This Is True: The Democratic Party Isn't As Bad As The Republican Party. But For How Long?

The Democratic Party establishment is conservative in the sense of defending and bolstering the status quo-- not as perniciously as the GOP, but perniciously enough. It is also incredibly corrupt-- no less so than the Republican Party. Of course there are notable exceptions-- like House members AOC, Jamie Raskin, Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, Ted Lieu, Ilhan Omar, Andy Levin, Barbara Lee, Rashida Tlaib, Ayanna Pressley, a few others intermittently-- but they're exceptions. Last week, The Intercept published a piece that gets to the heart of the Democratic Party by Ryan Grim and Akela Lacy, New Jersey's Cartoonishly Corrupt Democratic Party Is Finally Getting Challenged. Before we get into it, I want to point out that New Jersey has a Democratic member of Congress who isn't corrupt and doesn't belong in a federal penitentiary-- Bonnie Watson Coleman, who represents the Trenton area.

Grim and Lacy start with Albio Sires, but could have started anywhere in the state other than, ironically, Trenton, the state capital that is one of the biggest founts of corruption on the planet. "A quintessential New Jersey game of musical chairs brought Albio Sires to Congress," they wrote. "The music started in November 2005, when Sen. John Corzine was elected governor. To fill his Senate seat, the party machine tapped Rep. Bob Menendez, which created an opening for Menendez’s House seat. Albio Sires, the mayor of West New York, had previously run for Congress in the 1980s as a Republican, but was by then also state assembly speaker and a loyal member of the Democratic machine. He won a special election in 2006 with 90 percent of the vote and has represented the North Jersey district, home to the largest Cuban diaspora outside Miami, ever since."

Party identification-- partisanship-- gets these scumbags elected. Simply put-- they're not Republicans, so they must be better or, at least, the lesser evil. It isn't always the case and one day, suddenly, the New Jersey electorate will wake up and switch their idea of partisanship and it will be too late for the Democrats to do anything about it-- even if they want to, which is far from likely. They hate their own reformers far more than they hate Republicans (who they can easily "do business" with). Bernie, to most establishment Dems, is a worse option than Trump. And AOC is more an enemy than any Republican. Both are too disruptive.

How AOC became the enemy of almost every Democrat in Congress

"Sires has kept a low profile," continued Grim and Lacy, "largely voting with the party on the House floor. It’s hard to measure obscurity, but fewer than 70 Democrats have served in the House as long as Sires, and suffice it to say that Sires has not managed to translate that seniority into a national profile or measurable power in Washington. Corzine, a Wall Street baron, was unseated by Republican Chris Christie after one term; Menendez remains in office, and both he and Corzine have escaped prison despite being the targets of federal investigators. Sires has hung on, but as New Jersey’s Cuban population ages and migrates south to Florida, his district has become more diverse, with growing Central and Caribbean American populations."

In South Jersey, the Norcross bosses, whose family has had a longstanding stranglehold on local politics, are holding on. George Norcoss, known as one of New Jersey’s most influential unelected bosses, holds an outsize influence over parts of the state legislature’s South Jersey delegation. An insurance executive, he’s been accused of pulling strings to benefit from a state corporate tax incentive program that came under federal investigation last year. His brother, Donald, represents parts of South Jersey in the U.S. House. Donald is a former labor leader who was elected to the state assembly in 2009. He was later appointed to fill a vacant state Senate seat, which paved the way for his eventual transition to Congress.

Now Sires, who did not respond to requests for an interview for this article, is facing his first serious primary election since 2006, from insurgent challenger Hector Oseguera, an attorney with roots in Honduras and the Dominican Republic who specializes in fighting money laundering. Oseguera, who attended Boston University at the same time as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but didn’t know her then, was one of the earliest volunteers on her 2018 campaign to unseat then-Rep. Joe Crowley in Queens and the Bronx.

Oseguera is part of a wave of challengers taking on the local machine in North Jersey. Sires, a functionary of the West New York/Union City machine, known as the Hudson County Democratic Organization, or, often, simply, “the Organization,” is just one of many targets, with a slate of six Hudson County Freeholder candidates allied with Oseguera challenging incumbents up and down the ballot.

Elsewhere in the Garden State, similar battles are taking place, as the coalescing of activist groups and insurgent candidates launches a statewide assault on the cartoonishly corrupt New Jersey Democratic establishment, which long considered itself immune from the biannual annoyance of elections. So immune that the party did nothing to shunt aside Menendez in 2018, even as he faced trial for corruption charges in the midst of his reelection. Little-known challenger Lisa McCormick, with next to no financing, stunned the party by winning 38 percent of the vote in the primary that cycle against Menendez, who got off on a mistrial due to a hung jury and won reelection.

Now McCormick, a perennial candidate for local and federal office who has never disclosed the names of any campaign donors, is challenging state Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman. Coleman was elected in 2014 as the state’s first African American woman in Congress and has a pretty solid progressive voting record.

Rep. Josh Gottheimer, among the most conservative House Democrats, is facing a serious challenge from Dr. Arati Kriebich, a neuroscientist and former Gottheimer volunteer. In South Jersey, Rep. Jeff Van Drew, a party boss elected in 2018 and concerned about losing a primary challenge from the left this cycle, switched and became a Republican. Democratic Reps. Bill Pascrell and Donald Payne Jr. are also facing primary challenges from Zina Spezakis-- who’s also running under the “Not Me. Us.” slogan--  and Alp Basaran, and Eugene Mazo and John Flora, respectively.

None of the challengers were rated good enough to be endorsed by Blue America, and I suspect they will all lose, not because the incumbents don't stink to high heaven-- they do-- but because most of the challengers are inept and incompetent candidates. Some of the country's worst House Democrats-- Gottheimer, of course, as well as Frank Pallone, Albio Sires, Mikie Sherill-- are from New Jersey, but not one of them has a primary opponent capable of winning a campaign.

I hope I'm wrong about Oseguera and I haven't spoken with him personally, so maybe I am. Grim and Lacy wrote that he "lucked into an advantage on the ballot-- or, more accurately perhaps, he made his own luck-- that may be consequential in a race between two people with such little name recognition. In New Jersey, machine politicians for decades have implored supporters to 'vote column A all the way,' a phrase that became synonymous with loyalty to the party machine. Column A on New Jersey ballots is reserved for candidates running as a slate, from the president down to the freeholder, a county legislative position. Typically, it is only the machine that is able to put together that sort of slate, as progressives rarely have a Senate candidate fielded, and even more rarely a body in the presidential primary. But this time, Sanders supporters recruited veteran activist Larry Hamm to run for Senate against Cory Booker, enabling a slate to be formed with Hamm and down-ballot insurgents. (They had wanted Sanders to sit at the top of their slate; his campaign, however, never filed the paperwork needed to join it.) The machine, meanwhile, was torn between various presidential candidates-- including Booker-- and so declined to make any endorsement. That meant that the progressive slate in Hudson and Union counties, the population centers of the 8th District, was eligible for the A column. Because there was more than one slate, the A spot was decided in an April 9 drawing-- which the insurgents won. Voters accustomed to casting their ballots “A all the way” will wind up supporting Oseguera." That's actually funny.

