The big question: Are we still on Earth One, where American representative democracy can still function? Or are we on Earth Two, where the Constitution no longer applies?
It makes sense that Dem electeds don't want permanent institutions. If they helped build them, they'd then be accountable to them. The way things are now, they're only accountable to their donors. It's pressure enough. They don't want to enable anybody else who can create countervailing pressure against their patrons.
The way we fight this is to stop donating to candidates directly. Instead, send your funds to the groups working in the spaces you care about. If candidates want money, they will need to form relationships with those groups -- whose PACs can, in turn, hold them accountable if they drift off-course.
Your $50 check is not going to sway them to do anything. But combine it with $50 checks from 10000 other people, and have that mega check coming from, say, Reproductive Freedom for All, or your union, or your favorite climate change group -- and suddenly, you have their full attention.
Yes, and weaning ourselves off this terribly unproductive habit of donating to politicians without getting any accountability or building anything lasting is key.
Wait a second Micah. In your essay above you wrote
"we need to be building year-round muscles, including a candidate recruitment and training pipeline, a media arm, a fundraising apparatus...policy shops that pump out model legislation and ideas; legal orgs that back up this network and leadership development programs for the next generation."
That all makes sense to me.
But when Sara talks about donating to "groups...that can hold them accountable" and then suggests "Reproductive Freedom for All, or your union, or your favorite climate change group" that seems like something completely different. Channeling money that way is sending it to "the groups", who were largely responsible for making Biden/Harris unelectable:
So while I get the impluse to unity, when you say "Yes" to Sara's comment, I think you're encouraging a huge mistake, either mistakenly or because you genuinely believe we should be sending money to these groups (which have been largely responsible for the situation we're now in). Can you clarify.
I’m in class right now, but Matt Yglesias is completely off base in suggesting that The Groups were to blame for Harris losing. He’s working backwards from a preferred conclusion & fitting evidence to support that conclusion.
Look forward to hearing your take Raf, but here is why I think Matt is right. Harris lost for the following reasons:
- Inflation
- Immigration
- Cultural issues (principally DEI and trans)
The groups were the driving force behind the Democrats problems on both immigration and cultural issues.
And on inflation, while the groups weren't the main problem (it was mostly about the COVID recovery and Biden's inability to effectively communicate), they contributed at the margin in ways like:
- Climate groups pushing energy prices higher in counterproductive ways by putting pointless short term constraints on fossil fuels, not getting 100% behind nuclear, and not focusing on the regulatory behaviors constraining the faster growth of solar and wind.
- Not addressing the high cost of housing by not advocating for getting rid of the regulatory barriers that prevent building
- The "everything bagel" approach to Build Back Better which both inflated the price tag and made it deliver less value.
Predictably, I fully agree with you. I look back at the experience of the Vietnam era protests. In their initial stage they were scattered and incohate. But within a few years a couple of real coordinating institutions took root. Like the student mobe and others. But they only lasted a few years as the draft was lifted and peace talks got serious and ultimately the true lunatic in the Weathermen finished it all off. But a resounding YES to your speculations and affirmations. To dig up an old cliche, we need a streets and suites strategy. I agree that the personalism of Sanders and AOC are NOT the solution but they are still of some importance as many millions, no matter what we say, will look to the Democrats for succor. There is a place for the suites part of the equation. we can hope that if we build an independent ORGANIZED mass democracy movement -- as you said last week-- from the center out and if it becomes robust enough, enough elected Democrats will join in (late) and translate this street energy into the electoral and legislative arena. I also like what Ben Wittes wrote as ir comes very close to what I have been thinking about. Namely, mass civil disobedience to the point of making the country ungovernable. We're a LONG way from prepping for that let alone organizing it. A sit in off 200 people in some office is OK. But a mass shutdown of DC by 150,00 is a different animal. I am convinced, however, that we will reach that stage as I think ultimately that is where we are going to go and is probably the most effective type of organized protest and defeat of Trump. I think the Filipinos called it People Power. Tnx again for another well thought out and serious take.
