemming from their own interests. I can see Barack Obama involved with reforming the courts and constitutional amendments. Other plans, coming from people who understand the way elections were screwed with, will advance proposals for securing elections. And finally, whoever runs in 2028 is going to have a platform, which ideally will be a synthesis drawn from all of them.
As some context, it's my belief we're going through a political realignment as big as the Reagan revolution of 1980. This will take years to unfold. It will be a big achievement to win both houses of Congress this year. An even bigger one, the presidency in 2028, and even bigger in 2032. The more power we get, the more momentum we get, the bolder the visions that can be realized.
I've mentioned several times that I'm a huge fan of "The Fourth Turning", which posits a cyclical, seasonal view of American and British history. It's a tremendously useful map for understanding where we've been and where we are headed. It came out in the 90s, has been prescient. A successor volume, “The Fourth Turning is Here" is a recent update.
Off topic from Salon.com…
Fuel prices have spiked around the world since the war started, for obvious reasons. But in fact, they haven’t gone up quite as precipitously as we might have expected, considering that about 25% of the world’s oil supply has been bottled up in the Strait of Hormuz for the past few months. That respite is about to end. Last week, Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said that the “buffers and the shock absorbers” in the global petroleum market “are being steadily drawn down, and the ability for the market to absorb this imbalance is drastically diminished today versus where we started.” In other words, the reserves his company and others have been tapping — including the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve, which is supposed to be used only for global emergencies — are about to run out.
According to Politico, industry executives have been privately warning the White House that prices are about to surge dramatically over the next month. but Trump officials claim they haven’t heard a thing about it. In fact, they insist there’s no supply problem and that as soon as the strait is open, fuel prices will go back down to where they were in February and everything will be hunky-dory. Anyone who buys that line is going to be very disappointed. One expert told Politico, “I’ve never seen inventory numbers fall so much so quickly. It is stunning.”
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As of yesterday, Trump said he has no plans to withdraw US military from the region and the blockade against Iran that shut the Straight of Hormuz is the most effective weapon against Iran. (I paraphrase.) IMO, of you got a dip in oil prices last week, enjoy it while you can.
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Also too boring for headlines, unusually strong employment figures coupled with extremely high inflation mean the Fed will likely raise the prime interest rate at their next meeting. IMO, Trump intended the prime rate would decline at every meeting of the Fed through the summer to goose the economy.
As long as I'm off topic and Maha hasn't slapped me down, I have a question.
Has anyone seen the numbers (not speculation of future revenue) on AI cost vs income?
From my lowly perch, it seems like THE key stat. If AI companies are spending a hundred dollars on AI for every dollar of income, this is a big, big, bubble. The ornly new industry generated by AI development seems to be AI chat porn. (And there are AI hunks for the straight, lonely ladies) But I don't think the revenue generated AI characters who make Dolly Parton look like a flat-chested geek pay off an AI castle in less than a millennium. (I forgot that Wendys is using an AI menu application in the drive-thru that can't r???????emember??????? that they're out of chili,)
I antagonize automated callers with, "Are you a bot?" until they admit it and tell it I'm transferring them to talk to my voice mail. So they can be with their own kind.
AI has to generate cash, not savings. Is Amazon paying billions each year? Investment in AI os not income. It's a scam unless customers with fistfuls of money line up.
“Clintonites taught their party how to talk about helping people without actually doing it.”
The second part to that is, "while making them think they are helping them."
This is why the party leadership is scared to death of Mamdani, Platner, AOC, Sanders and others of that ilk. They got the memo, they just didn't read the part where you're not supposed to actually help people beyond tinkering around the edges of policy that already has either failed or isn't enough. They didn't read the part that says any solution to help the working class (all of them, not just "whites") must not take from, or somehow antagonize the tender sensitivities of wealthy donors.
This is why the democratic party is polling as bad if not worse then the GOP who, instead of fixing the things they said, have made everything worse. Voters are leaning towards democrats for the mid terms because they're sick of Trump and republicans, and voting democrat is the only way to take their power away and make them pay. At the same time, they don't trust the democrats, as party leadership has been studious in avoiding committing to obvious solutions. They're voting against republicans, and not for democrats.
There are things they could be doing to address issues created by republicans. Take for example the aptly named screwworm infestation that's destroying the beef market. The programs that existed to eradicate and control this parasite in cattle were axed by DOGE as fraud, waste and abuse. Democrats should be saying something like, republicans cut funding for screwworm control, which is why the beef market is being destroyed. When we are in power, we will restore funding for screwworm control along with every other program the Trump/GOP cut that has driven up costs and devastated farming. But they won't. because this means a comittment to doing something that might run afoul of the donors, or worse, somehow insult republicans whose votes they salivate over, since the only way they know of validating their worth is if republican voters are supporting us, we must be doing something right.
Democrats may well go on to win one or both houses of congress in 2026, in spite of themselves. But the momentum will come to a screeching halt for 2028 if they don't effectively address the issues republicans left for them, and at least gain voters trust that they are capable of doing more than just talking a good game about helping them. Not to mention the time bomb the GOP planted, in Trump's BBB, the most hurtful provisions of which don't kick in until 2027. Shameless republicans will blame democrats for every bad thing they've implemented in that bill, from SNAP to Medicaid cuts. And if things don't improve for consumers, farmers, etc., voters for whom ancient history is last year, will be in another throw the bums out mode, and open the door for yet another incompetent, corrupt, authoritarian republican administration. Who knows? Trump, who, if he is around, won't want to leave, may take that as an opportunity to repackage himself and take another run at it. God forbid.