The Junta: Christie, Norcross, Sweeney-- New Jersey's Axis of Evil

“There’s going to be a set of voters that show up and do their regular Democratic duty of ‘vote A all the way,’ and they might swing this election,” said Oseguera, who was raised in the district by a mother who taught and a father who held a variety of jobs, from handyman to cashier to driver. Oseguera said that when his phone bankers end the call by reminding voters to “vote column A,” they often reply with a version of “Of course, we always vote line A.”

Ron Bautista is one of the six freeholder candidates running under the Sanders-inspired slogan of “Not Me. Us.,” in a district that largely covers Hoboken. “[Oseguera’s] campaign has brought together grassroots progressives like it has never been done before,” said Bautista, who last year challenged a 16-year city council incumbent, picking up a third of the vote without a slate or developer money, which the New Jersey establishment tends to rely on. “We are at the heart of machine politics in New Jersey, and sometimes progressives have run individually against the machine. For the first time, we have a progressive slate of candidates from Senate to county government.”

Three of the slate’s nine freeholder candidates failed to qualify for the ballot, coming short on signatures, while a number of those who qualified did so by collecting electronic signatures amid the pandemic. Roger Quesada was one of them, drawing on his professional experience in e-commerce and marketing. “There’s no slate in recent memory that has ever been this organized and with a strong digital infrastructure,” he said.

...Oseguera's race against Sires presents intriguing parallels to Ocasio-Cortez’s, as well as divergences. Where Crowley was a local machine boss with national ambitions, on his way to becoming speaker of the House, Sires is merely a local machine boss. Like Ocasio-Cortez, Oseguera has raised precious little money, relying instead on a network of volunteers and local activist groups to power him to victory in what is likely to be an extremely low-turnout election against an incumbent with little name recognition in a community that has changed underneath him. (Crowley was far better known in Washington than in his home district, which cost him dearly in the primary.)

Oseguera, unlike Ocasio-Cortez, does not label himself a democratic socialist; given the number of refugees of the Cuban Revolution in the district, the term remains deeply toxic. But he supports the gamut of policies that tend to define more progressive Democrats: a Green New Deal, Medicare for All, a wealth tax, $15 minimum wage, and so on. He does not, however, have the support of Justice Democrats, the group that backed Ocasio-Cortez’s challenge and has been conservative in handing out endorsements since then. He said that when he appealed to the group for an endorsement, they told him that Sires’s voting record wasn’t egregious enough to merit the group’s scarce resources. (The group recently launched a Super PAC.) Unlike the incumbents whose challengers Justice Democrats has backed this cycle, like Dan Lipinski and Henry Cuellar, Sires is a reliable Democratic vote and has such a low profile that ousting him would barely make a ripple.

Like Ocasio-Cortez, Oseguera’s campaign, two months out from the primary, is broke, with $22,731 raised and less than $4,000 cash on hand, according to the latest filing. For Ocasio-Cortez, a viral campaign ad, combined with national coverage, helped elevate her profile and raise last-minute money, which she pumped into canvassing, phone and text banks, and digital ads. But Osegeura is campaigning amid a pandemic, with effective shelter-in-place orders, so there’s likely to be very little canvassing between now and the July 7 primary. The Oseguera-Sires contest will be fought out digitally and over the phone, a disadvantage for Sires, who has virtually no virtual presence and doesn’t even have a campaign website. Oseguera managed to buy Sires’s domain name-- AlbioSires.com-- and redirect it to his own fundraising page.

For a machine boss, Sires has little to show in the way of money, though he’s well ahead of Oseguera. This cycle, Sires has raised just $340,000 and had $237,000 cash on hand as of March 31. His biggest donors are the local trade unions and the Desert Caucus, an extremist, pro-Israel group that endorses settlements and the annexation of Palestinian territory.

...Oseguera's campaign is using its limited funds to target Democrats likely to vote by mail ahead of the primary, which was postponed from June. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has been pushing for an all-mail primary, but backtracked after pushback from machine leaders across the state. Because of their lack of cash, Oseguera said, his campaign narrowed its voter data purchase to 75,000 Democrats in the district who regularly vote in general elections but don’t show up for primaries. Vote-by-mail, he hopes, will make those people more likely to return a ballot if volunteers can get texts and calls in front of them enough. He expects 50,000 votes will be enough to win.

The postponement of the primary and the expansion of vote-by-mail add to the uncertainty around how the election will go, said Farmer of Rutgers University. While the changes could hamper the machine’s overall advantage, the insurgents’ fundraising barriers could also make it difficult to reach voters. “The burden of getting the information to the voters is greater because of the restrictions that we’re all operating under now,” he said.

Partial vote-by-mail “does put an additional burden on the parties if they want to maintain their encouragement of straight-ticket voting that they really have to be sort of out there and more aggressive in encouraging that then probably they have been in the past,” he said, noting that campaigns’ inability to do in-person canvassing is another complicating factor.

The shift toward vote-by-mail has made the machine nervous. DeGise told the New Jersey Globe that she opposes mail-in voting and was pushing for an all in-person vote because loyal machine voters are more likely to turn out to the polls, whereas making mail an option would bring more voters in. Mail-in voting, she said, is “just not in the culture here. … Our strongest voting blocks are not going to vote by mail,” adding that voting by mail is more popular among Democrats who don’t typically vote.

Eleana Little, a Hudson County freeholder candidate, cited the machine’s machinations as evidence that they’re nervous about insurgents harnessing that strength. “We’ve got people,” she said. “We’re building a grassroots movement and have over 100 volunteers. We’re phone-banking every day and hearing from people that they’re excited about what we’re doing. Hector comes from a working-class background and has mountains of student loan debt, like so many millennials. He didn’t have $50,000 to drop on his own campaign like some candidates do, and he doesn’t have wealthy family connections. So the war chest is small, but there are a lot of people involved. I think the fact that the machine is so nervous shows that we’ve built substantial momentum, and it’s not just all in our heads.”

As the pandemic worsens it's not just the virus itself that threatens human life. The corruption, cronyism and incompetence of those in power is adding fuel to the fire.

It's been said that the virus doesn't discriminate, but politicians and CEOs continue to prioritize their own power and profits over the lives of the most vulnerable.

