An entertainer at Trump’s “let them eat cake” party
Paul Krugman knows Trump is enjoying the pain he’s inflicting:
There’s been plenty of scathing commentary about the lavish, Great Gatsby-themed Halloween party Donald Trump threw at Mar a Lago — a party complete with sequined, feathered dancers and, yes, a scantily-clad woman in a giant martini glass. The party, held just hours before 42 million Americans were about to lose federal food assistance, as 1.4 million federal workers are going without pay, was grotesque. It was also, like everything Trump, unspeakably vulgar.
But many commenters described the festivities as “tone deaf,” as if Trump didn’t realize how it would look to be holding such a party as tens of millions of Americans are facing severe hardship. C’mon. Of course he realized how it would look. He understood perfectly well that he was partying while ordinary Americans were suffering. And that understanding — combined with the belief that he can get away with it — was a big reason he enjoyed the event.
During Trump’s first term Adam Serwer wrote a justly celebrated article for The Atlantic titled “The cruelty is the point.” He argued that cruelty, and the joy some people take from inflicting cruelty, are what bind Trump’s most loyal supporters to him:
Trump’s only true skill is the con; his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright. The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united.
Serwer was thinking of working-class and middle-class Trump supporters, many of whom are voting against their own economic interests. But you can see the same joy in cruelty, not just in Trump, but in most of his top minions, from Stephen Miller and JD Vance to Tom Homans, Kristi Noem, Pam Bondi and Pete Hegseth. All of them clearly take a smirking satisfaction in their ability to stick it to the poor and powerless.
What about the guests at the party? What about the oligarchs abasing themselves at Trump’s feet? Some of them may share in the cruelty of Trump’s inner circle. Most probably just don’t care about other people’s suffering, certainly not enough to risk Trump’s wrath by protesting or even failing to show up.
So, to repeat, the party at Mar a Lago wasn’t a case of tone deafness, living it up despite others’ suffering. It was in large part a party held to celebrate others’ suffering.
This is something people need to understand. It’s not schadenfreude. It’s sadism.
Margaret Sullivan talks about the sad demise of CBS News today in there newsletter. She recounts the departure of longtime anchor John Dickerson, and the embarrassing 60 Minutes Trump interview last Sunday. He said a lot of stupid things, as usual, but Sullivan homes in on the part where Trump gives away the fact that he has CBS in his pocket. Not that we didn’t know that, but it’s always good to see it right out there:
During his interview with Norah O’Donnell for that show this past Sunday night, Trump decided to play media critic. This part of his interview didn’t make the cut of what was shown on the broadcast, but it certainly is telling about the rightward leanings of new editor-in-chief Bari Weiss — and even more telling about the direction of the corporate ownership.
CBS News published the entire transcript, including Trump’s lies about the 2020 election, which also didn’t make the cut for broadcast. Here are the parts I’m pointing to:
“And actually ‘60 Minutes’ paid me a lot of money. And you don’t have to put this on, because I don’t wanna embarrass you, and I’m sure you’re not — you have a great — I think you have a great, new leader, frankly, who’s the young woman that’s leading your whole enterprise is a great — from what I know.
Also this highly inaccurate depiction of the supposed basis of his lawsuit: “But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took (Kamala Harris’s) answer out that was so bad it was election-changing, two nights before the election. And they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can’t have fake news. You’ve gotta have legit news.”
And this: “I think one of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership — CBS and new ownership. I think it’s the greatest thing that’s happened in a long time to a free and open and good press.”
Trump is clearly talking about David Ellison, the son of pro-Trump mega-billionaire Larry Ellison, the second-richest person on earth. The younger Ellison is now the chairman and CEO of Paramount Skydance, parent company of CBS, after a merger. David Ellison installed Bari Weiss as editor in chief. It’s instructive that as the likes of John Dickerson walk out the door, she is said to be recruiting Scott Jennings (who makes a living defending Trump on CNN), as well as Bret Baier of Fox News.
There just can’t be too many media outfits dedicated to giving Trump big slurpy wet kisses 24/7.
This is the Hungarian model. But again, America is a much different country than Hungary. And the public still has power. Don’t watch CBS News. Don’t pay to stream it.
