Democrats/progressives – November 2024

The Democrats Need a Project 2029. Here’s a Start.
By Professor Joseph Heath, author of “The Machinery of Government.”
President Trump’s outright war on the administrative state has put Democrats in a difficult position, since their core brand is that they are the pro-government party.
Faced with the challenge of blocking a tsunami of bad ideas for government reform, Democrats are naturally tempted to hunker down and defend the status quo. This makes them sound like they are comfortable with the existing system. But the system is a mess, desperately in need of reform.
So Democrats wind up undermining the central proposition they are making to voters, which is that government is capable of solving their problems.
The only way for Democrats to break out of this trap is to take a page from the Trump administration, whose attack plan was laid out well in advance in the form of Project 2025. Where is the liberal equivalent?
… Too many of the interactions people have with state officials — with border officials, public schoolteachers, post office workers, I.R.S. agents and so on — leave them angry and frustrated. Most people’s attitudes toward government are determined not by abstract political ideology but rather by these interactions — and frustration with them helps drive support for Republican radicalism.
Anyone who is serious about expanding the role of government in American society should be obsessively concerned with improving the quality of these customer-service interactions. And yet Democrats have too often defended the institutional arrangements that have degraded their quality.

28 March
‘If We Don’t Get Our S–t Together, Then We Are Going to Be in a Permanent Minority’
It’s been months since Democrats suffered a devastating defeat at the polls. For all the talk about the party’s need for change, few seem actually willing to make the leap.
(Politico) The party has lurched from strategy to strategy in their efforts to confront Trump, mostly falling flat. Democrats interrupted and stormed out of Trump’s joint address to Congress, which had the effect of making their rowdiness the story and sparking new intraparty feuds. That was followed by the release of cringeworthy videos on social media pegged to the “Choose your fighter” trend and Gen Z slang that tried to be playful but were roundly mocked as reeking of desperation. The party’s latest attempt to emulate the kind of authenticity that voters associate with Trump is using more four-letter words.
Interviews with more than 30 Democratic elected officials, party leaders and consultants for this story reveal that after suffering their biggest defeat in decades, Democrats are deeply fractured, rudderless, and struggling to figure out at the most basic level what their message and strategy should be. Some longtime Democrats are worried, even enraged, that few of their leaders have reexamined their prior positions — let alone shown a willingness to consider a dramatic break with party norms or practice.
Grassroots activists are demanding more fight from elected officials. Along with the party’s high-dollar donors, they are asking when, exactly, their leaders will face the 2024 election with eyes wide open and come up with answers about how to confront Trump and how to regain lost electoral ground.

27 March
The beginning of the end of the Trump era
Shadi Hamid
Trump is squandering his moment. Here’s a path forward for Democrats
(WaPo) … The pleasure of domination
We’ve entered a new phase in which domination itself — not policy outcomes, not even chaos for chaos’s sake — has become the central organizing principle of Trump’s second term. …
The Democratic Party is at an all-time nadir, with its approval rating falling below 30 percent for the first time. The coalition that elected Joe Biden in 2020 is fractured, with stark disagreements on what lessons to learn from defeat. Before Trump imposed tariffs on friends and foes alike and spooked the markets, economic indicators were generally positive and improving. As the effects of inflation further subsided, Trump had the perfect opportunity to take credit and present himself as the president who would improve the conditions of working-class Americans.
Had Trump shown even a modicum of magnanimity in victory — had he focused on targeted policy wins that could demonstrate competence — he might have cemented a Republican majority for the foreseeable future. The ingredients were there: a working-class coalition spanning racial divides, a skepticism of elite institutions and a hunger for economic nationalism. But it was, and is, not to be. In some ways, then, Trump’s hyperpartisan attacks on the status quo, while terrible for the country in the short term, are a boon for Democrats and progressives in the long term.
I’ve spent a good part of my career studying illiberal and populist movements in the Middle East and in Europe. What characterizes successful populists isn’t merely the capacity to channel anger — any demagogue can do that — but the ability to transition from rebellion to governance, from grievance to construction.
Trump seems constitutionally incapable of making this shift. His working-class appeal during the campaign has been replaced by unlimited deference to a billionaire oligarch who appears either indifferent to or simply unaware of the struggles of ordinary Americans — and the positive role government can play in addressing those struggles. …
As long as Republicans insist on being the party of “domination,” Democrats can reclaim the mantle of unabashed patriotism. What would this look like in practice? Over the past 10 years, progressives soured on the American idea. In a 2022 New York Times-Siena poll, only 37 percent of Democrats said they thought America was “the greatest country in the world” — compared with 69 percent of Republicans. To shift would mean embracing American symbols and traditions without irony or qualification. It would mean celebrating institutions such as an independent judiciary, free speech and unfettered debate as uniquely American strengths rather than obstacles to progressive goals. And it would mean explicitly calling out the Republican Party for becoming what it currently is: the anti-American party.

