Excellent! The Democrats need to be a united front that includes everyone! Our basic values of freedom, advocating for the poor and marginalized, honoring diversity and adhering to moral standards are universal.
Where are you now, Jake? Why have you neglected to out a man who is so clearly demented, and corrupt? On his worst day, President Biden is far and away a better man than the current occupant of the White House could ever hope to be. Stop shilling for your I'll timed and snarky book, and expose the real existential threat to our country we are now facing.
Defiant Third Party holdouts, this is bigger than you.
Exhausted abstainers, this is bigger than you.
Ambivalent moderates of all parties, this is bigger than you.
In other words, ALL those who are not chauvinistic repugnicants: COME TOGETHER AND FIGHT THIS!!!
My own grandson was determined to be a holdout and abstain from voting because Harris refused to acknowledge the genocidal tactics and atrocities committed by Israel against and on ordinary Palestinian citizens (who are NOT Hamas), including their CHILDREN, and refused to take a stand against Israel continuing thusly. He was absolutely right to think as he did / does, and I profoundly respect my grandkid's POV (and I've long been pro-Israel -- but NOT THIS!!). If Kamala had supported ordinary Palestinians and had taken a stand demanding that Israel STOP IT NOW or lose USA support, I believe she could have won -- it was not just voter suppression and illegal election rigging by Musk & the Repugs that cost her this election.
But to my utter surprise, at the last second my grandson did vote -- for Kamala Harris -- because he knew that every vote mattered to try and stop the coming catastrophic regime of the tRUMP / MuskRat machine. BRAVO to you, kiddo! He was angry at Harris, justifiably so, and had refused to budge -- and yet, in the end, he did vote for Harris because even he saw that we must all make some concessions in order to COME TOGETHER AND FIGHT THIS!!!
Could you please share here what you know? It’s hard to understand legalese and I just googled some words that might bring up some news links mentioning whatever it is. Don’t see anything. I could dig some more but can you point the way? Appreciate it.
Which means, of course, that there never really was any personal "morality" with them at all. That which is so easily discarded wasn't too meaningful or solid to begin with.
Good reading: Stuart Stevens' "It Was All a Lie," where he argues that all the supposed "values" of Republicans were just a front, not real at all, as demonstrated by their all too willing abandonment of them when Trump came along. Cf., as John notes in his piece, Rubio, Cruz, and millions more.
Hear, Hear !! But I would have included the current obsession with Biden's failure to admit his diminishment and leave the race as something which does NOT help at this time!! We must focus of the existential crisis we're facing right now !!!
I was just going to say the same thing! Rehash the past some other time- we can't change it. But this is a five-alarm conflagration that is happening NOW.
100%, John. The LAST thing we need is more self-congratulatory virtue signaling that drives wedges between us. We are lost if this continues. I admit: even though it made me nauseous, I even wrote a letter to someone I absolutely loathe, Josh Hawley, thanking him for his support of Medicaid and begging him to hold firm. I know he won't because he is a total asshole, but I had to do it to show him that I--someone whose worldview is opposite of his--understands and appreciates the conviction that Medicaid is essential to the survival of the state of Missouri.
Linda: I believe that Josh Hawley’s decision to come out and support Medicaid is just part of his cynical plan to run for the MAGA presidential nomination in 2028. I’ll wait and see.
John, how do you do it essay after essay! You nailed it again. I hope some leader of the Democratic party reads your thoughts and finds a way to unite us and put aside the things we can't win on until a better time. I'm very depressed these days, and tired. Thank you again John
"That's because the Left has a purity problem, and if we don't get over it, it's going to destroy us." says John Pavlovitz. That statement is at the very heart of the truth of the Democratic party. My husband often decries that I try to deconstruct unfortunate truths, trying to figure out the why and what happened, and that it's folly because sometimes there are truths that just are, and that's all that we need to know going forward. Perhaps this is the case? And yet I cannot wonder why the once-cohesive Democratic party splintered so badly that it saw hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of its constituency refusing to vote, or voting a protest candidate in 2024, which saw Donald Trump becoming president again. I'm sure it's many things: The Democrats stopped planning for the well-being and messaging those plans to the working-class voter decades ago. It stopped being wholehearted about civil rights for all and instead wandered off into rhetoric only for certain marginalized people within that important tent, concentrating on a few and losing the masses. It has failed to understand that in a democratic republic, it's not all about you and your desires for your community -- you will not get everything you want, and to atomize the basic requirements of freedom for all people into specific talking points is tantamount to polishing the toenails but leaving the rest of the body unwashed. (Or some other such clumsy metaphor.) My point is, we need to grow up. Mature into the new reality that Trump has presented to us. It is an opportunity cloaked in misery and danger. But it is still an opportunity, perhaps one of the last to come along if we don't get it together. What is your 'take' on the why, or should I just drop that and move forward.