Thank you for another informative newsletter. Speaking of the April 5th "Hands Off" protests, for those not going to the main rallies in DC and NYC, Concerned Families of Westchester is hosting a Hands Off rally in Hastings. As usual, we meet at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton Ave. and Spring St.). We will have an open mic so that all who wish to speak can do so. And we hope to have some music. - Our Women's Day rally 10 days ago drew 200+ people; perhaps we will have another big showing on April 5th. To learn more and perhaps sign up, here is the link - https://www.mobilize.us/handsoff/?org_ids=41275.
Two points Micah. I really wish smart people would stop citing the Chenoweth 3.5% number as applicable to a US context or a magic salve for defeating Trumpism. I think it is held out far too often by progressive leaders & writers as a silver bullet, with little evaluation of the suitability of the lessons of Otpor (eg) for the American context. The Chenoweth paper that I find to be infinitely more relevant and applicable is the one that’s specifically about the US: “Pro-democracy Organizing against Autocracy in the United States: A Strategic Assessment & Recommendations”.
Secondly, while I agree with Corbin Trent’s point the biggest difference between the right’s power building and the left’s movement building is that the right has financial backing of billionaires and corporations who want to build that power and will fund it. The left’s money comes either from the movement base or from wealthy donors who aren’t ideologically in line with the base. There simply isn’t the money to build power - but there is money to build movements. It’s not that Bernie has preferred to focus on brand building as you say for 40 years. It’s that there was no liberal billionaire who say him as a talent and said “Bernie, here’s the money for you to build the change you want to see over the next half century. Come back when you need more.”
Matt: It's true that if we magically got 11.5 million people in continuous motion protesting against an authoritarian takeover in the US, that wouldn't be a guarantee of anything. Reaching that level of participation improves the chances of success (Chenoweth's main finding in her cross-national comparison of violent vs nonviolent resistance movements). The paper you cite is complementary to this point -- all of the strategies she and Zoe Marks lay out would themselves be contributing to that level of participation being sustained. But yes, people waving signs that say "We just need 3.5%" are grasping at straws.
I disagree, however, about your second point. Since the rise of direct mail and more recently online fundraising, we have collectively trained a generation (or two) of politically engaged Americans across the center-left to focus their resources on short-term electoral campaigns and personally charismatic leaders. Bernie's choice to NOT build a progressive party in Vermont and instead just build up his personal operation isn't simply because no liberal billionaire offered to give him long-term support. He's just not an institution-builder! Corbin is right that there's a big disconnect in Bernie's theory of change.
Yes, to some degree this is also the fault of left philanthropy (to the degree there is some of that), which has also tended to fund issues or advocacy campaigns rather than institutions and which also gets bored quickly or where every few years a foundation changes leadership and decides it needs to spend a year or two doing a "strategic review." (Someone could do an interesting paper looking at long-term funding on the left, simply by hunting for examples of organizations that have received general support grants for ten years or more from specific funders--but we know already that we'd find very few examples of those.)
Micah - Once again thoughtful essay. However, I think we all need to be even more specific. Protests are essential, and protests are not enough. 20 million Americans marched after the murder of George Floyd. But because they did not organize, once the moment passed, so did the movement. We need to be organizing ourselves and everyone we know into groups. That is what organizers do - they organize organizations. As simplistic as that sounds, we desperately need people to become organizers. We need to build power for what lies ahead. No one can know now what that is, how bad it will get, how far Trump and Musk will go. But in every possible scenario,-- there are reasonably free elections in 2026 ; there aren't free and fair elections in 2026 - what is needed is power, and our power can only come from vast numbers of organized people. What people need to be doing now is 1) joining a group or forming a group 2) protesting, and 3) reaching out to more people to get them to join a group. Yes, we are in movement times, but in such times the roles of organizers and leaders are absolutely critical. We need organizers and leaders who can build the opposition into a powerful force capable of responding to whatever comes our way. That means organizing 20 million Americans into groups capable of sustained and coordinated action. Please preach that everywhere you can. Many thanks for your writings.
Michael: I basically agree. Though the experience of the last few years (since 2017, say) suggests that self-organized groups have a hard time sustaining themselves. Indivisible offers people some suggested structure, but it's mostly up to volunteer leaders to figure everything out. Unions definitely offer structure, but few are actually organizing! And social media/networking short-circuits some processes with the result that we can have lots of rallies without organizing groups much.