Whether you consider Josh Kraushaar journalism's version of a silly clown or not, he really is the voice of the Inside-the-Beltway political establishment. He writes, at the National Journal their reality. His column yesterday, for example, began exactly the way any establishment ass-licker would begin a post if he was starving to lick more ass: "Joe Biden's decisive drubbing of Bernie Sanders in the presidential primary squelched the socialist stirrings that had been percolating within the Democratic Party. It’s probably no coincidence, then, that three of Congress’s most far-left members, all aligned with Sanders, are facing credible challenges of their own in upcoming House primaries. Three of the four freshmen members of the left-wing "Squad" that President Trump calls “AOC+3”-- Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota-- have drawn opponents who have made the case that they’re too extreme for the districts they represent. Tlaib is at risk at losing her seat to an experienced [and utterly corrupt and incompetent] African-American official in her Detroit-area district. And while Ocasio-Cortez and Omar are favored to prevail, they will face their first serious test over the popularity of their progressive messages in deep-blue districts." Oh gee, he forgot to mention that the Democratic establishment recruited a Republican pretending to be a Democrat to run against AOC. The hopes of the corrupt party establishment channelled through their boy Josh:

The unusual and unpredictable turnout patterns for upcoming summer primaries taking place during a pandemic will also add some uncertainty to these races. New York Democratic officials have been working to cancel the presidential primary for their June 23 elections, a decision overruled by a federal judge and currently under appeal. Without a presidential race driving turnout and with the coronavirus keeping many voters home, tiny turnout for state and local primaries raises the likelihood of unpredictable outcomes. Indeed, the low turnout in the 2018 New York primary was a major factor in Ocasio-Cortez’s upset of longtime Rep. Joseph Crowley.

Ocasio-Cortez’s primary against former CNBC anchor Michelle Caruso-Cabrera hasn’t drawn a lot of attention, but it’s worth watching closely. The congresswoman’s district, which spans Queens and the Bronx, has been one of the hardest-hit areas in the country from the pandemic. But Ocasio-Cortez was the only House Democrat to vote against the coronavirus-relief bill, a lonely and unpopular position on Capitol Hill. She told the New York Times that, after the vote, she felt more alienated in Congress than ever before and was facing a personal existential crisis.

Those personal feelings are undoubtedly authentic, but by making the crisis about herself, it offers a tempting opportunity for Caruso-Cabrera to portray her as someone driven more by ego than the needs of her constituents. Caruso-Cabrera is no novice: The granddaughter of Cuban and Italian immigrants, she served as the chief international correspondent for CNBC for nearly a decade. More notably, she raised over $1 million in the first three months of the year, an impressive amount for a seemingly long-shot challenger. Her strong fundraising gives her enough cash to run a professional campaign. Ocasio-Cortez, one of the best-funded members of Congress in the country, raised $2.7 million during the same period and has $3.5 million in the bank.

Ocasio-Cortez’s supporters appear to be taking notice of her upstart challenger. The Intercept, an antiestablishment publication that promotes left-wing candidates like Ocasio-Cortez, published a hit piece against Caruso-Cabrera this month for serving on the board of directors for a life-insurance company that “profits from death.” For a campaign that hasn’t drawn much attention, especially during the pandemic, the piece looked like a sign that they were taking Caruso Cabrera’s insurgent campaign seriously.

There has been no recent public polling of the race. When I reached out to Ocasio-Cortez pollster Celinda Lake to get her perspective on the race, she declined comment. An April 2019 Siena poll found her support in the district surprisingly lukewarm, with 52 percent of district voters viewing her favorably and 33 percent viewing her unfavorably. This, in a district that Hillary Clinton carried by a 57-point margin (77-20 percent).

With turnout expected to be very low-- and without a presidential campaign to drive Sanders supporters to the polls-- this is a race that’s worth watching. Even a weaker-than-expected showing by Ocasio-Cortez might tempt the congresswoman to run for president in 2024 instead of remaining as a lonely voice in a party that’s rediscovered the merits of political pragmatism.

While Ocasio-Cortez is the biggest name of the three renegades, Tlaib is the congresswoman facing the toughest challenge. She’s facing a rematch against Detroit City Council president Brenda Jones, whom Tlaib defeated by fewer than 1,000 votes in the 2018 primary. The congresswoman benefited from numerous African-American candidates splitting up the black vote on the primary ballot, allowing her to win with a 31 percent plurality. Tlaib won over the white voters in the Detroit district, but struggled to win support among African-Americans. Jones is hoping to consolidate the black vote behind her this time around.

Tlaib holds a fundraising advantage, with $1.4 million in the bank at the end of March. Jones, who announced her candidacy in March, is starting her fundraising from scratch in the middle of a pandemic.

Tlaib has faced criticism from her fellow Democrats over her anti-Israel activism and support for the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. But pro-Israel Democratic voters and donors are wary of Jones as well, given her past praise of anti-Semitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan.

Between Tlaib’s underwhelming electoral history and the racial dynamic in the district, it’s clear that she’s vulnerable. A March survey conducted by longtime Michigan pollster Ed Sarpolus found Tlaib only leading Jones 43 to 34 percent. Her 9-point lead was down 28 points since the survey’s last poll in June. Being well under 50 percent as a high-profile incumbent is a glaring warning sign. Another reason why Tlaib should be worried: Joe Biden comfortably defeated Sanders in her district despite her high-profile surrogacy for Sanders.

The other Sanders-supporting member of the squad, Ilhan Omar, looked like she didn’t have too much to worry about. While she’s drawn plenty of criticism for her use of bigoted tropes to attack Jewish supporters of Israel-- and faced the risk of censure from her own party-- she’s been insulated by support from both white progressives and a Somali-American base in her heavily Democratic Twin Cities district.

But she’s facing a spirited challenge from Antone Melton-Meaux, an attorney and mediator who has criticized the congresswoman for her divisive record and has courted support in the district’s Jewish community. “Omar has made statements that have been reckless and harmful to the Jewish community," Melton-Meaux told Jewish Insider last month. "There’s a deep sense of betrayal by her actions and displeasure with the way that she has handled herself in the process with regard to the residents in this district.”

Melton-Meaux raised $210,000 in the last fundraising quarter, a respectable amount that will allow him to get his message across. Omar ended March with $1.3 million in cash on hand, giving her a significant advantage.

But in a sign that Omar may be sensing a backlash, she quietly signed onto a letter urging the Trump administration to extend a United Nations arms embargo against Iran. While it was signed by over 380 members of Congress, the document backed by The American Israel Public Affairs Committee [AIPAC] was a departure from her previous positioning on the Middle East. Indeed, she drew backlash from her anti-Israel supporters for supporting the policy.

It’s still hard to see Omar losing in a primary after emerging as a progressive star in her first term. But it’s very possible that her sudden repositioning is a result of her looking to shore up political vulnerabilities.

These three competitive races are a reminder that even among liberal primary voters, many Democratic voters aren’t fans of the in-your-face brand of socialism that these three freshman members have promoted in their first terms in office. And with an establishment figure like Biden comfortably leading the presidential race, they’re at risk of being marginalized in a way they’ve never experienced-- even if they win their contested campaigns.

Please help defeat Kraushaar (and his ilk) by clicking on the Blue America 2020 incumbents thermometer above and contributing what you can. Kraushaar certainly makes a very convincing case to always beware of any candidate he endorses, whether implicitly or explicitly.

