Arguably, the easiest way to do so is to not stay on the sidelines and actually take sides here (I'd take Trump's-if he's willing to denaturatalize Musk-we could probably drop any real opposition to a handful of nominees of his choice).
Democrats are no more associated with Anonymous than they are associated with Musk. That said, surely we’re capable of appreciating and applauding when either Musk or Anonymous does something that really damages the Mad King and blocks or slows down his crazy agenda.
We’re really not trying to convince die-hard Trump supporters of anything. If Trump says the sun rises in the west, we’d be hard-pressed to convince them it rises in the east.
However, there is a lot of other people who voted for Trump last time who can be convinced.
Right, but would those Trump voters be less likely to believe the documents if they're leaked by a hacking group, versus if they're released by the DoJ? (Recognizing that if Trump is in fact in the files, the DoJ will almost certainly not release them)
My point is mainly that I don't think the files will be released if Trump is in them, which means they will have to be leaked in order to become public, but I'm not certain that Trump voters will be inclined to believe the documents if they come from a leaked source.
On February 27, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel demanding release of “the full and complete Epstein files...including all records, documents, audio and video recordings, and materials related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients, regardless of how such information was obtained.” She insisted that, “[t]here will be no withholdings or limitations to my or your access.” And Bondi demanded a “comprehensive report” from the FBI Director “within 14 days.” Where is that report?
True, that. I’ve been seriously wondering what really happened to Anonymous. Tragic to see that Occupy Wall Street has been replaced by a crummy "Occupy Mars" T-shirt.
When were we a serious country last? We are accelerating towards the Chinese century. I was so naive when I believed that we had some structural advantage over dictatorships due to our liberal democratic traditions. I guess you just need to start a political cult, win elections, appoint justices who believe in the unitary executive theory and make the legislature extremely scared to cross you.
Unclear how successful China will be, as they face problems such as housing bubbles, a decrease in births leading to an overabundance of retirees and severe environmental problems. But whatever problems they have won't be likely to be due to the U.S.
Nine of the top 10 universities on the globe funded for science research are in China. Their virtues far outnumber their vices on the road to long-term success.
The wild card, of course, is that AI is gonna make us all dumber and more incurious. Perhaps China will become more complacent and malleable than the U.S. as a result. Doubtful but it's probably our best hope for not getting bulldozed by them.
Judges from both parties have shown a willingness to rein in Trump, and while Republicans certainly haven't stood up to him, their tiny majorities have prevented them from actually being able to make things worse.
Trump v. U.S. hasn't stopped judges from fighting back against him. They're not just laying back and saying "Trump has immunity, there's nothing we can do"..
NY 17, I think it's interesting that so many people have jumped in, but no particular heavyish hitters. I thought my state Senator might take a shot but no rumblings of that which I'm aware of.
I hope so. I’m also in NY-17 and State Sen. Harckham would be a stellar candidate — I volunteered on his 2018 State Senate run and he’s a nice guy/very effective legislator.
Probably not, actually...he overperformed Trump in 2024 by 6.5 points, but Dems are currently overperforming 2024 by I think 16 points. Even with half that enthusiasm next year, Lawler probably loses. However, New York has been a bit of a disaster for Dems the past couple election cycles, so who knows.
Texas state rep, former school teacher and Pastor James Talarico wants to run for Texas Senate against Ken Paxton. The article notes that he gets more reach on social media than Bernie, AOC and Buttigieg. He seems uninterested in challenging Abbott.
Exactly, the mirror opposite reason is why he is Texas Democratic strategists top recruit. A corrupt immoral ultraconservative Christian nationalist vs a Progressive Christian school teacher who regularly quotes the Bible. I believe that Democrats must reclaim the language of patriotism and religion. Buttigieg was doing good in this regard in 2020, but he has since stopped talking about religion. America is still the most religious developed nation, maybe after Poland.
I think both would be great candidates, it's like comparing apples to oranges. Allred has has a strong moderate appeal and a record of crossing the aisle while Talarico is a once in a generation politician and can emotionally appeal to people with his Progressive Christianity.