Good piece Micah. I haven't been a reader long enough to have been familiar with the Chenoweth "3.5% rule" and the Earth 1 vs Earth 2 distinction is a helpful framing.
Great post as always. Unfortunately I've heard the same old " “The Right Builds Power. The Left Hosts Rallies. That’s Why We Lose." for 25 years. Every so often people talk about where is the lefts Alec! Where is our federalist society! Where is our fox! Etc.. It's been 25 years and few have done much about it over time. Why? 🤔 I think it is because that work is unsexy and large donors just want to fund sexy Presidential campaigns and then they get bored and move on. The rest of us as well.
What we need to do seriously is devote ourselves to these institutional changes. I’m quoting Erwin Chemerinsky from his most recent book No Democracy Lasts Forever:
“THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE must be eliminated, and voters must elect the president directly. Twice in this century alone, the loser of the popular vote became president, and it almost happened twice more. No other country in the world has anything like the Electoral College. The current partisan alignment and demographics make it likely that ever more election losers will become president. Government will then forfeit the trust and confidence of the people.
REPRESENTATION IN THE SENATE must be allocated based on population. Two senators per state, regardless of their population, is inconsistent with the most basic premise of a democracy: one-person, one-vote. No conception of democracy can justify the fact that California and Wyoming have the same number of senators, when California has seventy times more people. The Senate that was elected in November 2020 had fifty Democrats and fifty Republicans, but the Democratic senators represented 60 percent of the population and the Republicans only 40 percent.
THE FILIBUSTER MUST BE ELIMINATED. The filibuster effectively requires sixty senators to pass virtually any piece of legislation. It allows forty senators representing as little as 22 percent of the population to block virtually any law from being enacted. For much of twentieth century, it prevented the passage of civil rights laws. In recent years, it precluded essential voting rights legislation that had been passed by the House of Representatives from even coming to a vote in the Senate.
PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING must be ABOLISHED. Sophisticated computer algorithms and detailed population data now make it possible for partisan gerrymandering to occur with far more precision than ever before. They allow the political party that controls a legislature to increase and entrench its dominance. Members of the other political party do not get nearly their fair share of representation or the chance to change that in the future.
THE SIZE OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES must be increased. The House of Representatives was set at 435 members in 1929 and it has not changed since. Yet the country's population has grown enormously since then.”
Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school at UC Berkeley. His suggestions are very sound and long overdue. His book describes more suggestions than I’ve listed. Let’s get them made!
There are a number of Western European democracies that have none of the weaknesses listed, yet they face a similar political predicament to the US. There are liberals very committed to maintaining the establishment, and they no longer can command an electoral majority much of the time. Forces to their left seem weak. The right is picking up steam....
Thanks for this thoughtful article. I’m wondering about your thoughts on which entities are best placed to coordinate and build power. The right has a whole infrastructure from school boards to giant media platforms. The rest of us…it feels uncoordinated without a strategy. I thought Center for American Progress might step up but I’m not seeing it in the same way. Are there others that can truly help build and maintain power? And I would love to see the DCCC (or DNC) use some of their remaining funds to support grassroots organizations that went dormant for 4 years and are now desperately trying to rebuild at the local and state level.
Thanks Micah! Long time no see. I hope all is well with you (as democracy crumbles around us, of course). Check out what's been happening with my anti-Musk attempts - crazy. I've responded by moving everything and adding some new magnet designs ( Nobody Voted for Elon) to a new Print on demand vendor. https://evefox.substack.com/p/spacex-is-shutting-down-my-car-magnets
Almost invariably, I find your articles valuable and persuasive. But I think it wrong in principle and dangerous in practice to encourage the the disruption of a lawful, peaceful public meeting on the basis of disagreement with the viewpoint being expressed.
After reading your article, I searched the web for information regarding the disruption of the annual conference of the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) Alliance, which, it turns out, was being held in the Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster (London). Release of the crickets reportedly (per the Evening Standard) resulted in people being ordered by security to leave the hall (apparently temporarily) and the cancellation of some conference sessions.