How About A Bigger Squad?

Nate McMurray is running to represent the working families of western New York in Congress

Yesterday, Kara Voght, a reporter for Mother Jones, noted that There’s a Wave of Democratic Insurgents Hoping to Join the Squad and asked if the Squad can become bigger-- and a bigger force in Congress. Alex Morse, the 30-year-old mayor of Holyoke, Massachusetts-- running for the congressional seat held by powerful Pelosi ally Richard Neal-- told her that he'd "be thrilled to be welcomed into the squad."

In the year since AOC and Pressley knocked off Reps. Joe Crowley and Mike Capuano—a pair of 10-term Congress members from deep-blue districts-- they’ve made good on their promises to shake things up. Floating in their wake is a fleet of progressive organizers and activists who are convinced that disruption could amount to legislative change if only there were more lawmakers who could be reliably counted on to take aggressive positions-- in other words, if the squad became a herd. The idea, says Waleed Shahid of Justice Democrats, which helped elect Ocasio-Cortez, is to create a “mission-driven caucus” that can “move the window of political possibility.” An expanded squad, the theory goes, could pass bold initiatives under a new Democratic president. And if President Donald Trump is reelected, a reenergized left flank could check his worst impulses.

Activists like Shahid are targeting incumbents who, they say, are not as liberal as their heavily Democratic districts.

The theory that a slate of candidates can accomplish this is... dubious-- at least at this time. I have a feeling that a few candidates as smart, talented, organized and lucky as AOC, may replicate what she was able to do-- the nearly impossible task of beating an entrenched incumbent-- and then go on to stand up to the weight of corrupting House leadership the way AOC, Rashida, Ilhan and Ayanna have. But not many. The system isn't built for that-- and neither are most candidates.

This morning I spoke with an idealistic super-progressive whose campaign hasn't taken off and is leaving her life in a shambles. She's not going to beat the incumbent; she's not even going to be able to beat the other idealistic super-progressive in the race who is also not going to beat the incumbent. A few days ago, I tweeted something about a Blue America page called Congress Needs More Progressive Women. There were a lot of supportive retweets, although not a single contribution. But there were a lot of comments about other progressive women who belong on the list. Some are actually already on the list-- but, you know, it's twitter-- and some we are in the middle of vetting. One, in fact, Lauren Ashcraft, who's running in a district that spans parts of Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens, was added this week. And others I had already spoken to and, for one reason or another, had determined were probably not candidates Blue America could help.

We're looking for potential great members of Congress and, believe it or not, that takes more than just being on the right side of a list of issues. We don't don't endorse someone who isn't pro-Choice or who doesn't enthusiastically and whole-heartedly back Medicare-for-All and the Green New Deal. But those are just the beginning of the process. If someone can't follow through on a simple agreement or is too disorganized to accomplish a baby step goal... there's a good chance we would be asking our members to waste their money, money that could be spent to get competent candidates like Marie Newman, Jamaal Bowman, Morgan Harper and our Chicagoland contingent or Take Back Texas squad or Bluer California candidates over the line.

Morgan Harper didn't have to mention The Squad to hit the essence of what it means to be a squad-like candidate and not just another establishment shill, like the garden variety Democratic incumbent she's opposing in Columbus, Ohio. "I look forward to joining others in Congress who are there to fight everyday, unapologetically to fight for an economy that works for everyone. We are part of a generation of leaders that don't view Congress as a career, but rather, a necessary step to get the resources so many people in our districts and across this country need."

Rachel Ventura, who is running to represent IL-11, is up against another "business-oriented" New Dem, Bill Foster, who isn't a Republican but isn't the kind of Democrat who ever moves the ball down the field either. "Winning races like mine sends a message that AOC is not the anomaly but the beginning of a pattern," she said. "A pattern that Americans are tired of bought and paid for politicians and want people to represent them instead. I would work well with the squad on getting the Green New Deal passes, on Medicare for All, and so many reforms which are needed to fix our broken systems. Like the Squad I am well known for speaking out against injustice and unfairness. I also bring my own unique asset. As a mathematician, I will do the hard work of adequately answering the question, 'how will we pay for it?'" These are candidates who are worthy of support, whether there was a squad or not.

Eva Putzova is running in a vast, "out of the way," rural Arizona district, one of the largest in the country. The incumbent, Tom O'Halleran, is a conservative Blue Dog who votes against nearly every single progressive proposal that comes up in Congress. O'Halleran was a former Republican state legislator recruited by a craven, anti-progressive DCCC. I asked Eva yesterday what she thought about the whole idea of expanding the Squad. Within minutes she had responded with this snapshot and note:

"Last Sunday, I walked into my local grocery store and ran into a friend who just lost her father. From her trip to say her final goodbye she brought me a little gift-- a bracelet with beads spelling out 'squad.' She told me: 'We need a bigger squad.' There's no question in my mind that the future of this planet depends on this country getting a bigger squad and that's why I'm running for Congress." And why she's running for Congress is outlined on her issues page, unique to her district and for the people she wants to represent in Congress, not identical to anyone else's or any groups'.

Liam O'Mara is running in one of the last southern California districts that was once the heart of Reagan-Country. His opponent, Republican Ken Calvert, is ignored by the DCCC, which has allowed a dedicated progressive reformer like O'Mara to wind up with the endorsement of the California Democratic Party. He's a contemplative guy, a historian with a bold vision for reform. "To tackle the big problems facing this country," he wrote, "Democrats need to expand their majority, and that means running hard in red districts. A progressive message can resonate across the country, not just in reliably-liberal bastions, if we pay attention to framing and focus on economic issues that affect the entire working class. The shift towards neoliberalism cut Democrats off from a foundation in class-conscious populism, and if we do not start fighting to recover lost ground among the working class, that ground will remain fertile territory for demagogues and reactionary neofascism." That sounds more like the Squad than someone bleating that they want to join it. Doesn't it?

Mark Gamba is running against one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, Blue Dog corruptionist Kurt Schrader. Mark told me that he thinks "it's long past time for many people in Congress to be replaced. We have a whole raft of major issues facing America that should have been solved some time ago. If the current people in Congress were going to accomplish it, it would already be done. I'm afraid for most of them, the easy corporate cash weakens their resolve to step on the toes necessary to solve the problems. Climate Chaos, is already here and going to get exponentially worse, we really can't wait around for these folks to retire, we need new blood and in particular we need new people who are not feeding at the corporate trough. I intend to beat Blue Dog Kurt Schrader and join the strong progressive voices in the fight to solve the biggest problems. As a Mayor I've proven I can solve issues deemed impossible by the local status quo, there is no reason that I can't do the same in Congress."