17-18 March
Moderate Dems message to progressives: We’re not backing down
A string of special elections and some polling show the party might be getting pulled to the middle.
(Politico) Democrats are overperforming at the state level, with centrist candidates flipping one seat and coming close in another in special elections in deep red parts of Iowa. Rahm Emanuel, who once orchestrated a takeover of the House by recruiting Blue Dog Democrats, is eying a 2028 bid for president. And leading Democrats like Gavin Newsom and Chuck Schumer are rebuffing the left — the California governor siding against trans players in women’s sports and the Senate minority leader veering away from progressive demands to shut down the government.
“Moderates are having their moment,” said Jonathan Kott, the onetime senior adviser to the former centrist Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. “I think people are realizing that there were many reasons we lost in 2024, but an acquiescence to all of the liberal groups and fighting and dying on hills about 1 and 2 and 3 percent of the voting population seemed really dumb.”
These six Democrats are showing the party how to resist Trump 2.0
Perry Bacon Jr.
As leadership dithers, individual politicians are taking up the fight
(WaPo) …there are some Democratic politicians who are showing real fight and resolve — and have from the start of Trump’s second term. They are not only voting against his initiatives but attacking him in ways intentionally designed to get media attention and galvanize opposition against the new administration.
Rep. Jasmine Crockett (Texas)
Sen. Chris Murphy (Connecticut)
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (New York)
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont)
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz

14 March
Schumer, Facing Backlash for Not Forcing a Shutdown, Says He’ll Take ‘the Bullets’
Privately, many Senate Democrats conceded that their leader was doing his job by protecting his members from a tough vote and making a politically painful decision. But the backlash from his party was intense.

13 March

The midterms won’t save the Democrats
(Politico) Midterm elections tend to be unkind to the party in power. The sitting president’s party has lost House seats in every midterm but two dating back to 1950. The last time Donald Trump was president, during the 2018 midterms Democrats flipped the House and picked up 41 House seats.
The prospect of an epic comeuppance in 2026 — as in 1994, 2010 or even 2018 — gives many Democrats hope in what is otherwise a dark time. But this week brings yet another reminder that the midterm isn’t necessarily going to solve the party’s problems. While Democrats begin the election cycle in a decent position to win back the House by campaigning against Trump overreach, control of the Senate may be out of reach.
Just like in 2018, when Republicans were able to keep control of the Senate in face of a strong Democratic tide, an unfavorable Senate map this year makes the Democratic path incredibly daunting. …
The problem is the nature of the seats the two parties are defending. Nearly all of the 22 Republican-held seats are in red states — many of them red states where Trump romped in 2024. At the moment, there are only two Republican-held seats that figure to be competitive (Maine and North Carolina). Democrats are only defending 13 seats, but four of those races figure to be competitive — and two of them (Georgia and Michigan) are presently viewed as toss-ups.

Pete Buttigieg, a Possible 2028 Contender, Won’t Run for Senate in Michigan
The former transportation secretary, who moved to Michigan from Indiana in 2022, had been seen as the most prominent potential candidate in next year’s marquee contest.
(NYT) His decision, reported earlier by Politico, allows him to pivot more easily to the next contest for the White House — which will effectively kick off the day after the midterm elections, if not sooner. Mr. Buttigieg determined he could not run for Senate or governor and then for the White House, according to a person who was briefed on his deliberations, who added that the move put the former transportation secretary in prime position for the 2028 Democratic primary race.
Buttigieg gives the clearest sign yet about his next steps
The former Transportation secretary is eyeing something bigger than the Senate.
(Politico) Now Buttigieg is eyeing another presidential run in 2028, a contest that sees him polling behind only his party’s most recent standard bearer, former Vice President Kamala Harris, who is weighing a potential gubernatorial bid in California.

