Latest news with #JimGeraghty
Washington Post
4 hours ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Is Trump chickening out on foreign policy?
Is Trump chickening out on foreign policy? Some investors on Wall Street are starting to call President Trump's bluffs on tariffs — coining the acronym TACO, for 'Trump Always Chickens Out.' But will Trump make good on his promises to end the conflict in Ukraine, strike a deal with Iran and make nice with China? Or is his strongman approach just making things worse? Columnists Dana Milbank, Catherine Rampell and Jim Geraghty discuss how difficult it is to strike deals when Trump's actual policy objectives are so muddled.
Washington Post
a day ago
- Politics
- Washington Post
‘A psychological victory': 3 writers discuss Ukraine's drone strikes
You're reading the Prompt 2025 newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox. On Sunday, Ukraine launched surprise drone strikes that targeted strategic bombers parked deep inside Russian territory. Ukrainian officials claimed the strikes damaged or destroyed dozens of planes. This development feels like a game changer, but how exactly? I sat down with two of my colleagues, Max Boot and Jim Geraghty, to discuss if Ukraine's sneak attack on Russia could change the outlook of the war. — Damir Marusic, assignment editor 💬 💬 💬 Damir Marusic Do you think the strikes change things, practically, on the battlefield? What lessons, if any, do you think Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken away from them? Max Boot It probably won't be a big change on the battlefield but it will certainly hamper Russia's ability to fire missiles at Ukrainian cities. This is not a game changer but it's a significant operational and psychological victory for Ukraine. I doubt the message will get through but it should help convince Putin he is not going to win this war. Jim Geraghty I'm sure any alleviation of Russia's ability to launch cruise missiles at Ukraine will be welcomed, but I agree with Max, this is primarily a psychological and symbolic blow to Putin and the Russians. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Jim On my second trip to Ukraine, I spoke with Akhmed Zakayev, the prime minister of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, the Chechen government in exile; Chechens are fighting against the Russians in Ukraine. He told me, 'Russians like to fight wars on other people's territory. They hate to fight wars on Russian territory.' Putin won't feel any pressure to cut a deal until the elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg feel the consequences of the war. Strikes deep in Siberia send a strong signal that no spot in Russia is safe from Ukrainian retaliatory strikes. Damir Ukrainians have long argued that hitting Russia hard does not lead to further escalation — that the support of the West is enough of a deterrent. Do you expect Russia to escalate after this, or will it just be more of the same grind? Max Short of nuclear weapons (which I don't expect) there is not much Putin can do that he hasn't already done. Russian hard-liners keep demanding carpet bombing of Ukrainian cities. The reason Putin isn't doing that is not because he's a closet humanitarian: It's because Ukrainian air defenses are too strong. Of course, the Kremlin will claim some big air attack on Kyiv as 'revenge' but they've been mounting air attacks since the start of the war. It's not like Putin would be going easy if the Ukrainians weren't hitting back. Jim Agreed. One of the many problems of fighting a war with maximum brutality is there's not much room to escalate in response to the enemy's actions. Damir The Ukrainians had been planning this strike for more than 18 months, and the United States knew nothing about it. Max, you mentioned there was a message for Putin there. Was there a message for the United States, and specifically the Trump administration, here as well? Jim That this was the finest operational secrecy since the Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Doncic to the Lakers. Max 😂 Max I think the message is that the Ukrainians don't trust the United States. They have scar tissue from all of the overly restrictive limitations imposed by the Biden administration on the use of U.S. weapons, so they are using drones not only because they are so effective but also because they are made in Ukraine. Of course, the level of mistrust between Kyiv and Washington has gone up exponentially since President Donald Trump came to office. The Ukrainians know they are dealing with an American president who has a soft spot in his heart for the war criminals in the Kremlin. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Jim Hey, if Trump wants to get back into the inner circle of Ukraine's operations, I'm sure Kyiv would loop him in on the memos in exchange for some more Patriot missiles. Damir Max, you wrote a terrific piece over the weekend about what these strikes mean for the future of warfare — that the era of the drone is upon us. Zooming out, what do you guys think this means for the defense of Taiwan, for example? Max This attack confirms the lesson we've been learning for more than three years in Ukraine: Drones are the future of warfare. In the war's early days, more than 70 percent of the casualties were being inflicted by artillery. Now 70 percent are being inflicted by drones. This is a lesson that every nation in the world, including Taiwan, needs to take onboard. Taiwan needs to crank up drone production to make it too difficult for China to invade. The U.S. also needs to crank up production. As I noted in a recent column, the U.S. can only manufacture about 100,000 drones a year. Ukraine made 2.2 million last year and is aiming to make 4.5 million this year. We've fallen behind in the drone revolution. Jim Like Max, my first reaction was 'Wow, this is an amazing accomplishment for the Ukrainians. The Russians must feel like a Ukrainian drone could hit them anytime, anywhere.' My second reaction was, 'Whoa, wait a minute, how secure are our air bases from an attack like this?' My guess is: not particularly protected. Although, when I visited Kyiv earlier this year, a lot of European allies were in town, looking for drone warfare lessons and suppliers from the Ukrainians … Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Damir Jim, regarding our own security, that's exactly what popped into my mind. Remember those stories about Chinese entities buying up land near our military installations? At the time, I assumed it was about espionage, but since this weekend, I wonder if there might be other reasons. Max Counterdrone warfare has to become an urgent priority for every military in the world. The Ukrainian attack revealed the vulnerability of airfields (and other installations) all over the world to similar sneak attacks. It used to be that you needed to build long-range missiles to have long-range strike capacity. No longer. Now you can achieve the same result with ultracheap drones that can be reconfigured to carry explosives in a ramshackle workshop; terrorist groups could easily manufacture them. If we aren't worried, we aren't paying attention. Damir And it's not just military airfields, right? Civilian defense has to be in the mix — power stations, airports, data centers … Jim Okay, I wondered if this was a silly thing to bring up, but in the 2013 … er, cinematic classic featuring Gerard Butler, 'Olympus Has Fallen,' the North Koreans launch a devastating attack on the White House using machine guns hidden in garbage trucks. It seemed cheesy and implausible at the time, but the scenes at those Russian airfields must have felt like that — ordinary trucks opening up and unleashing an arsenal upon unsuspecting targets nearby. Every military and spy agency around the world is looking at the Ukrainian operation and asking, 'If they can pull that off, why can't we?' Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Damir Final question: Do you think that efforts such as Trump's Golden Dome missile defense project are now less of a priority? Should there be a pivot? Jim The threat from ballistic missiles isn't mythical, but I think there will be a lot of fair questions about why we would spend so much on large missile defense and not take action to defend against smaller, lighter, cheaper drones. Max I've long thought that Golden Dome was a monumental boondoggle that will not achieve its objective of space-based missile defenses. We should be spending that money on drones and drone defenses. That is the real future of warfare.
Washington Post
6 days ago
- Business
- Washington Post
Will Democrats rescue the national debt?
