How Many Republicans Will Biden Put In His Cabinet And Give Other Top Jobs To?

 

John Kasich, who failed to flip-- or even almost flip-- Ohio for Biden said a couple of things over the weekend that angered Democrats for the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party: "Now is the time for Democrats... to begin to listen to what the other half of the country has to say" and "The Democrats have to make it clear to the far-left that they almost cost him this election." Far left? Who dat?

Who would you rather see in Biden's cabinet, Kasich or Rahm Emanuel? I asked Twitter:

Presumably the "far left" are Democrats pushing Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal. They were all reelected. You know who wasn't? Conservative Democrats (Blue Dogs and New Dems) ideologically in synch with Kasich (and Biden) from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. The Democraps who failed to generate enough enthusiasm among Democrats and independents to be re-elected:

• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)
• Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)
• Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem-FL)
• Donna Shalala (relic-FL)
• Abby Finkenauer (secret New Dem-IA)
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)

Writing for Salon yesterday, Norman Solomon noted that progressives made Trump's defeat possible and now it's time to challenge Biden. "The realpolitik rationales for the left to make nice with the incoming Democratic president are bogus," he wrote. "All too many progressives gave the benefit of doubts to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, making it easier for them to service corporate America while leaving working-class Americans in the lurch. Two years later, in 1994 and 2010, Republicans came roaring back and took control of Congress. From the outset, progressive organizations and individuals (whether they consider themselves to be 'activists' or not) should confront Biden and other elected Democrats about profound matters. Officeholders are supposed to work for the public interest. And if they're serving Wall Street instead of Main Street, we should show that we're ready, willing and able to 'primary' them. Progressives would be wise to quickly follow up on Biden's victory with a combative approach toward corporate Democrats. Powerful party leaders have already signaled their intentions to aggressively marginalize progressives." He sees class war within the Democratic Party at play:

Pelosi & Co. try to stamp out the genuinely progressive upsurge in congressional ranks that is fueled from the grassroots, they're "dancing with those who brung them"-- corporate elites. It's an extremely lucrative approach for those who feed out of the troughs of the Democratic National Committee, the Senate and House party campaign committees, the House Majority PAC and many other fat-cat political campaign entities. Consultant contracts and lobbying deals keep flowing, even after Democrats lose quite winnable elections.

Biden almost lost this election. And while the Biden campaign poured in vast financial resources and vague flowery messaging that pandered to white suburban voters, relatively little was focused on those who most made it possible to overcome Trump's election-night lead-- people of color and the young. Constrained by his decades-long political mentality and record, Biden did not energize working-class voters as he lip-synched populist tunes in unconvincing performances.

That's the kind of neoliberal approach that Bernie Sanders and so many of his supporters warned about in 2016 and again this year. Both times there was a huge failure of the Democratic nominee to make a convincing case as an advocate for working people against the forces of wealthy avarice and corporate greed.

...It's clear from polling that Biden gained a large proportion of his votes due to animosity toward his opponent rather than enthusiasm for Biden himself. He hasn't inspired the Democratic base, and his appeal had much more to do with opposing the evils of Trumpism than embracing his own political approach.

More than ever, merely being anti-Trump or anti-Republican isn't going to move Democrats and the country in the vital directions we need. Without a strong progressive program as a rudder, the Biden presidency will be awash in much the same old rhetorical froth and status-quo positions that have so often caused Democratic incumbents to founder, bringing on GOP electoral triumphs.

...Looking ahead, we need vigorous successors to the New Deal of the 1930s and the Great Society programs of the mid-1960s, which that were asphyxiated, both in political and budgetary terms, by the Vietnam War. Set aside the phrase if you want to, but we need some type of "democratic socialism" (as Martin Luther King Jr. asserted in the last years of his life).

The ravages of market-based "solutions" are all around us; the public sector has been decimated, and it needs to be revitalized with massive federal spending that goes way beyond occasional "stimulus" packages. The potential exists to create millions of good jobs while seriously addressing the climate catastrophe. If we're going to get real about ending systemic and massive income inequality, we're going to have to fight for-- and achieve-- massive long-term public investment, financed by genuinely progressive taxation and major cuts in the military budget.

With enormous grassroots outreach that only they could credibly accomplish, progressive activists were a crucial part of the united front to defeat Trump. Now it's time to get on with grassroots organizing to challenge corporate Democrats.

Most of the comments I've seen from the religious left are all about everybody getting along now. And the evangelicals in the Midwest who abandoned Trump (down around 5 points from 2016) helped Biden win and should be heard out too. But one of my favorite evangelical pastors, John Pavlovitz, wants to make it clear that we don't owe hateful people unity. He wrote yesterday how he is being asked to show unity with Trumpists-- "to extend some instant olive branch of understanding that magically bridges that cavernous gap between us-- ones he revealed and is still actively cultivating." He wrote that he isn’t willing to offer that unconditionally and without caveat. 

It isn’t as though I haven’t been working tireless to understand and to reach these people; to appeal to their sense of decency, to illuminate the damage they are doing to oppressed and marginalized people and invite them into something more redemptive. They have chosen him again and so, I know quite a bit about them-- which is why I am so aware that we do not have any meaningful points of affinity.

I am deeply invested in the work of building disparate community, in navigating differences, in seeing the inherent commonalities of our shared humanity. I have made that my life’s work for three decades as a pastor and activist-- but there are limits to what this means.

Yes, I am burdened to bring diverse people together.

Yes, I am called by my faith to care for all human beings in my path.

And yes, I am compelled to really see people individually and to value their specific stories.

But I am not obligated to have unity with hateful people.

am not morally bound to make peace with a heart that dehumanizes other human beings because of the color of their skin, their nation of origin, their gender, their orientation. And to have embraced Donald Trump now, is to unapologetically brandish such a polluted heart; to be actively perpetuating inequity and stoking division and manufacturing discrimination in this very moment.

I steadfastly refuse such an alliance. I am a loud, conscientious objector in their war against the world.

It would be a slap in the face to migrant children, to people of color, to LGBTQ human beings, to Muslims, to disabled people, to non-Christians, and to women-- for me to suddenly allow the willing and joyous perpetrators of their wounds, proximity to me in the name of some ceremonial unity.

Racists and bigots see other human beings as less than human for an unchangeable part of who they are, and I will not descend into that. I can fully see their humanity and still call them out for thinking and speaking and acting inhumanely-- and I can show them decency and simultaneously declare myself distinct from the malevolence they affirm and want to live with distance from them.

People of faith, morality, and conscience are not required to make peace with hatred.

They are not indebted to racism and bigotry and phobic violence.

The call to love our enemies does not necessitate abiding their enmity.

  The only thing you owe violent people is to see and respect their humanity in ways they refuse for others.

But you are not required to see their hatred as acceptable.

You don’t owe hateful people unity-- ever.

The Moment The Democrats Picked Cheri Bustos As DCCC Chair, As I've Been Saying For Two Years, They Baked Terrible Losses Into The Cake

 

DCCC Chair Cheri Bustos, Born To Lose by Nancy Ohanian

House Democrats are freaking out over more losses as the ballots get counted. According to a Politico piece, House Dems brace for more losses by Ally Mutnick and Sarah Ferris. Already officially gone are Abby Finkenauer (IA), Joe Cunningham (SC), Kendra Horn (OK), Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL), Donna Shalala (FL), Collin Peterson (MN) and Xochitl Torres Small (NM) and close to losing Anthony Brindisi (NY), Max Rose (NY), Susan Wild (PA), Harley Rouda (CA), Ben McAdams (UT), Abigail Spanberger (VA), Gil Cisneros (CA), Lauren Underwood (IL)... What do all these candidates have in common? Well, first off, except for Donna Shalala (in a "safe" D+5 district) they all have "F" scores from ProgressivePunch. Shalala has a "D." All of them, with the encouragement-- urging-- of the DCCC decided to stake their career on the false notion that the way to win is by taking the Republican-lite route. That's why they all either lost or are hanging by a thread.