Democratic Attorneys General Sue Over Gutting of Education Department
(NYT) The Trump administration cut about half the agency’s work force, saying the move would enable it to deliver services more effectively. The attorneys general called the layoffs “reckless and illegal.”
A coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general sued the Trump administration on Thursday, two days after the Education Department fired more than 1,300 workers, purging people who administer grants and track student achievement across America.
The group, led by New York’s Letitia James, sued the administration in a Massachusetts federal court, saying that the dismissals were “illegal and unconstitutional.”
“Firing half of the Department of Education’s work force will hurt students throughout New York and the nation, especially low-income students and those with disabilities who rely on federal funding,” Ms. James said in a news release. “This outrageous effort to leave students behind and deprive them of a quality education is reckless and illegal.”
Thursday’s move was made in concert with the attorneys general of Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Rhode Island, Washington, Wisconsin, Vermont and the District of Columbia.
Judge orders DOGE and Elon Musk to turn over documents, answer written questions
(Politico) The demands for information are designed to clarify the “parameters of DOGE’s and Musk’s authority.
A federal judge has ordered that Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency turn over a wide array of records and answer questions about plans it crafted to downsize federal agencies, fire employees and suspend federal contracts.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order Wednesday is a win for a group of 14 Democratic state attorneys general who are suing President Donald Trump, Musk and DOGE, arguing that Musk has unconstitutionally wielded immense power in ways that are damaging their states. Any information the states glean as a result of Chutkan’s decision will help her determine whether to block Musk and DOGE’s government activities altogether.
14 February
They’re not just suing to stop DOGE. They’re suing Elon Musk himself.
(Politico) A pair of lawsuits say that, with all the power he has accumulated, Musk is violating the Constitution’s rules about the appointment of federal officers.
Elon Musk’s efforts to disrupt and dismantle the federal government at the behest of Donald Trump have already sparked a legion of lawsuits. Now the legal challengers are setting their sights on a new target: Musk himself.
Two new cases accuse the ultra-wealthy CEO of illegally amassing too much government power without the accountability typically required of high-level executive branch officials. They are seeking court orders that would force Musk to halt the cost-cutting and information-gathering activities he has been spearheading through his U.S. DOGE Service.

12 March
Rahm Emanuel Is Gearing Up to Run for President
The former Chicago mayor is already on the hustings, finding new ways to attack Trumpism from the center.
(Politico Playbook) Since coming home in January from his stint in Tokyo — a job he repurposed to be American envoy to all of Asia — Emanuel has been as visible as any other Democrat. Never mind that he currently holds no office and hasn’t been on a ballot for a decade.
Name the political podcast and Emanuel has likely been on it or will be shortly. He immediately snagged a CNN contract and regular Washington Post column, no small accomplishment for a former official at a moment of retrenchment for news organizations.
He’s also hitting the lecture circuit, appearing for paid and gratis gigs…. Emanuel is pointedly avoiding Ivy League campuses and later this month will make his first stop on a service academy tour when he speaks at West Point.
Just as striking is to talk to anybody in high-level Democratic politics who knows Emanuel — which is to say most everyone — and hear how matter of fact they are about the inevitability of his candidacy.

10 March
May I Have Some More?
How two stars of the wonk left are making abundance the new Democratic buzzword.
(Slate) The timing of Abundance, the new book by journalists Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson, is extraordinary.
The good news is, the authors have dropped a potent political manifesto into the lap of a Democratic Party
…Klein and Thompson offer a vision of a “liberalism that builds,” a can-do antidote to blue-state malaise.
…Abundance is unabashed in synthesizing good ideas, stringing together (and generously citing, in the text) books and papers about NIMBYism, construction, environmentalism, clean energy, government technology, procurement rules, medicine, science, and invention to make its point. Klein and Thompson argue that liberals (with the occasional assist from conservative saboteurs) have hamstrung their own ability to do good.