You're reading the Prompt 2025 newsletter. Sign up to get it in your inbox. House Republicans advanced a tax bill last week that an independent assessment says would increase deficits by upward of $3 trillion over the next decade. A shaky bond market seems to be signaling that investors would like lawmakers to take long-term debt concerns more seriously. But this behavior from Congress isn't new: The latest bill extends budget-busting tax cuts from Trump's first term, which were followed by a $1.9 trillion pandemic stimulus package under President Joe Biden. I spoke to our columnists Jim Geraghty and Catherine Rampell about the growing national debt and whether the politics around it might change. — Benjy Sarlin, assignment editor 💬 💬 💬 Benjy Sarlin How big a problem is the deficit in your eyes and how urgent a priority is reducing it? Jim Geraghty The deficit is a very big problem, and a country with responsible leadership would prioritize reducing it. Alas, the electorate shows just about zero interest in higher taxes, lower spending, entitlement reform or any other serious steps to address it, and politicians have responded to those incentives by largely ignoring the increasing debt. Catherine Rampell In the long run, the deficit is a huge problem. Our debts will have to be paid back at some point, in the form of higher taxes and/or lower spending. We've been able to skate these consequences thus far because the rest of the world is still willing to lend us money in huge sums. But at some point the chickens will come home to roost. The challenge is we don't know when that will happen, and it could be a long ways from now — which is why the public and politicians have been shrugging off warnings from the usual deficit worrywarts. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Jim Republicans strongly object to higher spending when Democrats control the appropriations process. When they're running the show, not so much, as the 'Big Beautiful Bill' demonstrates. Catherine I sometimes think back to Jude Wanniski's two Santa Clauses analogy from the [1970s]. Republicans were the tax-cut Santa Claus (give out goodies to the public in the form of lower taxes). Democrats were the spending Santa Claus (give out goodies in the form of more generous government programs). Today, both parties are both Santa Clauses. Jim By the way, did you notice that Build Back Better and Big Beautiful Bill are both 'BBB'? It is fitting, because that's what America's credit rating is going to be, at this rate. Benjy Jim, you mentioned the electorate. Is it naive to think Democrats might run on cutting deficits in 2026 or 2028 if these issues persist? And, if so, what might a partisan Democratic plan to do that look like? Jim I'd love it if the Democrats became the debt-and-deficit focused party in 2028. I find that extremely unlikely, other than the usual pro forma talk that America's deficit and debt problems can be solved by raising taxes on the rich. Democrats' enthusiasm for raising taxes on 'the rich' has waned, or at least stalled, now that in many corners of America's wealthy, the Democrats are the party of the rich. Kamala Harris won 52 percent to 46 percent among those making $200,000 or more, according to the 2024 exit poll. Jim First, Democrats need candidates who are willing to spell out how deficit spending has resulted in inflation and spooked the bond markets. There's always going to be some other candidate who's willing to blame a more convenient villain — i.e., 'greedflation,' big corporations and 'Washington fat cats.' Catherine I think it's very unlikely Dems run on deficit reduction. Voters don't care about it. If anything they will hate (nearly) all of the measures required to actually reduce deficits. The last major party candidate I can remember putting forth a plausible budget plan that didn't massively increase deficits was Hillary Clinton in 2016. The net fiscal impact of her plans was pretty close to zero. And didn't seem to do her much good at the time, either. Jim If anything, the electorate punishes candidates who dare tell them they can't afford everything they want. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Benjy This is the second presidency in a row where deficits seem to be creating some visible real-world headaches, not just scolding from budget wonks. How bad would that have to get before we saw a clear pivot toward some kind of emergency response from either or both parties? Catherine I think both parties have learned approximately zero lessons from major fiscal stimulus (in the form of both tax cuts and higher spending) from the past few years. The past few years obviously proved there are trade-offs we can't ignore — we can't just spend or tax-cut indefinitely without major unintended consequences. But lots of party operatives disagree with me. Jim Part of the problem for deficit hawks is that higher interest payments on the debt aren't very visible. It's just numbers on a page. If those lost billions upon billions looked like Godzilla, Americans would treat it like a crisis. Catherine Or, if those interest payments started crowding out our ability to pay for other government services Americans depend on (like Medicaid, Medicare, etc.). But we're not there yet because the rest of the world keeps lending to us. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Benjy Let's get to Washington's favorite idea since before I was born: Bipartisan deficit talks. There were high-profile efforts in the Obama era to find a spending and revenue deal, but nothing since then. Is there any way both parties (perhaps post-Trump) could decide to take a shared political hit by making some deal on this together? Or is that just my inner Aaron Sorkin talking? Jim 'And then President Bartlet gave a stirring speech that brought Democrats and Republicans together …' I don't think that will happen until those long-discussed dire consequences kick in — and by then the only options remaining will be bad ones. Catherine There are some models for this kind of thing that have sort of worked on a smaller scale (like independent commissions to close military bases). But it's really hard to see it working now. The scale of the changes needed here — and the political pain that goes with them — are just orders of magnitude larger. Unfortunately, I think we will need to face an actual crisis — like a much more painful bond market revolt — before the parties try to fix anything, whether unilaterally or together. Jim Trump-era politics made it harder for bipartisan cooperation on relatively easy issues, and the debt was an issue that almost everyone preferred to ignore long before Trump came down that escalator. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Benjy Since it seems up to Washington columnists to carry the deficit scold torch then, what would be the number one proposal you'd each bring to the table if they asked you how to find some real savings? Catherine The easiest thing would be to just do nothing on taxes right now — and let Trump's 2017 tax cuts expire as scheduled. For everyone, to be clear. (Biden and Dems wanted to extend the cuts to all but the very wealthiest.) Jim Means-test Social Security. (Jim dodges thrown fruits and vegetables.) A whole lot of retirees are wealthy and don't need the Treasury Department sending them checks. Of course, people believe their Social Security payments have been in a (Al Gore voice) 'lockbox' all their working years. Nah, the government spent that money as quickly as it came in.
