They are not at all up front about their concerns. They have targeted several Progressive legislators of color with ad campaigns that talk about anything but Israel.
If I'm not mistaken, the slant of this article is to support "progressive" Democrats instead of conservative or establishment corporate Dems.... If that is the case, well AIPAC spent millions supporting both parties for support if Israel (conservative leaning) most of their support in the 2024 cycle was for "conservative or establishment" Dems running away progressive candidates. U believe this is why @Me again, mentions AIPAC....Not necessarily bc of support for Israel but rather against progressive candidates / change in the Democratic party
AIPAC supports Israel (esp. the Bibi thugs) over the United States. Therefore AIPAC supports candidates who support Israel (esp. the Bibi thugs) over the United States. … AIPAC not the worst of our worries, but look at the lives and taxpayer funds being wasted in the Middle East and we see it’s certainly not the least of our worries. AIPAC, essentially, recruits traitors, on this one policy.
Just when I start pumping my fist for Democratic economic populism as shown in the article, along comes a post like this to remind me that their identitarian politics are a millstone around the party's neck
I just want to point out they are extremely critical of the DNC. In addition his laughing is a reflection of his own insecurities. Obama’s bank bailouts and not working class bailouts were bad. Favreau is wrong here. Platner is right.
Favreau is extremely new to the "critical of the DNC" scene.
You know why? Because the realities of how the people feel about the establishment is so stark, so obvious and so overwhelming that he has been FORCED to finally critcize the DNC. Though in an extremely vague and milque toast manner.
They are blowing with the breeze.
The thing is if they owned up to how shitty Obama was, and accepted criticism and stopped just blatantly lying to everyones face...I at least would accept it and move forward.
I actually thought it was a good interview, and it was great that Favreau gave Graham the opportunity to air his political philosophy in long form in the same way Mainers are getting it at town halls (as opposed to an hour long convo on a tattoo).
And actually Favreau isnt as defensive as you’re making him out here in the clip — he’s giving Platner a chance to explain how his governing philosophy would handle a scenario encountering the type of establishment pushback on policy likely to be thrown at him in a crisis. That’s good and valuable.
You know, it’s possible to have a good faith conversation without one side “owning” another, and I thought this was a good example of it. And good for Favreau for giving Graham the platform for an honest convo.
I will never, ever forgive Obama for not allowing Elizabeth Warren to run the CFPB essentially because Geithner and his Wall Street buddies would not have it. This woman created this agency after years of work on behalf of American consumers, and then she doesn’t get to run it?? In the end, it worked out for her because it became the impetus for her Senate run. She’s done more from the inside than she could have in that position. But that, for me, was the signal that Obama was never serious about working for the people. And that he would always put donors ahead of voters.
P.S. I stopped listening to the Pod clowns about midway through Trump’s first administration. Same ol’ BS we’re expected to swallow.
Pretty good illustration of the dilemma the left faces: On the one hand, a smarmy, ineffectual Dem establishment (represented here by Favreau); on the other, populist outsiders like Platner, who say the right things but may not be who or what they claim to be.
Fetterman said all the right things -- until he took office. So did Tulsi Gabbard -- until she sold out completely to Trump. Platner's history (and his past and present ties to the antisemitic right) make me wonder if people are being fooled again.
But, at this point, given the hopeless state of the Dem "leadership," there may be nothing left to lose...
Here we go again...The purity tests are coming, the purity tests are coming. Will D's ever learn? Show me ONE person who never made a mistake or misstep in their life and I show you someone eternally too afraid to live. That's literally the only way you never make a mistake. Frankly, I wouldn't care if Platner had a swastika tattooed on his ass, he's not a Nazi, not then, and certainly not now, and if he can win against old blondie (who refused to show her the result of her medical checkup, so we know what that means, another who has made peace with leaving congress in a zipped up body bag), then that sounds plenty good to me.
I think Fetterman is calling balls and strikes. Ugly but true. It makes everyone hate him. That should tell you all you need to know. Washington hates the truth.
I don't understand why sub stacks algorithm shows me month old posts but Fetterman said all the right things until he had a stroke. He's not an example of anything except how a stroke affects someone.