6 March
Murphy: Six Weeks In, This White House Is On Its Way To Being The Most Corrupt In U.S. History
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) on Thursday spoke on the U.S. Senate floor to expose the unprecedented corruption of the Trump administration’s first six weeks in office. Murphy condemned Trump’s normalization of pay-to-play politics, where billionaire donors dictate policy and taxpayer money is funneled into the pockets of the president, Elon Musk, and the corporate elite.

2 March
Democrats Invite Fired Federal Workers to Trump’s Congressional Address
The move comes as lawmakers hear backlash from constituents over President Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to slash federal spending and shrink the civil service
(NYT) Rather than boycott President Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress, some Democratic lawmakers are inviting former federal workers to the speech on Tuesday as a way to protest the mass firings and funding cuts that have defined Mr. Trump’s first month back in office.
Federal workers’ treatment by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has energized constituents across the country in recent weeks, with many overloading lawmakers’ phone lines and showing up at town halls to voice their displeasure.

28 February
Overtime: Rahm Emanuel, Fareed Zakaria weigh in on what the Democratic Party must do to improve its performance at all levels of government.

27 February
23 Dem AGs think they’ve cracked the code to fighting Trump
Democratic state attorneys general have been planning their lawsuits for a year
(Politico) The resistance meets daily on Microsoft Teams.
The country’s 23 Democratic state attorneys general log on at 4pm ET for a thirty-minute confidential video chat to coordinate their plans for pushing back against the Trump administration. They share updates on the seven cases they have moving through federal courts and argue about whether to treat Elon Musk as a lawful arm of the government or an uncredentialed interloper to it. They plot where to respond next, leveraging timezone differences to expand the workday.
…the attorneys general…see themselves as the last backstop between the people and the president. Their multi-state lawsuits have temporarily stopped the president from revoking birthright citizenship, freezing federal funding and cutting off money for medical research. This week, they filed their sixth amicus brief in an action against the Trump administration, with 23 attorneys general signing on to argue the importance of the Affordable Care Act. The US Department of Justice declined a request for comment on that suit, or others it is defending.
“Right now in the United States, the Democratic AGs are the only group of people who are united and working to prevent some of these unconstitutional actions from continuing,” Hawaii attorney general Anne Lopez boasted in an interview.
The Democratic Attorneys General Association (DAGA)
Meet the Attorneys General
“We come from states as small as Delaware, as big as California, and everywhere in between — but our constituents share the same aspirations, overcome the same challenges, and deserve leaders who will fight for them and get results.” — DAGA Co-chair, Attorney General Kathy Jennings

17 February
Democrats Fear They Are Missing the Moment to Remake the Party
As President Trump steamrolls over their priorities, Democrats say they could miss the opportunity to learn lessons from their defeat and undertake needed reform.
Several dozen Democratic political operatives had just gathered to discuss the party’s future at an upscale resort nestled along the Potomac River when the very first speaker unleashed a blistering address about the “hard truths” they needed to confront.
“Now is not the time for taking refuge in comforting platitudes,” said Jonathan Cowan, the president of the centrist group Third Way, which had organized the private event last week. “Now is not the time to bet on the other guys” messing up “so badly that we win simply by not being them.”
The remark, with a much coarser term than “messing,” reflected a deepening distress, shared by a wide range of Democratic strategists, lawmakers and donors, that the party is at risk of missing a critical window for introspection and reform in the aftermath of the devastating 2024 election.
The fear is that Democrats are squandering one of the few silver linings of losing: the chance to learn lessons from defeat.

