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Warning: rant.
This is unhelpful: politicalwire.com/2025/…
"For months, party activists have felt[...]incensed at the leaders who first went along with Joe Biden’s decision to run again."
That was the default decision, and it's water under the bridge. But at least these are unspecified people expressing their feelings privately or not for a…
Warning: rant.
This is unhelpful: https://politicalwire.com/2025/02/01/democrats-wonder-where-their-leaders-are/
"For months, party activists have felt[...]incensed at the leaders who first went along with Joe Biden’s decision to run again."
That was the default decision, and it's water under the bridge. But at least these are unspecified people expressing their feelings privately or not for attribution. What's really fucked up is this kind of second-guessing: https://politicalwire.com/2025/01/31/dnc-chair-says-democrats-should-have-stuck-with-biden/
I'm glad he's the -outgoing- chair. It's understandable, though in exceedingly poor grace and showing bad judgment, for Biden himself to say he made a mistake bowing out and would have won. While it's impossible to know exactly how many additional voters would have voted for him because he's a white man and not a Black/Asian woman or how many additional people would have voted against him or stayed home because they blamed him for inflation or thought he was not capable of functioning as president, it's very unlikely he would have won and he should have shut up about that. But anyone else publicly second-guessing his decision to bow out should in my opinion never have a position of leadership in the party. And a word about some other activists: https://politicalwire.com/2025/01/31/democrats-get-shouted-down-by-their-own-activists/
"The final forum of candidates running to lead the Democratic National Committee was derailed at numerous points by climate protesters"
What the fuck is wrong with them? Trump is trying to end the constitutional system, the independence and professionalism of the civil service, governance, alliances, and trade relationships, and create chaos, the Democrats are out of power, and instead of unifying, these imbeciles are disrupting a meeting of the party that's out of power in Washington and is the one that believes in science and is actually trying to do something to deal with global warming. Do they understand the immediate threat of fascism, at a time when Trump is trying to unilaterally revoke the temporary protected status of hundreds of thousands of people living and working legally in the U.S. and empowering ICE to detain American citizens on mere suspicion of being undocumented immigrants?
And about the political commentators who are sanctimoniously pronouncing Biden's presidency a dismal failure, clinched by inflation in an inflationary worldwide recovery from a pandemic the likes of which hadn't been seen since 1919, his supposedly electing Trump, and then his unwise remarks after the fact about Harris and his having made a mistake bowing out: You are part of the problem represented by the huge media corporations that just can't wait to give Trump multi million-dollar bribes as "settlements" for frivolous lawsuits by Trump and kiss his ass every which way.
But you're also missing the point. We can talk about unpatriotic Republicans, subversion by foreign powers and probably even greater subversion by domestic-based oligarchs (not all of them citizens), timidity and slowness by the Justice Department, egregious sabotage by the courts, successful delaying tactics by Trump, political commentators and reporters who are incentivized to pretend that merely imperfect Democrats should be treated with at least normal confrontation and disrespect but Trump should be
treated as if he were a normal politician and/or to treat politics as a bloodless game even after seeing the blood on worldwide TV, and we can acknowledge that eloquent and impressive speeches were never Biden's forte, though he wasn't elected for that, and that his speaking deteriorated in the last 4 years, leading to what I think are false beliefs about his being incompetent to execute the office, whereas he continued to do great things till the end. But all of that ultimately misses the point.
So who is to blame for Trump and the Republicans being given the keys to the country again? Ultimately, though plenty of other people have acted deplorably, only one group is fundamentally responsible: a plurality of Americans who voted. Say what you want about all the others, but the voters knew what happened when Trump and the Republicans had a trifecta before, and they said "We want more of that!"
And if the human race survives the ravages of global warming, historians will treat Biden very differently, as the last opportunity the American voters took to avoid driving the country into collapse. And don't try to claim I'm "catastrophizing": I'm not saying the collapse will happen within the next 4 years, but I do think this election marks the final step likely to ensure it. Only time will tell, but never forget who is really to blame. History won't.