The skull and crossbones is a symbol of our CIA as well. I don’t like our CIA or Nazi’s but I got a drunken tattoo myself in my 20’s. So I’ll forgive a tattoo. (Granted, mine is a daisy). But who knows what other meaning a daisy might have.. I was very drunk!
The fact that he had a Nazi tattoo be called my totenkopf for years and called himself a big fan of a anti semitic podcast does seem to indicate he's not down with the Jews.
I had no idea what the hell that tattoo meant until Janet Mills and her mudslinging brought it to our attention. Plus, Maine isn’t located in Israel so nobody cares what the radical Zionist Jews have to say about him.
Unlike Congress or mayor the Senate actually does have a role in foreign policy. And I can't stress enough the Senate candidate you support is a longtime documented genuine fan of the Nazis.
Show me the video or audio file where Platner demonstrates that he’s a “fan”, or take your baseless accusations to someone stupid enough to believe you.
There are plenty of anti-Netanyahu American Jews who are extremely offended by Plattner’s tatoo and unimpressed with his response after being called on it. There are actual anti-Semites on the far left, as well as the far right.
If you’re more offended by a tattoo representing the 20th century Holocaust, but not as offended by the Republicunts and “centrist” Democrats voting to send weapons so Israel can carry out the 21st century Holocaust in Gaza, then you’re part of the problem.
Israel is far from perfect, but Hamas has killed more Palestinians in Gaza than Israel has. Hamas executes LGBTQ people and anybody who criticizes them. Hamas started the October 7th War by attacking a peaceful music festival.
Two previous Israeli governments put serious peace proposals on the table and did not receive a response that didn’t involve an Israeli national suicide.
Those who criticize Israel alone and never criticize far worse regimes in Iran, Afghanistan , and multiple countries in Africa are hypocrites and anti-Semites. Wear the label with pride, you have earned it.
Still need them in spite of that. Disaffected dems would listen to them over cnn or ms now. They are a good vector to direct people to better left sites
What are those principles? Even when not in power, I don’t hear the party leadership calling for single payer health care, an end to regime change wars or support for the genocidal regime in Israel, or anything else truly progressive. So it isn’t easy to know what principles, if any, are fundamental to them.
Also support for Wall Street, for proxy war with Russia (provoked by Biden admin refusing to allow Ukraine to go along with Minsk II agreement), moving quickly back to neoliberal austerity after making popular programs like expanded child tax credit temporary, no mention of health care public option once actual term started after campaigning on it, etc. So what do Democrats really hold as principles? (including regime change wars, as Biden, like his predecessors never gave any sign in his entire career he opposed these, as he supported the Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. disasters, not to mention the unconscionable genocide in Gaza)
The Pod Bros remain in 2008, period, cannot see Obama as doing anything wrong ever.
I still have issues with Platner, but he’s got the 100% right diagnosis of where the problems lie here: the tattoo does worry me as do his past comments won’t lie on social media, David, but he at least being thrown in as a bomb as Schumer might be worth the risk at this point.
He’s right where the shortcomings were, indeed, bailing out the banks from Obama led to eventual white working class abandonment and NAFTA from Clinton etc. in tandem from 1992 onward culminating in 2016. Then, Dems lost young men with the wokeist femosphere by the 2022 midterms, and the genocide abetting and lies caused a collapse with their own core base in minorities come 2024 (who are not returning to them at levels they were at in Trump I in II, very notable).
And here we are, today, even young nonwhite women are catching onto the bs too…who are they left with? Exactly who you think…b-but the mean old orange man pedophile and affordability is yielding a paltry meager light Blue D+3-4 climate alone nationally.
No substance or concrete policies, h-he’s worse so you have to vote for us damn it, and no character or attempts to have any serious vision or reflection = why we’re here, the climate objectively in 2026 is more adverse than it was in 2018 and 2020 even if less awful than the 2022 nadir since 2014 and 2024.
And Obama back-peddled from enshrining abortion rights because the issue was "too heated" (he's on video saying this), and the other biggie: He abandoned a public option healthcare system and invited greedy health insurance companies -- which honestly should not exist -- to the bargaining table.