Stephen Miller: “The Democrat Party, via the Biden-Harris Terrorist Administration devised a scheme to import illegal aliens into the country by the millions — granting them ‘parole,’ which gives them work permits, which gives them Social Security… pic.twitter.com/1g23q7zpwy
President Donald Trump has been lobbying for the Nobel Peace Prize since at least 2018 when his administration managed the release of three Americans from North Korea, modestly proclaiming “everyone thinks I should win the Nobel Peace Prize — but I would never say it.” Of course he did say it, over and over again, repeating his litany of all the wars he’s allegedly ended. He was sorely disappointed when the committee awarded the prize to Venezuelan democracy activist Maria Corina Machado instead. But there’s always next year.
None of this talk of peace is to say that Trump hasn’t been issuing violent threats to a variety of targets. He’s always loved to warn people that he’s prepared to unleash fire and fury if they don’t immediately bend to his will. Before their famous bromance, he even explicitly threatened nuclear war with North Korea, tweeting to Kim Jong Un, “I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!”
Since he returned to office in January, Trump has been talking about actually invading or annexing countries, whether it’s Greenland, Canada or, more recently, to “go in and kill Hamas” in Gaza. He bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities with unknown results, and in the last couple of months he’s initiated a murder spree on the high seas in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, ostensibly to defend against “narco-terrorists” who are “attacking” the United States by allegedly selling drugs to eager American consumers. He has been publicly denying that he plans to order an attack on the Venezuelan mainland, but it’s very hard to imagine why the Pentagon would need to amass a large flotilla, including an aircraft carrier, off the country’s coast for any other reason.
There’s been a lot of speculation that Trump is following some version of the Monroe Doctrine and asserting his dominance over “his” hemisphere. But Iran and Gaza don’t fit that concept, and over the weekend he made yet another threat, this time against Africa’s most populous — and oil-rich — country. Seemingly out of nowhere he published a bizarre post on Truth Social:
If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, “guns-a-blazing,” to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities. I am hereby instructing our Department of War to prepare for possible action. If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet, just like the terrorist thugs attack our CHERISHED Christians! WARNING: THE NIGERIAN GOVERNMENT BETTER MOVE FAST!
“If we attack, it will be fast, vicious, and sweet?” That Nobel Peace Prize is definitely in the bag now, especially after he followed up with another post on Saturday that warned, “If we attack, it will be fast, vicious and sweet.” He also added Nigeria to the government’s religious freedom watch list.
Secretary of Defense — who now bills himself as “Secretary of War” — Pete Hegseth immediately responded to Trump’s order. “Yes sir. The Department of War is preparing for action. Either the Nigerian Government protects Christians, or we will kill the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities.”
As Trump returned to Washington, D.C., from Florida on Sunday, he was asked if there was a possibility that he would order American boots on the ground and he replied, “Could be.”
According to CNN, this was yet another case of the president seeing a segment on Fox News. He was heading down to Florida for his “Let Them Eat Cake” Halloween party and got “very angry”” But this has been a subject of interest among the far right Christian contingent for a while now. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Tx., has called for America to stop what he erroneously characterizes as “Christian mass murder.” Influencer-gadfly and conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer has been posting about the issue as recently as Friday before Trump made his announcement. A highly respected member of Trump’s informal coterie of outside advisers, it’s entirely possible that Fox News got their heads up from her since she is now credentialed to cover the Pentagon.
Whatever the case, this appears to be based upon misinformation. Nigeria is dealing with the Boko Haram extremist group, which does target Christians. But it also threatens Muslims who don’t accept its radical form of Islam, as well as those who are sympathetic to the Nigerian government. Most experts and analysts reject the assertion that this is some kind of Christian genocide.
Trump may have wanted to give a little something to his “cherished Christians,” as he sometimes refers to his evangelical supporters, but Hegseth is a much more interesting case. This is, after all, a man who wrote a book called “American Crusade,” which the Guardian described as “depicting Islam as a natural, historic enemy of the west; presents distorted versions of Muslim doctrine in ‘great replacement’-style racist conspiracy theories; treats leftists and Muslims as bound together in their efforts to subvert the U.S.; and idolises medieval crusaders.”
