Why obituaries for opposition to Trump are premature. Plus an update on the DNC chair race as it comes into final focus, and more on why Elon Musk's extremism shouldn't be excused or ignored.
Personally I could care less about the DNC. The Democrats have no leader unless they are the President. And as you have pointed out, the DNC election is limited to 400 or so people in a profoundly UN Democratic election. What Democrats need to do is elect a leader of the party like they do in the UK and have a shadow cabinet....
I'm already liking this - even before I read it - because of the headline. I am as impatient and anxious/terrified as the rest of us, but I know that we need to think deeply and regroup. You are spot on.
Big fan of your belief in leveraging relationships to organize Micah but that makes your take on AOC's tweet all the more egregious to me.
I can't believe that anyone can look at the results of the last election and conclude that the solution for the Democrats is to accuse the other side of being Nazis more often. That's insane!!!
Of course, AOC's tweet gets more action. It's exactly the kind of strident BS that partisans on social media respond to. But it not only does nothing to convince anyone who doesn't already believe that Trump is terrible, it's actually counterproductive.
I bow to no one in my disdain for Trump (https://gordonstrause.substack.com/p/the-return-of-donald-trump-a-tragedy), but neither he nor 99.99%+ of his supporters are Nazis. We need to stop giving people in the persuadable middle the message that we're partisan crazies with no grip in reality who shouldn't be taken seriously. And that is what tweets like the one from AOC do.
Gordon -- I have to disagree with you here. It's one thing to assert that Trump and his supporters are all Nazis. I don't suggest doing that at all (though the evidence about Trump's admiration for Hitler's generals is strong). Musk is a very different case -- he's an extremely prominent, unelected powerbroker with many conflicts of interest and very dangerous ideas about politics. He's a big juicy target for criticism and his using the Nazi salute, joking about Nazis afterwards, telling the AfD that Germans should stop feeling guilty for the Nazi years -- these are all concrete examples that we shouldn't ignore or allow to be "normalized" as "awkward gestures" deserving "the benefit of the doubt" (as the ADL put it). Sometimes it makes sense to polarize opinion around one of your adversaries -- and since 80-90% of Americans agree that being a Nazi is bad, reminding them that Musk talking like one, waving his hands like one, etc, is smart (and also the right thing to do). IMHO.
Appreciate the dialog Micah but for three reasons I'd continue to push back:
- First, it doesn't seem like AOC's tweet was aimed specifically at Musk (and if you look at the responses, it certainly wasn't perceived that way).
- Second, even if were aimed specifically at Elon, it would be wrong. To state the obvious, when you call someone a Nazi, the reason it carries so much weight is the implication that a person supports the genocide of millions of Jews (or other vulnerable groups). Elon is not a Nazi, and when that accusation is thrown around lightly, I think it just makes people roll their eyes and take the people making it less seriously. Certainly, that is how I feel.
- Third (and this is the most important and substantive point), I think it's a mistake to try and demonize Elon, even without calling him a Nazi. The thing about Elon is that both this Noah Smith piece (https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-americas-future-could-hinge-on) and this Sam Harris piece (https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-elon) are accurate. Elon is BOTH far and away the best industrial leader of our era (with no one else even coming close), someone in Noah's words is uniquely talented and historically great at "gathering, motivating, coordinating, and setting goals for human talent." AND he is also an autistic, historically ignorant, and immature buffoon whose political opinions should be shown no deference despite his success as an industrial entrepreneur.
In addition, Elon has been given a bailiwick, reforming the way government works, which is incredibly important to the future of the Democratic Party. I believe that the key to the future for Democrats is demonstrating that government is capable of delivering services that can make ordinary people's lives better. And I've become a full Jennifer Pahlka stan, whose tales of federal government dysfunction have opened my eyes. While I always knew that the Federal bureaucracy was cumbersome, I was genuinely shocked that the situation was this horrific:
Which is a long way of setting up this point. My guess is that Elon's DOGE efforts are going to be a combination of huge mistakes AND positive changes. We should absolutely criticize the mistakes without the least bit of hesitation or deference. But we don't want to demonize Elon in a way that sends the message, both to Democrat and everyone else, that we oppose everything he is doing. We don't want to repeat the mistake with Elon and DOGE that the Biden administration made with immigration, which was to reflectively do the opposite of what Trump was calling for in a way that led Biden to make huge mistakes in the way they handled the border.