The Democratic Party-- as long a sit holds the majority-- is better off without them. They are almost all Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party. They shit all over the Democratic brand and confuse voters and alienate working families while spouting Republican talking points and allowing Fox and other right-wing media outlets to set the debate in terms designed to always result in Republican advantage.

It's worth listening to this shrt talk from Alan Grayson who recorded it while he was the congressman from Orlando, the first Democrat to have represented Orlando in decades.





According to Mutnick and Ferris, "The most likely scenario for Democrats is a net loss of between seven to 11 seats, according to interviews with campaign officials and strategists from both parties. That toll has prompted some tense discussions within the Democratic caucus about its message, tactics and leadership, with an internal race intensifying to succeed Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Cheri Bustos (D-IL). And the fallout means the House is indeed in play in 2022, and the battle will be fought on a whole new set of district lines, most of which will be drawn by Republicans who maintained control of key statehouses."

Pelosi, delusional, said-- after spending over $100,000,000 to win Republican seats-- "We lost some battles. But we won the war. We have the gave." She claimed Democrats in Trump districts faced "almost insurmountable" obstacles, but neglected to mention that outspoken progressive Matt Cunningham-- also in a Trump district-- won his seat while advocating for the Green New Deal and Medicare for All, unlike all the Bustos-Pelosi losers. Maybe voters in his northeast Pennsylvania district actually understand that he represents them, not the elites they hate. He's the whip of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and his ProgressivePunch score is "A." Trump won his district by 10 points in 2016-- 53.3% to 43.7%. Right next door, where New Dem Susan Wild is hanging on for dear life, Hillary won the district by a tad over a point, but Wild is barely a Democrat another's no reason for anyone to vote for her.

They'll both likely win reelection-- as will conservative Democrat Conor Lamb on the other side of the state-- but Pelosi should make an attempt to understand why working class voters hate her and hate where she and other Democratic leaders have taken what they once thought of as their party.

Right now there is just one challenger still standing in a California race against a Republican incumbent: Liam O'Mara-- and he ran in an R+11 district where Trump beat Hillary by 12 points-- who took on Corrupt Ken Calvert with exactly NOT ONE PENNY from the DCCC. Yet he's offering more of a challenge to Calvert than most of the Democrats who Bustos decided to spend millions of dollars on did in their own races. So far-- with thousands of absentee ballots, mostly from Democrats, to be counted, he has 44.5% of the vote. The DCCC and Pelosi's SuperPAC spent millions on Pelosi's costliest 2020 gamble, Blue Dog Sri Kulkarni in Texas, who she and Bustos spent over $7 million on-- and just wound up with 43.0% of the vote. Had they spent a million of that on Kulkarni, O'Mara would have wiped the floor with Calvert. But the DCCC hates progressives and would rather have Republicans in those seats than progressives.

Republicans were ecstatic this week. In a press call held Wednesday afternoon, National Republican Congressional Committee Chair Tom Emmer (MN) mocked Democrats for their upbeat predictions and poor messaging.

“Cheri Bustos laughed in my face when I made the argument that the Democrats’ socialist agenda was going to cost them seats, during a panel that we both attended in September of 2019 in Austin, Texas-- by the way where they didn’t flip a single seat,” Emmer said. [They did-- a single seat.]

The latest DCCC memo was sent to members hours after Bustos and other top Democrats held an emotional three-hour caucus call on Thursday, where some lawmakers traded blame as they processed the string of losses-- even as Democrats are increasingly likely to capture the presidency.

On the call, Bustos declared that the campaign arm would do a post-mortem in the coming weeks. No Democrats on the call directly criticized Bustos or any other Democrat about the losses, though several in the caucus have begun privately lining up to succeed her as chair. Bustos has not said whether she will run for the position again.

Rep. Tony Cárdenas of California [one of the most sleaziest and most corrupt members of Congress and a child rapist] has told members he is interested in running, and Reps. Linda Sánchez of California, Marc Veasey of Texas and Sean Maloney of New York [a Wall Street pawn who makes his campaign calls out of the office of a hedge fund] are also in the mix, according to multiple Democratic sources.

The DCCC is facing a litany of criticism, from its spending decisions to its Latino outreach to its polling. While health care again remained a central theme in down-ballot campaigns, Democratic candidates and outside groups were yoking their GOP opponents to Trump in dozens of TV ads in districts from Texas to Illinois that the president will likely end up carrying.

Swing district Democrats-- many stung by tighter-than-expected margins in their own races-- say they’ve been privately sounding the alarm about the party’s anti-Trump messaging, which they say hurt in areas like upstate New York, Staten Island and Miami.

Shalala, who holds a South Florida seat Trump lost by 20 points in 2016, said her polls didn’t pick up how harmful the GOP’s “socialism” attacks could be. But those tags-- along with accusations that Democrats would defund the police amid widespread protests over racial injustice and police brutality-- “caught on.”

“It’s not just Biden, it's the whole Democratic establishment that has to work these districts consistently,” Shalala said. “We had not been working them over a generation. It just takes a lot of work. Could we have done more? Absolutely.”

Progressive Democrats have disputed any finger-pointing from the caucus’s centrist flank about the party’s 2020 message.

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a member of the progressive Squad, argued that moderates did, in fact, steer much of the legislative agenda for the last two years-- the reality of a House Democratic majority with tight margins, which are only likely to shrink in the 117th Congress.

“They were very much centered and prioritized... No one was really sounding many alarms to me about how they felt about their race,” Ocasio-Cortez said in an interview.

Closing Message From Cheri Bustos: Polls In Pennsylvania Are Still Open... So Get Out There And Vote For Shit

 

When a politician from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party makes progressives want to puke, Beltway media defines him as having "broad appeal." Meet DCCC fave Eugene DePasquale. Why do I say "DCCC fave?" By Friday, the DCCC and Pelosi's House Majority PAC had spent a total of $4,467,203 on his behalf-- and they're still spending. In their Washington Post piece about the DePasquale challenge to Trump puppet Scott Perry, Colby Itkowitz and Paulina Firozi noted that a win for DePasquale would be "a coup for Democrats if they pick up a central Pennsylvania seat and possible vote boost for Biden." OK, but that's also true for central Texas districts being contested by progressives Mike Siegel and Julie Oliver, where they DC hasn't done any IE spending-- or in central Florida, where progressive Adam Christensen is running for an open seat where Trump must win and where Christensen has turned out a higher proportion of Democrats to vote (in Alachua County) than the sluggards at the Florida Democratic Party have in Miami-Dade, Broward, Duval, Orange, Palm Beach, Hillsborough or anywhere else. And the DCCC and Pelosi's SuperPAC have given Christensen's cause exactly no help at all-- and not a cent.

In 2016 PA-16 was Trump country; he beat Hillary 52.3% to 43.4%, a bit worse for Hillary than Obama had done either time he ran. In 2018, the DCCC ran another hapless Blue Dog, George Scott, against Perry. No one told the voters there that there was a blue wave; Perry beat him 51.3% to 48.7%, GOP turnout in York and Cumberland counties swamping Scott's more modest win in blue-leaning Dauphin County.