In fact, Hegseth literally wears his love for the crusaders on his body — and believes that he has been persecuted for it. As scholars Annika Brockschmidt and Thomas Lecaque wrote in the Bulwark, the defense secretary complained that the Jerusalem Cross on his chest got him booted from guard duty during President Joe Biden’s inauguration in January 2021 because it made him a potential threat. He says he was discriminated against because of his religion. But that symbol is a highly politicized part of the far-right’s obsession with the Templar myths, and Hegseth knows that.
He sports a sword embedded in a cross on his forearm, which symbolizes the verse in which Christ says, “I came not to send peace, but a sword.” Hegseth also prominently displays the words “Deus Vult” on his chest, the battle cry of the first crusade. In his book, he makes his belief clear that those words mean for “followers of Christ to take up the sword in defense of their faith, their families, and their freedom.”
Hegseth is also a member of an extreme far-right sect called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches that also believes in militant Christianity. It’s heavily influenced by Reconstructionism, a theology that religion scholar Julie Ingersoll describes as believing “it’s the job of Christians to exercise dominion over the whole world.”
In short, Hegseth is a serious Christian nationalist, and there could be nothing more satisfying for him than to muster a fighting force to wage war against Muslims in a foreign land in the name of Jesus Christ. It sounds medieval and it is, but Hegseth is the “secretary of war,” and if Loomer were to persuade the addled president to give the go-ahead, it’s likely he would not hesitate to execute the strategy.
Whether they will follow through on this is anyone’s guess. At some point, one might hope that a few of the Christians who are clamoring for the U.S. to go into Nigeria with “guns-a-blazing” might spare a thought for their fellow followers of Christ who are being terrorized every single day right here in America at the hands of an oppressive government that is deporting them to face certain persecution.
The world expects that at the end of today, Zohran Mamdani, 34, will be mayor-elect of New York City. He is singular political talent. Watch his interaction from Monday night with MSNBC’s Ari Melber.
The man is quick. He’s engaging. He laughs. He’s most importantly, likeable.
Anand Giridharadas yesterday paid special attention to Mamdani’s winning smile. Giridharadas tried to imitate it in the mirror and began to wonder: “Do I smile enough? Do I ever smile? Was my grandmother right that I look angry in my book jacket photos? Am I angry? Why am I so angry? What kind of life could I have had if I could smile like that guy?”
There is political substance and there is affect. Presentation. Curb appeal. Mamdani has it. Too many progressives do not, Giridharadas worries (emphasis mine):
One of the many things I read in the smile is a break from a dominant affect of today’s progressivism. Mamdani is as bona fide a progressive as they come. And this frees him to adopt a steadfast sunniness, encapsulated by but not limited to the smile, that distinguishes him from many who share his worldview. Some progressives will scowl as they read this, thereby proving my point, but progressivism has an affect problem. It is fueled by righteous anger, which it sometimes fails to transcend. America today is depressing, but being depressing is no way to win people over to make America less depressing. Sometimes progressivism struggles to be more than just the sum of the injustices it fights, the boots on necks that it wishes to dislodge. It can be angry and pessimistic to the exclusion of reminding people of its own victories as a movement. It can be hostile to people who agree partly but not entirely. It can value purity over welcome and conversion. And there is something in Mamdani’s smile that breaks from all that. It says: I am against many things, and I want to do and create many things because of the things I am against, but I am more than what I am against.
Mamdani’s smile, “paints the beautiful tomorrow,” as political strategist Anat Shenker-Osorio frames it. A Bernie Sanders aide tells Giridharadas that Mamdani is “’assigning an emotion’ to the policy agenda he is championing.” An upbeat one.
These observations, of course, grow out of his book “The Persuaders.” My most important takeaway (sorry, Anat — she gets an entire chapter) reduces to “Is there room among the woke for the waking?” It gets at the behavior among some progressive purists to police speech and opinions and expel “heretics” from their midst. It is no way to build the critical mass necessary, say, to inspire millions to join a national strike. Welcome the newbies who agree with you mostly and allow them to grow into their new activist clothing. Smack them down for not knowing up front the insiders’ approved terminology or secret handshakes and you’ll alienate potential allies, friends you’ll need to build a movement. (Those terms and behaviors tend to faddish and short-lived anyway.)