While paying attention to the open governorship in Oklahoma, we ought not to ignore the state's superintendant of public instruction, which is also up for election. The incumbent, Ryan Walters, is one of the most consequential MAGA nuts in the country. He has mandated that all high schools in Oklahoma teach "discrepancies" in the 2020 election that mean that Biden really lost, and he has required not only that Oklahoma schools teach the Bible but that they buy the Trump Bible. It is not yet clear whether Walters is running for reelection and who else might be running, but something should be done to save Oklahoma schoolchildren from religious and political indoctrination.
Re:Colorado 08: do more candidates make it more likely for Caraveo to win the primary, an undesirable outcome? Are there any primary runoffs in Colorado?
There's no runoff in Colorado, as far as I know. Boebert won the CO-04 primary last year with 43% of the vote. I can't remember the last time there was a busy primary on the Dem side. The last few cycles, even open seats or Republican held seats, have ended up with one or two candidates in the primary, like the Hickenlooper vs Romanoff race in 2020.
At this early stage, having more candidates probably helps Caraveo, but Dave Young may be able to overtake her, with his profile and name rec. I don't see the others being able to get a plurality with Caraveo and Young in the race (unless one of them crashes or another takes off). I also don't know that Caraveo is even established well enough for her to have much of a lasting advantage once the ads start running, since she only served one term and has experienced considerable damage to her public image since then.
Jessica Ramos has endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the NYC mayoral race, but it appears that Ramos, who was arguably the harshest critic of Cuomo of the mayoral candidates (even moreso than Zohran Mamdani), is not officially suspending her own mayoral bid. Ramos was the second-most notable candidate, after Cuomo, to not receive a preference endorsement from AOC.
That's potentially a huge mistake by Cuomo to pretty much act like ranked-choice voting is not being used in the primary (which it is), as most polling has shown Cuomo quite a ways away from 50%+1 on first preferences alone (a recent poll had Cuomo up just 54-46 over Zohran on two-candidate preferred).
Instant runoff voting does seem to generate more outright corruption amongst candidates. It's all games and trading favors and jobs to see who will endorse who and encourage their supporters to rank other candidates.
“I often say that I serve in Congress with some of the greatest minds of the 18th century. With Rep. Miller I may need to take it back a few more centuries," Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said.
Alabama is again appealing its long-running redistricting battle to the U.S. Supreme Court, two years after the high court already affirmed a district court decision that struck down the state’s original congressional map for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
That's why even a much stronger voting rights act won't solve gerrymandering, we need independent redistricting which Manchin stripped out but even after that, he didn't agree to pass it.
A new redistricting plan from 2023 that was struck down by the lower courts but never made it up to the Supreme Court. In the interim, the courts ordered Alabama to adopt a new map to add a second AA district.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the man at the center of a political and legal maelstrom after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, was flown back to the United States on Friday to face charges of transporting undocumented migrants.
The decision to pull Mr. Abrego Garcia out of El Salvador and instead put him on trial in an American courtroom could provide an offramp for the Trump administration, which has bitterly opposed court orders requiring the government to take steps to release him after his wrongful removal in March.
I honestly never thought he'd actually come back. Nice to see that our systems are slightly less broken than I had thought, even though they still fail to inspire confidence.
Apparently the charges stem from a jailhouse snitch in Tennessee. Also, according to The NY Times, A supervisor in the federal prosecutor’s office in Nashville resigned in recent weeks in a disagreement over how the Abrego Garcia case was being handled, according to two people familiar with the matter.
I was wondering that we have so many prominent or rising Democrats with origins in California, Texas and NY. Why aren't there any from Florida despite it being the 3rd most populated state? Where has an entire generation of political talent gone?
So what aboout Texas then? They seem to have some prominent up-and-comers. There must be even some state legislators or mayors or other local politicians who could do well in Florida.
Texas politicians are in the same boat as Florida politicians. Can win safe dem seats but can't win statewide. I can't say the politicians in Texas are better than Florida, i do like Crockett, she has a knack for getting attention.
My hope is that Crockett doesn’t just expose the GOP on TX but also fire up more Democrats and like minded voters to turn out in the state. Hope she’s playing the big game.
