The Discourse is Toxic and Everyone Sucks




















The Cold Banality of the Democratic National Convention Lineup


The 2020 Democratic National Convention: Feel the excitement?


















The Democratic Party Platform Is an Insult

By refusing to include it in the party platform or even entertain the possibility of ratifying Medicare for All, Joe Biden and the Democrats are exhibiting poor political and practical sense. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

“We don’t have red lines—we have values.”

So said veteran lawmaker Steny Hoyer recently in a CNN interview, echoing the sentiments of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on whether $600 weekly payments to supplement unemployment insurance should be extended. Evidently, the Democrats are willing to negotiate—or capitulate, depending on your viewpoint—on the final figure.

This position of Democratic leadership comes amid gridlock in the Senate regarding an extension of federal unemployment benefits. Whereas House Democrats passed a bill in May that would have guaranteed the extension of $600 per week, Senate Republican leadership has balked at that figure, offering a counter-proposal of $200/wk. while states come up with a plan to satisfy their constituents’ needs with a mix of their own funds and federal dollars.

That Hoyer and other Dems have left the door open to compromise with the GOP is vaguely troubling, especially since Hoyer in that same interview parroted Republican talking points by expressing concern that people who receive a more robust stimulus check might not want to go back to work. It also renders Hoyer’s statement gobbledygook. “We don’t have red lines—we have values.” Right, but when “red lines” can be used to communicate one’s values, what is that even supposed to mean? It’s an illogical and unnecessary potshot at the Left.

In a similar vein, the recent reveal of the Democratic Party platform for the Democratic National Convention casts doubt on the party’s principles leading inexorably toward November. Upon its unveiling, the Democratic National Committee’s platform committee co-chair Denis McDonough referred to the Democratic 2020 party platform as the “boldest Democratic platform in American history.”

Progressives would beg to differ, meanwhile. John Nichols, national affairs correspondent for The Nation, underscores how without Medicare for All, McDonough’s assertion neither matches the substance of the platform as drafted nor matches this moment in history.

As an untold number of advertisements will tell you, we live in “extraordinary” or “challenging” times. It’s their way of saying we’re living in a global pandemic and people all over the world are getting sick and dying, but in a PR-speak kind of way where the actual problem isn’t mentioned as if refusing to utter the name of the disease either saps it of its power or prevents it from rearing its ugly head.

This is the moment in history to which I’m referring, and with it has come significant job loss and thus access to “affordable” health care. At a time when a safety net is needed (or three or four), being forced to worry about being plunged into medical debt is brutal, if not unconscionable.

As such, from a purely moral standpoint, the hour calls for single-payer healthcare. Beyond this, though, as Nichols explains, it’s not good political strategy to bar it from the party platform. For one, COVID-19 (gasp, he said it!) is disproportionately killing people of color, a reality about which patent refusal to entertain the mere possibility of M4A sends a bad message to a key portion of the Democrats’ base.

In addition, Medicare for All is popular with Democrats and non-Democrats alike. People, you know, generally like having healthcare and being able to afford it without having to mortgage property or sacrifice an internal organ. As Winnie Wong, former senior adviser to Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign, is cited in Nichols’ piece, the Dems are “making a fatal mistake by turning their backs on Medicare for All.”

To this effect, some 700 delegates have signed a pledge refusing to back the party platform without M4A on it. At the very least, this show of opposition is a bad look for a Democratic Party touting its supposed party unity and counting on turnout from progressives to help push Joe Biden over the top in the presidential election.

We would be remiss if we were to say that the entire platform as drafted is without merit, a notion Nichols explicitly highlights. There are a number of elements within the party platform which might appeal to progressive voters and almost certainly reflect the input of progressive activists, notably a call for a $15 minimum wage and clear goals for climate change remediation. That said, historically speaking, these tenets do not in them of themselves make the platform the boldest on record and certainly are not to be lauded as uniquely courageous.

In short, the Democratic party platform as it is presently constructed is a mixed bag. What seems significant, however, is that not only are some of its recommendations rather tepid, but other provisions appear to be specifically designed to alienate progressives. The party voted against including marijuana legalization in the platform, for one.

There’s also nothing about ending qualified immunity for police officers, nothing about expressly condemning Israeli expansion/occupation in the West Bank, and no commitment to a climate change plan as comprehensive as the Green New Deal. In a game of party platform Bingo, progressives are struggling to fill one row or column, let alone the entire board.

By now, the Democrats’ agenda in advance of the general election is no surprise. As is their custom, they’re playing it safe and trying not to offend any big donors or moneyed interests in the process. The unique set of circumstances at work in 2020 might yet be enough to propel Joe Biden to victory in spite of, well, Joe Biden.

Possible short-term electoral success and fundraising goals achieved notwithstanding, encouraging antipathy from the party’s burgeoning leftist wing is quite a price to pay in service of these objectives. It’s one thing to enjoy winning or to be able to breathe a sigh of relief in avoiding four more years of President Donald Trump. It’s another to poke progressives in the eye and expect them to show their loyalty while you do it.

As it should be emphasized, for progressives critical of the 2020 party platform, while Medicare of All is a glaring omission, there is ample room for commentary. Patrisse Cullors, activist and Black Lives Matter co-founder, reportedly proposed about 10 amendments on various issues primarily impacting the black community and other communities of color which were rejected without a vote. If Cullors feels like less of an ally or a member of a party with principles, can you blame her? We’ve seen ordinary people protesting en masse IN THE MIDST OF A PANDEMIC to bring attention to and demand change to combat systemic racism in our society. How can this platform possibly be construed to meet this historic moment?

Another criticism of the platform is that it underestimates both the durability and magnitude of COVID-19’s impact. In a separate article for The Nation by Emma Galbraith and James K. Galbraith, the authors outline how the Democratic party platform falls short in several areas related to coronavirus.

In addition to, as mentioned, not embracing single-payer healthcare at a time when this pandemic has exacerbated a healthcare crisis, the platform insufficiently addresses our oil surplus, it undersells the blow dealt to the services and construction industries (among others), it offers minimal relief to renters and others facing homelessness, and it doesn’t fully comprehend the lack of trust America’s disastrous response to COVID-19 has engendered in its inhabitants. After all, faith in our political institutions was relatively low even before we started seeing cases in the States. Now? Memes about guillotines are on the rise, and while we’re yet on the level of dark humor, I feel like today’s politicians and others more removed from the struggles of everyday Americans shouldn’t push it.

I’ve heard it said that the DNC has effectively taken a victory lap with its elaboration of the party platform, an analogy I consider to be apt in how it reflects the dynamic between centrist establishment forces and progressives trying to reform the Democratic Party from the inside. What’s especially on the nose about this comparison, meanwhile, is that it resembles the attitude Democratic supporters had in 2016, which we all know was an ill-fated confidence. 2020 is already different in any number of ways and at this writing, things look good for Joe Biden. Very good. Just the same, the Dems would be well served not to press their luck. If anyone knows about losing winnable elections, it’s them.

