Featuring Meredith Blake; Kim Lane Scheppele; Justin Wolfers & Jen Rubin; Dana Sussman; Tom Malinowski; Brian O'Neill; and "Let's Do Lunch" with Jared Bernstein
When are the Contrarians going to graduate from finding fault, I call it pointing the the beer cans in your neighbor's yard, and start offering ideas on how to beat bastards at the ballot box? In my humble opinion to beat them we have to get more votes in red districts. Whining about all the bad stuff that the trumpers are doing simply will not do it.
The most important strategy for the Democrats and Independent voters NOW , is building an aggressive strategy “get out to vote”campaign for the midterms. You can’t govern if you don’t win.
Maybe you could start by interviewing the governor from Oh say Kansas, Arizona, North Carolina, Kentucky, et all about how they did it instead of whining about trump and his quislings.
Here's a thought: MAGA has shown the way. Their reaction to the Epstein file shows that what Democrats need to do is find the things that bother MAGA most. Then, make public, very public, how Trump has not done anything to address their concerns!
I see Contrarians not really fight for democracy, not offer ideas, not care enough for social programs or political and social justice. The country with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world - more characteristic of dictatorships than democracies - the country with insane social differences where 2 people possess half of the wealth and 1% more than 90% - again more characteristic of dictatorships than democracies - is in a desperate situation and is crying for new social awareness, of a kind that say Mamdani offers for the NYC. Not to speak that the US directly enables the genocide of Gaza, one of the greatest crimes against humanity in modern history, and yet Contrarians remain basically silent about it - the silence is complicit, as I am sure all of them and us here believe when it comes to the Holocaust for example. Seven Democratic senators, including Schiff and Schumer, took recently a chubby picture with Netanyahu, the war criminal accused of crimes against humanity by the ICC. - and yet, not a word here. I have to read it in the media, mind boggling. It breaks my heart to see this lack of solidarity and empathy, the lack of desire to fight for the core of democracy. As if it was sufficient to criticise Trump and his fascist cronies to feel proud as a democrat, as if the only problem in the US was Trump, as if he was the cause and not the consequence of the present day erosion of democracy and the rule of law, as if one person could destroy a functioning democracy.
I am sorry but I do not think a costal liberal will turn the tide. We simply must get back to kitchen table issues to reestablish credibility with working class Americans. Running up the score in New York and California get us nothing.
Buddy, I would disagree with you a bit. Depending upon increasing turnout in red districts is not enough. We must begin to reestablish our coalition of both college educated and non-college educated folks and meet the where they are with policies that will help their lives. We have to win in red districts and turning out more people like us has proven to be a loser.
Reading over the comments I very much agree that finding fault and whining has become very, very old. Instead, talk with/interview governors and other upcoming/current crop of Democrats, especially, as Ralph Parrott suggested, from the "successful" red states. We need to focus on candidates who appeal to a wider range of voters so that midterm and national elections can change the current situation. The appealing candidates have to be centrist; Americans outside the major cities and away from East or West coasts are NOT going to vote for left of center. The Sanders, Mamdani, AOC range of politicians will NOT carry middle America.
This whole business of everything (in this case, the legislature's authority as against the president's, "hanging by a thread" is absurd. Perhaps at some point The Contrarian will figure out - that bridge has been crossed.
The Supreme Court's ideological and corrupt majority ruled that the President (in this case a lifelong cheat and criminal associate of gangsters who launched a failed coup under the public gaze in January 2021) IS ABOVE THE LAW.
If that can be better understood in Latin, please go back to Ulpian's original declaration in the 3rd century AD: Princeps legibus solutus est. (The ruler is not bound by the laws.)
So just stop sounding the alarm about how it's all going to come crashing down - IT HAS ALREADY COLLAPSED. This country is being run by a gangster and his criminal enablers and accomplices.
The Supreme Court’s current stays on lower court TRO’s on Donald Trump's Executive actions, orders and interferences rely on a presumption of legitimacy that he is not entitled to, given the merits of the evidence of his disqualification and could be a powerful check on obstruction efforts and otherwise circular defenses employed to sidestep many merited claims, blocked by similar presumptions, and could also be used to justify action in other branches, or enable career officials and officers to disobey unconstitutional orders with greater confidence they will receive proper scrutiny, regardless of downstream removal enforcement outcomes.