I think the Rolling Stone article from just after the inauguration really nails it.
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trump-inauguration-2024-win-democrats-failed-1235241327/
Much like in 1930s Germany, the institutions that were supposed to protect us failed because of weak and timid leaders. Making Merrick Garland AG was Biden's fatal error. It was a cascade of failure up and down from every institution. The Justice system, the Media, and the Government all failed, and now we all reap what they sowed.
I don't blame climate protestors for acting out. Why should they be expected to unify with people who are sitting at home right now while Elon Musk takes over the government payment systems? How are they showing that they will be trusted stewards if they're just gonna run the same playbook over and over again? What is their strategy to take back power? Sending text messages about how bad Trump is and that's why you should send us $20 to help fight back?
Truthfully a lot of this is coming from frustration on my part as well. As a brown Latino who was a loyal party foot soldier since 2004 arguing with my middle school friends why Bush was awful I feel somewhat betrayed because I put my trust in the system and in our institutions and they have utterly and completely failed us. That's why I believe we can't just do things business as usual anymore. People want things shaken up so why don't we be the party that shakes things up for good? People don't want to go back to a system that hasn't worked for them for over 40 years and if that's what Dems are proposing then I don't think they've learned anything.
The Democrats passed the Inflation Reduction Act, and people like Newsom are acting on the state level. Believe me, I know that global warming is existential for the human race, and I'm pessimistic that it will save itself, but attacking the party that's actually done and doing things by disrupting their meeting is not the way to effect positive change. I'm a socialist, so in no way is a party as relatively right-wing as the Democrats ever my ideal, but they are not the problem in the U.S., especially today.
They may not be the problem but at this juncture I think they're far from the solution because of the ossified leadership in the party that is just a continuation of the old guard of incremental change when drastic action will need to be taken to fix this and maybe it's past the point of no return.
That "ossified leadership" passed and signed the Inflation Reduction Act and had more planned if the fucking voters hadn't sabotaged everything.
Any drastic action on climate would be incredibly unpopular and would just result in a red wave in the next election. It's either incremental change or nothing for the foreseeable future.
Because the idiotic/successfully misled American voters keep electing saboteurs like Reagan, the Bushes and Trump, drastic action will be necessary to save worldwide civilization. The alternative will be collapse, and I agree that that's likely, if that's what you mean to say.
Yes unfortunately the sweetspot time for incremental change was 25 years ago and we elected Bush twice . Although honestly I think a lot of the climate proposals you see from the late 90s/early 2000s had some significant issues that would've in some ways made emissions worse than the status quo via unintended consequences (e.g. climate proposals from that period called for MASSIVE investments/subsidies for biofuels for cars)
The sweet spot time was the 1980s. Had Carter been re-elected, he could have continued to concentrate on conservation and solar energy. But the Supreme Court's selection of G.W. Bush may have been the death knell for any sort of effective relatively mild climate transition policy.
Ooh yeah even more massive biofuels would have been a disaster.
Honestly, hybridization out of a “peak oil”/efficiency argument would have been the way to go, and battery tech would have been much better for electrification by present day
Yes bumping the fuel standards up to what would require essentially all vehicles to be at least hybrid would've been the way, but boy back in say 2002 with oil so low, I don't see how you could've ever gotten the political winds to blown those sails.
As someone who lives in the North and experiences winter, snow, and cold temperatures every year, it is frankly appalling how many people here whine and complain about the cold and the snow. And I have increasingly come to the conclusion over the past couple of years that this irrational fear and/or hatred of cold weather is a HUGE reason why there is so little enthusiasm on the part of the electorate to take any action against climate change.
I hate to say it, but the average uninformed voter hears that the climate is warming, and thinks to themselves, "Sounds good to me! No more icy roads or shoveling snow!".
If Democrats really want the electorate to get behind them in terms of dealing with climate change, we have to instill in the American people an appreciation of winter, and snow, and cold weather. Because that appreciation is sadly lacking in way too many people.