If disruption of public meetings is to be encouraged when we disagree, even intensely, with the politics of the meeting, on what principled basis can we oppose efforts to disrupt our public meetings and actions?
Thx for this stark and helpful analysis of Bernie and AOC. Such a bummer. Fwiw, the right’s philanthropic arm, Koch, Scaife, etc., have been patient and strategic about their funding priorities, building, as you say, power — ALEC is a perfect example — for decades. They funded the same work over and over again, because they knew their agreed-upon goals — to move the country back in time; to restore the absolute control of white, Christian, straight men; to dismantle the regulatory system so business is free to rampage without consequence and the wealthy are free to accumulate more wealth. And they stuck with their chosen means to accomplish these goals, including using social issues and shifting the discourse through media consolidation and the cultivation of right-wing intellectuals. Meanwhile, the so-called liberal philanthropic world (notwithstanding a handful of small foundations that have been making smart, great grants forever but who are sadly a drop in the bucket) didn’t have any coherent, agreed-upon goals, nothing beyond a little tinkering that made them feel good at parties. Until mere moments ago, (and probably soon again), their boards were all super-rich people who very much didn’t want to redistribute wealth, so they didn’t fund unions or organizing or anything that would create or strengthen the power of (or even increase respect for) the working class. Program officers went to conferences every year where they bragged about finding the new, unique thing, the very opposite of the right-wing philanthropic habit of sticking with what worked and would pay off in the long-term. So… having spewed that analysis out, I have to ask myself why I ever have bothered hoping that philanthropy would be a source for change. Hah. It won’t. Not for our side. No more than, say, the DNC. Nope. And I’ve always known that. It has to come from the bottom up, from the grassroots, from power borne of numbers of people. I have to remind myself not to get distracted cataloguing the failures of inside institutions like foundations, though, instead of focusing on new ways of building power from the outside.
It makes sense that Dem electeds don't want permanent institutions. If they helped build them, they'd then be accountable to them. The way things are now, they're only accountable to their donors. It's pressure enough. They don't want to enable anybody else who can create countervailing pressure against their patrons.
The way we fight this is to stop donating to candidates directly. Instead, send your funds to the groups working in the spaces you care about. If candidates want money, they will need to form relationships with those groups -- whose PACs can, in turn, hold them accountable if they drift off-course.
Your $50 check is not going to sway them to do anything. But combine it with $50 checks from 10000 other people, and have that mega check coming from, say, Reproductive Freedom for All, or your union, or your favorite climate change group -- and suddenly, you have their full attention.
Yes, and weaning ourselves off this terribly unproductive habit of donating to politicians without getting any accountability or building anything lasting is key.
Wait a second Micah. In your essay above you wrote
"we need to be building year-round muscles, including a candidate recruitment and training pipeline, a media arm, a fundraising apparatus...policy shops that pump out model legislation and ideas; legal orgs that back up this network and leadership development programs for the next generation."
That all makes sense to me.
But when Sara talks about donating to "groups...that can hold them accountable" and then suggests "Reproductive Freedom for All, or your union, or your favorite climate change group" that seems like something completely different. Channeling money that way is sending it to "the groups", who were largely responsible for making Biden/Harris unelectable:
"https://www.slowboring.com/p/from-the-veal-pen-to-the-groups"
So while I get the impluse to unity, when you say "Yes" to Sara's comment, I think you're encouraging a huge mistake, either mistakenly or because you genuinely believe we should be sending money to these groups (which have been largely responsible for the situation we're now in). Can you clarify.
I’m in class right now, but Matt Yglesias is completely off base in suggesting that The Groups were to blame for Harris losing. He’s working backwards from a preferred conclusion & fitting evidence to support that conclusion.
Look forward to hearing your take Raf, but here is why I think Matt is right. Harris lost for the following reasons:
- Inflation
- Immigration
- Cultural issues (principally DEI and trans)
The groups were the driving force behind the Democrats problems on both immigration and cultural issues.
And on inflation, while the groups weren't the main problem (it was mostly about the COVID recovery and Biden's inability to effectively communicate), they contributed at the margin in ways like:
- Climate groups pushing energy prices higher in counterproductive ways by putting pointless short term constraints on fossil fuels, not getting 100% behind nuclear, and not focusing on the regulatory behaviors constraining the faster growth of solar and wind.