And then there's Mike Siegel, who is very likely going to be a member of Congress in 2021-- giving Texas what it hasn't had in a long time: an effective, indefatigable and staunch fighter for working families. "I can't wait to join the Squad in 2021," he told me yesterday. "We need more voices who are willing to lead on the issues that make the biggest impact on people's lives. These folks are changing the national debate: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez on climate change, Rep. Pressley on criminal justice reform, Rep. Omar on public housing-- and it goes on and on. Our biggest challenge, as Democrats, is to show the nation we have a comprehensive vision to strengthen the safety net and restore common decency to our government. The Squad and other progressives are leading the way, and I'm in the fight with them."

Brianna Wu is a progressive up against an entrenched establishment New Dem in the Boston area. He represents the status quo. She represents the change working families need to improve their opportunities. She'd like the Squad to be a Brigade:

Massachusetts was the birthplace of the American Revolution, so it's only fitting that it continues to be a key player in the revolution of American politics. I am taking on Stephen Lynch, one of the most conservative establishment Democrats in Congress. Mayor Alex Morse is challenging Rep. Richard Neal. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, an original member of The Squad, is carrying the progressive torch every day. So it's clear that Massachusetts continues to be a leader in a progressive revolution.

What the establishment of the Democratic Party won't accept is that Americans want a real political revolution-- one that TRULY benefits the working class over the rich. There are progressive candidates running all over the country to make this a reality. It's what the majority of Americans demand. It's LONG overdue.

A squad is defined as 'a small group of people having a particular task.' In 2020, we need to build on The Squad by sending a Brigade to Congress. A brigade of working class advocates who will make one thing clear to the establishment-- if you don't fight along side us, you will lose.

Let's build The Brigade together!

Would You Ask To Join The Squad?

Daniel Marans put a bunch of statements by AOC together and wrote a post asserting she wants a bigger Squad. Are there dues and a secret handshake like The Blue Dogs and New Dems have? Will it be a side project of the Congressional Progressive Caucus that eventually swallows up that everyone-welcome caucus? AOC: "We have to change the people who are here if we are serious about delivering for working-class people." As Marans reminded his readers, Pelosi dismissed the Squad with a sneer: "They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got." Last time I looked, though AOC had 5.6 million Twitter followers to Pelosi's 3.2 million. Ilhan Omar has $1.7 million Twitter followers to Steny Hoyer's 121,300. Ayanna Pressley had 490,100 followers compared to Jim Clyburn's 5,171 followers and Rashid Tlaib has 824,300 followers to Cheri Bustos' 33,000 followers. I don't see any of them sneering at Pelosi or her geriatric leadership team.

Marans explained that AOC is trying to change Pelosi's calculation. "On Tuesday, she became the first sitting House member to endorse Jessica Cisneros, an immigration attorney challenging Rep. Henry Cuellar, a conservative Texas Democrat, from the left. She’s also endorsed Marie Newman, the progressive challenging conservative Democrat Rep. Dan Lipinski in Illinois."

“If we’re not going to pass ‘Medicare for All’ unless the [House Democratic] caucus changes, then I need to be a part of changing the caucus. That’s just how it is,” Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that her ambitious goals for climate action also require a different kind of Democratic Party in Congress. “I don’t want people to die, and I want to cut our carbon emissions by 50% in 10 years.”

“If we want to pursue an ambitious agenda that delivers for working-class America, the Democratic Party has to change who they answer to. And they have to answer to working-class people.”

Without ever mentioning Pelosi, she added: “And it’s not because of something I said. It’s because of something everybody else said: ‘You don’t have the votes, people here aren’t going to support that.’ Then we have to change the people who are here if we are serious about delivering for working-class people.”

Ocasio-Cortez, of course, came in with a reputation for taking on incumbents. As a political newcomer, she launched a long-shot bid against Joe Crowley, the powerful Democratic congressman from New York’s 14th Congressional District who was considered a future leader of the party. Her win shook up national politics, setting off a firestorm in Washington as party leaders grappled with what they had missed in the mood on the ground.

But the victory didn’t do much to endear her to some of her new colleagues. Ocasio-Cortez told HuffPost this week that she isn’t afraid of making new enemies by opposing Cuellar, Lipinski and potentially others-- because the ones who will be mad at her probably weren’t her fans anyway.

For one thing, Ocasio-Cortez maintains that many House members likely to take issue with her involvement in the race wrote her off from the moment she walked in the door.

“The reception that I got here was very chilly, and that was before I did anything,” she said. “There are folks who just weren’t going to work with me, and nothing I could have done would have changed that-- unless I fundamentally changed who I am.”

Realizing there is little she can do win over some of her fellow Democrats has freed her to pursue her vision of change with less fear of political blowback on the Hill, according to Ocasio-Cortez.

“If anything, it almost created more breathing room for me, because it... was really clarifying,” she said.

From the beginning, Ocasio-Cortez has pursued an “inside-outside” organizing strategy. She joined a climate change sit-in in Pelosi’s office on her first day on Capitol Hill, but she also recognizes that she needs to have allies in the halls of Congress to move her agenda forward.

She counts it as a sign of progress, for example, that the creation of a public health insurance option is now the default position of many of her moderate colleagues. And Ocasio-Cortez is quick to downplay any past differences she had with Pelosi. Ocasio-Cortez’s former chief of staff, Saikat Chakrabarti, left shortly after his tweets about other House Democrats escalated a spat between members of the Squad and party leaders.

“The whole idea that there’s a conflict was very overblown,” she said. “It’s about what we can accomplish given the limitations of a Republican Senate and Trump as president. People are pretty pragmatic and they’re open-minded.”

...Ocasio-Cortez told HuffPost that she is limiting her involvement in primary challenges against her colleagues to heavily Democratic districts where she believes that members of Congress do not have the excuse of justifying centrist positions as politically necessary. She is fond of noting that Hillary Clinton bested Donald Trump in Cuellar’s district by nearly 20 percentage points in 2016.

“I think it’s a pretty modest proposal, a pretty modest ask that we consider a D+20 district to be grassroots-supported, divested of lobbyist money, to support ‘Medicare for All,’” she said. “This district is almost as progressive as mine. So why is there such a huge difference? Why is it so conservative?”

Cuellar is frequently ranked as one of Congress’ most conservative Democrats. As of this Congress, he had an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association for opposing tougher gun regulations (though he has since voted to tighten background checks). He received a score of 15% from NARAL Pro-Choice America in 2018, having voted for legislation that would legally treat fetuses as people. And Cuellar has received over $5.5 million in corporate PAC contributions over the course of his career.

“If this is a D+20 district, what room do we give to people in a D+1 district?” Ocasio-Cortez asked.

With that in mind, the New York representative said she is equally interested in elevating Democrats in swing seats-- those in the party’s “frontline” program for vulnerable incumbents-- who have taken progressive stances that expose them to political risk. She singled out for praise Rep. Mike Levin, a California Democrat who unseated a Republican last November. Notwithstanding his “frontline” status, he is a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus and a co-sponsor of “Medicare for All” legislation that would create a single-payer health care system. Levin is one of three vulnerable freshman Democrats for whom Ocasio-Cortez raised $30,000 apiece in an end-of-March fundraising appeal on Twitter.