The kind of progressive activist Giridharadas mentions views every victory as incomplete, every bill as half a loaf, every compromise a betrayal no matter the upside. They are exhausting downers and often single-issue. I call them glass-half-empty progressives. They wonder bitterly why more people don’t want to hang with them.
Which takes us back to Anat: If you want people to join your party, throw a better party.
Ridicule and fun have been integral to every anti-authoritarian movement across place and time.If you want people to come to your party, you gotta throw a better party. If you want people to have the courage to stand up to their justified fear of the leader, you must make said leader look small.
Dick Cheney, vice president under George W. Bush and key architect of the Iraq War, is dead at 84. Condolences to his family. Sorry for your loss, Liz.
The Bush-Cheney administration’s lying the United States into invading Iraq, and Cheney’s role in “extraordinary rendition” and “enhanced interrogation,” is what pushed me into writing political commentary. That eventually landed me here. I first encountered Cheney’s role in the subterfuge that previewed “Shock and Awe” detailed variously at Salon, Salon again, a series in The American Conservative, and Salon yet again. Bush, known for ascribing snarky nicknames to his staff, called Cheney “Big Time.”
With his sepulchral voice and rare words, Dick Cheney claimed his nickname of “Darth Vader” and his taste for the dark side of power with provocative pride. After three decades behind the scenes, with George W. Bush’s consent, he imposed himself during two terms as perhaps the most influential and powerful vice president in the history of the United States. History’s verdict has been merciless with the “father” of the Iraq invasion and of the excesses of the war on terror. He never expressed the slightest regret.
Cheney was a pivotal figure, Vanity Fair observes. He was “the principal architect of American power in the first years of the 21st century; that is, until the abject failures of military intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq helped set the stage for the rise of Trumpian “America First” isolationism on the right, a commensurate anti-imperialism on the left, and a diminution of America’s position in the world.”
In the too little too late department, MSN reminds readers:
… Cheney became one of the nation’s most prominent Republicans to oppose Donald Trump. Along with his daughter, Liz Cheney, a former congresswoman, Dick Cheney said that he voted for Democrat Kamala Harris in the 2024 election. “There has never been an individual who is a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said before the election, which Trump won.
It takes one, etc. Cheney’s family will mourn him.
In the previous post I wrote about the level of enthusiasm among Democratic voters. They are championing at the bit to send a message to Trump and his henchmen that they are not going to have a free hand to destroy the country the way he destroyed the White House.
Election Day is upon us: Tomorrow, voters around the country will be deciding pivotal local and state elections. A handful of contests have drawn the most headlines, and they’re likely to define political parties’ mood tomorrow night.
New Jersey and Virginia are replacing their governors, New York City is voting on its new mayor, and Californians are deciding an unusual redistricting measure, Prop 50.At Bolts, we have cast a wider lens: We know local and state politics can be tricky to follow, so we’ve spent much of the year tracking and reporting on key elections you should know about, with keen attention to the stakes for issues tied to criminal justice and democracy.
For example, Pennsylvania and Georgia are hosting statewide elections for their state supreme court and utility commission, respectively. Ballot measures may reshape how people vote in Maine and New York. Democrats are also defending legislative chambers in New Jersey and Virginia, while dozens of cities hold intriguing mayoral races, such as Albuquerque, Detroit, Minneapolis, and Seattle.
And across the country, referendums could unlock billions in bonds and spending for parks, schools, and transit.Consider this newsletter to be your table of contents for election night.
Our cheat sheet lays out more than 190 elections we are closely watching, up and down the ballot. These include elections from governor and supreme court justice to mayors, sheriffs, and school board members, plus dozens of referendums that will directly shape local policy.All in all, 32 states are represented.
Be sure to bookmark the page: We’ll be updating it with results once they are known.
Trump’s approval rating in the poll stands at 37%, the worst of his second term in CNN polling and roughly equivalent to his 36% approval rating at this point in his first term.
And his disapproval rating, at 63%, is numerically the highest of either term, one point above the previous high of 62% as he was leaving office in January 2021.
CNN’s Poll of Polls average, which puts Trump’s approval rating a few points higher at 41% as of Sunday, charts a similar trend since January. Approval of the president has dipped across partisan and demographic lines since the summer in CNN’s polling.