Maybe I missed this but I don't think you mentioned that Indivisible endorsed Ben Wikler over the weekend after taking a vote in which 93% of Indivisible leaders from around the country voted to endorse Ben. https://bsky.app/profile/leahgreenberg.bsky.social/post/3lgqy6a2dq22l Between Indivisible's endorsement, the Grassroots Connector's endorsement, and the Swing Blue Alliance Letter which was signed by many grassroots groups, including Markers For Democracy, it seems pretty clear that the grassroots energy is behind Ben.
I really like Ben! I never expected to like or know anything about a DNC chair of any state other than my own (boo/hiss: Jay Jacobs), but Ben's done a great job rallying out-of-state volunteers so we pay attention to the WisDems.
I've been trying to figure out what I can even do now. Eight years ago I threw myself full-force at resistance and volunteering and building, and while I felt like it helped, we're here again. This time, I'm waiting to see how I can be useful and continuing to help where I feel helpful. I'm frustrated and a little alienated, and I'm watching friends of mine worry about their jobs and grants and benefits. My mother-in-law is trying to get dual citizenship just in case, while our politicians are tweeting out a quick-but-careful PR responses.
💯 I feel the same way. I didn’t really even know anything about state party chairs until we hosted Ben multiple times on our zooms and I donated multiple times to the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
Just FYI--my attempts to post this to facebook, highlighting the paragraph about Musk's polling numbers, keeps getting deleted by their algorithm. I think the algorithm thinks any post that mentions polls is one of those "take this poll" scams.
Thank you as always for these updates. Based on American history and civil rights work going back to the beginning of the country's formation, I'm not going to underestimate that there will always be a solid pro-democracy population working toward the same goals, even if they are not communicating loudly or with each other. I find 'resistance' rhetorically affirms the power Trump has. To be resisted is to be a perpetrator, and if there is anything he's proven he likes to be, it's a perp; I can imagine he is amused for the moment because it affirms he's 'anti-establishment', or as you mentioned, just like the founders, outlaws, breaking with the tyrannical monarch. Felony, grift, outlaw, much more sexy, much more daring and wild, just like that Nazi salute. As is dying to one's death fighting Nazis. But doing the hard, quiet, work of strengthening an inclusive pluralistic democracy and transforming social norms?
Speaking of that salute, this https://www.dw.com/en/germany-musk-tesla-nazi-salute/a-71403737 is interesting for the predicament it causes German lawmakers: will they or won't they charge the group for using illegal Nazi symbols, which affirms that yes, the experts (the Germans) know at least what a Nazi symbol is, even if some are struggling to recognize that the AfD is fundamentally an ultra German ethnonationalist conservative-libertarian self-enriching party wanting to define what is and isn't European (as if that is their right to define the rest of Europeans, those old ghosts of imperial Germany are now screaming quite loudly). Does Germany still, did it ever have the authority on what is and isn't a Nazi? Their upcoming election will tell us something about just how effective imposing democracy on a war-torn Germany was, and if the multi-party system is a better way to manage potential for collapse of democratic norms and behaviors.
For me, Musk is Musk, and that is the problem I feel we all need to understand and somehow explain in a way that reveals the treasonous aspects of what he does and who he is. If the DNC can do that, it's a start. I find their messaging is increasingly repetitive, unimaginative, and stale.
Personally I could care less about the DNC. The Democrats have no leader unless they are the President. And as you have pointed out, the DNC election is limited to 400 or so people in a profoundly UN Democratic election. What Democrats need to do is elect a leader of the party like they do in the UK and have a shadow cabinet....