“I’m very, very committed to not just Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, but transformational majorities in the House and Senate,” she said. “That’s where I want to dedicate a lot of my time.”

While Ocasio-Cortez said she is a “team player,” one thing she has no plans to do is pay the sum of $150,000 in “dues” that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee asks of rank-and-file House members.

“When I talk to frontliners about what they need, they just prefer that I give them the money,” she said.

Without so much as lifting a phone to call donors, Ocasio-Cortez has raised nearly $3.4 million for her reelection campaign. She may have to spend some of that money dispatching with local competition: She has already drawn 11 challengers-- eight Republicans and three Democrats. However, the prospects of another Democrat, let alone a Republican, prevailing in the heavily Democratic district where she is a household name remain scant.

Ocasio-Cortez declined to go into more detail about how she would use her financial resources to support people like Cisneros and Newman. A candidate’s campaign can, for example, directly transfer up to $2,000 to another campaign each election cycle.

“A lot of those decisions are based on evolving dynamics,” she said. “How much help would a given candidate need? Where can we expand the movement?”

Rather than setting her sights on 2020 or 2021, Ocasio-Cortez said she is trying to figure out how to shape what the country will look like in 2050.

“One of the benefits of being a younger member is that I have the luxury of looking at things in terms of decades. How do we turn Tennessee blue again? How do we turn West Virginia blue?” she concluded. “These are questions that seem impossible to some people because perhaps they are impossible in a cycle or two. But I think about the changes that I want to see in my life.”

Jamaal Bowman is a middle school principal in the Bronx, currently in a tough congressional race against an entrenched establishment incumbent. he told us he feels "that I am already part of the Squad. Being part of the Squad is not only about being elected to Congress, it’s about all of us, fighting for everyday Americans who struggle within the confines of immoral policy. It’s about finding like minded people and working together to change the oppressive status quo. We all can and must fight for Medicare for all, a Green New Deal, and getting big money out of politics. If you stand for justice and equality for all, you are already a member of the Squad.”

 

Eva Putzova's tweet alerted me to Marans' post. The Arizona progressive congressional candidate added that "We need to replace every single representative in Congress bought by corporate interests. AOC is fighting not only for the soul of the Democratic Party but also for the soul of this country and I will be honored to join her. Regardless of endorsements, I will continue doing what I’ve always done: putting people first."

Washington Democratic Socialist Rebecca Parson should be one of the first people anyone thinks of when it comes to expanding the Squad. "The Squad is an inspiration across the country," she told me last night. "They're fighting for truly progressive policies like the Green New Deal, and they're showing working-class people that we can participate in the political process, too. Democrats and Republicans who take millions of dollars from the Wall Street, insurance, Big Pharma, and real estate companies that are destroying lives don’t fight for us. They fight for their donors. All it takes is a review of their voting records to see that. When I'm elected to Congress, my focus will be on helping the people of Washington's 6th Congressional District and the country, so I would be proud to join the Squad." Snd one of the last people who would ever ask to join the Squad? Rebecca's reactionary opponent Derek Kilmer, New Dem.

Like Rebecca and Eva, Chicago grassroots activist Kina Collins, is as Squad-like as you're going to find. "Becoming part of the Squad," she told us this morning, "does not mean that any challenger candidate is running just to be an AOC clone. Each of us is running to be the best representative of our districts, and in IL-07 with a D+38 rating, our district should serve as a national model on moving the progressive agenda forward. Congressman Danny K. Davis has sat on the sidelines for too long, and he continues to take corporate PAC money from private insurance and pharmaceutical companies when we have the largest healthcare disparities in the country. If we want equity and justice for working-class people, we need someone from that community who will actually fight for Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, and to end gun violence."

Rachel Ventura's district is west of Kina's. THey're on the same page when it comes to building a new progressive agenda for Chicagoland. "Yes," Rachel told us without hesitation, "I would become a member of 'the Squad' and support growing progressive leadership in all committees, and within the party caucus. I see the squad as a team that each has their own unique skill set and area of expertise. I would bring my own skills as a mathematician and naturalist to the team. We are going to need to make arguments about re-prioritizing the budget from military spending to funding green investments in our communities. Additionally, we are going to have to make an argument that there are natural ways to sequester carbon without 'technological fixes' that perpetuate fossil fuels. Our race has the potential to show that AOC is not the exception to the rule, but a pattern that demonstrates where the Democratic Party is going."

Dr. Michael Owens was once a Democratic Party official working to turn red suburban counties southwest of Atlanta blue. Now they are-- and he's running for a seat currently held by a semi-Republican Blue Dog, David Scott. I asked him if he would join the Squad. "Absolutely, Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and the Squad are what the next generation of progressive leaders look like. They are leading the way and fighting the fights I want to be in the middle of. America needs a squad as big as the challenges we are facing. As many policies that have been seen as too-far-left become mainstream the group will continue become larger and more influencial. Fighting for the dignity and well-being of our citizens and being committed to serve all people should not be the limited to a certain group.  It should be the goal of the entire Congress."

Earlier today, Kim Williams explains how she evolved from an Elizabeth Warren supporter to a full-fledged Berniecrat. It all about a commitment to solving real problems for real people. "As progressive presidential candidates surge in the polls, we need to ensure there are progressives in Congress who will advance Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and debt free college if we are ever going to realize the profound change we so desperately need," she said today. "We simply can not do that with the members of Congress we have now. My safe blue district is represented a conservative Democrat who spent last Congress voting with Trump 47% of the time, and during his eight terms, the median income in my county, when adjusted for inflation, fell. It is lower now than when he took office in 2005. Millionaires like him will never deliver change for working class families. It can only come from individuals who refuse to compromise their values for campaign contributions, who will unapologetically stand behind policies that can bring about real change, and who will proudly become a member of the Squad."

Congress Needs More Members In The Squad But That Isn't The Only Way To Make A Valuable Contribution: Katie Porter

The CNN.com headline yesterday, Katie Porter isn't part of 'The Squad.' But the freshman House Democrat is stirring up trouble for Trump, was... meh. True, Katie Porter isn't part of The Squad. And true, Katie is "stirring up trouble for Trump." But... there's a lot more to it. Each member of The Squad can boast a ProgressivePunch crucial vote record of "A"-- three of them, perfect 100% scores, in fact. Katie's ProgressivePunch crucial vote score isn't as robust. And instead of their A, hers is F. Here are their raw scores plus the PVI of their districts:

• Ayanna Pressley- 100 (D+34)
• Rashida Tlaib- 100 (D+33)
• AOC- 100 (D+29)
• Ilhan Omar- 97.50 (D+26)
• Katie Porter- 72.50 (R+3)

Let's put that another way. Republicans didn't bother running candidates against Ayanna or Rashida. AOC beat Republican Anthony Pappas 110,318 (78.2%) to 19,202 (13.6%). Ilhan beat Republican Jennifer Zielinski 267,703 (78.0%) to 74,440 (21.7%). Katie had a more series problem. She ran against entrenched Republican incumbent Mimi Walters (after beating a DCCC-preferred New Dem in the primary). Walters spent $5,244,605 (+ $7,758,258 town in against Porter by Republican outside groups). In the end-- Porter managed to beat Walters 158,906 (52.1%) to 146,383 (47.9%). Trump did badly in all 5 districts-- 11.9% in Ayanna's, 18.1% in Rashida's, 18.5% in Ilhan's, 19.8% in AOC's... and 44.4% in Katie's. I'm not making an excuses for her voting record, but it's a lot easier to vote straight down the line progressive in a district where only 12% of the people back Trump that in one where 44% do.