Not everything is bad about the Democratic Party’s platform this election cycle. That said, it could be dramatically better, and furthermore, even if Biden wins, the U.S. will face huge structural issues that the policy positions enumerated within the platform won’t begin to fully address. Progressives will be holding Biden’s feet to the fire in that case. Democratic leadership better be ready for it.

2020 Has Been a Disaster for National Progressive Politics (and Pretty Much Everything Else)

Joe Biden is the Democratic Party presidential nominee, Bernie Sanders gave up the fight and endorsed him, and Elizabeth Warren has evidently abandoned her principles to try to become Biden’s VP pick. So yeah, a great time for progressives on the national stage. (Photo Credit: Phil Roeder/Flickr/CC BY 2.0)

Speaking as a progressive, the fight for economic, political, and social justice is such that, despite any setbacks, there are always more battles to fight. In other words, there is always work to be done and voices to be amplified. But damn if it doesn’t get disheartening sometimes.

Of course, as the death count related to COVID-19 in the United States makes its inexorable climb toward 100,000-plus, the immediate health and safety of all Americans is of paramount importance. Still, taking a snapshot of progressive politics at this moment in time, it’s worth noting that, at the national level, progressive leadership and power doesn’t seem all that it’s cracked up to be or could be.

Let’s start with the Senate. Who are your progressive leaders and how do you feel about them lately? Bernie Sanders, who has missed at least one key vote in recent memory, is reportedly asking some delegates to sign agreements barring them from attacking other candidates or leaders, getting involved in social media confrontations, or doing interviews with reporters without approval. If true, it’s a disappointing development from a man who suspended his presidential bid with a whimper and gave up the fight with so much at stake and with so little conceded from Joe Biden’s camp.

Elizabeth Warren? After a disappointing campaign that ultimately saw her fail to catch on with progressives and party loyalists alike and only manage a third-place finish in her home state, her progressive credentials are in question now more than ever. Her attacks on Bernie, her reversal on super PAC funding, and her self-identification alongside Amy Klobuchar from primary season notwithstanding, her apparent abandonment of Medicare for All, a central tenet of the progressive movement in the U.S., invites charges of selling out for a chance to be Biden’s vice president—an unlikely eventuality to begin with given Joe’s ties to the banking industry.

Kamala Harris? Kirsten Gillibrand? Cory Booker? Like Sanders and Warren, they’re all carrying water for Biden despite a credible sexual assault allegation against him and other claims of unwanted touching or close physical proximity. Poor Ed Markey might not survive a primary challenge from Joe Kennedy III, the Pete Buttigieg of the Senate Democratic races—and no, that “Mayo Pete” comparison is not a compliment. Jeff Merkley. Mazie Hirono. Sherrod Brown. They’re not exactly household names outside of progressive circles and none are younger than 60.

In the House of Representatives, meanwhile, we thankfully have members who are making a name for themselves as progressives on the national stage—and younger ones at that. The problem here is that these reps are seemingly having their influence circumscribed at every possible turn (or at least the attempt is there) by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other dyed-in-the-wool establishment Democrats.

Faced with an unprecedented economic and health crisis, Pelosi and Co. have largely capitulated to moneyed interests, offering little in the way of substantive relief to everyday Americans beyond the minimum standards Republicans have proposed. All the while, Pelosi, like her other moderate colleagues, has endorsed Biden’s presidential bid and has allowed herself to get dragged down in the mud with Donald Trump, making references to his weight and other performative gestures which neither do anything to help people in need nor do they help rally support for the party cause outside of loyalists (and also risk alienating people who don’t take kindly to body shaming regardless of the source).

To recap then, we have a promising group of younger progressives in the House amid Democratic Party control, but old-guard leadership is evidently determined to thwart them as part of a last-gasp effort to flex its might. In the Senate, Mitch McConnell is majority leader, Chuck Schumer is the party’s face, and even the members with the best voting records have made questionable alliances/decisions of late. In addition, as alluded to, the most progressive options of the 2020 presidential campaign saw their hopes dashed in dramatic fashion following Super Tuesday.

All of this on top of a coronavirus crisis that has seen tens of thousands of Americans die, millions of people file for unemployment and/or lose health insurance, and the world’s richest individuals get even richer as a direct result of the global pandemic has made the first half of 2020 so far a little frustrating, to put it mildly. What’s more, it doesn’t appear things will improve over the rest of the year or anytime soon for that matter.

Small businesses will continue struggling to survive in the absence of needed aid from the federal government. Another wave of COVID-19 infections is probable if not certain. And while Biden is enjoying a national polling lead in some cases of eight or more percentage points, that he’s not doing better given the depths of Trump’s inadequacies and that he continues to lag behind in the enthusiasm department is deeply troubling with November fast approaching. In short, 2020 has sucked royally—and for progressives in particular, there is every reason to worry the worst is yet to come.

Lest I relegate myself purely to the realms of doom and gloom, it’s not all bad for the progressive movement in the United States of America. If the popularity of figures like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez is any indication, it’s that there is a real appetite for new leadership within a growing subset of the left-leaning electorate. As ignominious as the end to Bernie Sanders’s 2020 campaign was, too, exit poll after exit poll showed that despite primary voters’ preference for Joe Biden to take on Donald Trump, on issues like Medicare for All, they favored the progressive position over the standard alternative. So many voters are desperate for real change.

As the late great philosopher Tom Petty once said, however, the waiting is the hardest part. Whilst progressives helped organize a campaign for Bernie that was poised to go the distance—and there’s much to discuss in the postmortem period of analysis about why it didn’t but there’s not enough space in this article or perhaps one article in it of itself to do that—the Biden campaign struggled to raise finances, limped out of the gates in early contests, and didn’t even have a presence in a number of bygone primary states.

And yet he still romped in the South and managed numerous upset wins following his dominant showing in South Carolina. Whether Elizabeth Warren’s presence in the race long after it was clear her electoral chances were dead on arrival hurt Bernie is yet a subject of debate in leftist circles (among Sanders supporters, I feel like this may be overblown), but regardless, the two best candidates to ever be in striking distance of the overall polling lead came up well short of winning the nomination despite being better-funded and better-organized than the campaign that actually has Biden on a path to win the Democratic Party nomination and maybe even defeat Trump in November. That’s a tough pill to swallow, and increasingly so as real life proves candidates like Sanders, Warren, and even Andrew Yang on the topic of universal basic income right.