Thanks so much, John. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we ALL could have EVERYTHING how we want it? Yeah, that can’t happen. I had to come to grips with the reality that if we put a ‘hard core’ leftist as our ‘person’ we won’t win. Period. As much as I may want them to it’s just not the time. It’s the time to ask ourselves how can we each compromise within our value set and still feel we are honoring our (Faith? Belief system? Race? Ethnicity? Gender identity?) and so many more aspects of who each of us is. That said, I do stand by the responsibility of white, cis-, anglos to stand STRONG for how humans who identify otherwise are treated. And this is coming from a blonde female who’s so white I’m almost clear. It’s on us. We have to find our ‘common middle’ and come together. It’s the only way to change. For now.
Yes, and part of why it's happening is the reaction to the attacks against us. Frustration turns into internal fighting. I think we have all experienced being yelled at by a friend or family member, which immediately strikes us as out of character and unwarranted. Then you find out the person is bothered by something else. This is that, on a much bigger scale.
The difference (at least one) between D voters and R voters is that Rs care only for their own financial welfare, while the Ds care about everyone in the world without condition. I noticed this starting Obama's term. After he won, I mentioned to a fellow bus passenger, "I'm wondering how he will handle this country." She said, "What I want to know is how he
will handle ME." I was naive enough to be astounded at her words. This was one person, but lately I see it applying to present-day Rs. When I tell Rs we are a caring party, they accuse me of boasting! It's not empty boasting, just trying to teach by example. I wasted much of my time in 2024 arguing with fools.
Thank you very much for writing this. I've been talking about my own frustration about our "purity" problem for years, and it's nice to hear somebody else use the same language.
My own interpretation of the problem that has evolved over the years is that the "purity" issue is usually one or both of two things. They are:
1) a kind of self-righteousness that makes people blind to the harm they are doing to others by inflexibly insisting on their own narrow vision of morality.
And/or 2), adherence to a single-issue agenda that prevents people from taking a comprehensive view of the greater good.
Comments such as "Dems are no different than the Reps," or that "Dems don't deserve a vote because they didn't restrain Israel," are indicative of one or both of these ways of thinking.
Either way, as Obama would have said, they let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and end up helping to ensure bad leaders and outcomes.
We need a unifying cry that everyone understands. Damage is being thrown at us so fast that we get distracted and hold on to our specific issue because the whole mess is overwhelming. "Save Our Democracy" is not it. That's vague and abstract and too many people don't understand it. What is a unifying statement for our protest signs and online discussions?
SAVE OUR COUNTRY? That would encompass Save Our Democracy, as well as restore everything else we've lost or are losing or are imminently in danger of losing. Implicitly included is preserve us from living in fear and under constant threat in this totalitarian police state that tRUMP, the Orange Shitler, has transmogrified this country into.
That's a lot better! Now the Dems need to put it on all their social media, print signs, bumper stickers, etc.
Having worked with the Dems on campaigning in 2016, 2018 midterms, 2020 & 2024, the quality of people hired to manage regional & more local groups of volunteers has deteriorated quite a bit. There's a lot of disrespect from bright, new but inexperienced organizers toward us seasoned hard-working retirees and it's gone downhill. I've worked with at least 10, so I can see the slide. Older volunteers quit. At least we're the ones in the streets now.
June 14! 50501, Indivisible, + 20 others, JUNE 14!!
Excellent! The Democrats need to be a united front that includes everyone! Our basic values of freedom, advocating for the poor and marginalized, honoring diversity and adhering to moral standards are universal.
Where are you now, Jake? Why have you neglected to out a man who is so clearly demented, and corrupt? On his worst day, President Biden is far and away a better man than the current occupant of the White House could ever hope to be. Stop shilling for your I'll timed and snarky book, and expose the real existential threat to our country we are now facing.
Yes. I thought Jake Tapper was liberal-minded. I guess I was ill-informed.
NOT JUST Democrats! As John said:
Rank-and-File Democrats, this is bigger than you.
Frustrated Progressives, this is bigger than you.