13 February
Democrats in Congress Will Soon Be Able to Actually Do Something to Pressure Trump
Funding for the government expires March 14. Republicans will need Democratic votes to keep the government open. They’ll need Democratic votes in the Senate to surmount the 60-vote filibuster threshold, and they’ll need Democratic votes in the House, where the narrow Republican majority is a mess.
By Jim Newell
(Slate) The phones in Democratic offices on Capitol Hill have been ringing off the hook. As President Donald Trump and his revolutionaries blitz through the federal government at a speed unprecedented in recent times, Democratic constituents are pleading with their representatives to do something about it all.
What can Democrats do to push back against Trump? Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer sorts their efforts into several buckets: oversight, litigation, communication and mobilization, and legislation. The first several fronts, between the regular petitions for temporary restraining orders, press conferences, protests outside government buildings, or drawing out votes on nominees, have been daily efforts. It’s that last tool of pushback—their votes in Congress—that won’t really be deployed until mid-March.

9 February
Democrats, Trump has given you a mission. Accept all of it.
E.J. Dionne Jr.
The republic is under siege. What can be done?
To read the recent commentary, you’d think the Democratic Party is already going the way of the Whigs. Writers are racing each other to find the most alarming words to describe the party’s predicament — “leaderless, rudderless and divided,” and, of course, “crisis.”
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump is dismantling the country’s constitutional order at a furious pace.
… Democrats cannot pretend that business-as-usual behavior is appropriate to this moment. They cannot “choose their battles” because what’s at stake is not just this or that policy but whether we will endure as a free republic in which presidents recognize they are not monarchs. It’s absurd to say of Trump “we will work with him where we can” when the project on which they’d be “working with him” involves shattering the rule of law and making it impossible for government workers to do the jobs Americans expect them to carry out.
… Theda Skocpol, a Harvard political scientist who studied the anti-Trump movement, noted recently in the New Republic that what worked the last time were the “persistent, community-based efforts by 2,000 to 3,000 grassroots Resistance groups in every town, city, and suburb across virtually all congressional districts.” The events of the past three weeks summon Americans again to diners, churches, libraries, union halls and taverns to organize, to pressure their elected officials (especially the 15 House Republicans who won last year by five percentage points or less), and to reach out to their friends and neighbors to warn them about what Trump is doing to their democracy.
“Move fast and break things” is the tech slogan inspiring what Trump and Musk are doing to our government and our constitutional arrangements. Those who want to stop their wrecking ball need to act with the same urgency.

6 February
‘The Damage to the Party Is Profound’: Three Opinion Writers on What Happened to the Democrats
Frank Bruni, Michelle Goldberg and Bret Stephens
Patrick Healy: In my 20-plus years writing about politics, I’ve never seen the Democratic Party in such trouble nationally. They lost the White House and Senate and are seen unfavorably by record numbers of voters and as out of step on key issues, according to recent polls. I think part of this is a trust problem — you still hear from independents and even some Democrats that the party tried to pull a fast one on America by circling the wagons around a cognitively diminished president and then subbing in a new nominee whom voters didn’t pick.
Bret Stephens: Democrats don’t seem to realize how profoundly out of touch they are with that segment of America that they can’t identify through a collection of letters or neologisms: BIPOC, L.G.B.T.Q.I.+, A.A.P.I., the “unhoused,” the “undocumented” and so on. They have lost themselves in forms of identity politics that divide Americans into categories many don’t recognize or from which they feel excluded.
And that’s what average American voters dislike: a party whose ostensible leaders lack the nerve or moral wherewithal to resist the progressive tide.
Frank Bruni: Democrats can’t figure out exactly where they are, how they got there and the route back out of the wilderness. So they’re frozen in place. I sympathize. All told, they didn’t, arithmetically, lose in 2024 by all that much, but the overly tidy narrative [Why You May Be Wrong About Harris’s Loss -Nov. 22, 2024] is of some huge political realignment.
The biggest error for Democrats to avoid in fighting back against Trump
Third Way‘s Lanae Erickson and Jon Cowan call on Democrats to reconnect to regular people by cutting the cord with the far-left interest groups that dominate many Democratic spaces.
While the 2024 election loss was not a landslide at every level, all the other indicators are blinking red. Too many ordinary people living in most parts of America now find the Democratic brand broadly unappealing. It’s going to take courage to fix these problems, beginning with discarding some old habits.