The news is better further down ballots, where there are real electoral successes to be found. AOC’s meteoric rise to prominence aside, though, primary challenges ending in progressive wins are fewer and farther between than eager leftists sifting through voting results would obviously like to see. The Democratic Party establishment has been more than hostile toward primary challenges from the left. (If you’re Ed Markey and facing a challenge from the right in the form of a corporate-funded candidate with the Kennedy name, that’s apparently fine.) Though this doesn’t mean that challengers’ efforts aren’t worthy if not necessary to compel Democratic incumbents to actually try to earn their votes, it’s nonetheless deflating when effort and good intent alone can’t overcome voter aversion to change and a party apparatus specifically constructed to quell dissent.

Inherently, these circumstances promote tension, for while progressives ideally would like to think about how to organize over the long term, the realities of the short term compel action even at the expense of immediate political capital. Regardless of the “color” of one’s district, someone should be running to represent policy goals like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, a $15 minimum wage, cancellation of student debt, universal basic income, and other progressive priorities. No one wants to be running without a genuine chance at winning when the optics surrounding a landslide loss loom large. The need for involvement at the lower levels of government because of the magnitude of suffering for millions of Americans creates urgency, and progressive groups across key voting blocs are often fighting one another for relevance when cooperation should be the order of the day.

For me, what is especially challenging about all of this is how, despite progressives’ collective efforts since the 2016 election, we yet find ourselves in a precarious position. After Hillary Clinton’s defeat, Democrats haven’t learned their lesson, that much more determined to return to the days before President Trump no matter what in coalescing behind a candidate in Biden who generates even less enthusiasm than the woman who just lost.

Regarding COVID-19, America lags behind the rest of the world in curbing the spread of infection despite its wealth of resources, and at a time when we should be rethinking the role of capitalism in how our society functions (or doesn’t), some people seem only that much more willing to sacrifice others on capitalism’s altar so they can get a haircut or prevent a decline in stock prices. If there is a lesson to be learned herein, it’s sadly that 90,000 deaths is not enough to spur a movement of sufficient size toward fundamental change. A few months into widespread quarantines across the country, many of us are restless to the point of advocating for armed rebellion. What happens when the ravages of climate changes really start hitting home? If current developments are any indication, it, um, won’t go well.

In belaboring progressives’ struggles within the Democratic Party, I don’t mean to paper over the differences between the Dems and the death cult that is the Republican Party. For example, Joe Biden deserves your vote more than Donald Trump—full stop. I also don’t mean to insist that leaving the Democratic Party altogether is necessarily the correct tactic. The #DemExit movement is fraught with its own difficulties and potential shortcomings, though I also don’t blame progressives for wanting to move on after the litany of abuses they’ve suffered in such a short time, only wanting to do their part to make the Democratic Party better.

Though I think progressives might do well to place a greater emphasis on winning and grassroots organizing at the lower levels of government and though I have reservations about watching the Democratic Party burn to the ground, politics is ultimately a two-way street. Democratic leadership would do well not to take progressive votes for granted and offer at least some meaningful concessions to the left rather than mere table scraps. 2020 has been a disaster for progressive politics on the national stage thus far, but it doesn’t have to end that way—and the Democrats would be all the stronger by recognizing it.

Can the Democratic Party Be Saved from Itself?

2020 Democrats: Hold my beer.



















Excited yet?














It’s Not Too Late to Vote for Bernie Sanders

As it turns out, Bernie Sanders has been right about pretty much everything. Maybe Democratic Party voters should be voting for him. Just a thought. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

Down by about 300 delegates, Bernie Sanders has an admittedly narrow path to victory in the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. An essential element of the argument against Bernie and thus for Joe Biden is that Bernie is simply “not electable,” while Biden, who had never won a state primary in three campaigns until this year, will beat an overall unpopular incumbent in Donald Trump.

As a counterpoint to this prevailing narrative of electability perpetuated by professional pundits and corporate hacks, everyone is electable if you vote for them. Moreover, with roughly half of states yet to vote, it’s not too late to vote for Bernie Sanders. Amid a global pandemic which has seen over a million cases worldwide, has killed more than 50,000 people, and is responsible for sickness, death, and surging unemployment claims here in the United States, he is unquestionably the leader for this moment.

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, assistant professor of African-American studies at Princeton University and author, expresses this sentiment beautifully in a recent piece for The New Yorker titled “Reality Has Endorsed Bernie Sanders”. As she finds, Sanders’s “policy proposals are especially apt now, when the coronavirus crisis is revealing an economy organized around production for the sake of profit, not need.”

In meditating on the alacrity with which the U.S. and the world at large has found itself in an existential crisis, Taylor underscores the reality that the state of America’s welfare state, precarious to begin with, has been steadily worsened by the marginalization of the individuals and families who rely on it. The poor, despite numbering in the tens of millions, are mostly ignored except to be demonized as fundamentally lacking in effort, intelligence, and social graces. All the while, rent goes up and salaries/wages don’t, leading to a national housing crisis, and as a function of racial injustice, black and brown Americans feel the pinch worst of all, including having reduced access to affordable, high-quality healthcare.

Throw in a highly infectious and deadly novel coronavirus and the byproduct is brutal, if unsurprising. People of color, particularly those who live in poverty, are at greater risk for contracting and for suffering severe complications from COVID-19 because they are unable to afford the kind of social isolation “flattening the curve” merits, whether as a function of their living arrangements, jobs/professions which pay little and expose them to the public (e.g. home healthcare, retail, service industry), or both. The greater the economic and racial inequality, the more pronounced the racial disparities are liable to be.

As Taylor makes the connection, looking back at U.S. politics of recent decades, it is no wonder why both major political parties’ responses to the spread of coronavirus have been lacking. During Richard Nixon’s presidency, conservatives did their part to undermine the welfare state by depicting entitlement programs as rewards for laziness or a form of privilege, while at the same time pushing for corporate tax cuts and profits. In response, Democrats followed suit, echoing concerns about Americans “taking advantage” of welfare and advocating for criminal justice “reform” in the form of harsher attitudes and penalties for violators, predominantly those from communities of color. Today, Democrats and Republicans alike elevate profligate spending on the military and the perpetuation of a cruel and unjust criminal justice system above investment in and protection of an adequate social safety net. They have done little to change course since the start of the crisis in the United States because they don’t know how, a slave to the ideologies they have elaborated for more than a generation.

This is where Bernie Sanders and his campaign come in. Previously derided by his political rivals, their supporters, and armchair political theorists, Sanders and his policy goals sound more than plausible in the current climate, political or otherwise. It is this global crisis which has brought clarity to the notion that Bernie’s active bid for the White House isn’t just the one that best elaborates the antidote to what’s happening now, but to the underlying conditions that preceded it too. In theory, the idealized “free market” should have an answer to the present economic crunch and health care emergency. Instead, free testing and treatment for COVID-19 is a “debate;” PPE, tests, and ventilators (not to mention the essential personnel to tend to the sick and dying) are in dire supply, overpriced or overtaxed; the cruise industry is asking for a bailout despite not paying U.S. income tax; and others are actively seeking ways to profit from this disaster. Does that sound acceptable to you?