Yahoo
08-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
The Democrats' Dilemma
From the G-File on The Dispatch Dear Reader (expect for those of you in a slippery situation), We make fun of Steve Hayes for many things here at The Dispatch. One of them is his dislike of provocative, or even clever, headlines. I think there was something in the water back at the old Weekly Standard, which inventively called its parody feature … 'Parody.' Then again, that might have made sense given that when the editors indulged their creative headline writing instincts, they'd come up with stuff like 'Corzine for a Bruisin'.' So maybe sticking to a truth-in-labeling approach to headlines was a sign of self-awareness and restraint. Hopefully you can forgive some old-school intramural ribbing from a longtime National Review guy. In the meantime, what made me think of this was a fun headline from The Nation: 'Protesters Demand Action From Feckless Democrats.' It's no 'Headless Body in Topless Bar,' but it's got some punch and accuracy to it. I found the article about the protests outside the Treasury Department via my friend Jim Geraghty, who spotted this gem in the piece (emphasis mine): As one after another member of Congress outlined the horrors perpetrated by Musk and his team of tech lackeys, protesters would shout back, 'Arrest them when they come out!' and 'Lock him up!' As the speeches continued, one especially plaintive chant took hold in the crowd: 'Tell us what to do!' That's a pretty good summary of the plight of the Democrats these days. The only thing that would have really completed the scene is if the elected Democrats speaking to the crowd chanted back, 'You tell us! Because we don't have a clue.' There's a lot of sweet, sweet, rank punditry about the plight of the Democrats—if you look for it. It's easy to miss while Elon Musk's minions treat the federal bureaucracy like they're celebrating Caddy Day at the Bushwood Country Club and Donald Trump floats the idea of turning Gaza into a Jimmy Buffett resort. Wastin' away again in GazavilleWaitin' for Allah to turn the Jews into pillars of salt [Salt! Salt!] Some infidels claim we're the ones to blameAll I know it's the Zionists' fault Sorry about that. I think people are underestimating the problem facing the Democratic Party. I think it's much more fundamental than mere messaging or strategy. But let's get there by sticking with the punditry for a bit longer. The Democratic Party hasn't been this unpopular in decades. It lost the White House, the House (albeit narrowly), and the Senate. It lost ground among pretty much every demographic group, which has to hurt for a party so obsessed with demographic groups. This week, the Democrats elected a party technocrat and apparatchik, Minnesota Democratic Chair Ken Martin, to run the national party. Martin insists that they really don't need to change much. 'Anyone saying we need to start over with a new message is wrong,' he told the New York Times. 'We got the right message.' Quick, what was the Democrats' message in 2024? It's an honest question, because I really don't know. I couldn't even remember what Kamala Harris' slogans were. I still remember 'I'm With Hillary' and 'It's Her Turn,' but I had to google for a bit to remember 'When we fight, we win!' and 'We're not going back!' Are these the messages that Martin thinks the Democrats can win on if they just put more money behind them? Slogans are supposed to conjure deeper philosophical or ideological commitments and passions. Other than the implied anti-Trump message in, 'We're not going back,' the only conceptual superstructure I can identify is partisan team spirit. In other words, the 'we' is basically just the Democrats or maybe 'progressives,' or perhaps those of us who are not them. But that's about it. In politics, broadly speaking there aren't that many organizing principles, or ideological frameworks, that work at scale. I mean stuff like imperialism, nationalism, or socialism. Ideas that can pull adherents in from a broad and diverse population. I guess the oldest is some form of tribalism: We're the people of this valley. We're not the mountain people or the river people or those stinking nomads. We're us, and everybody else is them. As civilization progressed more sophisticated versions developed. We're the Romans, or the Etruscans, or Athenians. That kind of thing. Later it was the Christians, or the Muslims, etc. With the rise of modern nationalism, the idea of the nation obviously became one of these categories or creeds of self-identification. Not long after nationalism arrived, socialism burst on the scene. Another category that emerged around this time might be called liberalism. And