Preview of Oral Argument before Judge Reyes, DC on July 21, 2025
When are the Contrarians going to graduate from finding fault, I call it pointing the the beer cans in your neighbor's yard, and start offering ideas on how to beat bastards at the ballot box? In my humble opinion to beat them we have to get more votes in red districts. Whining about all the bad stuff that the trumpers are doing simply will not do it.
The most important strategy for the Democrats and Independent voters NOW , is building an aggressive strategy “get out to vote”campaign for the midterms. You can’t govern if you don’t win.
Maybe you could start by interviewing the governor from Oh say Kansas, Arizona, North Carolina, Kentucky, et all about how they did it instead of whining about trump and his quislings.
Here's a thought: MAGA has shown the way. Their reaction to the Epstein file shows that what Democrats need to do is find the things that bother MAGA most. Then, make public, very public, how Trump has not done anything to address their concerns!
I see Contrarians not really fight for democracy, not offer ideas, not care enough for social programs or political and social justice. The country with one of the highest incarceration rates in the world - more characteristic of dictatorships than democracies - the country with insane social differences where 2 people possess half of the wealth and 1% more than 90% - again more characteristic of dictatorships than democracies - is in a desperate situation and is crying for new social awareness, of a kind that say Mamdani offers for the NYC. Not to speak that the US directly enables the genocide of Gaza, one of the greatest crimes against humanity in modern history, and yet Contrarians remain basically silent about it - the silence is complicit, as I am sure all of them and us here believe when it comes to the Holocaust for example. Seven Democratic senators, including Schiff and Schumer, took recently a chubby picture with Netanyahu, the war criminal accused of crimes against humanity by the ICC. - and yet, not a word here. I have to read it in the media, mind boggling. It breaks my heart to see this lack of solidarity and empathy, the lack of desire to fight for the core of democracy. As if it was sufficient to criticise Trump and his fascist cronies to feel proud as a democrat, as if the only problem in the US was Trump, as if he was the cause and not the consequence of the present day erosion of democracy and the rule of law, as if one person could destroy a functioning democracy.
The work you do is amazing
I am sorry but I do not think a costal liberal will turn the tide. We simply must get back to kitchen table issues to reestablish credibility with working class Americans. Running up the score in New York and California get us nothing.
Buddy, I would disagree with you a bit. Depending upon increasing turnout in red districts is not enough. We must begin to reestablish our coalition of both college educated and non-college educated folks and meet the where they are with policies that will help their lives. We have to win in red districts and turning out more people like us has proven to be a loser.
Reading over the comments I very much agree that finding fault and whining has become very, very old. Instead, talk with/interview governors and other upcoming/current crop of Democrats, especially, as Ralph Parrott suggested, from the "successful" red states. We need to focus on candidates who appeal to a wider range of voters so that midterm and national elections can change the current situation. The appealing candidates have to be centrist; Americans outside the major cities and away from East or West coasts are NOT going to vote for left of center. The Sanders, Mamdani, AOC range of politicians will NOT carry middle America.
This whole business of everything (in this case, the legislature's authority as against the president's, "hanging by a thread" is absurd. Perhaps at some point The Contrarian will figure out - that bridge has been crossed.
The Supreme Court's ideological and corrupt majority ruled that the President (in this case a lifelong cheat and criminal associate of gangsters who launched a failed coup under the public gaze in January 2021) IS ABOVE THE LAW.
If that can be better understood in Latin, please go back to Ulpian's original declaration in the 3rd century AD: Princeps legibus solutus est. (The ruler is not bound by the laws.)
So just stop sounding the alarm about how it's all going to come crashing down - IT HAS ALREADY COLLAPSED. This country is being run by a gangster and his criminal enablers and accomplices.
The Supreme Court’s current stays on lower court TRO’s on Donald Trump's Executive actions, orders and interferences rely on a presumption of legitimacy that he is not entitled to, given the merits of the evidence of his disqualification and could be a powerful check on obstruction efforts and otherwise circular defenses employed to sidestep many merited claims, blocked by similar presumptions, and could also be used to justify action in other branches, or enable career officials and officers to disobey unconstitutional orders with greater confidence they will receive proper scrutiny, regardless of downstream removal enforcement outcomes.
Preview of Oral Argument before Judge Reyes, DC on July 21, 2025
https://open.substack.com/pub/randoliberal/p/updates-on-trump-disqualification?r=u47dz&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true