31 January – 2 February
The Purpose of Party Renewal
William Galston and Elaine Kamarck
(Third Way) A time comes for every political party when its policies and dominant assumptions no longer meet either the public’s expectations or the needs of the times. We believe that the Democratic Party has reached one of these moments and stands in urgent need of renewal.
This renewal involves more than communications, organization, and mobilization. It will require the party to ask itself hard questions about the reasons for its dwindling support among groups it has long taken for granted, to reflect on declining public confidence in government as a vehicle of progress, and to think anew about its policy agenda in an era of rapid change, at home and abroad. This process will be neither quick nor easy, which is why it must begin now.
The purpose of Democratic renewal is not only to win the next election. It is to build a party that can command a sustainable majority over a series of elections based on an agenda that successfully addresses the central issues of our time.
The Democrats Show Why They Lost
By Jonathan Chait
At a meeting of the DNC, the party seemed to be at pains to demonstrate that it learned nothing from its 2024 defeat.
‘We Have No Coherent Message’: Democrats Struggle to Oppose Trump
(NYT) More than 50 interviews with Democratic leaders revealed a party struggling to decide what it believes in, what issues to prioritize and how to confront an aggressive right-wing administration.
As Democrats face the reality of President Trump’s second term, they share a fundamental belief: This moment calls for an inspirational message from their party.
They just cannot decide what, exactly, that should be.
In private meetings and at public events, elected Democrats appear leaderless, rudderless and divided. They disagree over how often and how stridently to oppose Mr. Trump. They have no shared understanding of why they lost the election, never mind how they can win in the future.
And in a first step toward elevating new leaders, an election this weekend for chair of the Democratic National Committee, the party chose a candidate, Ken Martin of Minnesota, who said he planned to conduct a post-election review largely focused on tactics and messaging. Mr. Martin said he had not determined the parameters of the review, other than that he was not interested in discussing whether former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. should have sought re-election.
Dems seek new leader, path forward
Democratic National Committee (DNC) members will gather at the National Harbor outside of Washington to choose a new chairman, a high-profile but often thankless position responsible for organizing, strategizing and communicating the party’s message.
Trump Is Already Failing. That’s the Key to a Big Democratic Rebound.
By Doug Sosnik, a senior adviser to President Bill Clinton from 1994 to 2000 and has also advised governors and U.S. senators.
To regain power, Democrats would do well by first grappling with the best strategies for a minority party. …the Democrats do not control their own destiny. At any given time, there are really only 1.5 political parties in America. Whoever holds the White House is the governing party, with the opposition essentially, at best, only able to affect policymaking at the margins.
…Democrats need to start making a compelling argument that President Trump and Republicans are failing at governing. Democrats need to do this in a way that reflects the mood of the country. With Republicans now in full control of the federal government, Democrats are well positioned to be the party of change, a narrative that finally broke the Reagan-Bush 12-year hold on the presidency in 1992.
Then, as now, the strongest message for Democrats is centered on economic security and opportunity. With Mr. Trump and Republicans focused on tax cuts for the rich and corporations, it should be easy to make contrasts with his agenda on a regular basis. His blundered attempt to freeze federal money in ways that might affect popular programs, like Medicaid and Head Start, is an example of a prime opportunity to brand the G.O.P. as failing dangerously at governing.

29 January
Charles M. Blow: Stop Feeling Stunned and Wounded, Liberals. It’s Time to Fight Back.
(NYT) Trump’s pace of dictatorial executive actions probably can’t be sustained. At some point things will slow down, and in the lull the damage will be assessed. Terror and destruction produce evidence, and his actions against immigrants and transgender individuals, among others, will eventually manifest as cruelty meant to inflict suffering.
Then, I suspect, outrage will bubble and build as more citizens’ moral opposition to Trump’s methods gains clarity and purpose. People, especially young people, are simply not built to passively absorb oppression. At some point they inevitably react and resist.
Ocasio-Cortez embraces role as attack dog against Trump

21 January
A Heavy Favorite Emerges in the Race to Lead the Democratic Party
Ken Martin, the chair of the Minnesota Democrats, said he was nearing the level of support needed to become the next leader of the Democratic National Committee.