On the other hand, few freshmen have been as valuable in their committees as Porter has been in the House Financial Services Committee, where she has used her expertise to hold banksters' and Trump appointed regulators' feet to the fire. And, as Katie Lobosco, the CNN.com reporter put it, "she's emerged as a viral star when it comes to how banks and the government treat the working poor and puncturing Trump's claims about the economy. She's carving out a Warren-esque role for herself that's included asking top officials do basic math under oath. Her targets so far have included major Wall Street players like JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Equifax CEO Mark Begor and now-former Wells Fargo CEO Tim Sloan."

It was March when Porter grilled Sloan-- who was already facing calls from Warren and others to step down-- at a House Financial Services Committee hearing about Wells Fargo's numerous scandals over fake accounts, inappropriate mortgage fees, and charging borrowers for auto insurance they didn't need.

When it came her turn, Porter began by asking why the public should trust Sloan's promises that Wells Fargo was changing its ways. Then, she ducked under the table to bring up a poster board printed with huge text, displaying what Wells Fargo attorneys had said in court.

"Why Mr. Sloan, if you don't mind me asking, are your lawyers in federal court arguing that those exact statements I read are quote 'paradigmatic examples of non-actionable corporate puffery, on which no reliable investor could rely,'" she asked.

"I don't know why our lawyers are arguing that," Sloan responded.

Porter kept going.

"It's convenient for your lawyers to deflect blame in court, and say your rebranding campaign can be ignored as hyperbolic marketing, but when then you come to Congress, you want us to take you at your word," she said. "And I think that's the disconnect, that's why the American public has trouble trusting Wells Fargo."

Two weeks later, Wells Fargo announced Sloan was out.

Porter has targeted top Trump administration officials, too. She whipped out a copy of the text book she wrote, "Modern Consumer Law," to quiz Consumer Financial Protection Bureau chief Kathy Kraninger. She then posed a hypothetical math problem: A single mom takes out a two-week $200 payday loan with an origination fee of $20, at a rate of 10%. What is the APR? One of Porter's aides handed Kraninger a calculator.

She didn't do the math, even after Porter repeated the question, asking her to ballpark the calculation.

"I understand where you're getting. At the end of the day, the issue is certainly: When you actually are able to repay that loan and whether or not you take out an additional loan," Kraninger said.

"This is not a math exercise, though. This is a policy conversation," she added.

This week, in her office, Porter said she hopes the video clip gets people thinking about the issue.

"Like, what does it mean that calculating the APR is so hard that the vast majority of us can't do it? I guess it means that those disclosures that do it for you are pretty useful," she said.

In June, Porter asked Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson why the Federal Housing Administration is "lousy at servicing mortgages." When Carson said he had not had any discussions about that issue but that he would "look it up," Porter pushed further, asking him to explain the rate of foreclosures among those with mortgages backed by his department. She used the term REO-- which stands for real estate-owned, and refers to properties owned by a lender after an unsuccessful foreclosure-- an acronym she didn't expect to stump the head of the agency tasked with monitoring them.

"Do you know what an REO is?" Porter asked Carson.

Carson replied, "An Oreo?"

"No, not an Oreo," Porter said. "An R-E-O. REO."




Video of the exchange went viral and Carson attempted to laugh it off by sending the Congresswoman a box of the cookies.

Porter says her goal isn't to highlight incompetence, but instead to make esoteric topics more accessible-- like she did in the consumer finance law classes she taught at the University of California, Irvine.

"What I did as a professor is not that different than what I do in hearings," Porter said this week.

An average voter might not be able to articulate their position on payday loans, she said, "but when you start talking about that hypothetical exchange I had with Kraninger, people began to engage."

Like Warren, she believes that debates about protecting the ability to make a living, buy a home, and afford college are really conversations about the "heart and soul of America."

Her back-and-forth with Dimon, she said, was meant to highlight the issue of CEO pay disparity. Porter ran through a hypothetical Chase bank employee's budget, this time with a white board.

"She's short $567, what would you suggest she do?" asked the bank CEO.

"I don't know, I'd have to think about that," Dimon said.

Whether or not the professor-turned-congresswoman can turn her unique way of questioning government officials and Wall Street executives into making real legislative change remains to be seen. A bicameral bill she brought forth with Democratic Sens. Warren, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, and Tom Udall of New Mexico would bolster the power of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau so that it could oversee student loan servicers. Porter has also introduced legislation with Harris that would strengthen the power of state attorneys general to monitor banks.

So far none of these bills have major support from Republicans. But a bill she introduced that would raise the civil penalties assessed to security law violators was marked up by committee last week and a similar Senate bill is cosponsored by Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. Two of her other bills-- one on mental health and the other addressing homecare for seniors-- have some support from across the aisle.

The Democrat could be vulnerable in her reelection bid. When she won in 2018, it was the first time her Southern California district had gone blue since its creation in 1983. That was in part because two-term incumbent Republican Mimi Walters was consistently voting in line with Trump in a district Clinton won by five percentage points.

But last month, Porter became one of the first Democrats who won Republican districts in 2018 to come out in support of impeaching Trump. The move seemed to win her some support. Her campaign brought in more than $1 million in the second quarter, out-fundraising many other vulnerable Democrats.

Porter said she is working to be a voice for families concerned about how they're going to pay the bills, something she believes Trump's candidacy also tapped into.

"The financial instability and sometimes insecurity that families feel, deeply motivates how they respond politically," Porter said last week.

"I think one thing he (Trump) played into was fear about 'Am I going to be able to make ends meet, and is there going be a job for my kids?' Those are real concerns, and as a mom I have them, too."

So far Katie has half a dozen GOP opponents running against her in the open primary, alphabetically Deputy District Attorney Ray Gennawey, Yorba Linda City Councilor and Deputy Attorney General Peggy Huang, random person Julie Proctor, Mission Viejo City Councilman Greg Raths, Laguna Hills City Councilman Don Sedgwick, Orange County Board of Education Member Lisa Sparks ad a second random person, Brenton Woolworth. And some of them are raising real money:

• Don Sedgwick: $621,120
• Peggy Huang (self-funder)- $263,791
• Greg Raths (self funder)- $209,770
• Lisa Sparks Triggers- $151,251
• Ray Gennawey- $73,210
• Brenton Woolworth- $8,845

But, speaking of The Squad, with the Republican Party having nothing to run on, they've decided to take their racism and xenophobia and turn it into an issue, an issue that shows the public exactly who and what they are. This is from the Illinois Republican Party. I have a feeling the California GOP is going to back away from using it, but... who really knows for sure. It looks like the kind of thing that Don Sedgwick and Greg Rath would absolutely love.