liberalism—the idea of individual rights, the rule of law, freedom from the state or hostile religious authorities—is an idea you can build a political movement around. These are all big ideas that inform how we understand the role of the state, but also how we should organize society more generally. Now, you can certainly find all of these in pure forms from ideologues and activists. But the truth is most ideologies borrow bits and pieces from each other. Historically, most nationalists were socialists. And when push came to shove, most socialists were also nationalists. Most early liberals were also nationalists of a kind. They wanted their respective nation-states to be liberal. It makes sense when you think about it, because the nation-state has a defined boundary—both in terms of physical borders and conceptually in terms of where the state has authority and where it doesn't. You can preach about workers of the world uniting, but workers are also Italians, Germans, Belgians, etc. And their respective governments only have authority within those borders. Ideology doesn't just inform policy positions and language. An ideology is also a worldview, which is why many dictionaries treat them as synonyms. Progressive ideology, broadly speaking, is historically very materialist. Doctrinaire Marxism, of course, is almost pure materialism. The means of production, and their ownership, defines the form and shape of civilization. Religion, nationalism, and other prisms are distractions, myths, 'opiates' of the masses, and all that nonsense. What matters is stuff like money, food, housing, and material conditions, on the job and off. Contrary to a lot of right-wing hyperbole, not all progressives are committed Marxists. Indeed, very few of them are. But, broadly speaking, this focus on material circumstances informs progressive ideology deeply, and that's fine. It's not like that stuff doesn't matter. Indeed, it matters a lot. My objections to the progressive approach to public policy is not the desire to improve the material conditions of the poor or the working class. Most conservatives care about that stuff, too. We just disagree about the best ways to pursue similar goals. Anyway, for most of the last century or so progressives, broadly defined, saw politics through a largely materialist lens. Poverty was the all-purpose root cause for social ills. Everything flowed from that. FDR turned the state into a giant wealth-transferring machine—from Social Security to the first welfare programs to all of those government jobs and public works projects. The government was now in the business of redistributing wealth. The Great Society was a continuation of this framework. It wasn't socialism per se, but welfare-state liberalism drew on many of the same foundational assumptions. America's freedom-loving, you're-not-the-boss-of-me cussedness prevented it from ever accepting socialism outright. But Americans ultimately accepted the idea that the wealth-creating features of capitalism would be yoked to a large amount of redistribution. I can criticize the excesses and errors all day long, but at the end of the day I subscribe to that basic idea of a capitalism-funded safety net or welfare state, just like almost everybody else. In certain academic and ideological corners of progressive thought, this understanding started to get supplanted by what we can call here 'intersectionality.' Race and gender, and the related ideas of 'oppressor-oppressed' ideology, supplanted the old New Deal/Great Society paradigm. The left still believed in a generous welfare state but grew bored talking about it. Things like anti-racism, the 1619 Project, DEI, were what drew passion and energy on the left. I don't think this is particularly controversial. You could see it almost in real-time. Social democrats like Bernie Sanders, who is totally in his comfort zone talking about Medicare for All, had to start talking in the language of race and marginalized groups. He used to denounce 'open borders' as a crazy libertarian Koch Brothers kind of idea, but the Democratic Party convinced itself that immigrants were now part of the coalition of the oppressed and they had the right to entry into America based upon their oppressed or marginal status. In 2019 when he announced he was running for president, again, he was asked how he'd stand out in such a diverse field. 'We have got to look at candidates, you know, not by the color of their skin, not by their sexual orientation or their gender and not by their age,' Sanders replied. 'I mean, I think we have got to try to move us toward a non-discriminatory society which looks at people based on their abilities, based on what they stand for.' Not bad. The left ate him alive. Even Stephen Colbert mocked him. 