Ok, serious question: From the sidelines, how can Democrats most effectively throw fuel on the fire of the Trump–Musk feud?
Arguably, the easiest way to do so is to not stay on the sidelines and actually take sides here (I'd take Trump's-if he's willing to denaturatalize Musk-we could probably drop any real opposition to a handful of nominees of his choice).
No, with Musk out of government, Trump is the bigger enemy now.
I think we just keep doing what we're already doing: point and laugh.
Trump and Elon are so volatile as it is I'm not sure we need to do anything!
How about hammering Trump on Epstein. This is a start, but they need to do a lot more, at least rhetorically. Maybe even wake up Schumer and Jeffries.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevefm20.bsky.social/post/3lqx7q7qgt22l
Where is Anonymous when we need them? They should hack or snatch the Epstein files, and then release them in full.
I'd personally like it if our side didn't commit felonies-which is basically what associating with Anonymous would lead to.
Democrats are no more associated with Anonymous than they are associated with Musk. That said, surely we’re capable of appreciating and applauding when either Musk or Anonymous does something that really damages the Mad King and blocks or slows down his crazy agenda.
Would leaked Epstein files be seen as legitimate by Trump supporters? I can imagine them saying that its fake/made up and an attempt to smear him.
We’re really not trying to convince die-hard Trump supporters of anything. If Trump says the sun rises in the west, we’d be hard-pressed to convince them it rises in the east.
However, there is a lot of other people who voted for Trump last time who can be convinced.
Right, but would those Trump voters be less likely to believe the documents if they're leaked by a hacking group, versus if they're released by the DoJ? (Recognizing that if Trump is in fact in the files, the DoJ will almost certainly not release them)
My point is mainly that I don't think the files will be released if Trump is in them, which means they will have to be leaked in order to become public, but I'm not certain that Trump voters will be inclined to believe the documents if they come from a leaked source.
On February 27, Attorney General Pam Bondi wrote a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel demanding release of “the full and complete Epstein files...including all records, documents, audio and video recordings, and materials related to Jeffrey Epstein and his clients, regardless of how such information was obtained.” She insisted that, “[t]here will be no withholdings or limitations to my or your access.” And Bondi demanded a “comprehensive report” from the FBI Director “within 14 days.” Where is that report?
It takes a long time to redact Trump from all the records, documents, audio and video recordings.
And substitute "Biden" instead?
Anonymous faded out just like Occupy Wall Street.
True, that. I’ve been seriously wondering what really happened to Anonymous. Tragic to see that Occupy Wall Street has been replaced by a crummy "Occupy Mars" T-shirt.
That is a good question.
Anonymous could have value and expose Trump if they were so inclined.
What a clown show.
https://bsky.app/profile/briantylercohen.bsky.social/post/3lqvnxdtmb22l
All he needs is his pinkie in his mouth and he could be Dr. Evil.
We are not a serious country.
When were we a serious country last? We are accelerating towards the Chinese century. I was so naive when I believed that we had some structural advantage over dictatorships due to our liberal democratic traditions. I guess you just need to start a political cult, win elections, appoint justices who believe in the unitary executive theory and make the legislature extremely scared to cross you.
Unclear how successful China will be, as they face problems such as housing bubbles, a decrease in births leading to an overabundance of retirees and severe environmental problems. But whatever problems they have won't be likely to be due to the U.S.
Nine of the top 10 universities on the globe funded for science research are in China. Their virtues far outnumber their vices on the road to long-term success.
The wild card, of course, is that AI is gonna make us all dumber and more incurious. Perhaps China will become more complacent and malleable than the U.S. as a result. Doubtful but it's probably our best hope for not getting bulldozed by them.
I'm not at all arguing that the U.S. is likely to be more successful than China, especially not after Trump's 2nd election.
Judges from both parties have shown a willingness to rein in Trump, and while Republicans certainly haven't stood up to him, their tiny majorities have prevented them from actually being able to make things worse.
Trump v. U.S. blew off the guardrails.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/05/donald-trump-illegal-supreme-court-john-roberts-rule-law.html
Trump v. U.S. hasn't stopped judges from fighting back against him. They're not just laying back and saying "Trump has immunity, there's nothing we can do"..