On Sunday Pennsylvania reported another 1,684 new cases of COVID-19, bringing the state total to 214,500. 207 have died in York County, 196 in Dauphin County and 81 in Cumberland. Trump has been holding multiple super-spreader events all over Pennsylvania, spreading infection and death. His death cult loves it.

Itkowitz and Firozi noted that "DePasquale, 49, the state’s auditor general for the past eight years, is not a liberal, but he is a Democrat running for Congress in a district represented by a conservative, unapologetically pro-President Trump lawmaker whose politics no longer match large swaths of Pennsylvania’s 10th Congressional District. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reconfigured the state’s congressional districts in 2018, setting boundaries for Rep. Scott Perry’s once solidly Republican seat that he won by 32 percentage points in 2016 to include more Democratic areas, including Harrisburg and York." After all that DCCC money thrown into PA-10, Cook rates the district a "toss up" (same as TX-10, where the DCCC hasn't been helpful).

Then came the "broad appeal" Beltway stupidity: "Self-described as socially liberal and fiscally moderate, he embraces his grittier, blue-collar upbringing. His biographical ads include one of him doing push-ups as weights are added to his back and another of his father in handcuffs, having been jailed for selling drugs. The elder DePasquale served eight years in federal prison." God, save me from this bullshit. Itkowitz and Firozi found it more significant than mentioning that DePasquale has been endorsed by both the Blue Dogs and the New Dems, the two House caucuses that make up the congressional Republican wing of the Democratic Party. It says a lot more about what kind of a congressman DePasquale will be than how many pushups he can do with weights on his back.

In 2016, DePasquale won reelection statewide by five percentage points, while the Democrat at the top of the ticket, Hillary Clinton, lost Pennsylvania by one percentage point.

“They see me as one of them; I’m a blue-collar kid. And they think the D.C. crowd isn’t them,” DePasquale said later at a downtown York coffeehouse, reflecting on why there were so many crossover votes for him and Trump four years ago.

Democrats hope enthusiasm for a candidate like DePasquale could benefit presidential nominee Joe Biden, as could strong turnout in other districts where Trump did well last time but Democrats now hold the seats in Congress. They include Rep. Conor Lamb in western Pennsylvania and Reps. Mary Gay Scanlon, Madeleine Dean and Chrissy Houlahan in the vote-rich Philadelphia suburbs.

Pennsylvania is ground zero in the presidential race, a state both the Trump and Biden campaigns view as integral to a path to victory. [Same could be said, word-for-word of Florida, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan... Itkowitz and Firozi must be auditioning for the Cook Report.] The rural middle of the state has long been reliable Republican country, leaving statewide candidates to duke it out over suburban Philadelphia voters and Democrats to rely on high turnout in the city to outperform the Republican votes across the rest of the state.

Trump held four rallies in Pennsylvania on Saturday. Biden campaigned in Philadelphia on Sunday and then he, his running mate Sen. Kamala D. Harris (D-CA) and their spouses were set to fan out across the state on Monday.

“I think everything is driven from the top in this election, but you certainly have in Perry and DePasquale, you really have two compelling candidates who, by the way, mirror in many ways the candidates at the top of their ticket,” said Larry Ceisler, a Philadelphia-based Democratic media consultant. “Eugene’s a nice guy, same Biden demeanor. I would characterize Eugene as moderate, center-left like Biden, and I think with Perry because he’s a member of the Freedom Caucus and when you look at that QAnon vote, that sort of lines up in a way with Trump.”

Actually Perry, is neo-fascist, far right and both Pasquale and Biden are corporate-friendly, center-right, not anything to do with left. "Perry," they continued, "was among 18 House Republicans to vote against a resolution condemning QAnon, the conspiracy theory that Trump is fighting a war against a satanic, child sex trafficking ring run by the 'deep state.' The FBI has labeled the online movement a potential domestic terrorist threat; Trump has declined to denounce it." I bet DePasquale would vote against some kind of concocted "Antifa" conspiracy as fast as Perry would. Perry trolled DePasquale with an idiotic ad "linking" DePasquale to AOC, although it is incontestable that Perry has ten times more in common with Hitler or Stalin than DePasquale does with AOC or what he calls her and DePasquale's "radical socialist agenda." Pasquale was mortified and called the ad a baldfaced lie... which it is.

Mark Harris, a GOP consultant in Pennsylvania, said the race will be close, and that Perry needs the Trump base to turn out and vote down-ballot. Gov. Tom Wolf (D) signed legislation last year eliminating the easy alternative of a straight-party vote.

Money has poured into the race, with DePasquale raising $3.7 million to Perry’s $3.4 million.

In addition to a coup for Democrats if they pick up a central Pennsylvania seat and possible vote boost for Biden, a DePasquale win could have major implications for the presidency in the wild scenario that the House chooses the victor.

Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation is currently split-- nine Republicans and nine Democrats. Assuming Republicans don’t flip any seats in the state, a DePasquale win could give Pennsylvania Democrats a delegation majority.

If neither Trump nor Biden is a clear winner in the electoral college, the decision would go to the House of Representatives and each state delegation would get one vote. For this reason, flipping state delegations has been a priority for Democratic leaders.

In a briefing with reporters, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairwoman Cheri Bustos of Illinois was speaking broadly about Democrats’ efforts to deny Republicans a majority of delegations.

“We absolutely have been focusing on that. The speaker has been talking about that with supporters all over the country,” she said, adding: “Pennsylvania, we’ve got critical races there. Eugene DePasquale is doing great.”

Chris Borick, a political polling expert at Mulhenberg College in Pennsylvania, said he believes Perry, as the incumbent, who beat back a challenger in the 2018 Democratic wave, still has a slight edge. But DePasquale, with his strong name recognition, is a more formidable opponent with a real chance of flipping the seat.

And that, he said, could bode well for Biden.

“When I look at that district, it’s a little microcosm of [Pennsylvania]; you’ve got an urban core, you look at that area, there’s lots of suburbs, drive 10 miles out and you’re in rural Pennsylvania,” Borick said. “On Election Day, if I found out who won that race, if DePasquale wins, I’d be pretty confident Joe Biden won Pennsylvania.”

In Congress, There Is A Big Difference Between Bipartisanship And Waving A White Flag As You Cross The Aisle

 

Meet The Blue Dogs and New Dems

Working across the aisle in a bipartisan fashion in an art. Most Democrats in Congress do not have a clue about how it's done. The so-called "Problem Solvers"-- like Third Way and the Blue Dogs and New Dems-- make up the Republican wing of the Democratic Party, colloquially, "the Democraps." They are always the first to rush across the aisle and claim they are thereby bipartisan. Being a coward and having no values is not the same thing as being a smart, skilled bipartisan legislator. That's way over the heads of the conservative Democrats who vote the most frequently with Republicans when progressive issues come to the floor of the House. This dirty dozen is not a list of bipartisan heroes. It is a list of always craven, 100% cowardly, and usually corrupt DINOs.

• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)- 23.46% (R+10)
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 24.69% (R+6)
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)- 27.16% (R+13)
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)-28.40% (R+6)
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- 28.40% (R+10)
• Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)- 34.57% (R+2)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 39.08% (R+12)
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 39.11% (R+3)
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 40.02% (D+9)
• Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)- 40.74% (R+1)
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- 41.25% (R+3)
• Abby Finkenauer (secret New Dem-IA)- 41.98% (D+1)

You'll notice that they are voting with the Democrats less than half the time on these crucial roll calls. I've included the PVIs of their districts so you can see how much each one is being pressured by the far right-- from Collin Peterson and Ben McAdams (a lot) to Henry Cuellar and Abby Finkenauer (not one bit).