- Not addressing the high cost of housing by not advocating for getting rid of the regulatory barriers that prevent building
- The "everything bagel" approach to Build Back Better which both inflated the price tag and made it deliver less value.
Predictably, I fully agree with you. I look back at the experience of the Vietnam era protests. In their initial stage they were scattered and incohate. But within a few years a couple of real coordinating institutions took root. Like the student mobe and others. But they only lasted a few years as the draft was lifted and peace talks got serious and ultimately the true lunatic in the Weathermen finished it all off. But a resounding YES to your speculations and affirmations. To dig up an old cliche, we need a streets and suites strategy. I agree that the personalism of Sanders and AOC are NOT the solution but they are still of some importance as many millions, no matter what we say, will look to the Democrats for succor. There is a place for the suites part of the equation. we can hope that if we build an independent ORGANIZED mass democracy movement -- as you said last week-- from the center out and if it becomes robust enough, enough elected Democrats will join in (late) and translate this street energy into the electoral and legislative arena. I also like what Ben Wittes wrote as ir comes very close to what I have been thinking about. Namely, mass civil disobedience to the point of making the country ungovernable. We're a LONG way from prepping for that let alone organizing it. A sit in off 200 people in some office is OK. But a mass shutdown of DC by 150,00 is a different animal. I am convinced, however, that we will reach that stage as I think ultimately that is where we are going to go and is probably the most effective type of organized protest and defeat of Trump. I think the Filipinos called it People Power. Tnx again for another well thought out and serious take.
Thank you for another informative newsletter. Speaking of the April 5th "Hands Off" protests, for those not going to the main rallies in DC and NYC, Concerned Families of Westchester is hosting a Hands Off rally in Hastings. As usual, we meet at 12 noon at the VFW Plaza (Warburton Ave. and Spring St.). We will have an open mic so that all who wish to speak can do so. And we hope to have some music. - Our Women's Day rally 10 days ago drew 200+ people; perhaps we will have another big showing on April 5th. To learn more and perhaps sign up, here is the link - https://www.mobilize.us/handsoff/?org_ids=41275.
Two points Micah. I really wish smart people would stop citing the Chenoweth 3.5% number as applicable to a US context or a magic salve for defeating Trumpism. I think it is held out far too often by progressive leaders & writers as a silver bullet, with little evaluation of the suitability of the lessons of Otpor (eg) for the American context. The Chenoweth paper that I find to be infinitely more relevant and applicable is the one that’s specifically about the US: “Pro-democracy Organizing against Autocracy in the United States: A Strategic Assessment & Recommendations”.
Secondly, while I agree with Corbin Trent’s point the biggest difference between the right’s power building and the left’s movement building is that the right has financial backing of billionaires and corporations who want to build that power and will fund it. The left’s money comes either from the movement base or from wealthy donors who aren’t ideologically in line with the base. There simply isn’t the money to build power - but there is money to build movements. It’s not that Bernie has preferred to focus on brand building as you say for 40 years. It’s that there was no liberal billionaire who say him as a talent and said “Bernie, here’s the money for you to build the change you want to see over the next half century. Come back when you need more.”
Matt: It's true that if we magically got 11.5 million people in continuous motion protesting against an authoritarian takeover in the US, that wouldn't be a guarantee of anything. Reaching that level of participation improves the chances of success (Chenoweth's main finding in her cross-national comparison of violent vs nonviolent resistance movements). The paper you cite is complementary to this point -- all of the strategies she and Zoe Marks lay out would themselves be contributing to that level of participation being sustained. But yes, people waving signs that say "We just need 3.5%" are grasping at straws.
I disagree, however, about your second point. Since the rise of direct mail and more recently online fundraising, we have collectively trained a generation (or two) of politically engaged Americans across the center-left to focus their resources on short-term electoral campaigns and personally charismatic leaders. Bernie's choice to NOT build a progressive party in Vermont and instead just build up his personal operation isn't simply because no liberal billionaire offered to give him long-term support. He's just not an institution-builder! Corbin is right that there's a big disconnect in Bernie's theory of change.