He strikes me as more of a Mini-Me.
Could be. Maybe Stephen Miller's.
NY 17, I think it's interesting that so many people have jumped in, but no particular heavyish hitters. I thought my state Senator might take a shot but no rumblings of that which I'm aware of.
Probably waiting to see if it's going to be an open seat. Lawler may be slightly favored, but if he runs for Governor, it probably leans D.
I hope so. I’m also in NY-17 and State Sen. Harckham would be a stellar candidate — I volunteered on his 2018 State Senate run and he’s a nice guy/very effective legislator.
Do you think he'd be slightly favored if a wave develops?
Probably not, actually...he overperformed Trump in 2024 by 6.5 points, but Dems are currently overperforming 2024 by I think 16 points. Even with half that enthusiasm next year, Lawler probably loses. However, New York has been a bit of a disaster for Dems the past couple election cycles, so who knows.
Texas state rep, former school teacher and Pastor James Talarico wants to run for Texas Senate against Ken Paxton. The article notes that he gets more reach on social media than Bernie, AOC and Buttigieg. He seems uninterested in challenging Abbott.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/article/james-talarico-us-senate-race-20362725.php
Would be a good nominee.
Oh, for sure! Talarico is a mirror opposite of Paxton in so many ways.
I don't know whether any Democrat can win statewide in Texas. But Beto and Allred had their chances. Let someone else take a shot.
Exactly, the mirror opposite reason is why he is Texas Democratic strategists top recruit. A corrupt immoral ultraconservative Christian nationalist vs a Progressive Christian school teacher who regularly quotes the Bible. I believe that Democrats must reclaim the language of patriotism and religion. Buttigieg was doing good in this regard in 2020, but he has since stopped talking about religion. America is still the most religious developed nation, maybe after Poland.
Would he be a stronger candidate than Allred?
I think both would be great candidates, it's like comparing apples to oranges. Allred has has a strong moderate appeal and a record of crossing the aisle while Talarico is a once in a generation politician and can emotionally appeal to people with his Progressive Christianity.
That’s an interesting value proposition Talarico offers.
He has a real agenda to offer Texas Christians as opposed to Clown Ken Paxton.
While paying attention to the open governorship in Oklahoma, we ought not to ignore the state's superintendant of public instruction, which is also up for election. The incumbent, Ryan Walters, is one of the most consequential MAGA nuts in the country. He has mandated that all high schools in Oklahoma teach "discrepancies" in the 2020 election that mean that Biden really lost, and he has required not only that Oklahoma schools teach the Bible but that they buy the Trump Bible. It is not yet clear whether Walters is running for reelection and who else might be running, but something should be done to save Oklahoma schoolchildren from religious and political indoctrination.
Isn't that Drummond idiot (running for governor) related to Ree Drummond of Pioneer Woman fame? Shameful.
Apparently Ree is married to Gentner's second cousin, so not closely related
I disagree with him on most issues, but he is far saner than basically any other Oklahoma Republican and has been an opponent of Walters.
Re:Colorado 08: do more candidates make it more likely for Caraveo to win the primary, an undesirable outcome? Are there any primary runoffs in Colorado?
Colorado could use primary runoffs. Aside from making it easier to stop Caraveo it could also give Boebert a headache next door.
There's no runoff in Colorado, as far as I know. Boebert won the CO-04 primary last year with 43% of the vote. I can't remember the last time there was a busy primary on the Dem side. The last few cycles, even open seats or Republican held seats, have ended up with one or two candidates in the primary, like the Hickenlooper vs Romanoff race in 2020.
At this early stage, having more candidates probably helps Caraveo, but Dave Young may be able to overtake her, with his profile and name rec. I don't see the others being able to get a plurality with Caraveo and Young in the race (unless one of them crashes or another takes off). I also don't know that Caraveo is even established well enough for her to have much of a lasting advantage once the ads start running, since she only served one term and has experienced considerable damage to her public image since then.
Jessica Ramos has endorsed Andrew Cuomo in the NYC mayoral race, but it appears that Ramos, who was arguably the harshest critic of Cuomo of the mayoral candidates (even moreso than Zohran Mamdani), is not officially suspending her own mayoral bid. Ramos was the second-most notable candidate, after Cuomo, to not receive a preference endorsement from AOC.