Many people remember former Orlando Congressman, Alan Grayson as a fervent partisan and they especially remember his iconic Die Quickly-GOP Healthcare speech. But one of the things I always admired most about Grayson was his ability to pass prodigious amounts of legislation with bipartisan support. In fact, the Republicans controlled the House for much of the time Grayson was a member. And he still managed to write and pass more legislation than any other member of that body! I had a long talk with Grayson about this yesterday. He said that he tended to work with people-- regardless of party-- "who gave a shit." If someone cared, he felt there was a way to find some common ground without abandoning any principles or values. This is a small part of what he told me:

On our side the aisle, the political class is resolved to employ focus groups to try to validate meaningless phrases that sound good to them, and then to force-feed them to the electorate through ad-buys that give them their 15%. This resulted in Clinton’s “Stronger Together” motto, which no one understood, much less believed. (And I say that having voted for her, and having wanted her to win.) This sort of tasteless political oatmeal is what makes it hard for ordinary people to identify the Democratic Party with any tangible proposals that might improve their lives, and it creates a vacuum that the other side fills by promising that a Democratic victory would hasten the apocalypse.

But the most flavorless of all this flavorless oatmeal is the abuse of the term “bipartisanship” by, well, people who stand for nothing. Here is a very easy way to judge whether such a sentiment is real or not: has it resulted in any actual legislation? After all, that’s the job of a Member of Congress, according to the Constitution. If you see any actual legislation, then you can argue whether it made the world better or worse, but without that, the term “bipartisanship” is lipless lip service.

In my first term, with the Democrats in charge, I passed the only real bipartisan accomplishment of the 111th Congress, the law to audit the Federal Reserve. In my last two terms, with the Republicans in charge, I passed 121 laws through the House. I also accounted, personally, for ½ of all the amendments passed by the Science Committee, and 1/3 of all the amendments passed by the Foreign Affairs Committee. And EVERY SINGLE ONE of these was “bipartisan”; I couldn’t have passed any of them unless I had GOP votes. Further, in their own ways, every single one of them was progressive. When I passed a law extending mental health benefits to veterans-- after 250,000 of them came back from Afghanistan and Iraq with permanent brain abnormalities you could see with a CAT scan-- that was progressive to me, whatever may have led the GOP to vote for it. That’s real bipartisanship, not the “bipartisanship” that begins and ends with right-wingers calling right-wingers “my esteemed colleague from Whosits.”

Barney Frank had an interesting point to make in this regard-- he constantly reminded others than anonymous polling of Capitol Hill staff named him both the most partisan and the most bipartisan Member of Congress. Or, to put it another way, bipartisanship is judged not by words, but by deeds.

I haven't written much about Jody Hice, a radical Georgia teabagger, since he was first elected to Congress in 2014. In fact, I haven't heard much about him-- until yesterday, when he joined Ted Lieu to co-sponsor a bipartisan bill that's good for Lieu's constituents and good for Hice's constituents and good for the country in general. The transpartisan establishment may not be thrilled with it but it is neither a Republican nor a Democratic bill. The legislation-- the Oversite.gov Authorization Act-- is meant to increase transparency and accountability within the federal government. If passed and signed into law-- presumably by Biden-- it will formally authorize the establishment and maintenance of a website to help the public more easily access reports that have been generated by the independent work of Inspectors General.

In introducing it, Ted said that "Our bill will allow for crucial improvements to be made to Oversight.gov, a central online location for all federal Inspectors General to publish their reports. IGs are critical to rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in our government, and this website will make their findings more accessible to the American people. I am pleased to introduce this bipartisan bill to increase transparency in the IG community."

Hice was obviously proud to let his constituents know he was working in their interest with someone sane. "The inspector general community is on the frontlines in combatting waste, fraud, and abuse across federal agencies on behalf of the American taxpayer. The Oversight.gov Authorization Act is an important step in promoting and protecting the work of inspectors general, enabling the public to view firsthand the need for greater accountability and transparency in our government. This bicameral, bipartisan legislation is a commonsense measure that all of Congress can get behind, and I look forward to working with my colleague Rep. Ted Lieu, as well as Senators Chuck Grassley and Maggie Hassan, in seeing this bill across the finish line."

Previously, Ted and Hice have worked together to safeguard Inspectors General through their bill, the Inspector General Protection Act, which passed the House in July of 2019, to enhance the independence and integrity of IGs. As soon as Trump heard the word "integrity" he sensed the law would be bad for him and told McConnell to shit-can it in the Senate, which he promptly did.

Ted is co-chair of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, and he has been coming up with much of the messaging that is destroying the House Republicans this cycle. Like Grayson's description of Barney Frank, Ted is very partisan... and very bipartisan at the same time. Confusing? I asked him about it this morning. "I have always believed that people of good will, intelligence, and patriotism can disagree on policy. I think it's important to try to work in a bipartisan way where possible. I drive my staff crazy sometimes, but I am always asking them to find me a Republican co-lead for our legislative ideas. It is much easier to move legislation through the process if you have bipartisan support from the outset. There are some issues upon which I will most likely never agree with my Republican colleagues. But the truth is there are many issues where there is a fair amount of common ground to be reached. I also try not to let disagreements on one issue impact potential partnerships on other issues. Just because I disagree with a Republican colleague on gun safety or abortion doesn't mean I won't work with them on marijuana legalization or government transparency. I will not compromise on my principals-- but I can search for common ground on good public policy. In my view the key to being a good legislator is being able to tell the difference."

Today's Democratic Party Was The Republican Party From When I Was Growing Up-- And That Is NOT A Good Thing

 

Yesterday, reporting for the NY Times, Luke Broadwater used the word "brand" half a dozen times in writing about the House freshmen from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- conservative Blue Dogs and New Dems. He called them "brand ambassadors for the Democratic Party in red districts" but never addressed the fact that by distorting the Democratic brand in the eyes of millions of people, they are turning the party-- once the vehicle for the legitimate aspirations of working families into a second corrupted, corporate-friendly cesspool of careerist politicians. The Cheri Bustos Democratic Party is just as corrupt as the GOP-- not the lesser evil, exactly as corrupt-- but it more or less tolerates the LGBTQ community, is mostly fine with abortions and takes an anti-racist stance. As the Republican Party moved further and further right-- into out and out authoritarianism and fascism-- the Democratic Party establishment was only too happy to occupy the mainstream Republican ground it was ceding. Today's Democratic Party is largely the Republican Party of my childhood. The brand that conservative Democrats represent are not the brand of any Democratic Party I ever backed.

Broadwater comes off not as a dispassionate reporter but as a cheerleader for a Democratic Party slipping and sliding-- and marching purposefully-- into a kind of Wall Street-friendly centrism that has gradually come to dominate the Democratic Party ever since Henry Wallace was forced out of the vice-presidential slot just before FDR's death. He's all filled with cheer that the conservative incumbents who were once regarded as "vulnerable"-- just wait for 2022-- are now mostly shoo-ins in the anti-Trump wave that fools are mistaking for a "blue wave."

