this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2026
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We just saw a women get murdered while opposing them, and the entire world is condemning it while the Administration tries to spin the murderer as a hero, and the Christian Mom protester as a domestic terrorist who deserved to die. Now the whole world is angry at MAGA, including many on their own side.
That's a pretty meaningful resistance. MAGA is slipping fast, and the fall is starting. One way or another, they are going to come out of the Midterms in bad shape. In fact, things are going so bad, they have so many retirements, that the House may actually flip BEFORE the Midterm. Then the Dems will control investigative committees with full subpoena and arrest powers. The Dems may not have done much during the Biden administration, but they did put Bannon and Ron Varo in prison for defying subpoenas.
Of course, Trump will pardon them, but that only strengthens the eventual court case that he was using his pardon power to tamper with witnesses and cover up his crimes, and then ALL of his pardons can be annulled by Congress as illegitimate criminal activities, and all those people - the Jan 6 Traitors, the ex-prez of Honduras, his criminal white collar conman buddies, etc., will all go back to prison.
We could make all that happen, and more, if we can force Congress to do their jobs this time around, and not expect them to wait for MAGA to have some sort of moral epiphany, which seems to have been the strategy until now.
Go for the football again, Charlie Brown. I'm sure Lucy will let you kick it this time.
What did the Democrats do during the Biden administration (or the Obama administration, for that matter) that permanently took away powers that the Republicans had been building, such that Trump couldn't just reinstate them with the stroke of a pen upon election? Literally nothing. The country is backsliding from neoconservatism into fascism and there's nothing that an aesthetic and media-savvy Democrat contingent will do about it.
The fact that you've been ~~politically~~ electorally active for 48 years and still haven't figured out that Democrats are compromised defeatists and controlled opposition in the age of neoliberalism is not something to brag about, in fact it's extremely embarrassing. Most intelligent progressives figure it out within a couple election cycles.
The progressive activist wing is at most 20% of the Democratic Party, and they have none of the money, because the money comes from the tech/pharma/banking interests that the party ultimately represents. The Democrats as an oligarchic party will outlive you as a human, and they will possibly outlive America as we know it.
First of all, let's forget the Biden administration. He could have become one of the top 10 presidents, but instead he'll be ensconced in the bottom 10, among those who dithered as the nation moved toward Civil War. IF the Dems ever get back in power, they should blacklist every member of the Biden administration. You had your chance, and you blew it badly. You're fired.
20% is a lot, and it is almost certainly going to grow after the Midterms. The Tea Party started controlling the Republican party with less than that, partially based on the fact that the rest of the party recognized that the Tea Party was the only growing sector of the party.
That's the situation that the Progressives are in. They should start throwing their weight around, based on the fact that they are the only active sector of their party, and their influence is certain to grow in November.
Money isn't an issue, the money will follow the power. Besides, Progressives are attracting a lot of support from Independent voters, and regular people. Bernie has been a powerhouse, while refusing corporate money, and relying primarily on small private donors.
The money issue only highlights the BIGGEST problem in our election system. Campaign Finance Reform is the issue from which literally EVERY other issue flows.
Before we can address corporate corruption in government, we need to prohibit ALL campaign contributions of any kind. Campaigns need to be fully financed by the Federal government, shortened to a 90 day campaign season (these people should be working the jobs we elected them to do, not gallivanting around the country pursuing their own ambitions), and tightly controlled, including campaign language and promises. Lying, propaganda, etc. will not be tolerated, and candidates can be cut off from Federal campaign funds, and kicked out of the race for violations.
Campaigning to represent American citizens is a serious matter, and the process should be held to an extraordinarily high standard. The system we have now filters out the best, and promotes the most outrageous, and we end up with idiots in charge, almost exclusively. I'm not that smart, but I'm pretty sure I'm smarter than any of the presidents that I've lived under for most of my life, and I'm POSITIVE I'm smarter than ANY of the Republicans. The only one who might have been smarter was Jimmy Carter.
I'd love to be on Jeopardy with Trump and GW Bush next to me.
I think you're being delusionally optimistic about the ability to grow the progressive representation in the government. We got a boost to the DSA in the first Trump term, and the Squad, which maxed out at 9/435, that's 2%. The Congressional Progressive Caucus went from 68 to 96 in two elections, and then likewise plateaued. The path to victory there is something seven (7) times that jump. I think less than 4% of the electorate are socialists, and I doubt as much as 25% are progressives. But let's set that aside.
I agree with something synonymous to this on a core level: money pervades and corrupts everything. There's just context that makes my structural analysis different.
Power follows money, money does not follow power quite as much. Economic power is the basis for political power, and always has been throughout the history of civilization.
America has always been an oligarchy. It inherited that orientation from its colonial precursor, its government was deliberately set up that way by the founders, and it has found ways to remain oligarchic, from the resistance to Reconstruction to the Red Scare to Dominion ballot machines and expanding primary seasons today. We may have had a brief few decades (from universal adult suffrage and the New Deal) where it got a little bit less oligarchic, then found ways to return.
The rich and powerful will never allow you to simply vote away their wealth and power. As soon as they see what you're aiming to do, they will put more safeguards in against what you're doing. This is why the largest upheavals in American history (Revolutionary War, Civil War) were largely two different elevated classes contesting for dominance.
There is no incentive for entrenched congresscritters to approve of campaign finance reform that actually works instead of making the whole thing more byzantine. You are trying to fight corporate interests by flinging yourself against a wall propped up by corporate interests and also the American political inertia. How do you expect you'll make it happen by working within the existing system, with a large majority of voters who are centrist to reactionary, and who have vested interests in preserving the global functions of capitalism?
How in the world could you believe this? How have the scales not fallen from your eyes? What consequences were there for the targeted assassination of Michael Reinoehl by the DHS? Biden had four years to even do a rote investigation to make it look like the Dems care and they didn't even bother to do that. The Democrats are not on your side and they never ever will be. They are on the side of the wealthy. ICE isn't a problem for the wealthy.
Dawg what fucking world do you live on? Have you seen the Democratic leadership? Schumer was chumming it up with Rubio YESTERDAY. They are not going to hold anyone accountable.