Looking ahead to next year’s midterms, Democrats appear to have a very early advantage: 47% of registered voters say they’d vote for the Democrat in their district if the election were held today, while 42% prefer the Republican. More say they’ve ruled out supporting a Republican (42%) than say the same about a Democrat (35%). And 41% say they would be sending a message that they oppose Trump with their vote, nearly double the 21% who say their vote would be a message of support for the president. Independents break in Democrats’ favor on the generic ballot (44% to 31% for Republicans, with 19% saying they wouldn’t pick either right now).
Registered voters who are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents are far more likely than Republican-aligned voters to say they are extremely motivated to vote next year (67% compared with 46%). Those Democratic-aligned voters who consider the state of democracy to be a top concern are perhaps the most fired up within the party: 82% in that group say they are deeply motivated to vote, compared with 57 % among Democratic-aligned voters who call the economy their top concern.
CNN’s poll results suggest that the Democratic Party’s ongoing internal image troubles may not necessarily translate into defections at the ballot box. Democratic-aligned voters remain far less fond of their own party (65% have a favorable view of the Democratic Party) than Republican-aligned voters (80% have a favorable view of the GOP), but even those Democratic-aligned voters with a negative view of the party are almost universally behind the Democratic candidate in their district (93%) and broadly motivated to vote (71% say they are extremely motivated).
Oh and by the way:
Americans are broadly dissatisfied with the state of the country (68% say things are going badly) and the economy (72% say it’s in poor shape, and 47% call the economy and cost of living the top issue facing the US). About 6 in 10 (61%) say Trump’s policies have worsened economic conditions in the US.
Roughly 8 in 10 consider the federal government shutdown a crisis (31%) or a major problem (50%), and 61% disapprove of Trump’s handling of it. Nearly as many disapprove of the way each party’s congressional leadership is handling it (58% disapprove of each). Taken all together, about 9 in 10 American disapprove of at least one of those three players on the shutdown.
People are pissed and want to make their wishes known.
This is why I said this morning that Obama’s message over the weekend was important. Democrats want those wishes expressed by their leaders and I suspect they want the case for values and principles made with passion and commitment.:
Registered voters who are Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents are far more likely than Republican-aligned voters to say they are extremely motivated to vote next year (67% compared with 46%). Those Democratic-aligned voters who consider the state of democracy to be a top concern are perhaps the most fired up within the party
Red meat for Republicans is Trump telling 60 Minutes that the brutal ICE crackdown hasn’t gone far enough. Red meat for Democrats is Obama saying, “I believe in an America where we don’t fear each other but look out for each other.”
It’s the difference between the two parties. And Democratic leaders need to make sure they offer it up to their supporters.
We’d all better hope we aren’t in the wrong place at the wrong time
BREAKING: Kristi Noem just lied to reporters, claiming "No American citizens have been arrested or detained," despite daily video evidence to the contrary showing dozens of U.S. citizens being arrested.pic.twitter.com/0S3KFtcn14
There are so many of these stories every single day now and I’m afraid we’re just becoming numb to it. So I’m going to share some of them just to remind myself that this is happening. We have to bear witness. This is from the Chicago Tribune:
Dayanne Figueroa was on her way to get coffee before heading to work when she encountered a chaotic scene in West Town: heavily armed, masked federal agents making arrests on a residential street.
People yelled as vehicles honked their horn — a sign now used to alert neighbors that immigration federal agents are in the area — and witnesses said federal agents had arrested several landscaper workers presumed to be in the country without authorization.
As Figuero tried to drive through the 1600 block of West Hubbard Street on Friday, Oct. 10, an unmarked vehicle driven by federal agents collided with Figueroa’s as it tried to speed away from a hostile crowd, multiple videos reviewed by the Tribune show.
Seconds after the crash, agents abruptly stopped their vehicle and exited with weapons in hand pointing at Figueroa, a U.S citizen. Agents then forcibly opened her door and pulled her out of the vehicle by her legs without identifying themselves, presenting a warrant or informing her that she was under arrest. As bystanders yelled, “You hit her! We have it on video!” agents ignored the crowd and forced Figueroa into a red minivan and drove away. Her car was left behind in the middle of the road, her coffee still in the cup holder, and her keys in plain view.