Consequently, any set of solutions going forward must rethink our paradigm, embracing collectivity, connectivity, and personal responsibility over illusory top-down solutions. It is in this sense in which Bernie’s emphasis on big-picture thinking and grassroots organizing is thankfully distinct from that of Joe Biden’s and Donald Trump’s hyperpartisan rhetoric. Taylor closes her column thusly:

The class-driven hierarchy of our society will encourage the spread of this virus unless dramatic and previously unthinkable solutions are immediately put on the table. As Sanders has counselled, we must think in unprecedented ways. This includes universal health care, an indefinite moratorium on evictions and foreclosures, the cancellation of student-loan debt, a universal basic income, and the reversal of all cuts to food stamps. These are the basic measures that can staunch the immediate crisis of deprivation—of millions of layoffs and millions more to come.


A mere two election cycles after Barack Obama’s tenure in the White House, the promise of “Yes, we can!” has given way to the notion we not only can work together for a better future, but must do so if we’re to have a future at all. Bernie Sanders’s movement, of which the slogan is “Not Me. Us,” is the human-powered political force that best articulates the paramount importance of putting people and the planet over profit. The rest is just noise at this point.

Touching again upon the insufficiency of both parties’ responses to the coronavirus pandemic gripping the nation, unless you are a steadfast party supporter or backer of the president, you probably don’t need an explanation as to how poorly the Trump administration has handled this situation. I mean, Jared Kushner has a functional role in the response. That’s a red flag right there.

Reports of Donald Trump showing favoritism to red states in the availability of supplies. Press conferences that are more likely to feature the creator of MyPillow than usable information. Considering 200,000 deaths due to COVID-19 a “very good” result of the virus’s spread. The Trump White House is showing its lack of preparedness for an emergency of this magnitude atop its standard incapacity for empathy for people unlike the president. That Mitch McConnell and his ilk would try to blame the “distraction” of impeachment for Trump not doing his job or to create their own distraction by pivoting to talk of Hunter Biden merely adds insult to injury. We’ve seen him at his rallies. We know about the golf. This isn’t fooling anyone except the gullible members of his base.

Unfortunately, establishment Democrats haven’t really seized the advantage. As usual, rather than offering a substantive vision for how to move forward in this time of crisis, they’re hoping and waiting for Trump to self-destruct, all the while coalescing behind a man in Joe Biden who seems patently incapable of making a media appearance without glitching or lying. In the face of millions of Americans losing health insurance as a result of being newly unemployed or having to pay through the nose for testing/treatment for COVID-19, Biden appears unmoved on the subject of single-payer healthcare. When appearing in an MSNBC interview with Yasmin Vossoughian on the matter, here was his response:

Single-payer will not solve that at all. The thing that is needed is, for example, we have a whole number of hospitals that are being stretched, including rural hospitals, they are going to need more financing. That doesn’t come from a single-payer system. That comes from the federal government stepping up and dealing with concerns that they have. The reimbursement they are going to get, how they’re going to be able to move forward.

At one point, Biden also referenced the way Italy has been impacted by the pandemic, saying that single-payer couldn’t prevent coronavirus from spreading. Right, Mr. Biden, but you’re missing the point. Meagan Day, staff writer at Jacobin, details what the former vice president either doesn’t get about single-payer or doesn’t want to admit owing to his fealty to the health insurance industry.

Addressing Biden’s comments re Italy, Day points out, citing responses from Italians across the political spectrum, that the death toll would’ve been much worse had it not been for universal healthcare. Here in the United States, the number of tragic stories grows seemingly day by day of individuals who are dying because they can’t afford treatment/testing or are otherwise reluctant to seek it out because of the cost. A system like Medicare for All would ensure nobody is denied the care they need because they can’t afford insurance. Bernie’s critics have lashed out at him for continuing to champion M4A amid this catastrophe, but this isn’t just politics as usual for millions of Americans. It quite literally could mean the difference between life and death.

In fairness to Biden, he isn’t the only Dem offering weak sauce to a divided electorate desperately seeking a direction forward. Days after the passage of coronavirus stimulus legislation that saw, among other things, Senate Democrats largely capitulate to the GOP on a one-time $1,200 payment and give Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin largely unchecked powers over a $500 billion bailout “slush fund,” Nancy Pelosi’s big idea evidently is to…revisit a repeal of the SALT deduction cap that would largely benefit wealthy earners? What?

As un-presidential as Trump proves with every briefing, he’s speaking directly to the public, controlling the narrative on COVID-19 in the United States. What’s worse, it seems to be working for his popularity, which is on the rise as of this writing. He’s also gaining nationally in polling on Biden, the presumptive Democratic Party presidential nominee who has been invisible at times during this crisis and even when making remarks is a gaffe machine. That Democrats would even casually float New York governor Andrew Cuomo’s name as someone they might rather support in the lead-up to November (another leader who has a sizable audience these days) should be deeply concerning to party leadership. Biden’s campaign doesn’t inspire nearly as much confidence or excitement among Democratic supporters as Trump’s does for his base, which could spell disaster close to six months from now.

Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders has been front and center during this crisis, doing regular livestreams answering questions about our coronavirus response and featuring legislators and experts in various fields as part of the broadcasts. He also memorably stood up to Senate Republicans in the stimulus bill negotiations, threatening to hold up its passage unless a handful of them backtracked on stripping unemployment insurance expansion for millions of workers. That’s the kind of real leadership hiding in plain sight that the Dems have been looking for.

Alas, down by about 300 delegates, Bernie Sanders has an admittedly narrow path to victory in the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Win or lose, though, his candidacy matters. For those who have yet to cast their ballots in 2020, it’s not too late to vote for Bernie Sanders. He’s the only candidate left who has the mindset and the wherewithal to steer the country as it should be steered in these perilous waters.

2019 Recap: No Rest for the Weary


Excitement and dread.



Tucker Carlson’s white power hour





Candace Owens is a conservative grifter





Making America Great Againwhether you realize it or not





There’s something about “The Squad”





The irresponsibility of social media giants












The absolute mess that has been the Democratic primary






Quick items

  • Mitch McConnell is still, like, the worst.









Subpoenas Aren’t Optional, and Other Impeachment Musings

Apparently, being Donald Trump’s personal lawyer means you forget how the law is supposed to work. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

In May, when former White House Counsel Don McGahn was called to testify before the House Judiciary Committee regarding information sought related to Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible conspiracy and obstruction charges for President Donald Trump and other members of his transition team, McGahn willingly defied the subpoena.