Wish he could have listed a couple other big ones.
The analysis is right but the party then needs to focus on who it sees as the bad guys.
The “people with the vacation homes” aren’t just the 1%. They are the top education/income/asset 20%, and IMO the populist resentments of the bottom 80% are directed toward that group along with - and maybe more than - the 1%.
MAGA understands, and exploits, the fact that the interests of the bottom 80% can’t be lumped with the next 19% because they live on different planets in every way that matters.
But, since 2012 Democrats have made the top 20% an integral part of the party’s base - it gave Harris her largest margins - so a truly effective populist campaign that reaches the <$100K non-college bottom 80% voter will need to directly address 80/20 class resentment and is therefore likely to split the party. IMO MAGA will continue to succeed until Democrats confront that unfortunate reality.
You have hit the hammer on the head. The professional class aid and abet the 1% and are deserving of the enmity of the 80%. The Dem establishment is comprised of the 19%. Therein lies the problem.
What few want to admit and acknowledge is that the DNC elite (Obama, Biden, Clintons, etc) are the personal cronies of the Trump class and likely the direct co-conspirators of the Epstein network. They're part of the same social circles, they belong to many of the same organizations, they have similar investment portfolios, they share the same backers and funders, and they often work together behind the scenes. For example, before Trump's election, the Republican Manafort Firm and Democratic Podesta Firm jointly operated in Ukraine in working with figures tied to Putin.
Democrats: “Governing is complicated, and if you get something you want over here it means you can’t get something you want over here.”
Populists: “Bullshirt! It’s very simple. Get power and then do what you want.”
I don’t think the Democrats have always played it right, and I believe they need to change their approach in a major way. But Monday morning quarterbacking a financial crisis from almost two decades ago, accusing Obama of being for Wall Street because he couldn’t achieve everything he set out to do—that’s some politician-level reductionism right there.
This would carry more weight if the current administration weren't utterly setting the torch to the notion that governing involves highly restrictive tradeoffs in expending political capital. Turns out you can just do things! Also, it's just so, so incorrect to say "obama was against wall street, he just couldn't achieve results there" when the article itself points out that he actually spent that sacred political capital to protect them. Better to be reductive than wrong!
Admittedly the current administration has broken tons and tons and tons of rules without all the repercussions we’ve come to expect from doing so. And we should probably demand a future Democratic president do likewise absent real change in Congress. America is ungovernable with the filibuster in place and the political incentives being what they are today.
That doesn’t mean that a) the Trump approach to governance is what we should aspire to, b) Democrats could successfully duplicate that approach (it sort of requires a meek allied party that’s been cowed into submission), or c) the Trump approach has been an unabashed success. Trump’s and the GOP’s approval ratings are absolute garbage, and they are sounding a red alert for the midterms. Americans, who gave Trump his highest marks on immigration, now have him underwater on that issue. And the Supreme Court overturned his pet policy project because he based it on vibes instead of actual legislative action.
Re: Obama; spending political capital to preserve the banks doesn’t mean he was worried for the executives. He’s talked about this in his memoir: he believed that if these banks went under, the real estate system would go with it, and tons and tons of ordinary Americans would suffer worse. Was it the best solution? No. He was furious at the industry’s pansy-footing around. But it was the best of bad options in his estimation, and I would not for one second want to be put in the White House in 2009 and have to decide whether it’s worth turning swathes of America homeless to punish some unrepentant fat cats.
Looking in from a distance (Canada) here. I feel like the funding of the elections is the main issue, or at least at the very top of the list.
If the most funded candidate gets elected 90%+ of the time, and campaigns being the most funded without corporate / PAC / lobby $$ are exceptions, how can anyone truly let go of being attached to corporate and other lobbies once elected.
In other words: To make a change, you need to get elected, and to get elected, it is almost impossible not to play the game…
Easy to be all virtue when campaigning, but if every Democrat candidate went small donors only, would they still be competing ?