19 January
‘Lady McBiden’: Alexandra Pelosi Blasts the First Lady
The feud between the president and ex-speaker intensifies in the waning days of his presidency.
(Politico) Since breaking her hip in Europe last month, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been deluged with messages, flowers and calls of concern from heads of state, colleagues in both parties and even royalty, most notably Luxembourg’s Grand Duke Henri, who was hosting her when she fell and has been solicitous through her recovery.
Yet it’s who she has not heard from that’s most remarkable, and that has infuriated Pelosi’s friends and family: Joe and Jill Biden.
Fueling that anger is Jill Biden’s continued, and now public, nursing of a grudge toward Pelosi for pushing the president to withdraw from last year’s campaign. …

17 January
How Biden’s Inner Circle Protected a Faltering President
By Katie Rogers, Adam Entous, Maggie Haberman and Carl Hulse
President Biden’s closest family members and advisers recognized his physical frailty to a greater degree than they have publicly acknowledged and worked together to manage his decline.
(NYT) Mr. Biden acknowledged the concerns, but the warnings only ignited his defiant, competitive streak. In April 2023, without convening his family or having long deliberations with aides, he announced he was running again.
Now, as President-elect Donald J. Trump heads back to the White House, demoralized Democrats debate what might have been had the president bowed out in time to let a younger generation run. Mr. Biden, 82, has at the same time made the extraordinary admission that he might not have made it through a second term. “Who knows what I’m going to be when I’m 86 years old?” he said in an interview with USA Today on Jan. 5.
The president’s acknowledgment has put a new spotlight on his family and inner circle, all of whom dismissed concerns from voters and Mr. Biden’s own party that he was too old for the job. And yet they recognized his physical frailty to a greater degree than they have publicly acknowledged. Then they cooperated, according to interviews with more than two dozen aides, allies, lawmakers and donors, to manage his decline.
Mr. Biden’s fumbles continued this week. In announcing a cease-fire deal between Israel and Hamas on Wednesday he confused the emir of Kuwait with the emir of Qatar and said Hezbollah rather than Hamas was responsible for the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. He also referred to his national security adviser as “Secretary Jake Sullivan” before catching himself.
Six key people protected the president.
Jill Biden, the first lady, and Hunter Biden, his surviving son, fervently believed in his ability to win. …

2024

23 December
Head in the Sand: Post-election research shows that Democrats’ have a weakness issue
(GZERO media) For the Democrats, 2024 was the year of the ostrich, or the koala, according to lapsed-Democratic voters asked to describe the party as an animal in post-election research. On Monday, they released the results of three focus groups and a national poll of voters who previously voted for Democrats but supported Trump or did not vote in 2024 – and the results are scathing.
Participants characterized the party as weak, overly focused on diversity and elites, and “not a friend of the working class anymore.” The nationwide poll also found that Trump’s approval rating is at its highest since he left office, at 47%.
While the research showed that the Democrats could capitalize on issues like abortion, health care, taxing the rich, and a fear that Trump may go too far on tariffs, it also indicates that the party has deeper perception issues that may take more than one election cycle to fix.

10 December
The Conversation Democrats Need to Have
The party should stop talking to itself and start hearing what voters have to say.
By Jon Favreau
(The Atlantic) Democrats need to get back into the persuasion business.
… For all the attention on his charisma and ability to inspire, an underrated aspect of Obama’s appeal was how hard he tried to empathize with the people he was trying to lead. Even if they weren’t for him, he made it clear that he was for them. Part of that capacity came from navigating so many different worlds as he grew up. But part of it was his background as a community organizer.
Organizers understand better than just about anyone else in politics what it takes to change minds, because they spend their days talking with people who aren’t like them, don’t know them, and don’t think like them. …the disagreements I appreciate the most—the conversations that make me think differently—are almost always with people who have a background in organizing for a cause or campaign. Whether the person’s politics are to the left or the right of my own, their experience tends to make them more patient, understanding, and compelling than 95 percent of social-media interactions. That’s because organizers aren’t looking to perform for the people who already agree with them. They’re looking to persuade the people who don’t. They don’t just want to be right. They want to win.