He never found it relevant to mention that of the half dozen biggest DCCC expenditures for incumbents-- as of this week-- all ten were made on behalf of unpopular conservatives:

• Blue Dog Xochitl Torres Small (NM)- $3,357,753
• New Dem TJ Cox (CA)- $3,163,927
• New Dem Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL)- $2,782,776
• Blue Dog Kendra Horn (OK)- $2,484,176
• Blue Dog Anthony Brindisi (NY)- $2,437,435
• New Dem Harley Rouda (CA)- $2,109,487

Same story for Nancy Pelosi's SuperPC, the House Democratic Majority PAC:

• Blue Dog Max Rose (NY)- $6,193,069
• New Dem Harley Rouda (CA)- $5,768,556
• Blue Dog Collin Peterson (MN)- $3,994,597
• Blue Dog Ben McAdams (UT)- $3,091,534
• New Dem TJ Cox (CA)- $2,286,172
• New Dem Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (FL)- $2,205,976

And something all these fine brand ambassadors have in common? Each and every one of them has an "F" grade from ProgressivePunch-- no "C"s and no "D"s... all "F"s. What great brand ambassadors! Do you want to support progressive candidates running in districts that Trump won in 2016? That's what the ActBlue thermometer on the right is for.

Broadwater: "Across the country, Democrats like [Virginia Blue Dog Abigail] Spanberger, a former C.I.A. officer who has cultivated a brand as a moderate unafraid to criticize her own party, are playing a pivotal role that has positioned Democrats to maintain control of the House and build their majority." Someone should sit Broadwater down and explain the difference to him between a "moderate" and a "conservative." And then show him the results of the 2010 Great Blue Dog Extinction Election which is being re-set for 2022 because... well, not pointing any fingers, but some people just can't learn anything at all from history, not even recent history.

Broadwater is happy, happy that these right-of-center Blue Dogs and New Dems are "leading their Republican challengers in polling and fund-raising headed into the election’s final week." He's very good at regurgitating DCCC talking points: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi likes to call this group of about 40 lawmakers-- most of them young, many women, and predominantly moderates-- her 'majority makers,' while the House Democratic campaign arm calls them 'frontliners.' And they have largely managed to buck intense Republican attempts to brand them as Ms. Pelosi’s minions, socialists or out-of-touch coastal elites."

And Broadwater is biting his nails down to the nubs because, he wrote, "there are still a handful who are at real risk of defeat. Representatives Kendra Horn in Oklahoma, Max Rose and Anthony Brindisi in New York, Ben McAdams in Utah, TJ Cox in California, Xochitl Torres Small in New Mexico and Abby Finkenauer in Iowa are all struggling to head off Republican challengers." He's wrong about Finkenauer; she's in no trouble whatsoever but in any case, the House Democratic caucus would be far better off if all 7 lost their seats since they're better thought of as the aisle-crossers than what Broadwater and Pelosi prefer to call the "majority makers."

After Democrats picked up 41 House seats in 2018, Republicans immediately vowed revenge, targeting more than 50 seats, including 13 districts that Mr. Trump carried by six percentage points or more, as their ticket to reclaiming the majority.

Polling showed voters in these districts viewed socialism negatively, so Representative Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, embarked on a strategy to try to tie the freshmen Democrats to that label, predicting that their party’s “embrace of socialism is going to cost them their majority in the House.”

Democrats were prepared for the onslaught, moving quickly and aggressively to protect the more than 40 members of their Frontline Program-- almost all freshmen-- through aggressive fund-raising, volunteer recruitment and online networking.

They rushed to build individual brands distinct from their party’s, and hauled in campaign cash that scared off some potential challengers from the right. And Mr. Trump’s sinking poll numbers in the suburbs has given them an even broader advantage in the closing months of the race.

Like Ms. Spanberger, several-- including Representative Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former C.I.A. analyst; Representative Jared Golden of Maine, a Marine who served in Iraq and Afghanistan; and Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, a Navy helicopter pilot-- are known for their robust national security credentials.

Ms. Sherrill’s race is not considered competitive. National conservative groups have shied away from challenging Ms. Slotkin again, after spending millions on unsuccessful attack ads against her two years ago, and recently decided to cut their advertising campaign against Mr. Golden. And this month, the Cook Political Report moved Ms. Spanberger out of its “toss up” category, judging that her district was leaning toward re-electing her.

Ms. Slotkin said she and other frontliners have had to labor far more intensively than many of their older Democrats colleagues, who hold safe seats in deep-blue districts.

“It takes work for a Democrat to represent a majority-Republican district,” Ms. Slotkin said. “We came into Congress with a strong sense of what it took to win in tough districts and what it would take to keep the seats.”

Slotkin is an imbecile. Her R+4 district is far from a Republican-majority district. The district, like all the ones won by the "aisle crossers" has a majority that shifts depending on the political winds and which candidate or party can appeal to independent voters. MI-08, Slotkin's district, is won or lost by turning out Democrats in Ingham County and persuading independents in Oakland and Livingston counties. Slotkin is useless in persuading anyone of anything other than that she's a DINO. Trump did all the persuading needed in 2018, when she won and is doing it again for her this year. In 2022 she'll be on her own and I will predict right now that she will lose to whomever the GOP nominates against her-- unless she changes, which is not going to happen. Same for Spanberger.

In some ways, Ms. Spanberger and frontliners like her have served as brand ambassadors for the Democratic Party in red districts, pushing back against Republican attempts to caricature their party and, at times, openly criticizing their own leaders.

On a recent private call with Ms. Pelosi and Democratic colleagues, and confirmed in an interview with Ms. Spanberger, she blasted party leaders for failing to find agreement with Republicans on a new coronavirus stimulus deal, saying she wanted to do “my goddamned job and come up with a solution for the American people.”

It was a familiar spot for Ms. Spanberger, who rose to viral fame in 2018 after a debate with the Tea Party-aligned incumbent Republican, Representative Dave Brat, in which she chided him for repeatedly referring to Ms. Pelosi instead of her.

“I question again whether Congressman Brat knows which Democrat in fact he’s running against,” Ms. Spanberger said then, as the crowd burst into applause. “Abigail Spanberger is my name!”

In this month’s debate, Mr. Freitas, a former Green Beret running as a strict fiscal conservative, attempted to tie her to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the liberal firebrand from New York.

“My opponent votes with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez almost 90 percent of the time and then comes back to the district and claims to be a moderate,” Mr. Freitas said.

This time, Ms. Spanberger ignored her opponent’s comment altogether.

“I don’t fall in line with speaker when I don’t want to,” Ms. Spanberger said in an interview. “I certainly disagree with colleagues, Alexandria among them. But that’s fine. We don’t have to agree.”

AOC and Spanberger were sworn in on the same day in 2019. Since then, AOC has voted 95.06% of the time for progressive initiatives. On those same roll calls Spanberger has voted with the Democrats 28.40% of the time. (Justin Amash was a Republican for half that time and an independent conservative libertarian for the other half. He voted 51.85% of the time with the Dems.) Spanberger's record is much, much closer to that of virtually every conservative Republican in the House than it is to AOC's. The Democratic Party-- and America-- would be far better off if instead of being a brand ambassador to conservative districts, Biden appoints her to be the ambassador to Kazakhstan.

That said, there are virtually no Democrats as bad as Trump and his Republican Party enablers. There are plenty of really terrible Democrats, from top to bottom, but any like this? I don't think so. I don't know anyone who isn't voting against Trump.

This New Dem Careerist Crap Really Pisses Me Off

 

I was speaking with a congressional candidate the other day. And she asked me if I know a particular member of Congress who had called her recently. I never met the fellow but I do know he's a corporate-friendly New Dem with an "F" rating from ProgressivePunch-- and in a ultra-safe blue district (D+over 20) that was designed to suck up every Democrat in the area to make it safer for 4 Republican incumbents by making sure their districts would be less competitive.

