I Got All the Finks I Need

Miss me with that MOR trimmer bullshit, Dems

Regular readers know that I see the very dark portents in the current fascist political scene, but also sometimes see signs of encouragement — often in examples from the past, as in the resistance to the Nazis and the collapse of the G.W. Bush Administration.

The biggest good news in the current gloom has been the Zohran Mamdani victory in New York — a clear case of voters seeing a better alternative to the fascists than stand-pat, do-nothing, fuck-you Democrats, and overcoming years of conditioning to choose him instead of them. Granted, New Yorkers are more liberal than most electorates, but during my years of living there my fellow citizens often finked out on progress under the pressure of propaganda; now it seems they’ve really had enough and are ready to step into the sun.

The reaction of the rightwingers has been predictably insane, but what interests me more is the reaction of some putative progressives in Mamdani’s own party and their enablers in the Prestige Press. The Right is of course conditioned to hate the Mamdani mandate — he’s in a city they despise for having minorities, immigrants, culture, soap and toothpaste, etc.; he wants to make his city more affordable and humane, which directly contradicts MAGA theology.

But the simp Dems… what is it with them, anyway? We could lay it to a simple fear of change, natural among the elderly and those who consider it their highest duty to protect them. A politburo that picks a soon-to-die septuagenarian to fill a power post over the party’s top rising star may be considered devoted to its elders above all else.

But I don’t think these guys really love their oldsters that much; I think they’re just extremely risk-averse or, in plain language, chickenshit.

There was an article this week in Axios (feh) quoting no fewer than seven unnamed Democratic Congressional sources, headlined “Democrats told to ‘get shot’ for the anti-Trump resistance.” That alarming directive is not a direct quote from some hothead who wishes the gerontocrats to take a bullet, understandable as that might be, but rather from one of the nameless Dems who requested anonymity “to offer candid insights about their interactions with constituents and activists,” and who says someone said it to him or her. And if you can’t trust an unnamed source who can you trust?

Apparently these Dems are scared to reveal themselves because “they see a growing anger among their base that has, in some cases, morphed into a disregard for American institutions, political traditions and even the rule of law.”

But what, besides allegedly directing the gerontocrats into the line of fire, have the hotheads done that fits this description? Nothing I could find in the story. One anon says “the base” demands they “fight harder,” which may seem provocative if you have age-related osteoporosis. Another says “people online” told him “to storm the White House and stuff like that,” though this Dem does not identify the specific DSA cell from which the online message came.

Another says he was told to “prepare for ‘violence ... to fight to protect our democracy’” — but it seems only common sense to thus prepare, given that Trump’s thugs have physically attacked Democrats such as Senator Alex Padilla…

But hold on: Though what you thought you saw Padilla do was question Kristi Noem and get tackled by her goons for it, according to Axios he actually “tried to up the ante” by “getting tackled by law enforcement.” Clearly Padilla only dared to question Noem because he knew she’d have no recourse but to sic the dogs on him, and then, if he survived, he’d become a rising star of the Resistance!

Another anonymous Dem supports this interpretation of colleagues standing up for their constituents, despite the danger of MAGA reprisal, just for the street cred: “What I have seen is a demand that we get ourselves arrested intentionally or allow ourselves to be victims of violence.” This one adds that “a lot of times that’s coming from economically very secure white people,” so see, who’s the real racist — as if black people would protest where cops, police dogs, and fire hoses could get at them.

This article was apprehended as intended by wingnut ultras like Erick Erickson — “Axios has a story that comfortable, economically secure, white progressives want Democrats to get shot to prove they are resisting,” he gibbers — and will also no doubt comfort some of the feebler Dems out there who feel that while Trump’s rising fascism is concerning, the last thing you want to do is make a spectacle of yourself over it.

Further up the chain, CNN headlines “Some of Mamdani’s far-left allies want to primary Hakeem Jeffries and other NYC Democrats.” Far-left? I’m a moldy old Cold War liberal and I want Jeffries replaced with Natasha Cloud. Jeffries responds to “Democratic socialists” such as myself, I guess, by calling us “Team Gentrification” because we’re all white like Mamdani.

It’s not a bad story and at least reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere gets his people to talk on the record, but when I read characterizations like “competitive districts far from the Big Apple where democratic socialism has come off more an imposition than an inspiration” I have to wonder: Where this coming from? It’s really a just-so story – how many outlanders have even seen a DSA candidate? It seems borne of the presumption that MOR Democrats are the only reality, notwithstanding the big counter-example that just happened.

Speaking of which, the Washington Post has a story on Rahm Emanuel running for President written by George Fucking Will:

Emanuel says, more in anger than in sorrow, that too many Democrats speak as though their words have been “focus-grouped in a faculty lounge”…

Emanuel wishes some Democrats would worry less about “a child’s right to pick his pronouns” and more about “children who do not know what a pronoun is.”

That’s gonna rev up the voters, alright — like Trump, only with bigger words and less charisma! Will makes it clear he don’t like that Mamdani nohow, and suggests (natch) that he’s antisemitic; Emanuel, who an endnote tells us “is a Post contributing columnist,” doesn’t bite, but we can guess.

The Trump mob will be tough to beat for many reasons, most of them having to do with their outright criminality, but I will say that if someone doesn’t want MAGA it’s because they perceive its disadvantages (e.g. fascism, crumbling democracy, chaos) and are more likely to support someone who very clearly promises to lead them out of it than someone whose only offer is Nothing Much. In that sense these Democrats are more of an impediment to our absolutely necessary climb out of the current tailspin than even Trump himself.