THE DEMOCRATS CAVE AND GET NOTHING IN RETURN

Snatching Defeat From The Jaws of Victory (Again)

The Democratic party has done it again reprising their role as the proverbial Washington Generals. This email should have been an accounting of the complete coast-to-coast shellacking of the Republican party and a repudiation of Trump and his extreme incompetence and cruelty. Off year elections can often serve as a bellwether of the electorates mood, in this case it was an overw​helming wave election in which it’s hard to find a single race across the entire country in which Republicans did not under- perform.

Just look at these results:

All three democrats sitting on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court were re-elected. 

Two democrats are now part of the Georgia Public Service Commission- the first time this party won a statewide election there in 20 years. 

In Mississippi, a pair of Democrats were elected to the state senate, breaking the super majority that the GOP had held over that body.

Colorado will increase funding for school lunches by raising taxes on those earning more than 300K annually.

Maine approved red flag notification for gun ownership and rejected more onerous identification for voting.  

California overwhelmingly passed a ballot question with a redistricting map that will add 5 new Democratic Congressional districts to combat Texas’ Republican redistricting efforts.

Virginia once red, then purple, is now blue.  The democrat candidate for Governor talked about family economics. The republican tried to scare voters about trans people.  Abigail Spanberger, the democrat focusing on what her future constituents really care about, won.  Democrats also took the Lt Governor's race and the Attorney General’s seat as well.  The Virginia state legislature turned even bluer....Democrats now have a super majority in the state House of Delegates.  

A democrat won the gubernatorial election in New Jersey. Most of the polls had her, Mikie Sherrill, edging in by a couple of points.  She won by a landslide. The two new governors of VA and NJ are centrists, that’s true, but they embraced and campaigned on what matters to their voters, not their donors.

And finally Zohran Mamdani won convincingly over Cuomo, with over 50% of the vote! A self-described democratic socialist laser forcused on popular issues like public transit, affordable housing, and public grocery stores. As #DSOT and many other progressive outlets have trumpeted over the past year:  this is how you do it.  If you are in it to win it.

The Democrats absolutely crushed their opposition in the midst of the longest government shutdown in US history capping off 9 to 10 months of law breaking and chaos by the Trump Administration. The manifest will of the people could not be clearer: They were behind the Democrats and disapproved and blamed the Republicans and Trump for the shutdown and the consequent pain inflicted on vulnerable Americans. The last week was one of the few periods over the last several years during which one could be proud to be part of the Democratic Party!

That’s what this email should have been about. Hope seeing the American people fighting back, organizing and winning. Using the momentum to build towards change. How Democrat’s courage to fight had been rewarded. Instead, no sooner were Trump and the Republicans on the back foot, 8 Senate Democrats, who had apparently been in regular communication with, and had the blessing of, House Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, announced that they were ready to cave to Republicans. Did they have a deal including their only demand, extending ACA subsidies? Of course not, instead these Democrats agreed to the deal Thune had offered since day one of the shutdown! At this point it seems all of this pain was for nothing.

Indeed Trump and the Republicans were vindicated, the Democratic party, as currently constituted will never create consequences for this regime. The Trump administration can break the law, by, for instance, ignoring multiple court orders clearly ordering it to pay out SNAP funds, or by choosing to selectively fund only the parts of government they like and even when it is wildly unpopular the Democrats will always cave first.

Why would they do this? Democrats not only failed to gain their only stated goal, but they also showed they can’t be an effective opposition party when their own leadership betrays the caucus. It’s long past clear that the Democratic party leadership is incapable of mounting the strategic, political, or moral defense needed to stop the authoritarian and fascistic takeover and consolidation of Power by Trump and the Republicans.

If we're looking for small Silver Linings it could be that this now puts Mike Johnson in the House in a more difficult situation of having to swear in newly elected representative Grijalva and risk deploying the Epstein files. Even if the files are released with Grijalva’s swearing into Congress, Johnson’s delaying tactic of refusing to seat a member of Congress has proven effective. The establishment of this precedent should concern all of us about what that means for elections coming up in 2026. The Silver Linings are few and far between, it's incredible that Senate Democrats can turn the sweet taste of victory into bitter ash so quickly. 

We deserve better than this, so call your Senators and Representatives and tell them Chuck Schumer needs to go, we need new leadership. But to get the government that we deserve, one that will care for its citizens rather than using them as political pawns, it will take more than calls, we need coordinated, sustained grassroots people power wielded with sharp focus and unrelenting resolve in both the political and economic spheres. We need to create networks of solidarity, networks of care and community support systems to blunt Trump’s use of government power to inflict pain on the American people. And we need to join together each Tuesday in growing solidarity as we build the economic cudgel needed to fight back against the Trump Administration and to beat the Democratic Party into line.

Don’t Shop on Tuesday.

#DSOT