'Yes, like Dr. King, I have a dream—a dream where this diverse nation can come together and be led by an old white guy.' That sort of thinking, call it wokeism for want of a better shorthand, ran riot in elite culture and provided the foundation for the vast bulk of the culture war fights of the last decade. Some of those fights were stupid. Some weren't. Sometimes the left had good arguments and facts on their side, but more often, in my opinion, they didn't. The Rawlsian liberalism of the left ran head first into the traditional liberalism of American culture—and lost. I think that's why the 'vibe shift' seems so much larger than warranted by the election returns. For instance, this week Trump signed an executive order to keep transgender athletes from competing in girls' and women's sports. It was, in the words of CNN's Harry Enten, 'probably the most popular thing he's ever done.' Large majorities of Independents and Democrats support it. One can exaggerate the significance of this, but symbolically, the message is pretty clear. The intersectional argument just doesn't work as an organizing principle for politics—at scale. I want to be really clear: I'm not saying that bigotry is in the driver's seat. I don't think Americans would support a Jim Crow-style regime for transgender people. It certainly wouldn't support a Jim Crow-style regime for non-whites, or gays, or anything like that. But what turns off lots of Americans is special treatment—real or perceived—for specific groups. That goes for positive treatment and negative treatment. Allowing biological males to compete in women's sports simply seems unfair—one might even say 'illiberal'—to many Americans, regardless of party affiliation. (See The Fair Jessica on this). Intersectional progressives see the dismantling of DEI as oppressive and discriminatory. Oppressed groups deserve special treatment—'equity' not just 'equality.' So the removal of a subsidy is indistinguishable from discrimination in their worldview. But that's not how large numbers of Americans see it. America is a liberal country and culture. Inherent in that liberalism is the idea that we're all equal in the eyes of God and government, and that means the state should not be in the business of picking winners and losers—based on race or creed or gender identity. (This is why the more extreme right-wing post-liberal schemes will fail. Americans will bristle at special treatment for certain faiths just as much as they bristle at special treatment for certain races or sexual orientations.) It's fine if you disagree with that. There are good arguments to be made about where to draw lines. But the simple fact is that as a practical political matter, the intersectional arguments have, at least for the time being, reached the point of diminishing returns. To reduce it to a simple point, calling Latinos 'Latinx' repels more Latino voters than it attracts. Which brings me back to the Democrats. At a forum for candidates to chair the Democratic National Committee, Jonathan Capehart asked the contenders, 'So, I'm going to have a show of hands. How many of you believe that racism and misogyny played a role in Vice President Harris' defeat?' All eight candidates raised their hands. Capehart replied, 'Okay. So … That's good, you all passed.' Now, I've joined in the mockery over this. I love the idea that Capehart is some kind of official gatekeeper. Answer the riddle of the Sphinx or you shall not pass. But I will offer a very slight defense of the answer, even if I think the question is a symptom of the Democrats' plight. Of course racism and misogyny 'played a role' in her defeat. She lost the popular vote by 1.5 percent. Would that margin have been smaller if there were zero racism and misogyny in America? Sure. Or at least, maybe. But come on. Moreover, this misses the point. For Capehart, racism and sexism are the salient issues. We judge politics not by the sum total of beliefs we hold but by the ideas we emphasize and talk about (for instance, for years, libertarians held all sorts of ideas, but the ones they organized around—chiefly drug legalization—defined them because that's what they talked about). The more interesting question is: Did the price of gas or eggs play a more significant role than racism and misogyny in Harris' defeat? How about the withdrawal from Afghanistan? Or Joe Biden's age and infirmity? Or the border? Or, for that matter, did Harris' shortcomings as a candidate—distinct from her race and gender—contribute to her loss more than bigotry? I think the answers to all of those questions lie somewhere between 'probably' and 'duh, of course.' But that's not what