I really wish we could get this shadow cabinet up and running. Timothy Snyder did a fabulous job laying it out and making the case.
I'm already liking this - even before I read it - because of the headline. I am as impatient and anxious/terrified as the rest of us, but I know that we need to think deeply and regroup. You are spot on.
Big fan of your belief in leveraging relationships to organize Micah but that makes your take on AOC's tweet all the more egregious to me.
I can't believe that anyone can look at the results of the last election and conclude that the solution for the Democrats is to accuse the other side of being Nazis more often. That's insane!!!
Of course, AOC's tweet gets more action. It's exactly the kind of strident BS that partisans on social media respond to. But it not only does nothing to convince anyone who doesn't already believe that Trump is terrible, it's actually counterproductive.
I bow to no one in my disdain for Trump (https://gordonstrause.substack.com/p/the-return-of-donald-trump-a-tragedy), but neither he nor 99.99%+ of his supporters are Nazis. We need to stop giving people in the persuadable middle the message that we're partisan crazies with no grip in reality who shouldn't be taken seriously. And that is what tweets like the one from AOC do.
Gordon -- I have to disagree with you here. It's one thing to assert that Trump and his supporters are all Nazis. I don't suggest doing that at all (though the evidence about Trump's admiration for Hitler's generals is strong). Musk is a very different case -- he's an extremely prominent, unelected powerbroker with many conflicts of interest and very dangerous ideas about politics. He's a big juicy target for criticism and his using the Nazi salute, joking about Nazis afterwards, telling the AfD that Germans should stop feeling guilty for the Nazi years -- these are all concrete examples that we shouldn't ignore or allow to be "normalized" as "awkward gestures" deserving "the benefit of the doubt" (as the ADL put it). Sometimes it makes sense to polarize opinion around one of your adversaries -- and since 80-90% of Americans agree that being a Nazi is bad, reminding them that Musk talking like one, waving his hands like one, etc, is smart (and also the right thing to do). IMHO.
Appreciate the dialog Micah but for three reasons I'd continue to push back:
- First, it doesn't seem like AOC's tweet was aimed specifically at Musk (and if you look at the responses, it certainly wasn't perceived that way).
- Second, even if were aimed specifically at Elon, it would be wrong. To state the obvious, when you call someone a Nazi, the reason it carries so much weight is the implication that a person supports the genocide of millions of Jews (or other vulnerable groups). Elon is not a Nazi, and when that accusation is thrown around lightly, I think it just makes people roll their eyes and take the people making it less seriously. Certainly, that is how I feel.
- Third (and this is the most important and substantive point), I think it's a mistake to try and demonize Elon, even without calling him a Nazi. The thing about Elon is that both this Noah Smith piece (https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-americas-future-could-hinge-on) and this Sam Harris piece (https://samharris.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-elon) are accurate. Elon is BOTH far and away the best industrial leader of our era (with no one else even coming close), someone in Noah's words is uniquely talented and historically great at "gathering, motivating, coordinating, and setting goals for human talent." AND he is also an autistic, historically ignorant, and immature buffoon whose political opinions should be shown no deference despite his success as an industrial entrepreneur.
In addition, Elon has been given a bailiwick, reforming the way government works, which is incredibly important to the future of the Democratic Party. I believe that the key to the future for Democrats is demonstrating that government is capable of delivering services that can make ordinary people's lives better. And I've become a full Jennifer Pahlka stan, whose tales of federal government dysfunction have opened my eyes. While I always knew that the Federal bureaucracy was cumbersome, I was genuinely shocked that the situation was this horrific:
https://www.eatingpolicy.com/p/dear-mr-kupor-please-fix-federal
Which is a long way of setting up this point. My guess is that Elon's DOGE efforts are going to be a combination of huge mistakes AND positive changes. We should absolutely criticize the mistakes without the least bit of hesitation or deference. But we don't want to demonize Elon in a way that sends the message, both to Democrat and everyone else, that we oppose everything he is doing. We don't want to repeat the mistake with Elon and DOGE that the Biden administration made with immigration, which was to reflectively do the opposite of what Trump was calling for in a way that led Biden to make huge mistakes in the way they handled the border.