The Department of Homeland Security later released a statement claiming that Figueroa was at fault, saying “she crashed into an unmarked government vehicle and violently resisted arrest, injuring two officers.”
Right. Here’s what they did to her:
According to Figueroa, after getting arrested, she was transported to multiple undisclosed locations, and repeatedly denied contact with family or legal counsel. “I was in shock and terrified. The video evidence is clear: Agents crashed into me. I was not involved in any protest or related activity, and I intend to seek justice for how I was treated,” Figueroa told the Tribune.
For hours, her family couldn’t locate her. Only after coming across a video online did they realize that Figueroa had been taken by masked federal agents through video circulating the web. They were able to ping her through her iPhone location at the ICE processing center in Broadview. Her mother said she was shocked and “desperately worried.” Figueroa had kidney surgery in August, and the way agents pulled her out of the vehicle and threw her on the ground “deeply concerned me,” her mother, Teresita Figueroa, told the Tribune.
But what stunned Teresita Figueroa the most was that despite her daughter being a U.S. citizen, the family couldn’t locate her. She said no authorities, including the Chicago police, were able to give them clarity on why her daughter was arrested.
Teresita Figueroa said her daughter is a loving mother of a 5-year-old boy and an aspiring lawyer working as a paralegal. Her record shows nothing more than a few minor traffic violations, the Tribune found. “I was extremely worried because I know ICE agents are heartless and reckless. They had just killed a man in Franklin Park. I worried that they could hurt my daughter,” Teresita Figueroa said. “Those hours (looking for her) were agonizing.”
[…]
Dayanne Figueroa was released from ICE custody that same day, at around 4 p.m., and returned home shaken. Teresita Figueroa said she picked up her daughter from an ambulance in a parking lot in Lombard, a suburb west of Chicago. Her daughter was “very injured, in shock, and bleeding from her surgery,” she said. They had to rush Dayanne Figueroa to a nearby hospital to get checked.
[…]
In a statement to the Tribune, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin alleged that Figueroa “used her vehicle to block in agents, honking her horn,” and that she “stuck an unmarked government vehicle” as agents were departing. “In fear of public safety and of law enforcement, officers attempted to remove her from the vehicle. She violently resisted, kicking two agents and causing injuries. This agitator was arrested for assault on a federal agent,” McLaughlin said.
The Tribune saw the video. The “officers” were clearly not injured.
Barack Obama is on the stump for Democrats this weekend, appearing at rallies in Virginia and New Jersey. He’s also cut the final ad for Prop 50. It’s a good thing. The party still doesn’t have any orators as good as he is, although there are some who are very good. And despite all the right wingers claiming that he’s nasty and divisive we all know who takes the trophy on that one and it isn’t him.
He said all the right things for someone in his position. He joked and he entertained. Like this:
Obama: When he was asked to give the trump administration a grade, he said they deserved an A. I know there's been great inflation, but really an A? This is the best we could do? I mean, these are the same folks who put secret war plans in a group chat. You don't think there's… pic.twitter.com/SmCZRJXVii
But he had a particular moment that I thought was just riveting and very important. It was inclusive and unifying in the way that I think a lot of people are yearning to hear. He spoke about values and our history without soft-soaping the past but still holding out some idealism and hope about the future. It’s always been his strong suit and I think it’s especially necessary right now.
Here’s the part I’m referring to:
At the end of the day, what this is about — what politics in a democracy is always about, is values. What do we care about. What do we believe, what do we prioritize, what are our core convictions.
A lot of people have asked me lately whether I’m surprised by the direction the country’s taken. And even though I am the hope and change guy I try to be honest with them. So I say yes, there are things I am worried about.
I am worried about how quickly basic democratic rules and norms have been weakened. I am worried about how willing Republican in Congress have been to surrender their roles as a co-equal branch of government, refusing to buck the president even when they know he’s out of line. Even though lot of them will privately admit that power is being abused in ways that will hurt their constituents and hurt the country.
I worry about a Supreme Court that, so far at least, has shown no willingness to check this administration’s excesses, even when those actions break legal precedents and seem to defy the bedrock principle that no one is above the law.