Defiant Third Party holdouts, this is bigger than you.
Exhausted abstainers, this is bigger than you.
Ambivalent moderates of all parties, this is bigger than you.
In other words, ALL those who are not chauvinistic repugnicants: COME TOGETHER AND FIGHT THIS!!!
My own grandson was determined to be a holdout and abstain from voting because Harris refused to acknowledge the genocidal tactics and atrocities committed by Israel against and on ordinary Palestinian citizens (who are NOT Hamas), including their CHILDREN, and refused to take a stand against Israel continuing thusly. He was absolutely right to think as he did / does, and I profoundly respect my grandkid's POV (and I've long been pro-Israel -- but NOT THIS!!). If Kamala had supported ordinary Palestinians and had taken a stand demanding that Israel STOP IT NOW or lose USA support, I believe she could have won -- it was not just voter suppression and illegal election rigging by Musk & the Repugs that cost her this election.
But to my utter surprise, at the last second my grandson did vote -- for Kamala Harris -- because he knew that every vote mattered to try and stop the coming catastrophic regime of the tRUMP / MuskRat machine. BRAVO to you, kiddo! He was angry at Harris, justifiably so, and had refused to budge -- and yet, in the end, he did vote for Harris because even he saw that we must all make some concessions in order to COME TOGETHER AND FIGHT THIS!!!
Could you please share here what you know? It’s hard to understand legalese and I just googled some words that might bring up some news links mentioning whatever it is. Don’t see anything. I could dig some more but can you point the way? Appreciate it.
Conservatives have never allowed their personal morality to get in the way of a political win.”
Which means, of course, that there never really was any personal "morality" with them at all. That which is so easily discarded wasn't too meaningful or solid to begin with.
Good reading: Stuart Stevens' "It Was All a Lie," where he argues that all the supposed "values" of Republicans were just a front, not real at all, as demonstrated by their all too willing abandonment of them when Trump came along. Cf., as John notes in his piece, Rubio, Cruz, and millions more.
I do NOT want to hear ANYONE telling me "not all Republicans are like that". Prove it. And yeah.... enough with the in-fighting already.
Hear, Hear !! But I would have included the current obsession with Biden's failure to admit his diminishment and leave the race as something which does NOT help at this time!! We must focus of the existential crisis we're facing right now !!!
I was just going to say the same thing! Rehash the past some other time- we can't change it. But this is a five-alarm conflagration that is happening NOW.
Totally agree
100%, John. The LAST thing we need is more self-congratulatory virtue signaling that drives wedges between us. We are lost if this continues. I admit: even though it made me nauseous, I even wrote a letter to someone I absolutely loathe, Josh Hawley, thanking him for his support of Medicaid and begging him to hold firm. I know he won't because he is a total asshole, but I had to do it to show him that I--someone whose worldview is opposite of his--understands and appreciates the conviction that Medicaid is essential to the survival of the state of Missouri.
Linda: I believe that Josh Hawley’s decision to come out and support Medicaid is just part of his cynical plan to run for the MAGA presidential nomination in 2028. I’ll wait and see.
John, how do you do it essay after essay! You nailed it again. I hope some leader of the Democratic party reads your thoughts and finds a way to unite us and put aside the things we can't win on until a better time. I'm very depressed these days, and tired. Thank you again John
"That's because the Left has a purity problem, and if we don't get over it, it's going to destroy us." says John Pavlovitz. That statement is at the very heart of the truth of the Democratic party. My husband often decries that I try to deconstruct unfortunate truths, trying to figure out the why and what happened, and that it's folly because sometimes there are truths that just are, and that's all that we need to know going forward. Perhaps this is the case? And yet I cannot wonder why the once-cohesive Democratic party splintered so badly that it saw hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of its constituency refusing to vote, or voting a protest candidate in 2024, which saw Donald Trump becoming president again. I'm sure it's many things: The Democrats stopped planning for the well-being and messaging those plans to the working-class voter decades ago. It stopped being wholehearted about civil rights for all and instead wandered off into rhetoric only for certain marginalized people within that important tent, concentrating on a few and losing the masses. It has failed to understand that in a democratic republic, it's not all about you and your desires for your community -- you will not get everything you want, and to atomize the basic requirements of freedom for all people into specific talking points is tantamount to polishing the toenails but leaving the rest of the body unwashed. (Or some other such clumsy metaphor.) My point is, we need to grow up. Mature into the new reality that Trump has presented to us. It is an opportunity cloaked in misery and danger. But it is still an opportunity, perhaps one of the last to come along if we don't get it together. What is your 'take' on the why, or should I just drop that and move forward.