elite Democrats want to talk about. Let's assume a whole generation of Democratic and progressive activists, academics, and journalists can wean themselves of wokeism. That's a Herculean task for people trained to speak in the language and shibboleths of intersectionality. It's what they know. It's their comparative advantage. It's what got them jobs and tenure. But let's assume they can do it. What's their new theory of the case? What's their new categorical imperative, their ideological framework, that they can pitch to American voters? It's not nationalism. That's taken. It's not really patriotism either. That would require a wholesale reorientation toward the founding, the Constitution, and a rejection of all sorts of narratives that define progressivism. I'm not saying that progressives are unpatriotic, by the way, I'm saying that the deep language of patriotism is a dialect that requires practice. It's not socialism. The only thing I can think of is a return to the old-style FDR-LBJ party of government approach. The government is there to help the little guy, the forgotten man, etc. The government is on your side. That's a language Democrats definitely know how to speak. And to be fair, this is an ideological framework that works—or can work—at scale. The Democrats definitely believe they can make it work again. But there are problems. The first is credibility, or the lack thereof. The Democrats have been the party of government for so long, and government has gotten so big, that the Democrats seem less like the party that will use the government as a tool for you and more like the party that uses the government for us. Public sector unions run the Democratic Party to a considerable degree and are a massive source of its funding. And public sector unions have an inherent conflict of interest when it comes to reforming government. The left understands this in the narrow cases of prison guards and cops, but rejects it entirely everywhere else. Donor capture isn't just a problem for Republicans. Of course, it's not just public sector unions. Trial lawyers, environmental groups, civil rights groups—'the groups' generally see the government as their thing. Reforming it to deliver goods and services for everybody more effectively is a threat to their business models. Add in the intersectional framing, and the problem gets even more acute. A more effective government wouldn't just help members of the Democratic coalition, it would help millions of people in the white working class who are not part of the coalition. I'm sure many progressives would be fine with that, but they'd have a hard time selling the idea to 'the groups.' Last, there's the fact that the Republicans are no longer the strawman they're used to arguing with. Progressives have had a field day for generations casting the limited government, free-market message of the right as just so much 'greed.' 'Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime,' is the morally and prudentially superior position. But politically it loses almost every time to 'Vote for me and I'll give you free fish!' Donald Trump has turned the GOP into a free-fish party. I detest it, but it works. You can certainly argue that Trump won't be able to deliver, but conceptually, the no-taxes-on-tips, let-me-put-my-name-on-stimulus-checks guy is not the kind of opponent Democrats have a lot of muscle memory dealing with. Again, I loathe the fact that Trump has turned the GOP into a protectionist, interventionist, industrial policy party. But I cannot deny that it deprives the Democrats a clear lane to march down. Rather than make a case for themselves, they thought that Trump would make their case for them. That strategy might still work in 2026 and 2028, but if you think Trump is a fraction as bad as most sincere Democrats do, it should shake you to the core that you managed to lose to him in 2024. The idea that 'we had the right message' should be disqualifying. Democrats don't see this yet. One argument we heard a lot after the election was this idea that Democrats just need their own Joe Rogan. Never mind that Democrats had Joe Rogan until they effectively chased him away. This is a very old crutch, with deep ideological assumptions behind it. When Republicans captured Congress in 1994, Democrats convinced themselves it was because Republicans had talk radio on their side. We just need our Rush Limbaugh! So progressives poured money into Air America, which was a bust. With the rise of Fox News, they convinced themselves they needed their own cable network (because apparently MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, NPR, PBS, plus the New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Newsweek, U.S. News, etc. didn't