Maybe I missed this but I don't think you mentioned that Indivisible endorsed Ben Wikler over the weekend after taking a vote in which 93% of Indivisible leaders from around the country voted to endorse Ben. https://bsky.app/profile/leahgreenberg.bsky.social/post/3lgqy6a2dq22l Between Indivisible's endorsement, the Grassroots Connector's endorsement, and the Swing Blue Alliance Letter which was signed by many grassroots groups, including Markers For Democracy, it seems pretty clear that the grassroots energy is behind Ben.
I really like Ben! I never expected to like or know anything about a DNC chair of any state other than my own (boo/hiss: Jay Jacobs), but Ben's done a great job rallying out-of-state volunteers so we pay attention to the WisDems.
I've been trying to figure out what I can even do now. Eight years ago I threw myself full-force at resistance and volunteering and building, and while I felt like it helped, we're here again. This time, I'm waiting to see how I can be useful and continuing to help where I feel helpful. I'm frustrated and a little alienated, and I'm watching friends of mine worry about their jobs and grants and benefits. My mother-in-law is trying to get dual citizenship just in case, while our politicians are tweeting out a quick-but-careful PR responses.
💯 I feel the same way. I didn’t really even know anything about state party chairs until we hosted Ben multiple times on our zooms and I donated multiple times to the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
It's there in the piece! But here's a question--are you trying to get the DNC members from your state to support him?
Just FYI--my attempts to post this to facebook, highlighting the paragraph about Musk's polling numbers, keeps getting deleted by their algorithm. I think the algorithm thinks any post that mentions polls is one of those "take this poll" scams.
Thank you as always for these updates. Based on American history and civil rights work going back to the beginning of the country's formation, I'm not going to underestimate that there will always be a solid pro-democracy population working toward the same goals, even if they are not communicating loudly or with each other. I find 'resistance' rhetorically affirms the power Trump has. To be resisted is to be a perpetrator, and if there is anything he's proven he likes to be, it's a perp; I can imagine he is amused for the moment because it affirms he's 'anti-establishment', or as you mentioned, just like the founders, outlaws, breaking with the tyrannical monarch. Felony, grift, outlaw, much more sexy, much more daring and wild, just like that Nazi salute. As is dying to one's death fighting Nazis. But doing the hard, quiet, work of strengthening an inclusive pluralistic democracy and transforming social norms?
Speaking of that salute, this https://www.dw.com/en/germany-musk-tesla-nazi-salute/a-71403737 is interesting for the predicament it causes German lawmakers: will they or won't they charge the group for using illegal Nazi symbols, which affirms that yes, the experts (the Germans) know at least what a Nazi symbol is, even if some are struggling to recognize that the AfD is fundamentally an ultra German ethnonationalist conservative-libertarian self-enriching party wanting to define what is and isn't European (as if that is their right to define the rest of Europeans, those old ghosts of imperial Germany are now screaming quite loudly). Does Germany still, did it ever have the authority on what is and isn't a Nazi? Their upcoming election will tell us something about just how effective imposing democracy on a war-torn Germany was, and if the multi-party system is a better way to manage potential for collapse of democratic norms and behaviors.
For me, Musk is Musk, and that is the problem I feel we all need to understand and somehow explain in a way that reveals the treasonous aspects of what he does and who he is. If the DNC can do that, it's a start. I find their messaging is increasingly repetitive, unimaginative, and stale.
For the record, Barkan has posted a defense of his OpEd to Substack. He says nothing about an editor distorting his meaning.
(oops also the "what he says about him now" link leads to the DNC spreadsheet, just FYI)
I've fixed the link in the post. Sorry bout that!