Cuomo gave this response (which elicited a response from AOC) to the Ramos endorsement: https://www.instagram.com/p/DKkPwYquMkz/?igsh=M2V6dnRvNWxubTEx
That's potentially a huge mistake by Cuomo to pretty much act like ranked-choice voting is not being used in the primary (which it is), as most polling has shown Cuomo quite a ways away from 50%+1 on first preferences alone (a recent poll had Cuomo up just 54-46 over Zohran on two-candidate preferred).
New York Democratic politics is a whole ‘nother world.
It's not hard to imagine a Trump/AOC/Cuomo voter in NYC, even though there are massive political differences between the three.
Despite the hoopla about that after the last election, there weren't many crossover voters between Trump and AOC.
Yea i'm confused where this came from, i guess it was AOC asking on twitter but i'm not sure there were many more than the usual low info crossovers.
Time to start finding challengers to start primarying Ramos out of office.
Instant runoff voting does seem to generate more outright corruption amongst candidates. It's all games and trading favors and jobs to see who will endorse who and encourage their supporters to rank other candidates.
Unbelievable! Well, she certainly is not getting any of my votes.
Another Christonationalist bigot in congress.
https://bsky.app/profile/andrewjweinstein.com/post/3lqx5pttmwk22
“I often say that I serve in Congress with some of the greatest minds of the 18th century. With Rep. Miller I may need to take it back a few more centuries," Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said.
IL-15 may be a deep R+20 Congressional District.
But we also have a Democratic Candidate, Jennifer Todd.
Let’s help her boot Rep. Miller out of office.
https://www.jentodd2026.us/
Alabama is again appealing its long-running redistricting battle to the U.S. Supreme Court, two years after the high court already affirmed a district court decision that struck down the state’s original congressional map for violating Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act.
https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/alabama-asks-scotus-to-revive-its-intentional-racial-gerrymander/
That's why even a much stronger voting rights act won't solve gerrymandering, we need independent redistricting which Manchin stripped out but even after that, he didn't agree to pass it.
? How can they just keep reviving a decided case?
A new redistricting plan from 2023 that was struck down by the lower courts but never made it up to the Supreme Court. In the interim, the courts ordered Alabama to adopt a new map to add a second AA district.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia, the man at the center of a political and legal maelstrom after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador, was flown back to the United States on Friday to face charges of transporting undocumented migrants.
The decision to pull Mr. Abrego Garcia out of El Salvador and instead put him on trial in an American courtroom could provide an offramp for the Trump administration, which has bitterly opposed court orders requiring the government to take steps to release him after his wrongful removal in March.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06/06/us/trump-news
I honestly never thought he'd actually come back. Nice to see that our systems are slightly less broken than I had thought, even though they still fail to inspire confidence.
Apparently the charges stem from a jailhouse snitch in Tennessee. Also, according to The NY Times, A supervisor in the federal prosecutor’s office in Nashville resigned in recent weeks in a disagreement over how the Abrego Garcia case was being handled, according to two people familiar with the matter.
https://bsky.app/profile/justinbaragona.bsky.social/post/3lqxqsibq2s2r
Issue advocacy still works from time to time, and that's why our country hasn't slipped into complete authoritarianism yet.
I was wondering that we have so many prominent or rising Democrats with origins in California, Texas and NY. Why aren't there any from Florida despite it being the 3rd most populated state? Where has an entire generation of political talent gone?
Umm they can't get elected to office in Florida and therefore are not prominent?
So what aboout Texas then? They seem to have some prominent up-and-comers. There must be even some state legislators or mayors or other local politicians who could do well in Florida.
Texas politicians are in the same boat as Florida politicians. Can win safe dem seats but can't win statewide. I can't say the politicians in Texas are better than Florida, i do like Crockett, she has a knack for getting attention.
My hope is that Crockett doesn’t just expose the GOP on TX but also fire up more Democrats and like minded voters to turn out in the state. Hope she’s playing the big game.
We do have Rep. Maxwell Frost and state Rep. Anna Eskamani