I can’t say BINGO! loud enough. Everything leads back to campaign finance reform. There isn’t a single wedge issue in American politics that doesn’t have as a central artery the need for campaign finance reform. It’s about the unsexiest thing to talk about and it sails over 90+% of the voting public’s heads but it is absolutely at the very heart of the beast. Just how interconnected everything in the political economy is, how subservient American politics is to corporate interests and global finance, is lost on many people. If you force politicians to draw from a public pool and cut them loose from the fund raising racket, we’re living in a dramatically different world. Of course, making significant changes to campaign finance reform may be about the hardest political move imaginable in America right now, might actually require a constitutional convention and corporate America and all their political vamps would wage the most vicious battle you could imagine but we would be cured of many of our worst ails almost instantly. We’d have new problems of course, but they would pale against what we’re dealing with now. Just need a few billionaires with a conscience (ha!) and a desire to see America reborn to start funding a constitutional convention campaign on the DL in 34 states. I would drop everything in my life to work on that. It’s a beautiful dream but for now, it’s only a dream.
The only way to trust ANY candidate is to get rid of PAC money in our system -especially AIPAC.
why especially AIPAC? They at least are up front about who they support and why.
I think they are the least of our concerns.
We’re literally being dragged into another war started by Israel, but AIPAC doesn’t concern you?! Did you eat a lot of paint chips as a kid?!
They are not at all up front about their concerns. They have targeted several Progressive legislators of color with ad campaigns that talk about anything but Israel.
If I'm not mistaken, the slant of this article is to support "progressive" Democrats instead of conservative or establishment corporate Dems.... If that is the case, well AIPAC spent millions supporting both parties for support if Israel (conservative leaning) most of their support in the 2024 cycle was for "conservative or establishment" Dems running away progressive candidates. U believe this is why @Me again, mentions AIPAC....Not necessarily bc of support for Israel but rather against progressive candidates / change in the Democratic party
AIPAC supports Israel (esp. the Bibi thugs) over the United States. Therefore AIPAC supports candidates who support Israel (esp. the Bibi thugs) over the United States. … AIPAC not the worst of our worries, but look at the lives and taxpayer funds being wasted in the Middle East and we see it’s certainly not the least of our worries. AIPAC, essentially, recruits traitors, on this one policy.
Huh?
Just when I start pumping my fist for Democratic economic populism as shown in the article, along comes a post like this to remind me that their identitarian politics are a millstone around the party's neck
Favreau's whole tone is so condescending, laughing at his own takes is so phony. His whole existence is a rearguard for the DNC
I just want to point out they are extremely critical of the DNC. In addition his laughing is a reflection of his own insecurities. Obama’s bank bailouts and not working class bailouts were bad. Favreau is wrong here. Platner is right.
You are wrong on both counts. Do better.
I’m glad to see poor Jon has apologists but I’m with David on this.
Maybe correcting my spelling or grammar would be more effective
Favreau is extremely new to the "critical of the DNC" scene.
You know why? Because the realities of how the people feel about the establishment is so stark, so obvious and so overwhelming that he has been FORCED to finally critcize the DNC. Though in an extremely vague and milque toast manner.
They are blowing with the breeze.
The thing is if they owned up to how shitty Obama was, and accepted criticism and stopped just blatantly lying to everyones face...I at least would accept it and move forward.
But they haven't done any of that.
He can’t objectively take any criticism of his era or his stuffed shirt patron.
I actually thought it was a good interview, and it was great that Favreau gave Graham the opportunity to air his political philosophy in long form in the same way Mainers are getting it at town halls (as opposed to an hour long convo on a tattoo).
And actually Favreau isnt as defensive as you’re making him out here in the clip — he’s giving Platner a chance to explain how his governing philosophy would handle a scenario encountering the type of establishment pushback on policy likely to be thrown at him in a crisis. That’s good and valuable.
You know, it’s possible to have a good faith conversation without one side “owning” another, and I thought this was a good example of it. And good for Favreau for giving Graham the platform for an honest convo.
An honest conversation, aside from all the lying. Did you not bother reading the above article?
Maybe start reading again from here:
"Except, it was Obama who helped his Wall Street donors block..."
Never trust a flask as a profile picture.