For a political figure like Trump and others around him, that McGahn would simply no-show members of Congress is, while almost unprecedented, not particularly surprising. We’ve thrown out the book on presidential behavior and politics as usual so often lately that the binding is cracked and our arms are worn out from the repetitive action.

Still, you would hope as a lawyer that McGahn would have some respect for the law and legal precepts. Besides, and at any rate, you’re, um, not supposed to be able to up and refuse a subpoena like that. As Committee chair Jerry Nadler put it, “Our subpoenas are not optional. We will not allow the president to stop this investigation.” He also warned that McGahn could face contempt charges for failing to appear before the House Judiciary Committee.

This was several months ago, when House Democrats were dancing around the very idea of impeachment and seeking an alternate route to accessing information about Trump’s potential impeachable offenses. It’s October now. Needless to say, the paradigm has shifted regarding the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry. With a majority of House Democrats and even members of the Senate/presidential candidates favoring impeachment, and with Speaker Nancy Pelosi publicly indicating plans to move forward with impeachment proceedings, there is yet greater urgency to compel prospective witnesses to comply with congressional ultimatums.

Unfortunately, that urgency is lost on these witnesses themselves. Sure, the exact circumstances are different than they were a few months prior. Pelosi and Co’s. decision to finally go ahead with impeachment was brought about by a whistleblower complaint which has since come to light from an unnamed individual in U.S. intelligence made in August.

Among other things, the whistleblower alleges Trump pressured Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky multiple times to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, regarding his role as a board member of a Ukrainian energy company. Despite Trump’s assertions, there is no evidence either Biden did anything wrong within this sphere of influence. As with the focus on Hillary Clinton and her numerous supposed scandals prior to the 2016 election, however, the suggestion alone may be sufficient to sway the minds of voters. And to be clear, Biden, despite numerous bad policy positions (past and present) and the real possibility he is losing his mind, is still the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic Party presidential nomination. Please excuse me while I bang my head against a wall for a moment.

Seriously, though, this is serious business involving Trump. Asking for a foreign leader to investigate a political rival not as a matter of national security, but as a matter of personal political gain, may be a crime and is probably an impeachable offense. Either way, and getting to the central point about testifying before Congress, persons of interest within the context of an impeachment inquiry should not be treating subpoenas as if they’re tickets to some voluntary information session, some theoretical event. As Merriam-Webster defines subpoena, it is “a writ commanding a person designated in it to appear in court under a penalty for failure.” It’s not a request.

Try telling that to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, though, who has admitted he was on the call between Trump and Zelensky and has stated that he won’t comply with a House Foreign Affairs Committee subpoena, has vowed to fight the deposition of other State Department officials in the service of impeachment proceedings, and who has labeled the committee’s “request” (which, again, isn’t a request) as an attempt to “intimidate, bully, and treat improperly the distinguished professionals of the Department of State.” As Pompeo would have you believe, committee chair Eliot Engel will personally hold down each of these “distinguished professionals” and take their lunch money, whereupon they will be given wedgies and quite possibly will be forced into their own lockers.

Trump personal lawyer and morning talk show resident-crazy-person Rudy Giuliani also has commented about a subpoena in terms of something to which he may or may not accede. Evidently, Giuliani has received subpoenas from three different House committees, but claims that before a “proper” decision can be made, a number of issues have to be weighed, including attorney-client privilege, “substantial constitutional and legal issues,” and “other privileges.” What’s that, Mr. Giuliani? Adhering to the law might involve the Constitution and other legal principles? You don’t say! Never mind that attorney-client privilege might not actually apply in your case because you’re such a blabbermouth. But I digress.

For a House committee issuing a subpoena, when one of the objects of its investigatory powers fails to acquiesce to its summons, what recourse does it possess? Well, one option is to involve the courts. Regarding McGahn’s earlier refusal to appear before Congress and to try to nullify a larger strategy of the White House’s to shield presidential advisers from being held accountable, the House Judiciary Committee filed a lawsuit in August with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to force McGahn to testify. The White House has claimed McGahn has “absolute immunity” from being made to testify before the Committee, a concept which has been used by past administrations but hasn’t been fully tested by the courts.

The problem with this route? It, well, takes time. As stated in the New York Times article linked above, this case could take months or longer to resolve. With a presidential election little more than a year from now, this is obviously far from ideal. As Judd Legum, author of the political newsletter Popular Information, and others have pointed out, meanwhile, another possibility exists in invoking inherent contempt.

Congress hasn’t invoked inherent contempt in more than seven decades, but in this case and given the gravity of the Trump administration’s repeated attempted erosion of the Constitution and democracy overall, it seems well warranted. It certainly is a more direct path to try to get a particular target to comply. Upon the passing of a resolution to execute an arrest warrant, the desired party is taken into custody, tried for contempt, and if found guilty, can be detained or imprisoned “until the obstruction to the exercise of legislative power is removed.” The legislature can also fine the non-compliant party for failing to observe its authority, as Rep. Mike Quigley has publicly observed.

If House Democrats are truly forthright about wanting to carry out an impeachment inquiry with any due sense of efficiency, they shouldn’t hesitate to invoke contempt for those Trump administration officials and actual freaking lawyers who apparently don’t know what a subpoena is. Sure, it may feel like an extreme step to some, particularly among the president’s defenders. Then again, as Legum would insist, “these are extraordinary times.”

Despite the notion many of us looking on at this impeachment business from the cheap seats have been anticipating such action for a long time now, an unfortunate byproduct of this unfolding scandal is that we have even more coverage of Donald Trump now. Visit one of the major cable news sites and witness the litany of Trump-oriented stories available for your consumption. Trump lashes out. Trump attacks. Trump, at his worst. Trump this. Trump that. Even in potential infamy, Trump’s name is everywhere. He couldn’t have succeeded better on this front if he had tried.

What’s particularly bad about this state of affairs is it pushes news items important in their own right to the back pages. The United Kingdom is still in political turmoil, trying to come to grips with the results of a Brexit referendum vote that seemingly never had a chance of being implemented smoothly in the first place. Foreign interference in the 2020 election is probable if not certain, with Vladimir Putin among those laughing about the very suggestion. Mohammad bin Salman and Saudi Arabia have yet to face substantive consequences for the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and war continues in Yemen, of which the Saudis, aided by American weapons and aircraft, are key players. U.S. manufacturing is on the decline. The border crisis is anything but resolved. Deforestation and fires continue in the Amazon, a direct result of an ill-advised policy shift by Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil. In short, there’s a lot of bad shit happening right now, and the fevered news coverage surrounding Trump’s legal and political entanglements obscures these real problems.