5 December
Is RFK Jr. going mainstream?
By Marcia Brown
On the campaign trail and as part of his Make America Healthy Again movement, Kennedy spoke passionately about how large-scale, industrial agriculture operations and major multinational pharmaceutical companies are making Americans sicker and poorer. He railed against big corporations repeatedly, which resonated with a public reckoning with a byzantine healthcare system, strangled access to healthy food and a sense of powerlessness to do anything about it
During his campaign, Kennedy visited dozens of farmers all over the country, building rapport with a constituency that views large seed, pesticide and fertilizer companies as rapacious.

7 November
Why Democrats Lost in Rural America. Again.
A message from rural America to Democratic Party elites.
If members of the Democratic National Committee or the New York Times editorial board need help finding rural people willing to share, our door is always open. We can introduce them to friends and family who probably voted for Trump. But this would require more than lip service. It requires a real reckoning that the Democratic Party intelligentsia don’t want to have. It would require hearing about how the meatpackers JBS and Smithfield are polluting our water. Or how Big Agriculture is colluding in a sham government-funded carbon pipeline scheme through the Midwest. Or how big pharma created an opioid crisis that still plagues many small towns.

2 December
The Hunter Biden Pardon Is a Strategic Mistake
The blunder will haunt Democrats during the next Trump administration.
By Tom Nichols
(The Atlantic Daily) … This pardon is a terrible idea—“both dishonorable and unwise,” in the words of the Bulwark editor Jonathan Last—and, as my colleague Jonathan Chait wrote yesterday, it reflected Biden’s choice “to prioritize his own feelings over the defense of his country.”
… The Constitution vests American presidents with the power to pardon anyone for crimes against the United States. (They cannot pardon people for offenses at the state level.) Usually, such pardons involve clemency for ordinary criminals; occasionally, they include distasteful personal or political favors to friends, allies, and in rarer cases, family. Donald Trump, however, has promised to start the process of issuing deeply controversial pardons the minute he gets into office.
Perhaps most disturbing, he has said he’s going to start reviewing cases of the January 6 insurrectionists—whom he has called “warriors” and “hostages”—and to let many of them out of prison. Nothing will stop Trump from doing such things, nor will he pay any political price for such future pardons: All he ever cared about was winning the White House to stay out of jail, and he’s accomplished that mission.

1 December
Robert Reich: Wikler for Chair
He can turn the Democratic Party into a party that’s once again on the side of the little guy.
… The person who runs the DNC is the key organizer for the Democratic Party between now the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election (assuming we have another). That person will be a critical voice in opposition to Trump authoritarian fascism.
Speaking on CNN’s “Inside Politics,” Wikler said, “I’m running for chair of the Democratic National Committee because we need to unite, we need to fight, and we need to win to stop the GOP from ripping this country apart and ripping off working people to enrich mega billionaires.”
Winkler is the right man for the job.
I got to know Ben when he proved to be a thoughtful and effective top official at MoveOn. He’s chaired the Wisconsin Democrats since 2019, presiding over the successful rebuilding of a party that had been seriously weakened by many years of Republican control of the state government.
Wikler organized and mobilized voters in a state that Republicans had rigged to ensure total dominance and control. Ben unrigged that system.
Ben Wikler

30 November
Democrats Weigh Dumping Nadler, Regrouping to Counter Trump
Some House Democrats want to oust aging committee leaders like Representative Jerrold Nadler in favor of younger lawmakers who they see as better suited to take on the president.
The debate has grown most intense in recent days as dozens of Democrats have been privately pressing Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland to challenge Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York for his position as the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. They are doing so out of concern that Mr. Nadler will be ineffective in pushing back against any efforts by Mr. Trump to abuse his power.
Mr. Nadler, 77, the dean of New York’s congressional delegation, has made it clear he has no plans to step aside. And while Mr. Raskin, 61, is mulling a challenge, he has not yet decided whether to pursue one, according to colleagues familiar with his thinking who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.

28 November
The message to Democrats is clear: you must dump neoliberal economics
Joseph Stiglitz
The party must return to its progressive roots. A new economy is needed with new rules and new roles
(Project Syndicate) 40 years of neoliberalism have left the US with unprecedented inequality, stagnation in the middle of the income spectrum (and worse for those below), and declining average life expectancy (highlighted by mounting “deaths of despair”).