Why did the Democrats cave in on the shut down? It seems clear that the main issue was not electoral backlash, since most of the senators who caved are not up for reelection, and the politics were trending in the Democrats’ favor, or at least not against them. The main issue was the filibuster. There was growing pressure from Trump on the Republicans to get rid of it, and the Democratic leadership had every reason to fear its elimination. Why? It has very little to do with preserving their power while they are in the minority; that ship has obviously sailed. The Democratic leadership doesn’t want to get rid of the filibuster for the same reason the Republican leadership doesn’t […]
Now that Zohran Mamdani has won the New York City mayoral primary, the New York Times is asking the question, “Zohran Mamdani Says He’s a Democratic Socialist. What Does That Mean?” The article doesn’t provide much of an answer. Instead, it trots out my old bête noire, Sheri Berman, who offers up crisp nuggets of wisdom like this: “These labels are fuzzy.” If only the Times editors read their own paper. In the wake of the Bernie campaign and AOC’s election, the Times asked me to write a piece explaining the meaning of democratic socialism for a new generation. Since I think the piece holds up, and helps us understand some of the particular appeal of the Mamdani campaign—his focus […]
This blog has been offline for a while, mostly due to technical issues that I think have now been fixed. (Much thanks to Pea Lutz, whose work on the blog has been excellent; if you’re looking for someone to do such work, I highly recommend Pea.) My apologies for the extended silence. I had been posting a lot on Facebook, so much of my commentary on politics and other matters is there. But I’m going to try to return to being more active here. One fascinating phenomenon that I’ve been noticing in the last couple of weeks is how, despite Trump’s winning the election, a fair amount of both reporting and commentary in the media, including on the left, has […]