In any case, what did this New Dem want from the progressive? Was it to make a contribution to her campaign? Nah. But he had some advise for her: he chastised her for not taking PAC money-- even though she had out-raised her opponent without the money that comes with strings attached (which is how the congressman finances his own career).

And the other advise was even more offensive. She told me that the person who has done the most for her campaign has been Bernie Sanders, who has sent fundraising letters and done on-line events with her. The congressman wanted to warn her that if she was seen to be associating with Bernie, it would hurt her efforts to get elected.

This isn't even sound advice on the surface. There are 3 counties with almost all the people in her district. Two of the three-- including the biggest one-- all went for Bernie in 2016 and again in 2020. This isn't an area looking for a conservative, status-quo Democrat. His district isn't either. Democratic turnout in his district is pathetic, just a fraction of what it should be. He's very lucky there are so few Republicans there.

I spoke to other progressive candidates who have told me they've gotten very similar advice from incumbents, usually New Dems! "Go light on the anti-PAC message" and "Don't play up the Bernie association." Advice from the DCCC consultants is even harsher and more vile-- both in terms of the content and in the ways the content is delivered, especially to women candidates who always seem to get talked down to by these DCCC consultants. (I thought they put Bustos into therapy to make her less of a bigot. I guess it either didn't work or she didn't realize she was supposed to instill decency into her co-workers and consultants.)

The Democratic Party is going to need serious, committed men and women in Congress, not a bunch of worthless careerists who are serious about nothing but how to get reelected and not committed to anything but themselves. The DCCC candidates, for the most part, don't make the grade. I was just reading how Trump's plan is to leave Biden with a poison pill that will take candidates who are going to fight to win-- the way Pramila Jayapal and Ted Lieu and Jamie Raskin do and not whimper like a bunch of Third Way/Problem Solver/New Dem weenies. Andrew Feinberg reported that "The order, which the White House released late Wednesday evening, would strip civil service protections from a broad swath of career civil servants if it is decided that they are in 'confidential, policy-determining, policy-making, or policy-advocating positions'-- a description previously reserved for the political appointees who come and go with each change in administration. It does that by creating a new category for such positions that do not turn over from administration to administration and reclassifying them as part of that category.  The Office of Personnel Management-- essentially the executive branch’s human resources department-- has been charged with implementing the order by publishing a 'preliminary' list of positions to be moved into the new category on what could President Donald Trump’s last full day in office: January 19, 2021."

The range of workers who could be stripped of protections and placed in this new category is vast, experts say, and could include most of the non-partisan experts-- scientists, doctors, lawyers, economists-- whose work to advise and inform policymakers is supposed to be done in a way that is fact-driven and devoid of politics. Trump has repeatedly clashed with such career workers on a variety of settings, ranging from his desire to present the Covid-19 pandemic as largely over, to his attempts to enable his allies to escape punishment for federal crimes, to his quixotic insistence that National Weather Service scientists back up his erroneous claim that the state of Alabama was threatened by a hurricane which was not heading in its direction.

Creating the new category-- known as “Schedule F”-- and moving current civil servants into it could allow a lame-duck President Trump to cripple his successor’s administration by firing any career federal employees who’ve been included on the list. It also could allow Trump administration officials to skirt prohibitions against “burrowing in”-- the heavily restricted practice of converting political appointees (known as “Schedule C” employees) into career civil servants-- by hiring them under the new category for positions which would not end with Trump’s term. Another provision orders agencies to take steps to prohibit removing “Schedule F” appointees from their jobs on the grounds of “political affiliation,” which could potentially prevent a future administration from firing unqualified appointees because of their association with President Trump.

“It's a two-pronged attack-- a Hail Mary pass to enable them to do some burrowing in if they lose the election,” said Walter Shaub, who ran the US Office of Government Ethics during the last four years of the Obama administration and first six months of the Trump administration. “But if they win the election, then anything goes for the destruction of the civil service… [This could] take us back to the spoils system and all the corruption that comes with it.”

Shaub explained that at the core of it, a non-partisan civil service is one of the most basic anti-corruption measures that any government can implement “because they free federal employees to disobey illegal orders, be ethical, and resist fraud, waste, and abuse.”

“Taking those away creates a cadre of people who are either too intimidated by or loyal to a politician instead of the rule of law and the Constitution,” he said. “That’s the goal here.”

It's why I've been advocating declaring that Trump was an illegitimate president and that everything he did is null and void-- a kind of modern day Damnatio Memoriae. That's a job for progressives, not careerist centrists.

Audrey isn't the candidate I spoke to about the New Dem phone call but I just saw her new TV ad and thought it fit--exactly what a DCCC consultant would tell her not to run:

Trump Is The Worst President In History-- And The GOP Deserves To Die With Him... But That Doesn't Automatically Make The Democratic Party Worth Anything

 

This morning, the NY Times editorial board asserted that Trump destroyed the Republican Party. They're wrong. The craven, spineless politicians who represent the party destroyed it. Then they claim "'Destroyed' is perhaps too simplistic, [and] Trump accelerated his party’s demise, exposing the rot that has been eating at its core for decades and leaving it a hollowed-out shell devoid of ideas, values or integrity, committed solely to preserving its own power even at the expense of democratic norms, institutions and ideals." OK, now they're talking. Pity they didn't throw the Democratic Party under the same bus; it would be just as accurate.

The Times bemoans the passing-- it really hasn't passed and it won't-- of the GOP because we won't have a "strong center right [party that] can co-opt more palatable aspects of the far right, isolating and draining energy from the more radical elements that threaten to destabilize the system." And yet that is precisely what the Democratic Party has turned into-- a center right party co-opting aspects of the far right (i.e., the GOP). These editors define the Republican Party that we see today as having an "ideology [that] has been reduced to a slurry of paranoia, white grievance and authoritarian populism. Its governing vision is reactionary, a cross between obstructionism and owning the libs. Its policy agenda, as defined by the party platform, is whatever President Trump wants."

With his dark gospel, the president has enthralled the Republican base, rendering other party leaders too afraid to stand up to him. But to stand with Mr. Trump requires a constant betrayal of one’s own integrity and values. This goes beyond the usual policy flip-flops-- what happened to fiscal hawks anyway?-- and political hypocrisy, though there have been plenty of both. Witness the scramble to fill a Supreme Court seat just weeks before Election Day by many of the same Senate Republicans who denied President Barack Obama his high court pick in 2016, claiming it would be wrong to fill a vacancy eight months out from that election.

Mr. Trump demands that his interests be placed above those of the nation. His presidency has been an extended exercise in defining deviancy down-- and dragging the rest of his party down with him.

Having long preached “character” and “family values,” Republicans have given a pass to Mr. Trump’s personal degeneracy. The affairs, the hush money, the multiple accusations of assault and harassment, the gross boasts of grabbing unsuspecting women-- none of it matters. White evangelicals remain especially faithful adherents, in large part because Mr. Trump has appointed around 200 judges to the federal bench.

For all their talk about revering the Constitution, Republicans have stood by, slack-jawed, in the face of the president’s assault on checks and balances. Mr. Trump has spurned the concept of congressional oversight of his office. After losing a budget fight and shutting down the government in 2018-19, he declared a phony national emergency at the southern border so he could siphon money from the Pentagon for his border wall. He put a hold on nearly $400 million in Senate-approved aid to Ukraine-- a move that played a central role in his impeachment.