Neo-Liberals, Neo-Conservatives, Neo-Fascists, Neo-Nazis... There's A Difference?

My friend Frank-- whose dad was one of the 3 founders of the Moral Majority movement-- left evangelical Christianity many years ago... loudly. Yesterday, je sent me this video from Italy, where he's on vacation. He sure doesn't like fascists! "Be warned, America," he said, "when you elect a Nazi German to represent your country, who then calls other people "foreigners," when he is a foreigner-- because it is not an American idea to put children in cages... When you tell people of color to go back where they came from... when we forget that history, we will end up with places like this or their metaphorical equivalent." He was speaking from the ruins of a German bunker.

Commentary was founded by left-of-center Jewish intellectuals in the aftermath of the Holocaust and became a leading component of the new post-war Jewish identity until 1960 when a radical right freak, Norman Podhoretz, took over and turned it into a neo-conservative/neo-fascist magazine, destroying all credibility the magazine had developed in it's first decade and a half. His son, John Podhoretz, is the current editor and even nearly as toxic as the father. A #NeverTrumper, he broke with the fascist right on immigration policy: "[A]s a Jew, I have great difficulty supporting a blanket policy of immigration restriction because of what happened to the Jewish people after 1924 and the unwillingness of the United States to take Jews in." But, more recently, he gravitated back to his neo-fascist roots and supports both Trump and putting immigrant children in cages. I don't know much about Noah Rothman other than his position as online editor of Commentary. His new book, Unjust: Social Justice and the Unmaking of America, was published by neo-fascist publishing firm, Regnery. And his new post for Commentary, pathetic: "both sides" trash, that would have had the pre-Podhoretz editors of the magazine puking. His first couple of paragraphs sucked me into reading the article: "The 2016 election cycle was a forsaken orgy of racial anxiety, political violence, spineless complacency, and depravity of a scale that was abnormal even for American politics. The 2020 election cycle will be worse. America got a taste of what Donald Trump’s reelection bid is going to look like on Wednesday night, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. The president had only hours earlier intervened in a destructive civil conflict among Democrats by insisting that the conflict’s more progressive belligerents, all of whom are of minority descent with only one born abroad, should 'go back' to the countries 'from which they came.' Aware of the damage these remarks could do both to the GOP’s political prospects and the social fabric, some responsible Republicans dissented. Most did not. Those members of Trump’s phalanx who did not stifle their criticisms flattered the president and applauded his instincts. It was inevitable that his most committed supporters would do the same. So, when the topic turned to 'squad' member Ilhan Omar at Wednesday night’s rally, the crowd followed Trump’s lead." Eventually, so did Rothman.

First he noted that "There’s an ugly condescension inherent in the unspoken assumption that repudiating bigotry might fracture the president’s winning coalition of voters who are otherwise underserved by elite opinion-makers on the coasts, but there is no better explanation for Trump’s politically foolish compromises. Trump’s approach to constituency maintenance routinely manifests in the stoking of racial and class tensions, and there’s no reason to expect that to abate when the presidency is on the line." But then came the both sides bullshit conservatives can never resist:

Equally tragic is the fact that the Republican Party Trump represents is losing, or has already lost, the moral high ground in its efforts to call out Rep. Omar’s unveiled expressions of anti-Semitism for what they are. Democrats certainly aren’t doing so. Absent any check on her instincts, Omar and the 'squad' can be expected to renew their commitment to a special brand of ethnic and sectarian antagonism. For her part, Omar has transitioned from making anti-Semitic comments to crafting anti-Semitic policy. This week, she introduced a House resolution in support of the Boycott, Divest, Sanctions movement-- an amalgam of anti-Israel interests whose actions inevitably manifest in naked Jew-hatred-- equating Israel to Nazi Germany in the process." In other words, equating anti-Semitism with supporting the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and national identity. The brakes are off, and the temperature is rising. As the campaign season intensifies, so, too, will the emotions around the consequences of the next presidential cycle. The acts of political violence that we’ve witnessed over the last three years-- some of which are attributed to overheated political rhetoric by their perpetrators-- are unlikely to abate. As the legislative process grinds to a halt ahead of the upcoming election year, the crises that exacerbate these tensions, like the unanticipated explosion of migrants crossing the Southern border, will go unaddressed. Those crises will be demagogued; they always are. But there are no cooler heads left to prevail.

A responsible political culture can withstand the actions of a few reckless provocateurs, even if one of those provocateurs is the president. But ours is not a responsible political culture, and things are going to get worse before they get better.

Oh, well, at least I learned to never read anything by Noah Rothman again, nor to bother reading anything in Commentary. From now on, when I want to hear from delusional Republicans, I'll just stick to Andrew Sullivan, whose a lot smarter than Rothman and Podhoretz combined. His contribution to yesterday's dialogue: Trump Is Betting That Indecency Can Win in America. "In the deeply disturbing moments after Donald Trump invoked a three-minutes-of-hate session toward Congresswoman Ilhan Omar Wednesday night, and the crowd erupted with chants of 'Send Her Back! Send Her Back!', a protester yelled something inaudible, and caused a commotion. As security was called, the crowd chanted 'USA! USA!' and eventually the young man was handcuffed and led out of the stadium, to the mob’s vocal derision and pleasure. In those moments, you can see Trump pause to allow the mob to vent against the dissenter. Frenzied participants gleefully whipped out their phones to take photos of the man, who was holding up pictures of Jeffrey Epstein and Trump together and wearing a Native Trash T-shirt-- a defunct Charlotte band but also presumably," ventured Sullivan, a reference to all those who surrounded him."

This country has had volatile civil conflicts before. What’s different now is we have a president whose instinct in such turbulent times is actually to intensify the turbulence with rhetoric and mass rallies that foment greater and greater mutual hostility. Most presidents regard it as their responsibility to tamp down racial and cultural conflict. Trump, having no concept of any broader interest than his own, is incapable of it. His malignant narcissism prevents him from any other way of behaving, and each outrage becomes a new baseline for the next one.

So yes, we are in an abyss. And as Trump becomes increasingly emboldened by his survival, and one of the two major parties has become a cult, the bottom seems even more elusive than before. Think of what might happen if Trump loses the popular vote in 2020 by an even bigger margin but still ekes out an Electoral College victory. Think of how a close election could lead to Trump’s refusal to concede, and how the wheels could come off the entire system. What we know for certain is that, for the first time, we have a president who doesn’t care if that happens, who’d rather destroy the legitimacy of liberal democracy than compete legitimately within it.