I worry about the growing concentration of economic power in this country, with just a handful of mega-billionaires and companies controlling what we see and what we hear. And I worry about how much that economic power distorts the political process. I worry about how readily not just business leaders but others with influence like law firms and universities have been willing to bend the knee to this president’s autocratic impulses to avoid retribution, protect profits, or simply to avoid controversy.
America has always had competing stories about who we are and what the nation stands for. The first story says that “we the people” just means some of us. In order to qualify you have to be the right color, or come from the right family, or worship in the right way, or have enough money. It says that even though we got rid of a king, there is still a caste system in America, a pecking order of who makes decisions and who makes decisions and who gets opportunity and who is obliged to serve.
It’s a story that’s policed by fear and force. It tries to convince people that for their group to win another group has to lose. That is somebody doesn’t look like you or think like you or practice religions the same way you do, they must be a threat to you way of life and they need to be put in their place.
That is how Donald Trump thinks about America. Make America great again by putting the people like him back in charge even if they don’t know what the hell they’re doing.
And I worry sometimes how we’ve come to accept this as normal. But this is what I also tell people when they asked me about this, what I also try to remind them. That story is not new. That’s is the oldest story in the book.
It is not even uniquely American. For most of human history, that is the way society has worked. For somebody on top and somebody on the bottom. There were lords and there were peasants. And for a long time, that story of caste and privilege and concentrated power that was the law of the land here in America. If you look like me, you were likely treated as property. If you were a woman, or a white man who did not own property, you could not vote. Four a long time if you were an Irish or Italian immigrant, “we’re not hiring.” If you were Jewish or Asian, don’t bother applying to our school. If you were Native American you weren’t even treated as an American even though you were here!
But from the very start, there was another story, born of this nation’s true revolutionary spirit. A story that says, we the people means what it says, that all of us are included, that we are not subjects, we are citizens, defined not by race or religion or gender or sexual orientation, but by our commitment to a common creed and a willingness to accept not just the privileges, but the responsibilities that come with that citizenship.
That’s what made the American experiment unique. That’s what made us special.
And through generations of struggle and sacrifice. Through the faith of abolitionists and the struggle of suffragists, through civil war and civil rights protests, through union organizing drives and government reforms and investments in public education, we moved closer to those founding ideals. And in the process we inspired the world.
And that’s the story I believe in, Virginia. I believe in an America in which we all deserve equal protection under the law and nobody is above the law. I believe in an America where every child has a chance at a good education and anybody who’s willing to find a job or start a business can work to make a decent living, an America where equal opportunity isn’t just reserved for those who are born into privilege or happen to have the right connections.
I believe in an America where we don’t fear each other but look out for each other.
If we want that story to continue, if we believe in that better story, we need leaders who believe in it too. We need leaders who will tell the truth. And who will take responsibility and tackle hard problems and bring people together instead of tearing them apart. We need leaders who won’t serve bosses in Washington or big corporate donors but instead will serve the people who put them there.
I realize that he’s uniquely talented at this and has the ability to deliver these words in a way that is accessible. But Democrats need to really look at the message he’s conveying. I truly believe it’s what a majority of Americans would like to hear from their leadership.
It’s not that anything has ever been perfect. In fact, it’s because it hasn’t ever been perfect that most of us feel so desperate about going backwards now. There’s a lot wrong with our society in the best of circumstances but now instead of trying, however feebly at times, to progress and make things better we are actively going backwards. It’s terrifying, especially for people who have struggled and fought for the progress they’s managed to make.
People need to hear that their leaders understand this and can help us find the courage to resist what is happening by seeing it clearly and summoning up what’s left of our ideals to put it right.
Yes, people care about affordability and inflation and all the kitchen table issues and they are a motivating factor. But I refuse to believe that most Americans don’t, deep down, care as deeply about the country they live in and the world they are leaving to their children. They’re scared and don’t know where to turn and when the professional political resistance spends all its time navel gazing and talking about how much they hate themselves they feel adrift.
Democrats need some inspiration right now. That’s why they’re turning to people like Mamdani in New York and Newsom and Pritzker in California and Illinois. Now Obama has entered the arena and thank God for it. Maybe there is some hope for change after all.