Pick three to five topics (maybe we get to vote which ones) and produce a platform.
Run on those topics
Promote us on those topics
Don’t get distracted
Get us in office so we THEN can fix all we need to fix.
Bipartisan compromise short term - maybe the republicans can see us do that, and join us in the long term.
But we have to stop shooting ourselves in the foot and stumbling.
It’s about the future, not the past.
Thanks John!
Thanks so much, John. Wouldn’t it be awesome if we ALL could have EVERYTHING how we want it? Yeah, that can’t happen. I had to come to grips with the reality that if we put a ‘hard core’ leftist as our ‘person’ we won’t win. Period. As much as I may want them to it’s just not the time. It’s the time to ask ourselves how can we each compromise within our value set and still feel we are honoring our (Faith? Belief system? Race? Ethnicity? Gender identity?) and so many more aspects of who each of us is. That said, I do stand by the responsibility of white, cis-, anglos to stand STRONG for how humans who identify otherwise are treated. And this is coming from a blonde female who’s so white I’m almost clear. It’s on us. We have to find our ‘common middle’ and come together. It’s the only way to change. For now.
Concise, eloquent, and increasingly prescient. The pursuit of perfection will guarantee our own destruction.
You were being kind when you wrote 'kiss the ring'. I was thinking about his sycophants kissing his **** but I suppose it's the same thing.
Yes, and part of why it's happening is the reaction to the attacks against us. Frustration turns into internal fighting. I think we have all experienced being yelled at by a friend or family member, which immediately strikes us as out of character and unwarranted. Then you find out the person is bothered by something else. This is that, on a much bigger scale.
💯
Dispicable at least: “Conservatives have never allowed their personal morality to get in the way of a political win.”
The difference (at least one) between D voters and R voters is that Rs care only for their own financial welfare, while the Ds care about everyone in the world without condition. I noticed this starting Obama's term. After he won, I mentioned to a fellow bus passenger, "I'm wondering how he will handle this country." She said, "What I want to know is how he
will handle ME." I was naive enough to be astounded at her words. This was one person, but lately I see it applying to present-day Rs. When I tell Rs we are a caring party, they accuse me of boasting! It's not empty boasting, just trying to teach by example. I wasted much of my time in 2024 arguing with fools.
"For all their sermonizing and finger-wagging, Conservatives have never allowed their personal morality to get in the way of a political win."
That's for sure.
Thank you very much for writing this. I've been talking about my own frustration about our "purity" problem for years, and it's nice to hear somebody else use the same language.
My own interpretation of the problem that has evolved over the years is that the "purity" issue is usually one or both of two things. They are:
1) a kind of self-righteousness that makes people blind to the harm they are doing to others by inflexibly insisting on their own narrow vision of morality.
And/or 2), adherence to a single-issue agenda that prevents people from taking a comprehensive view of the greater good.
Comments such as "Dems are no different than the Reps," or that "Dems don't deserve a vote because they didn't restrain Israel," are indicative of one or both of these ways of thinking.
Either way, as Obama would have said, they let the perfect be the enemy of the good, and end up helping to ensure bad leaders and outcomes.
We need a unifying cry that everyone understands. Damage is being thrown at us so fast that we get distracted and hold on to our specific issue because the whole mess is overwhelming. "Save Our Democracy" is not it. That's vague and abstract and too many people don't understand it. What is a unifying statement for our protest signs and online discussions?
SAVE OUR COUNTRY? That would encompass Save Our Democracy, as well as restore everything else we've lost or are losing or are imminently in danger of losing. Implicitly included is preserve us from living in fear and under constant threat in this totalitarian police state that tRUMP, the Orange Shitler, has transmogrified this country into.
That's a lot better! Now the Dems need to put it on all their social media, print signs, bumper stickers, etc.
Having worked with the Dems on campaigning in 2016, 2018 midterms, 2020 & 2024, the quality of people hired to manage regional & more local groups of volunteers has deteriorated quite a bit. There's a lot of disrespect from bright, new but inexperienced organizers toward us seasoned hard-working retirees and it's gone downhill. I've worked with at least 10, so I can see the slide. Older volunteers quit. At least we're the ones in the streets now.
June 14! 50501, Indivisible, + 20 others, JUNE 14!!