This isn’t to say, of course, that we shouldn’t be paying attention to the events and players relevant to the impeachment process. Even with Bill Clinton’s impeachment in the rear view mirror, so to speak, what we’re witnessing with Trump is historic and its own animal.

All the same, we should be cognizant of what we’re missing by dwelling on this single controversy. Besides, even if Trump were to be impeached and removed by Congress, that wouldn’t be the end of Republican control of the White House and Senate, nor would it magically put a stop to a rise in hate crimes and overt right-wing extremism in the United States and elsewhere. It’s not like he’s the Night King. Removing him wouldn’t mean the end of ugly rhetoric here in the United States and it wouldn’t essentially spell doom for the Republican Party’s attempts to stack the federal judiciary, target entitlement programs for cuts, and do other harm to the social safety net and fairness in representative democracy.

Donald Trump, members of his administration, and enablers of his on the outside like Rudy Giuliani may not have much regard for the rule of law. That notwithstanding, we shouldn’t treat their flippant dismissal of congressional authority as something to be considered acceptable or normal. In theory, no one is above the law. The Democrats and American news media would be wise to reinforce this idea in both their speech and actions, especially if we are to have but the semblance of confidence in them as institutions going forward.

Self-Impeachment Is Not a Thing

Note to Nancy Pelosi: President Donald Trump will avoid the consequences of 100% of the impeachment proceedings not brought against him. (Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)

If you believe Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, President Donald Trump is about to “self-impeach.” Any minute now. It’s coming—just you wait and see.

Unfortunately, for people not enamored with our fearless leader or for fans of accountability in political leadership, this is not a new claim of Ms. Pelosi’s. Back in summer of 2017, amid sagging presidential approval ratings, Pelosi demurred on the subject of Democrats starting impeachment proceedings, predicting he would self-impeach. Again in May of this year, she said virtually the same thing, indicating her belief that Trump is “becoming self-impeachable in terms of some of the things he’s doing.”

We’re in August 2019, more than two years after those earlier remarks by the Speaker and with an election fast approaching. And wouldn’t you know it—the president has yet to impeach himself. Maybe because he can’t. Because self-impeachment isn’t a thing.

At the federal level, impeachment can only be brought about with the assent of the House of Representatives and the official in question can only be tried by the Senate. These provisions are contained in Article I, Section 2 and Article I, Section 3 of the United States Constitution, respectively. As for what charges may be grounds for impeachment, Article II, Section 4 states that the “President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” In practice, however, lawmakers voting to begin impeachment proceedings have more commonly done so because of that official’s abuse of his or her position or for violating the public trust.

Article II, Section 2 also prohibits the president from granting pardons or reprieves for offenses against the U.S. in cases of impeachment, meaning Trump presumably couldn’t simply pardon himself. Still, the idea he could self-impeach is, to use a bit of highly technical political jargon, hogwash. And yet, members of the media continue to amplify Pelosi’s claim or at least don’t challenge it like they can or frankly should.

One of the latest such defenses of House Democrats’ inaction on this front comes from Julian Zelizer, CNN political analyst and Princeton University historian. As Zelizer argues, Pelosi “might have been onto something” when she made her comments about self-impeachment in May, evidenced by more than half of House Dems supporting starting impeachment proceedings, including House Judiciary Committee chair Jerry Nadler. While acknowledging that the very notion of self-impeachment is “silly,” Zelizer nonetheless bolsters the idea of a self-impeaching Trump by pointing to all the irresponsible, reprehensible and stupid shit the president says.

Like, for instance, suggesting the Clintons had Jeffrey Epstein killed. Or for going after “The Squad” and Elijah Cummings, telling them to go back to the crime-ridden, rat-infested places they came from. Or for calling immigrants and asylum-seekers coming across our southern border “invaders.” It is primarily Trump’s wayward public conduct and speech which keeps Democrats from putting the impeachment option aside, even more so than the contents of the Mueller report.

Thus, while Speaker Pelosi is a long way away from committing to impeachment proceedings, and while the process will all but surely come to die in the Senate as long as Mitch “I’m in the Personnel Business” McConnell is toeing the party line, Trump is serving as “his own worst enemy” by keeping the conversation alive. Not to mention he may be doing his re-election prospects a disservice by, you know, being a jerk.

Here’s the thing, though, Mr. Zelizer: you already acknowledged the silliness of the theoretical concept of self-impeachment. Why feed the narrative? Why not compel Pelosi and Co. to take decisive action on a matter that has a majority of House Democrats in agreement, a number which has grown steadily over the past few weeks and months?

Zelizer cites the “very real fears” about a backlash in moderate districts which formally bringing impeachment proceedings against Trump could create. To say there isn’t risk for staying this more cautious course or for pinning the party’s hopes on 2020, meanwhile, would be inaccurate. Those same Democratic representatives representing so-called “swing” or “purple” districts might share Pelosi’s sense of apprehension and refuse to commit to voting in favor of impeachment, which would never get her to the desired threshold for unanimous approval (whether that is by design is another story, but let’s the give her the benefit of the doubt for argument’s sake).

As for the looming presidential election, polling would seem to dictate Trump losing to most Democratic candidates, though we’ve been down this road before. Hillary Clinton was widely predicted by the political intelligentsia to carry the day in 2016. As we all know, she didn’t. This time around, Joe Biden is the leader in most polls and the presumptive “safe” establishment pick. He’s also an old white male in an era when a rapidly-changing electorate is increasingly dissatisfied with how it is (or isn’t) represented in Washington, D.C., his record as a legislator is not above reproach by any means, and he seemingly makes some sort of mind-numbing gaffe every other day.

This is the man who will motivate younger voters to want to get involved? This is the guy who inspires confidence that he has learned from past mistakes and is fit not only to take on the incumbent, but run the country should he win the whole shebang? Pardon me if I don’t feel so secure thinking about the prospects of a heads-up showdown between Trump and Biden for America’s future.

Politicians regularly deflect, distract, and evade to try to limit their sense of personal responsibility. At this point, it’s to be expected, and Ms. Pelosi is not above playing the game, so to speak, as an entrenched D.C. insider. For someone like Zelizer, a member of the free press, on the other hand, not taking her to task in lieu of laying into our man-child president is arguably a dereliction of duty. We get enough talking points as it is. Getting them merely re-hashed when serious critical commentary is needed does the news purveyors and their consumers both a disservice.

In stark contrast to the hemming and hawing of Democratic leadership and the concession to the “dangers” of impeachment by much of today’s punditry, Steve Phillips, author, civil rights lawyer, organizer, and political leader, for one, declares emphatically that “it’s safe to impeach Trump.”

Why is Phillips so sure on this point when the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Julian Zelizer are more equivocal on the subject? As Phillips explains, he has the math on his side.