count). So Al Gore launched Current TV. For a while progressives thought that conservative think tanks gave the right a structural advantage, so they created the Center for American Progress (missing the fact that conservative think tanks were created at least in part because vastly better-funded universities had become inhospitable to conservatives). Hell, some people thought the existence of a right-wing pillow company was some boon, so they launched a left-wing pillow company (one of its founders, David Hogg, is now a vice chairman of the DNC). Their ideological priors made them think that they lost arguments and elections not because of a bad message but because they didn't have the right infrastructure. Democrats are in a bad place not because they failed to get their message out but because voters didn't like the message or the messengers. The sooner Democrats figure that out, the sooner they can get to work providing an alternative to Trumpism. Canine Update: This has been a very confusing time for the beasts. I got back from Belize on Monday morning and had to leave for a speech in Florida that night. The thing is, Kirsten parks the girls in the house in the mornings while she takes out the really small dog posse. So I've been home a couple mornings with the girls. They come back in the house and freak out that I'm here, complete with extensive dingo arooing. Then Kirsten comes and takes them for the midday walk and brings them back to her house. They're super happy to see me, almost as happy as I am to see them. And then … back to the sleepover at Kirsten's. We're leaving town again tomorrow, and we didn't think we should move all of their stuff back only to ship 'em back over. It's all a bit disorienting for everybody. But they seem to be handling it well and having a grand time with Kirsten. Zoë has really cottoned to the idea that she's the boss of the wee ones. And Pippa has become basically Kirsten's lap dog, when she's not colonizing the couch. I'm very much looking forward to the end of all this travel and getting back to the routines of canine and feline domestic life. Oh, speaking of the feline, Gracie's doing great. She gets her own housesitter and doesn't have to worry about the dogs. Owner's Name: Brian Alderton Why I'm a Dispatch Member: I've always considered myself a Reagan Republican. I became an independent who leaned conservative in the 2010s. When things went off the rails in 2016, I questioned everything I believed. I found Jonah and David French and they made tons of sense to me. I eventually found The Dispatch and have been a member ever since. Personal Details: I've been an elementary school teacher for 27 years. Pet's Name: Gryzzly Pet's Breed: Golden Retriever/Border Collie Mix Pet's Age: 5 Gotcha Story: She belonged to a family with a teenage son. The son took care of her until he found a girlfriend. He spent less and less time with her. The family lived in a trailer in a neighboring state and already had two dogs. Gryzz spent much too much time in an undersized kennel. A mutual friend knew they wanted to rehome her and knew I was looking for a new sidekick since my previous dog had passed away suddenly a few months earlier. It was love at first sight for both of us and she came home with me about 30 minutes after meeting. Pet's Likes: Walks, treats, everyone she meets, barking! Pet's Dislikes: Squirrels, people who ignore her when walking by, and the stupid vacuum cleaner. Pet's Proudest Moment: She went to an event at our local public pool, the Dog Splash (end-of-season event where dogs can swim at the pool). While she is quite an excellent swimmer, her energy was infectious and she led many of the dogs in attendance as the pacer dog. They all ran laps around the pool. I swear it looked like we were at the dog track. Moment Someone (Wrongly) Said Pet Was a Bad Dog: For my birthday, my brother had barbecue from Central BBQ in Memphis shipped to me. I had a pound of pulled pork thawing in the sink. Gryzzly managed to pull the pork out of the sink when I wasn't looking and ate the whole thing. It caused stomach issues, and what I woke up to that night was traumatizing to say the least. Do you have a quadruped you'd like to nominate for Dispawtcher of the Week and catapult to stardom? Let us know about your pet by clicking here. Reminder: You must be a Dispatch member to participate. —Jonah in the jungle —PippaCoin rug pull —Fahrenheit 47 —Hold the lie —New ideology drop —Tariff this, tariff that —Markets don't lie —You're trippin' —Immaculate consharkption —Doogie Howser remake canned in post —What was he supposed to put in there? —Wafflflation —102 Dalmatians —Baaaa-con egg and cheese, please!