Yes, to some degree this is also the fault of left philanthropy (to the degree there is some of that), which has also tended to fund issues or advocacy campaigns rather than institutions and which also gets bored quickly or where every few years a foundation changes leadership and decides it needs to spend a year or two doing a "strategic review." (Someone could do an interesting paper looking at long-term funding on the left, simply by hunting for examples of organizations that have received general support grants for ten years or more from specific funders--but we know already that we'd find very few examples of those.)
Micah - Once again thoughtful essay. However, I think we all need to be even more specific. Protests are essential, and protests are not enough. 20 million Americans marched after the murder of George Floyd. But because they did not organize, once the moment passed, so did the movement. We need to be organizing ourselves and everyone we know into groups. That is what organizers do - they organize organizations. As simplistic as that sounds, we desperately need people to become organizers. We need to build power for what lies ahead. No one can know now what that is, how bad it will get, how far Trump and Musk will go. But in every possible scenario,-- there are reasonably free elections in 2026 ; there aren't free and fair elections in 2026 - what is needed is power, and our power can only come from vast numbers of organized people. What people need to be doing now is 1) joining a group or forming a group 2) protesting, and 3) reaching out to more people to get them to join a group. Yes, we are in movement times, but in such times the roles of organizers and leaders are absolutely critical. We need organizers and leaders who can build the opposition into a powerful force capable of responding to whatever comes our way. That means organizing 20 million Americans into groups capable of sustained and coordinated action. Please preach that everywhere you can. Many thanks for your writings.
Michael: I basically agree. Though the experience of the last few years (since 2017, say) suggests that self-organized groups have a hard time sustaining themselves. Indivisible offers people some suggested structure, but it's mostly up to volunteer leaders to figure everything out. Unions definitely offer structure, but few are actually organizing! And social media/networking short-circuits some processes with the result that we can have lots of rallies without organizing groups much.
Good piece Micah. I haven't been a reader long enough to have been familiar with the Chenoweth "3.5% rule" and the Earth 1 vs Earth 2 distinction is a helpful framing.
Fixed. Thanks for catching it!
Will edit my comment to remove that call out.
Was going to say same about typo
Some harsh truths here... .
https://open.substack.com/pub/taylorlorenz/p/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-resistance?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=zi4f
I'm not a paying subscriber.
Emailed you
Thanks for the shout out!
Great post as always. Unfortunately I've heard the same old " “The Right Builds Power. The Left Hosts Rallies. That’s Why We Lose." for 25 years. Every so often people talk about where is the lefts Alec! Where is our federalist society! Where is our fox! Etc.. It's been 25 years and few have done much about it over time. Why? 🤔 I think it is because that work is unsexy and large donors just want to fund sexy Presidential campaigns and then they get bored and move on. The rest of us as well.
What we need to do seriously is devote ourselves to these institutional changes. I’m quoting Erwin Chemerinsky from his most recent book No Democracy Lasts Forever:
“THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE must be eliminated, and voters must elect the president directly. Twice in this century alone, the loser of the popular vote became president, and it almost happened twice more. No other country in the world has anything like the Electoral College. The current partisan alignment and demographics make it likely that ever more election losers will become president. Government will then forfeit the trust and confidence of the people.
REPRESENTATION IN THE SENATE must be allocated based on population. Two senators per state, regardless of their population, is inconsistent with the most basic premise of a democracy: one-person, one-vote. No conception of democracy can justify the fact that California and Wyoming have the same number of senators, when California has seventy times more people. The Senate that was elected in November 2020 had fifty Democrats and fifty Republicans, but the Democratic senators represented 60 percent of the population and the Republicans only 40 percent.
THE FILIBUSTER MUST BE ELIMINATED. The filibuster effectively requires sixty senators to pass virtually any piece of legislation. It allows forty senators representing as little as 22 percent of the population to block virtually any law from being enacted. For much of twentieth century, it prevented the passage of civil rights laws. In recent years, it precluded essential voting rights legislation that had been passed by the House of Representatives from even coming to a vote in the Senate.