Democrats, he finds, are inordinately concerned with the re-election prospects of representatives in contested districts. One representative cited within his piece says he believes “we have pay to close attention to what’s going on in the 30 or so swing districts, what are those people thinking.” The idea is that in these locales, Trump-backing Republicans balking at impeachment proceedings or talk thereof could sway the final results.

As Phillips points out, though, this number is inaccurate from the jump. Only 21 seats won by Dems last year came from districts Donald Trump carried in 2016, a minority of those flipped blue. From there, seven districts in which Democratic voter turnout was lower in 2018 than in 2016, won on the strength of turnout alone, can be removed from the discussion. Phillips highlights how significantly more Hillary Clinton voters came out in 2018 than did Trump voters “more satisfied with the political status quo now that they had their preferred person in the White House.” If registered Republicans were responsible in large part for flipping those districts, you would expect votes for Democratic congressional candidates to be higher, not lower given the unusually robust turnout for midterm elections.

Of those remaining 14 districts, Phillips removes another six congressional districts on the basis of wins unrelated to turnout. In other words, even if you took away of all the increase in turnout and gave it to Republicans, the Democratic candidate still would’ve been victorious on the strength of returning Hillary voters. Down to eight districts, Phillips then strikes three more of our original 21-count, underscoring unique circumstances by which factors other than “disaffected” GOP voters were decisive.

In GA-06, Stacey Abrams’ historic gubernatorial campaign likely fueled Lucy McBath’s slender victory (fewer than 5,000 votes) by driving people to the polls. In NM-02, Xochitl Torres Small’s similarly thin margin of victory can probably be best attributed to demographics (New Mexico’s 2nd congressional district is 55% Hispanic/Latino) as well as that the seat was open with the incumbent opting not to run for re-election. Finally, in UT-04, Ben McAdams yet more narrowly (less than 1,000 votes difference) upended black Republican and frequent Barack Obama critic Mia Love. Among the reasons why, Phillips considers the waning importance of being a black Obama detractor, McAdams’s name recognition and popularity, and the idea that, well, a white Mormon male would tend to fare better electorally than a black woman in Utah anyway. That’s the ol’ Beehive State for you.

That leaves five districts—MI-08 (Elissa Slotkin), NY-22 (Anthony Brindisi), OK-05 (Kendra Horn), SC-01 (Joe Cunningham), and VA-07 (Abigail Spanberger)—in which disaffected Republicans decided the outcome of the last election. While not necessarily to minimize these lawmakers’ potential contributions, numerically speaking, the electoral prospects of five moderate Democrats does not seem sufficient to outweigh the desire of many Americans and a rising tide of Democratic lawmakers to see party leadership move forward on impeachment.

All this before we get to the too-eerie parallels between Nixonian impropriety and what Trump has said and done and continues to do and say to apparently try to get himself impeached. This is to say that even without relying on Phillips’s figures, historical precedent might also compel Pelosi and other high-ranking Democrats to act.

In all, Phillips avers that “doing the right thing” is the right course of action not merely because it is a moral imperative, but because voters have signified through their turnout that they favor holding the president accountable, notably those registered Republican defectors from swing districts. As he puts it, they want Congress to hold this man accountable.

Which, to bring us full circle, requires the House to impeach. For Nancy Pelosi’s repeated references to self-impeachment, Trump can’t (and wouldn’t, anyway) do that. He also has yet to self-destruct and only grows bolder with the passing days and weeks, unchecked in any meaningful way and therefore incentivized to continue to lie, enrich himself, and espouse yet uglier views as the leader of the country. As the aftermath of the El Paso shooting demonstrates, Trump clearly isn’t getting better or more presidential. November 2020, no guarantee to be a boon for Democrats, shouldn’t be the Dems’ only option in standing up to him.

Go After “The Squad” at Your Own Risk

Note to Nancy Pelosi: Ilhan Omar has a following that is neither solely on Twitter nor limited to four people. (Photo Credit: Lorie Shaull/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0)


This was the scene at Donald Trump’s recent rally in Greenville, North Carolina, evidence that every time we think Trump and the GOP have hit rock bottom, there is a new low to which to sink. The audience’s chant was in response to the president’s remarks on Ilhan Omar, which wrongly characterized the first-term representative from the state of Minnesota as an anti-Semite, someone who “looks down with contempt on the hardworking American.”

Trump also criticized fellow freshman Rashida Tlaib, like Omar, a Muslim, as “not somebody that loves our country,” lashed out at Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (eventually just calling her “Cortez” because he decided saying “Ocasio-Cortez” is too much work) for sponsoring the Green New Deal and for correctly reporting that the “concentration camps” at our southern border holding detained migrants offer substandard, inhumane conditions, and ridiculed Ayanna Pressley (“Is she related in any way to Elvis?”) for supposedly saying that “people with the same skin color all need to think the same” and somehow connecting her to violence committed by some anti-fascists (which pales in comparison to atrocities committed by white supremacists, but whatever).

Trump’s attacks on Reps. Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, and Tlaib amid his jabs at potential 2020 election rivals including “Sleepy” Joe Biden, Elizabeth “Pocahontas” Warren, Pete Buttigieg, and Bernie Sanders are no accident. He’s painting these newcomers to Congress as leaders of the Democratic Party, thereby trying to get his supporters to fixate on them, their ideals, their ethnicities, their religions, their identities as strong, outspoken women, and reject them and other Democrats as a function of subscribing to an anti-liberal, racist, sexist, xenophobic outlook on life.

As Trump would have it, these critics of his are the face of a party that hates America and everything it stands for, and if they don’t like it, they should leave or, more specifically, “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which they came.” Trump also tweeted that these “Progressive Democrat Congresswomen… (“progressive” in quotes, as if to doubt how interested in progress they really are) originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe.”

Trump’s public comments, as per the usual, are riddled with inaccuracies and intentional falsehoods. These particular diatribes against the four aforementioned women, however, are especially onerous and reflect egregious and dangerous rhetoric.

First things first, there’s the matter of labeling these women as “originally” from another country, as if they aren’t truly Americans. Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx and is of Puerto Rican descent. Pressley is black and was born in Cincinnati, raised in Chicago, and eventually relocated to Massachusetts. Tlaib was born in Detroit, the daughter of Palestinian immigrants. Omar is the only one of the four born outside the United States, originally from Somalia, but her family sought and secured asylum in 1995 and she became a U.S. citizen in 2000. These women are all American citizens and were duly elected to their positions in Congress by their constituents. Referring to them in any other capacity is to engage in unadulterated bigotry.