So much for Republicans’ Obama-era nattering about “executive overreach.”

Despite fetishizing “law and order,” Republicans have shrugged as Mr. Trump has maligned and politicized federal law enforcement, occasionally lending a hand. Impeachment offered the most searing example. Parroting the White House line that the entire process was illegitimate, the president’s enablers made clear they had his back no matter what. As Pete Wehner, who served as a speechwriter to the three previous Republican presidents, observed in The Atlantic: “Republicans, from beginning to end, sought not to ensure that justice be done or truth be revealed. Instead, they sought to ensure that Trump not be removed from office under any circumstances, defending him at all costs.”

The debasement goes beyond passive indulgence. Congressional bootlickers, channeling Mr. Trump’s rantings about the Deep State, have used their power to target those who dared to investigate him. Committee chairmen like Representative Devin Nunes and Senator Ron Johnson have conducted hearings aimed at smearing Mr. Trump’s political opponents and delegitimizing the special counsel’s Russia inquiry.

As head of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Mr. Johnson pushed a corruption investigation of Mr. Biden’s son Hunter that he bragged would expose the former vice president’s “unfitness for office.” Instead, he wasted taxpayer money producing an 87-page rehash of unsubstantiated claims reeking of a Russian disinformation campaign. Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, another Republican on the committee, criticized the inquiry as “a political exercise,” noting, “It’s not the legitimate role of government or Congress, or for taxpayer expense to be used in an effort to damage political opponents.”

Undeterred, last Sunday Mr. Johnson popped up on Fox News, engaging with the host over baseless rumors that the F.B.I. was investigating child pornography on a computer that allegedly had belonged to Hunter Biden. These vile claims are being peddled online by right-wing conspiracymongers, including QAnon.

Not that congressional toadies are the only offenders. A parade of administration officials-- some of whom were well respected before their Trumpian tour-- have stood by, or pitched in, as the president has denigrated the F.B.I., federal prosecutors, intelligence agencies and the courts. They have failed to prioritize election security because the topic makes Mr. Trump insecure about his win in 2016. They have pushed the limits of the law and human decency to advance Mr. Trump’s draconian immigration agenda.

Most horrifically, Republican leaders have stood by as the president has lied to the public about a pandemic that has already killed more than 220,000 Americans. They have watched him politicize masks, testing, the distribution of emergency equipment and pretty much everything else. Some echo his incendiary talk, fueling violence in their own communities. In the campaign’s closing weeks, as case numbers and hospitalizations climb and health officials warn of a rough winter, Mr. Trump is stepping up the attacks on his scientific advisers, deriding them as “idiots” and declaring Dr. Anthony Fauci, the government’s top expert in infectious diseases, a “disaster.” Only a smattering of Republican officials has managed even a tepid defense of Dr. Fauci. Whether out of fear, fealty or willful ignorance, these so-called leaders are complicit in this national tragedy.

As Republican lawmakers grow increasingly panicked that Mr. Trump will lose re-election-- possibly damaging their fortunes as well-- some are scrambling to salvage their reputations by pretending they haven’t spent the past four years letting him run amok. In an Oct. 14 call with constituents, Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska gave a blistering assessment of the president’s failures and “deficient” values, from his misogyny to his calamitous handling of the pandemic to “the way he kisses dictators’ butts.” Mr. Sasse was less clear about why, the occasional targeted criticismnotwithstanding, he has enabled these deficiencies for so long.

Senator John Cornyn of Texas, locked in his own tight re-election race, recently told the local media that he, too, has disagreed with Mr. Trump on numerous issues, including deficit spending, trade policy and his raiding of the defense budget. Mr. Cornyn said he opted to keep his opposition private rather than get into a public tiff with Mr. Trump “because, as I’ve observed, those usually don’t end too well.”

Profiles in courage these are not.

Mr. Trump’s corrosive influence on his party would fill a book. It has, in fact, filled several, as well as a slew of articles, social media posts and op-eds, written by conservatives both heartbroken and incensed over what has become of their party.

But many of these disillusioned Republicans also acknowledge that their team has been descending into white grievance, revanchism and know-nothing populism for decades. Mr. Trump just greased the slide. “He is the logical conclusion of what the Republican Party has become in the last 50 or so years,” the longtime party strategist Stuart Stevens asserts in his new book, It Was All a Lie.

The scars of Mr. Trump’s presidency will linger long after he leaves office. Some Republicans believe that, if those scars run only four years deep, rather than eight, their party can be nursed back to health. Others question whether there is anything left worth saving. Mr. Stevens’s prescription: “Burn it to the ground, and start over.”

Sick of this? But don't buy into the concept of backing the lesser of two evils in politics? The Democratic Party sucks-- not as bad as the GOP-- but too much to support? Well, until the morning, Blue America hadn't opened our anti-DCCC page, which helps support progressive candidates that the DCCC is starving for resources while they support their Blue Dogs and New Dems from the Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- the Democraps. Access it by clicking on the Cheri Bustos thermometer on the right. Every two years the crooks among the Democratic Party establishment elites persuade you toehold your nose and vote for their shit candidates because they're better than the Republicans even shittier candidates. How you going to ever break out of that cycle? If you're in a New York district offering you Anthony Brindisi, Max Rose or Sean Patrick Maloney, support candidates from other districts in your state-- say Jamaal Bowman, Dana Balter, AOC for example. The DCCC wants you to back Jackie Gordon on Long Island but she's been endorsed by both the Blue Dogs and the New Dems and that tells you exactly what kind of a member of Congress she's going to make. He may live an hour away but, put your energy behind Mondaire Jones instead. But you live in Oklahoma and there are no good Democrats-- just reactionary quasi-Republican Blue Dog Kendra Horn? Texas isn't that far away-- and you can do the country-- the Democratic Party-- a lot of good by backing progressive stalwarts like Julie Oliver and Mike Siegel. Trade in Kendra Horn for Julie and Mike-- deal of the cycle!

Any Blue Will Do? Screw That!

Thursday night during the debate Biden accidentally answered "yes" when asked if he favored closing down the oil industry. He had had a senior moment and he didn't mean that, explaining to journalists a short time later that "We’re not going to get rid of fossil fuels. We’re going to get rid of subsidies for fossil fuels." A step in the right direction. But two worthless, reactionary Blue Dogs-- Kendra Horn (OK) and Xochitl Torres Small (NM) immediately distanced themselves from his statement. [Note: the DCCC has already spent over $10,000,000 on these two worthless corporate shills, money that could have gone to electing actual Democrats.]

Blue Dogs and New Dems-- the pro-corporate Republican wing of the Democratic Party-- have shredded the Democratic Party's brand starting... when? When Bill Clinton embraced Wall Street in 1992? When Jimmy Carter was sworn in in 1977 or when JFK became president in 1961? When the conservatives in the party establishment forced FDR to remove Vice President Henry Wallace from the ticket in 1944?