PARTISAN GERRYMANDERING must be ABOLISHED. Sophisticated computer algorithms and detailed population data now make it possible for partisan gerrymandering to occur with far more precision than ever before. They allow the political party that controls a legislature to increase and entrench its dominance. Members of the other political party do not get nearly their fair share of representation or the chance to change that in the future.
THE SIZE OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES must be increased. The House of Representatives was set at 435 members in 1929 and it has not changed since. Yet the country's population has grown enormously since then.”
Chemerinsky is the dean of the law school at UC Berkeley. His suggestions are very sound and long overdue. His book describes more suggestions than I’ve listed. Let’s get them made!
There are a number of Western European democracies that have none of the weaknesses listed, yet they face a similar political predicament to the US. There are liberals very committed to maintaining the establishment, and they no longer can command an electoral majority much of the time. Forces to their left seem weak. The right is picking up steam....
Fullibuster gone? Then dems have zero power anywhere.
Thanks for this thoughtful article. I’m wondering about your thoughts on which entities are best placed to coordinate and build power. The right has a whole infrastructure from school boards to giant media platforms. The rest of us…it feels uncoordinated without a strategy. I thought Center for American Progress might step up but I’m not seeing it in the same way. Are there others that can truly help build and maintain power? And I would love to see the DCCC (or DNC) use some of their remaining funds to support grassroots organizations that went dormant for 4 years and are now desperately trying to rebuild at the local and state level.
Thanks Micah! Long time no see. I hope all is well with you (as democracy crumbles around us, of course). Check out what's been happening with my anti-Musk attempts - crazy. I've responded by moving everything and adding some new magnet designs ( Nobody Voted for Elon) to a new Print on demand vendor. https://evefox.substack.com/p/spacex-is-shutting-down-my-car-magnets
Almost invariably, I find your articles valuable and persuasive. But I think it wrong in principle and dangerous in practice to encourage the the disruption of a lawful, peaceful public meeting on the basis of disagreement with the viewpoint being expressed.
After reading your article, I searched the web for information regarding the disruption of the annual conference of the Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual (LGB) Alliance, which, it turns out, was being held in the Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster (London). Release of the crickets reportedly (per the Evening Standard) resulted in people being ordered by security to leave the hall (apparently temporarily) and the cancellation of some conference sessions.
If disruption of public meetings is to be encouraged when we disagree, even intensely, with the politics of the meeting, on what principled basis can we oppose efforts to disrupt our public meetings and actions?
Thx for this stark and helpful analysis of Bernie and AOC. Such a bummer. Fwiw, the right’s philanthropic arm, Koch, Scaife, etc., have been patient and strategic about their funding priorities, building, as you say, power — ALEC is a perfect example — for decades. They funded the same work over and over again, because they knew their agreed-upon goals — to move the country back in time; to restore the absolute control of white, Christian, straight men; to dismantle the regulatory system so business is free to rampage without consequence and the wealthy are free to accumulate more wealth. And they stuck with their chosen means to accomplish these goals, including using social issues and shifting the discourse through media consolidation and the cultivation of right-wing intellectuals. Meanwhile, the so-called liberal philanthropic world (notwithstanding a handful of small foundations that have been making smart, great grants forever but who are sadly a drop in the bucket) didn’t have any coherent, agreed-upon goals, nothing beyond a little tinkering that made them feel good at parties. Until mere moments ago, (and probably soon again), their boards were all super-rich people who very much didn’t want to redistribute wealth, so they didn’t fund unions or organizing or anything that would create or strengthen the power of (or even increase respect for) the working class. Program officers went to conferences every year where they bragged about finding the new, unique thing, the very opposite of the right-wing philanthropic habit of sticking with what worked and would pay off in the long-term. So… having spewed that analysis out, I have to ask myself why I ever have bothered hoping that philanthropy would be a source for change. Hah. It won’t. Not for our side. No more than, say, the DNC. Nope. And I’ve always known that. It has to come from the bottom up, from the grassroots, from power borne of numbers of people. I have to remind myself not to get distracted cataloguing the failures of inside institutions like foundations, though, instead of focusing on new ways of building power from the outside.
Very encouraging. Thanks for the information.
And I love the Defiance. Starting to use it now 😎