Well, that is, unless you ask Republicans or the president himself. Trump’s initial “go back” rant directed at AOC et al. sparked international outrage and condemnation. In the aftermath, the hashtags #RacistInChief and #TrumpIsARacist were trending on Twitter and continue to be used as part of the ensuing conversation about his verbal assault on the first-term congressional quartet. All the while, most members of the GOP have defended Trump against claims he is a racist. He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body! He’s saying what many people are thinking! On the latter point, saying average Americans agree with Pres. Trump means that he’s not a racist is a logical fallacy. Popularity is not an indicator of moral rectitude.

On the Democratic side, meanwhile, the House voted 240 to 187 to condemn Trump’s use of racist language. All House Democrats recorded an “Aye” vote. Newly-minted independent Justin Amash joined them, as did Republicans Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Fred Upton of Michigan, Susan Brooks of Indiana, and Will Hurd of Texas. Of course, Nancy Pelosi was quick to specify that this was a vote to condemn Trump’s comments as racist, not the man himself. It would apparently be untoward to level such charges against him. Or to hold him accountable in any meaningful way. (But let’s bank on 2020 when we lost in 2016, right?)

Speaking of the Speaker of the House, it bears underscoring that it was her derisive remarks about Pressley, Tlaib, Omar, and Ocasio-Cortez which helped lead to the group receiving their unofficial nickname: “The Squad.” Back in November, Ocasio-Cortez posted a picture of the four of them together with the one-word caption “Squad” on Instagram. This moniker was invoked again by New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd in her profile earlier this month on Pelosi, in which the Democratic leader panned their vote against the House’s version of an emergency border funding bill, saying, “All these people have their public whatever and their Twitter world. But they didn’t have any following. They’re four people and that’s how many votes they got.”

Since then and notably following Trump’s personal attacks, the use of the Squad nickname has increased exponentially. The widespread employ of this term is not without some pushback, to be sure. Some might see it as appropriative, deprecating, or sexist. On the other hand, it might be conceived of as intentionally exclusive on the representatives’ part.

These four congresswomen, however, have clarified that their “squad” includes, as Rep. Pressley puts it, “any person committed to creating a more equitable and just world.” Which, in response to a piece by The Onion, evidently includes the octogenarian Bill Pascrell, my district’s representative. (Props, Bill, props.) By this definition, you or I might be considered members. It’s a concept with real grassroots appeal.

Trump’s harsh rhetoric hasn’t met with much approval outside his most ardent backers and his most shameless apologists on Capitol Hill and in the media. Moreover, his attempted claim that he denounced the “Send her back!” chant during the event is verifiably false, earning him further censure for trying to gaslight everyone.

As for Speaker Pelosi, her downplaying of The Squad’s influence as one segment in an ever-lengthening line of reprobation and dismissal of progressive Democrats has earned her scorn in her own right as out of touch, markedly from leftists and others who have remained critical of her steering of the Democratically-led House. If nothing else, her repudiation of these women of color and failure to come to their defense except when called out by the president is bad optics for a party that touts its diversity among its strengths. In fact, as Ocasio-Cortez believes, this pattern of behavior on Pelosi’s part doesn’t speak to some innocuous, unprejudiced treatment of The Squad—and she’s not alone in this assessment.

Through all of the slurs, the death threats, the denigration, and the lies hurled at these women, their commitment to their principles and their resolve hasn’t wavered. Consequently, their stars are only shining brighter. Rep. Omar, who received a hero’s welcome when she returned to her home state, addressed Trump’s vitriolic barbs directed at her, defiantly promising to be the “nightmare” the president has made her out to be. Hers was not a threat, but a warning: mess with The Squad and prepare to live with the consequences.

The comments Donald Trump made denigrating the members of The Squad and his refusal to squelch the chants of his attendees aimed at Ilhan Omar speak volumes about the president and the current state of the GOP. A common refrain from those paid to be in attendance and/or professionals within the political sphere (and thus presumably with at least a modicum of discernment apart from Trump’s faithful) as gleaned from social media was that it was one of the most frightening sights they had ever witnessed in the world of politics. Many of those same people felt a sense of dread, suggesting Trump was doing his best to get Rep. Omar killed. Other onlookers professed they’re beginning to understand how the atrocities of Nazi Germany could’ve happened from the very tenor of the event.

The few defections on the resolution about Trump’s racist language aside, Republicans’ inaction and silence on this front make one wonder what line could be crossed that would result in substantive intercedence on their part. For example, Lindsey Graham, one-time Trump critic, has apparently become a full-time sycophant, reversing course on the president after calling him a “race-baiting bigot” in 2015.

Mitch McConnell likewise defended Trump against allegations he is a racist, saying the president is “on to something” in his claims that these women want “to turn us into a socialist country,” dodging questions about the “Send her back!” chorus of nights earlier. Mitt Romney, in true Mitt Romney fashion, said Trump “crossed a line” but isn’t a racist. Marco Rubio. Ted Cruz. Paul Ryan, where was this semblance of a spine when you were Speaker of the House? Where is the conscience of these men, some of whom thought they could represent the entire country? Or was it all a big con, a ploy motivated by political opportunism? Can the same be asked of Trump and the Republican Party at large?

Lest we give the Democrats too much credit, leadership’s inability or unwillingness to rein in moderates bent on opposing the “far left” or defend The Squad against baseless accusations of anti-Semitism further emboldens Trump and his enablers. As far as the “Racist-in-Chief” is concerned, it may as well as be open season on Reps. Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, and Omar. I mean this in terms of his wont to say anything he wants without fear of reprisal, but returning to reported instances of death threats and even a planned plot to kill Omar, he doesn’t need to pull the trigger. Putting a target on their backs is enough. The Democratic Party bears some culpability here beyond signing onto a toothless House resolution admonishing the president for spreading hate from his bully pulpit.

The ugliness of Pres. Trump’s remarks, whether or not it’s a distraction from the horror of the concentration camps at the border or Jeffrey Epstein’s depravity or the implications of the Mueller report, drives home the notion that representatives of both major parties sooner or later need to take a stand. Republicans must decide at what point political expediency has its limits, consider whether they’ve ceded full control of their party to a fascist, and confront what this arrangement means for the long-term viability of the GOP. Democrats have to face the possibility that waiting for 2020 could take too long, not to mention that standing for something—anything—signals to their base that their cause is worth fighting for. Not merely to be hyperbolic, but the future of these parties and the concept of American democracy as a going concern might just depend on it.

As suggested earlier, popularity doesn’t equate to moral rectitude nor does it necessarily translate to votes or other forms of political engagement. For Democrats and Republicans alike, though, going after The Squad is ill-advised. In the face of adversity, these women are proud inspirations to other political entrants like them. To underestimate them and their supporters is to underestimate the power that everyday people coming together at the grassroots level possess when fully realized. In the end, it could be a costly miscalculation to make.