Josh Marshall: The redistricting wars have brought us a simple question: can Democrats learn how to acquire and use political power effectively and be willing to do so? It appears the answer may be yes, more than a lot of people thought.
Thanks! That one wasn't previously on my radar.
Here's what I've been saying about the lack of court expansion bills this congress...
bsky.app/profile/davi...
The Supreme Court expansion bill -- the Judiciary Act -- has not been reintroduced in either chamber this congress.
If there are other bills with court expansion in them, I have not been able to find them -- and would like to know about them.
I fully support gerrymandering Republicans out of existence or into permanent minority status anywhere that is possible.
...At least until Republican lawmakers back fair elections and repeatedly prove it with their votes.
Good. I live on this street and use this bike lane.
Rapid Supreme Court expansion in early 2029 is a prerequisite for any Democratic agenda.
If Democrats draw any lessons from Hungary, it's that a pocketbook message alone isn't enough.
They ALSO have to run against corruption and the incumbent.
Unfortunately, most Democrats are too timid, and they fully support corruption when they're the ones doing it.
So no lessons will be learned.
Removing an autocrat from office is just the first step, and it's far easier than what comes next.
The actual test is whether the opposition, once in power, democratizes the regime.
Most of the time reforms fail, and the country backslides within a few years under a new autocrat.
Actions lawmakers can propose, roughly from most to least powerful
*Impeachment
*Pass law/override veto
*Withhold/give $
*War powers resolution
*Block nominees
*Subpoenas
*Strongly worded letter
*Tweet of concern
*Sandwich tweet that puts kernel of criticism btw slices of praise
*Silence
Any member of Congress who won't immediately vote to impeach and remove Trump is enabling him.
Allowing a madman to remain in office is enabling.
Democrats should be introducing articles of impeachment now and forcing Republicans to say no. Yes, it won't work. But at least force those fuckers to defend this shit to the public. I don't know what else to say at this point.
If you are a Democrat running for president, consulting for one, or working for one...
Your job is to be ready for a hostile media and figure out how to win anyway.
"Quite apart from the constitutional and civic merits, the whole fabric of U.S. citizenship falls apart without the anchor of birthright citizenship."
Correct. That's not a bug -- it's the main feature.
Neither Republicans nor Democrats got like this overnight.
Both the Republican transformation from conservatives into fascists and the Democratic transformation from New Dealers into worthless enablers took 50 years.
The parties do not change quickly. It takes many decades.
The Supreme Court is going to grind any future Democratic presidency into dust.
Right now, Democrats and independents who caucus with them are unanimously fine with that.
That includes all your faves.
This is why the court must be reformed, with power of the current corrupt judges diluted by the addition of judges who respect the constitution along with other reforms. The extreme corruption of Robert’s court does not have to be accepted.
I elaborated Brian's ideas a bit.
Republicans see people as objects to be deceived, manipulated, and dominated without interior lives or agency.
Democrats see people as fixed data points driven by material conditions who can only be reached by mirroring their identities and topline preferences.
This chart looks like an early wave of buyers remorse that crested near the end of April 2025, followed by slow and steady attrition.
It does not look like public opinion is responding AT ALL to anything Trump or his opponents have done.
Supreme Court expansion will either happen in early 2029, or Democrats won't be allowed to govern.
Democrats will either find a way to climb this mountain all the way to the top by that time, or they will die on it.
The enabling never stops.
The Silent Generation's suffocating influence extends all the way back to the late 1970s, so it took 50 years to get here.
It's not possible to unwind that influence -- to transform a party's political culture -- in just a cycle or two.
It's going to take several decades, even at maximum speed.
Blinkered proceduralism is one of the hallmarks of Silent Generation leadership and their gerontocratic capture of the party.
They had decades to institutionalize it in the party's culture and groom successors incapable of behaving differently.
Prior to the Silents, Dems were not like this.
Neither party has any clue how to remain popular enough to keep a trifecta for more than two years.
Democrats keep winning special elections because the other party is in the White House.
This is the most predictable pattern in politics.
But if Democrats think it's a vote of confidence for them, they have a nasty surprise coming soon.
leedrutman.substack.com/p/the-democr...
Yikes! Booker has a severe case of Senate Brain.
Even removing him from office can't cure this chronic and debilitating condition.
He'll be this clueless and out of touch for the rest of his life, no matter where that takes him.
Elite impunity is one of the most important background conditions for fascism and lawlessness to thrive.
Make no mistake: The data shows that Democrats have enabled both for decades, and they're still at it.
We cannot and will not defeat fascism or restore the rule of law until that changes.
There are always Democrats enabling fascism -- every time.
Mullin was a member of the senators club.
I'm sorry, Democratic voters, but you and your preferences are not.
The chart above deals with white collar prosecutions, where the accused and convicted criminals are human beings.
But what about when the criminals are corporations?
It's a similar story, with both parties increasingly supportive of elite impunity and lawlessness.
www.citizen.org/article/bide...
When it comes to elite impunity, Democrats and Republicans are on the same page.
They both support it and have gotten more supportive over time.
This graph is not a portrait of the two parties disagreeing.
On this issue, the differences between them are at best a matter of degree, not in kind.