I will never, ever forgive Obama for not allowing Elizabeth Warren to run the CFPB essentially because Geithner and his Wall Street buddies would not have it. This woman created this agency after years of work on behalf of American consumers, and then she doesn’t get to run it?? In the end, it worked out for her because it became the impetus for her Senate run. She’s done more from the inside than she could have in that position. But that, for me, was the signal that Obama was never serious about working for the people. And that he would always put donors ahead of voters.
P.S. I stopped listening to the Pod clowns about midway through Trump’s first administration. Same ol’ BS we’re expected to swallow.
Yeah. If only Elizabeth Warren were leading the country right now - but Hell's paved over . . .
The ghost of what might have been. *sigh*
Except for the "I'm a capitalist to my bones" part.
It wasn’t Obama who blocked Warren from running the CFPB. He did not have the votes to overcome a filibuster to get her nomination through.
I didn’t catch on until sitting thru a few on camera sessions of the cover the team tried to provide Biden during his 2024 run against Trump.
It turned out targeting Warren backfired when she then ran for Senate, and won😆
Dave Sirota is my hero.
Pretty good illustration of the dilemma the left faces: On the one hand, a smarmy, ineffectual Dem establishment (represented here by Favreau); on the other, populist outsiders like Platner, who say the right things but may not be who or what they claim to be.
Fetterman said all the right things -- until he took office. So did Tulsi Gabbard -- until she sold out completely to Trump. Platner's history (and his past and present ties to the antisemitic right) make me wonder if people are being fooled again.
But, at this point, given the hopeless state of the Dem "leadership," there may be nothing left to lose...
Here we go again...The purity tests are coming, the purity tests are coming. Will D's ever learn? Show me ONE person who never made a mistake or misstep in their life and I show you someone eternally too afraid to live. That's literally the only way you never make a mistake. Frankly, I wouldn't care if Platner had a swastika tattooed on his ass, he's not a Nazi, not then, and certainly not now, and if he can win against old blondie (who refused to show her the result of her medical checkup, so we know what that means, another who has made peace with leaving congress in a zipped up body bag), then that sounds plenty good to me.
How about the r*pe, backed by good evidence?
I think Fetterman is calling balls and strikes. Ugly but true. It makes everyone hate him. That should tell you all you need to know. Washington hates the truth.
I don't understand why sub stacks algorithm shows me month old posts but Fetterman said all the right things until he had a stroke. He's not an example of anything except how a stroke affects someone.
The skull and crossbones is a symbol of our CIA as well. I don’t like our CIA or Nazi’s but I got a drunken tattoo myself in my 20’s. So I’ll forgive a tattoo. (Granted, mine is a daisy). But who knows what other meaning a daisy might have.. I was very drunk!
The fact that he had a Nazi tattoo be called my totenkopf for years and called himself a big fan of a anti semitic podcast does seem to indicate he's not down with the Jews.
I had no idea what the hell that tattoo meant until Janet Mills and her mudslinging brought it to our attention. Plus, Maine isn’t located in Israel so nobody cares what the radical Zionist Jews have to say about him.
Unlike Congress or mayor the Senate actually does have a role in foreign policy. And I can't stress enough the Senate candidate you support is a longtime documented genuine fan of the Nazis.
Show me the video or audio file where Platner demonstrates that he’s a “fan”, or take your baseless accusations to someone stupid enough to believe you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JLTfYFRF9yc
It's not an accusation. He said it!
There are plenty of anti-Netanyahu American Jews who are extremely offended by Plattner’s tatoo and unimpressed with his response after being called on it. There are actual anti-Semites on the far left, as well as the far right.
If you’re more offended by a tattoo representing the 20th century Holocaust, but not as offended by the Republicunts and “centrist” Democrats voting to send weapons so Israel can carry out the 21st century Holocaust in Gaza, then you’re part of the problem.
Israel is far from perfect, but Hamas has killed more Palestinians in Gaza than Israel has. Hamas executes LGBTQ people and anybody who criticizes them. Hamas started the October 7th War by attacking a peaceful music festival.
Two previous Israeli governments put serious peace proposals on the table and did not receive a response that didn’t involve an Israeli national suicide.