People hate MN/Dakota cold, but they love the seasons, and climate change is killing the change of seasons (really the change I've noticed in just the past decade has been really depressing)
What it amounts to is that most Americans are ignorant or stupid.
I don’t know about drastic but there have been for years now new breaking developments in science to combat climate change and global warming. This particularly includes technology. Same goes with emphasizing sustainable design and development of buildings so they can not only withstand climate change but also translate into cost saving incentives for homeowners.
That said, Democrats running on just simply adapting isn’t going to help them win elections. The party has already been losing in the messaging battle in the LA fires. Thank god Newsom isn’t running for re-election as Governor of California or he’d have serious problems.
How have they been losing on messaging in regard to the L.A. fires?
They are losing because of conflicting information being spread around and are not doing an effective enough job combating that.
For starters, the timing was immediately off when LA Mayor Karen Bass was coming back from a trip in Ghana and didn’t even respond to reporters questions about the fires and her “absence.” Then there was information spread out by those in not in government like former Mayoral Candidate Rick Caruso who have been talking about lack of water in fire hydrants and not cleaning up brushes in the hills to prevent fires from spreading. Him and others threw out information right there and haven’t let up.
Then there’s also the City of LA Government which isn’t even in complete sync with Mayor Bass on this issue.
It’s a mess.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2025/01/08/theres-no-water-coming-out-of-the-fire-hydrants-billionaire-caruso-becomes-top-la-fires-critic/
I see. So this is local to L.A. Because Newsom has seemed from afar to have done his best in this situation. Yeah, it sounds like Bass has fumbled.
I don’t blame Newsom for this situation with the LA fires but on the other hand, as a statesman in this situation he’s not exactly impressed me. If Governor Jerry Brown was still around, he would have a no BS attitude and would pay more close attention to detail.
Bass isn’t aloof but she didn’t seem to be proactive early on in addressing the fire hazard problem in LA County. There are also reports that the fires were started in part because of acts of arson.
Sunrise is very problematic in many ways. Climate/environment is literally my #1 voting position (or maybe tied with healthcare) and I think they are terrible for the cause.
Were they the ones who pulled this idiotic stunt?
Several of them were affiliated with it, according to the article, but it probably wasn't specifically instigated or directed by the group.
Don't forget the MI, MN and NM trifectas all passed strong climate legislation as well (NM's not as strong as the others but given it's reliance on oil money what they did do has been a big deal)
“Why should they be expected to unify with people are sitting at home right now”. They showed up to an event with people clearly not sitting at home right now.
No, being loud and annoying accomplishes absolutely nothing and just makes us all look all bad. Those people are clowns who hurt their own goals.
exactly; it's both horrible and naive politics
Just like the morons who last year thought that blocking the Golden Gate Bridge would somehow force policy change on an issue that we're disallowed from directly discussing here....
it's all performance art; not helping anything at all
It's past time for the sun to set on the "Sunrise Movement". In the last contested Democratic presidential primary they mostly promoted one candidate rather than their supposed cause, and since then their activism (which is little better than whining and performativeness) has often been less about climate change than the leftist grievance du jour.
And good points both about misguided leftist protestors and media malfeasance, as well as both positively and negatively about Biden.
And speaking of Biden, if Jamie Harrison really thinks Dems would have been better off sticking with him through November, then there's a whole host of Democrats who won competitive Senate, House, and state/local elections who might beg to differ.
Some of the climate protestors are such fringe ultraleftists that they actually believe the 'heighten the contradictions' crap and assume that they'll be the ones to win the power struggle after everything collapses.
And yeah, Biden's claims he would have won are about as convincing as Beavis' 'I woulda kicked his ass'.
Democrats really need to ensure that discussion about climate change is meaningful.
Arnold Schwarzenegger had a good idea about this when he was interviewed by David Axelrod years ago.
https://youtu.be/OX5qbuAGOM4?si=UiiKwsTbgQPsdYNo
Excellent post