Leaving the Senate aside, let's start with House incumbents. Over 100 of them have "F" grades from ProgressivePunch. 17 have voted more frequently with the GOP against progressive roll calls than with the Democrats! From terrible to worse:

• Stephanie Murphy (Blue Dog-FL)- 48.00% with the Democrats
• Conor Lamb (PA)- 47.33% with the Democrats
• Elissa Slotkin (New Dem-MI)- 44.44% with the Democrats
• Jim Costa (Blue Dog-CA)- 44.27% with the Democrats
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)- 43.21% with the Dems
• Abby Finkenauer (IA)- 41.98% with the Dems
• Elaine Luria (New Dem-VA)- 41.25% with the Dems
• Cindy Axne (New Dem-IA)- 40.74% with the Dems
• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)- 40.02% with the Dems
• Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ)- 39.11% with the Dems
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- 39.08% with the Dems
• Jared Golden (Blue Dog-ME)- 34.57% with the Dems
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)- 28.40% with the Dems
• Abigail Spanberger (Blue Dog-VA)- 28.40% with the Dems
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)- 27.16% with the Dems
• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)- 24.69% with the Dems
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)- 23.46% with the Dems

And in case anyone forgot the 2018 DCCC star recruit from New Jersey, Blue Dog shit-eater Jefferson Van Drew, he flipped to the GOP in the middle of the year and has a record of having voted 17.50% of the time with the Democrats.

Post-primary season, the Blue Dogs have 8 anti-worker/pro-corporate candidates they have endorsed. Under no circumstances should you support any of them, not with volunteer hours, not with campaign contributions, not even with votes:

• Eugene DePasquale (PA-10)
• Gretchen Driskell (MI-07)
• Margaret Good (FL-16)
• Jackie Gordon (NY-02)
• Christina Hale (IN-05)
• Josh Hicks (KY-06)
• Brynne Kennedy (CA-04)
• Sri Kulkarni (TX-22)

And the New Dems have 31 putrid candidates they are backing, each and every one of them having passed the test to prove they will make America worse. This is the list of the 31 candidates to be avoided-- unless you support the idea of corrupt, corporate governance:

• Alyse Galvin (I-AK)
• Hiral Tipirneni (AZ-06)
• Christy Smith (CA-25)
• Qualcomm heiress Sara Jacobs (CA-53)-- opposing progressive Democrat Georgette Gomez
• Margaret Good (FL-16)
• Carolyn Bourdeaux (GA-07)
• Betsy Dirksen Londrigan (IL-13)
• Christina Hale (IN-05)
• Hillary Scholten (MI-03)
• Dan Feehan (MN-01)
• Jill Schupp (MO-02)
• Deborah Ross (NC-02)
• Kathy Manning (NC-06)
• Pat Timmons Goodson (NC-08)
• Amy Kennedy (NJ-02)
• Nancy Goroff (NY-01)
• Jackie Gordon (NY-02)
• Kate Schroder (OH-01)
• Eugene DePasquale (PA-10)
• Wendy Davis (TX-21)
• Sri Kulkarni (TX-22)
• Gina Ortiz Jones (TX-23)
• Cameron Webb (VA-05)
• Carolyn Long (WA-03)
• Marilyn Strickland (WA-10)- opposing progressive Beth Doglio

(the New Dem "watch list")

• Ammar Campa-Najjar (CA-50)
• Kathleen Williams (MT)
• Desiree Tims (OH-10)
• Hillary O'Connor Mueri (OH-14)
• Christina Finello (PA-01)
• Sima Ladjevardian (TX-02)

I know half a dozen of these people personally. They all seem... nice. They just have strange idea about what a Democrat is. I've watched Congress long enough to know for sure that I wouldn't vote to put a single one of them in office. That's how toxic it is to be a member of the Blue Dogs or New Dems.

In the next 10 days the DCCC and Pelosi's SuperPAC will spend millions of dollars helping to elect these conservative candidates-- and not much helping progressives. (The ones in blue are the progressives.) These are the candidates that these groups had spent the most (over a million) on before this weekend:

• Rep Harley Rouda (New Dem-CA)- $7,866,938
• Christy Smith- $7,728,919 Includes the spending in the special election she lost)
• Rep Max Rose (Blue Dog-NY)- $7,621,687
• Rita Hart (IA-02)- $5,896,987
• Sri Kulkarni- $5,749,664
• Rep TJ Cox (New Dem-CA)- $5,320,109
• Carolyn Bourdeaux- $5,126,518
• Rep Xochitl Torres Small- $4,988,768
• Rep Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (New Dem-FL)- $4,978,578
• Amy Kennedy- $4,830,590
• Candace Valenzuela- $4,533,197
• Rep Anthony Brindisi- $4,396,328
• Kate Schroder (OH-01)- $4,371,004
• Rep Kendra Horn- $4,165,196
• Rep Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)- $4,155,685
• Dana Balter (NY-24)- $4,131,598
• Rep Ben McAdams- $4,068,280
• Rep Andy Kim (NJ)- $3,973,965
• Jackie Gordon- $3,649,928
• Kara Eastman (NE)- $3,510,587
• Betsy Dirksen Londrigan- $3,500,820
• Gina Ortiz Jones- $3,464,091
• Dan Feehan- $3,437,352
• Jill Schupp- $3,434,612
• Rep Joe Cunningham- $3,354695
• Hiral Tipirneni- $3,383,888
• Eugene DePasquale- $3,188,406
• wealthy socialite Rep Susie Lee (New Dem-NV)- $3,056,114
• Rep Abby Finkenauer- $3,003,170
• Rep Abigail Spanberger- $2,876,863
• Kristina Hale- $2,839,768
• Wendy Davis- $2,818,222
• Kathleen Williams- $2,729,430
• Rep Lucy McBath (New Dem-GA)- $2,310,273
• Rep Tom O'Halleran (Blue Dog-AZ)- $2,227,113
• rich lottery winner Rep Gil Cisneros (New Dem-CA)- $2,192,622
• Hillary Scholten- $1,985,694
• Rep Cindy Axne- $1,911,390
• Christina Finello (PA-01)- $1,686,457
• Nancy Goroff- $1,641,713
• Rep Tom Malinowski (New Dem-NJ)- $1,563,736
• Diane Mitsch Bush- $1,525,481
• Rep Elaine Luria- $1,336,672
• Rep Pete DeFazio (OR)- $1,287,300
• Joyce Elliott (AR-02)- $1,173,133
• Cameron Webb- $1,073,021
• Rep Haley Stevens (New Dem-MI)- $1,054,635

So many millions of dollars wasted on worthless incumbents who no one likes! And spending on progressives who really need the money-- next to nothing other than for Kara Eastman, Joyce Elliott and Dana Balter. What about Jon Hoadley, Mike Siegel, Julie Oliver, Audrey Denney, Nate McMurray, Adam Christensen, Liam O'Mara to name a few. "Too progressive for the district" is what the DCCC always says (off the record).

I spoke to Liam O'Mara, a professor of the history of ideas, who is also a candidate running in Riverside County's CA-42-- with no recognition from the DCCC whatsoever. "The idea that I am 'too progressive for the district' is rubbish," he told me yesterday. "The most progressive prior candidate out here also happens to have done the best against Calvert. We currently have the best early return rate of any Democrat in recent memory, and that follows a primary cycle that saw more votes to the Dems than any previous primary in ages. Right now FiveThirtyEight gives my campaign a better chance of flipping the district than they've seen yet, and a higher chance of flipping the seat than quite a few candidates in the long lists above. Progressive-populist leaders used to dominate in the most socially conservative corners of the country, because more people vote their wallets and their hopes than anything else. To say that we are out of touch with the needs and wishes of the electorate is to surrender preëmptively to Republican control and Republican arguments... when what we ought to be doing is standing out there and winning over hearts and minds. The Democratic party needs to stop focussing on safely blue seats and start trying to win people over... and we can't do that with tepid, half-baked conservatism."

Let me make a suggestion: click on the 2020 ActBlue congressional thermometer above and show Liam O'Mara some love. Unlike most of the DCCC candidates, he would actually make Congress a better and more productive place.