Those who criticize Israel alone and never criticize far worse regimes in Iran, Afghanistan , and multiple countries in Africa are hypocrites and anti-Semites. Wear the label with pride, you have earned it.
Anti Semitism is the new black here. Just throw it out and make people defend it, no matter what the evidence says.
Yeah, LITERAL Nazi tattoo = nothingburger
LOLOL
The Pod Save crew is the same as Ezra Klein. They whitewash corporate extraction and private equity-driven capitalism, and they are smug AF about it.
Still need them in spite of that. Disaffected dems would listen to them over cnn or ms now. They are a good vector to direct people to better left sites
Platner has exceeded my expectations. A perfect rebuff to Collins of the Patriarchy.
So, now how do you feel?
The same as I did on March 3rd.
It’s not that Democratic principles have to be different, they just have to actually hold to them when in power.
What are those principles? Even when not in power, I don’t hear the party leadership calling for single payer health care, an end to regime change wars or support for the genocidal regime in Israel, or anything else truly progressive. So it isn’t easy to know what principles, if any, are fundamental to them.
I don’t recall Biden starting any regime change wars. What did I miss.
Support for Israel is bad enough.
Also support for Wall Street, for proxy war with Russia (provoked by Biden admin refusing to allow Ukraine to go along with Minsk II agreement), moving quickly back to neoliberal austerity after making popular programs like expanded child tax credit temporary, no mention of health care public option once actual term started after campaigning on it, etc. So what do Democrats really hold as principles? (including regime change wars, as Biden, like his predecessors never gave any sign in his entire career he opposed these, as he supported the Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. disasters, not to mention the unconscionable genocide in Gaza)
The Pod Bros remain in 2008, period, cannot see Obama as doing anything wrong ever.
I still have issues with Platner, but he’s got the 100% right diagnosis of where the problems lie here: the tattoo does worry me as do his past comments won’t lie on social media, David, but he at least being thrown in as a bomb as Schumer might be worth the risk at this point.
He’s right where the shortcomings were, indeed, bailing out the banks from Obama led to eventual white working class abandonment and NAFTA from Clinton etc. in tandem from 1992 onward culminating in 2016. Then, Dems lost young men with the wokeist femosphere by the 2022 midterms, and the genocide abetting and lies caused a collapse with their own core base in minorities come 2024 (who are not returning to them at levels they were at in Trump I in II, very notable).
And here we are, today, even young nonwhite women are catching onto the bs too…who are they left with? Exactly who you think…b-but the mean old orange man pedophile and affordability is yielding a paltry meager light Blue D+3-4 climate alone nationally.
No substance or concrete policies, h-he’s worse so you have to vote for us damn it, and no character or attempts to have any serious vision or reflection = why we’re here, the climate objectively in 2026 is more adverse than it was in 2018 and 2020 even if less awful than the 2022 nadir since 2014 and 2024.
And Obama back-peddled from enshrining abortion rights because the issue was "too heated" (he's on video saying this), and the other biggie: He abandoned a public option healthcare system and invited greedy health insurance companies -- which honestly should not exist -- to the bargaining table.
Wish he could have listed a couple other big ones.
The analysis is right but the party then needs to focus on who it sees as the bad guys.
The “people with the vacation homes” aren’t just the 1%. They are the top education/income/asset 20%, and IMO the populist resentments of the bottom 80% are directed toward that group along with - and maybe more than - the 1%.
MAGA understands, and exploits, the fact that the interests of the bottom 80% can’t be lumped with the next 19% because they live on different planets in every way that matters.
But, since 2012 Democrats have made the top 20% an integral part of the party’s base - it gave Harris her largest margins - so a truly effective populist campaign that reaches the <$100K non-college bottom 80% voter will need to directly address 80/20 class resentment and is therefore likely to split the party. IMO MAGA will continue to succeed until Democrats confront that unfortunate reality.
You have hit the hammer on the head. The professional class aid and abet the 1% and are deserving of the enmity of the 80%. The Dem establishment is comprised of the 19%. Therein lies the problem.
What few want to admit and acknowledge is that the DNC elite (Obama, Biden, Clintons, etc) are the personal cronies of the Trump class and likely the direct co-conspirators of the Epstein network. They're part of the same social circles, they belong to many of the same organizations, they have similar investment portfolios, they share the same backers and funders, and they often work together behind the scenes. For example, before Trump's election, the Republican Manafort Firm and Democratic Podesta Firm jointly operated in Ukraine in working with figures tied to Putin.
I like Fravreau but that was a massively good take down. I'm already in the burn it down lane but that's some serious accelerant.
Democrats: “Governing is complicated, and if you get something you want over here it means you can’t get something you want over here.”
Populists: “Bullshirt! It’s very simple. Get power and then do what you want.”
I don’t think the Democrats have always played it right, and I believe they need to change their approach in a major way. But Monday morning quarterbacking a financial crisis from almost two decades ago, accusing Obama of being for Wall Street because he couldn’t achieve everything he set out to do—that’s some politician-level reductionism right there.
This would carry more weight if the current administration weren't utterly setting the torch to the notion that governing involves highly restrictive tradeoffs in expending political capital. Turns out you can just do things! Also, it's just so, so incorrect to say "obama was against wall street, he just couldn't achieve results there" when the article itself points out that he actually spent that sacred political capital to protect them. Better to be reductive than wrong!
Admittedly the current administration has broken tons and tons and tons of rules without all the repercussions we’ve come to expect from doing so. And we should probably demand a future Democratic president do likewise absent real change in Congress. America is ungovernable with the filibuster in place and the political incentives being what they are today.
That doesn’t mean that a) the Trump approach to governance is what we should aspire to, b) Democrats could successfully duplicate that approach (it sort of requires a meek allied party that’s been cowed into submission), or c) the Trump approach has been an unabashed success. Trump’s and the GOP’s approval ratings are absolute garbage, and they are sounding a red alert for the midterms. Americans, who gave Trump his highest marks on immigration, now have him underwater on that issue. And the Supreme Court overturned his pet policy project because he based it on vibes instead of actual legislative action.
Re: Obama; spending political capital to preserve the banks doesn’t mean he was worried for the executives. He’s talked about this in his memoir: he believed that if these banks went under, the real estate system would go with it, and tons and tons of ordinary Americans would suffer worse. Was it the best solution? No. He was furious at the industry’s pansy-footing around. But it was the best of bad options in his estimation, and I would not for one second want to be put in the White House in 2009 and have to decide whether it’s worth turning swathes of America homeless to punish some unrepentant fat cats.
Looking in from a distance (Canada) here. I feel like the funding of the elections is the main issue, or at least at the very top of the list.
If the most funded candidate gets elected 90%+ of the time, and campaigns being the most funded without corporate / PAC / lobby $$ are exceptions, how can anyone truly let go of being attached to corporate and other lobbies once elected.
In other words: To make a change, you need to get elected, and to get elected, it is almost impossible not to play the game…
Easy to be all virtue when campaigning, but if every Democrat candidate went small donors only, would they still be competing ?
I can’t say BINGO! loud enough. Everything leads back to campaign finance reform. There isn’t a single wedge issue in American politics that doesn’t have as a central artery the need for campaign finance reform. It’s about the unsexiest thing to talk about and it sails over 90+% of the voting public’s heads but it is absolutely at the very heart of the beast. Just how interconnected everything in the political economy is, how subservient American politics is to corporate interests and global finance, is lost on many people. If you force politicians to draw from a public pool and cut them loose from the fund raising racket, we’re living in a dramatically different world. Of course, making significant changes to campaign finance reform may be about the hardest political move imaginable in America right now, might actually require a constitutional convention and corporate America and all their political vamps would wage the most vicious battle you could imagine but we would be cured of many of our worst ails almost instantly. We’d have new problems of course, but they would pale against what we’re dealing with now. Just need a few billionaires with a conscience (ha!) and a desire to see America reborn to start funding a constitutional convention campaign on the DL in 34 states. I would drop everything in my life to work on that. It’s a beautiful dream but for now, it’s only a dream.