Dems Dilemmas Deepen for 2026

It's Dollars Vs. Deference in Dozens of Districts

Donkey Image created by dyb at Newgrounds.com

There’s an aspect to the ‘resistance’ that’s not getting enough play, namely the perceived acquiescence of many elected Democrats when it comes to opposing the Project2025/Trump agenda. While they may state their opposition to the right wing agenda, when it comes to doing something, a chunk of Democrats have been willing to play the go-along-to-get-along game.

At this moment in time the big tent of those opposing the Trump administration necessarily includes the political party whose leadership has failed to take the threat of fascism seriously by focusing on the trees rather than the forest. The worst part of all this is that they fail to acknowledge their role in enabling it. Andrew Cuomo for Anything? Really?

That evasive wishy washiness may play well with some older voters and billionaire backers, but it infuriates younger and working class voters. Senator Schumer’s strongly worded letters of condemnation don’t mean squat to a family sucked into Homeland Security Secretary Noem’s dystopian immigration cosplay.

I know, I know, as well as anybody that the Democratic party doesn’t come close to representing a cure for what ails the country. For the most part I see them as the party of managed expectations, turning a blind eye to massive transfer of wealth to the ultra-rich over the past 30 years.

Unfortunately, the party’s resources and imperfect communication skills represent the most likely path to a post-Trump/Project 2025 era. The keyboard warriors calling for a “general strike” couldn’t pull off a neighborhood potluck, which, by the way, might be a necessity in building a movement making a giant collective action possible.

As much as many people dislike President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, they like elected Democrats even less. A mere 21% of voters overall approve of the way Democrats are performing in Congress as opposed 38% approval for President Trump and 32% for the performance of congressional Republicans.

Among people claiming Democratic Party affiliation, 53% are unhappy with their party’s performance in the congress. If the 2026 election was to be held tomorrow, generic Democrats candidates would have a 1% edge over generic GOP candidates. That’s within the margin of error in every poll AND remarkably weak for an opposition party in an off year election.

[For purposes of this posting, the survey numbers above are drawn from a Quinnipiac poll conducted during the first week of June.]

In recent times, a fight over membership on the Democratic National Committee has led to four major defections. The question of whether yesterday’s leadership is capable of leading tomorrow’s political organizing is at the center of this debate.

Gone are David Hogg and Malcolm Kenyatta, two DNC vice chairs whose advocacy for younger and better Democrats led to their refusal to re-run for the Committee, called because of irregularities in the February elections. Hogg had the nerve to say he’d back primary challengers against the party’s walking wounded and ideologically compromised incumbents.

That set off a lot of pearl clutching by party establishmentarians, despite the fact that recent deaths of sitting Democratic Congressmen could have at least neutralized the bad juju flowing through the House of Representatives. There are significant differences between the old guard’s viewpoints and that of a majority of Democratic voters (69% gave unfavorable impressions of Israel), specifically on the issue of the war in Gaza.

This week two labor leaders from key Democratic constituencies announced the end of their participation with the DNC. Randi Weingarten, head of one of the American Federation of Teachers, and Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, both stepped down, saying they could not abide Chairman Ken Martin’s leadership.

Both represent key constituencies being attacked by the Trump administration, heading up unions known for their participation in voter drives.

The last time I remember this sort of split in the Democratic Party was in 1972, where George McGovern’s campaign successfully exploited rules implemented in the wake of the disastrous 1968 convention to win the nomination for President. As much as the liberal/left anti-war movement loved McGovern, the old party stalwarts sat on their hands. He ran a seriously flawed campaign, starting with his choice of a running mate. Nixon beat the crap out of the Dems in the general election. McGovern won Massachusetts. Period.

Three Democrats with a reputation for standing up against President Trump, Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Bernie Sanders, and Rep. Jasmine Crockett were perceived as leaders of the Democratic Party in a recent Yale University poll. AOC has endorsed a 33 year old legislator in the NYC mayoral contest, and the story surrounding reaction to that choice tells you everything you need to known about the Democratic Party in 2025.

In the political contest for NYC Mayor it’s become clear that Andrew Cuomo won’t break the 50% barrier in the primary. Democratic upstart Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani is in contention once ranked choice voting kicks in.

To understand just how shitty the party establishment in NYC has become, consider that talk of Mamdani winning is being paired with lamentations about the death of democracy. Old, powerful, wealthy men are pouring millions into an election to champion a sexual predator who continues to harass his accusers.

Corbin Trent at Common Dreams explains the stakes:

• The media's already writing their narratives. If Cuomo wins, it's proof Democrats reject progressivism. If Zohran wins, they'll dismiss it as "just liberal NYC." We know better. This is the test case for whether Democrats can be anything more than controlled opposition.

• Every crisis we face—from troops in our streets to endless wars to families who can't afford basics—comes from the same source: a political system that serves power instead of people. Zohran represents a chance to try something different.

• That's why his potential success terrifies them more than Trump's authoritarianism. Fascists don't threaten their consulting contracts. Politicians who might actually deliver for working people do.

A Pew Research survey late last year found that nearly-half of Democrats are pessimistic about the party's future, compared to only 13 percent of Republicans. What’s clear is that the party needs an image divorced from the consultant class who’ve been in charge in recent years. Candidates with a strong sense of right and wrong need to come to the forefront.

Waiting in the wings to re-make the party as the loyal opposition to an authoritarian regime are the Third Way types, eagerly clustered around the money mongers with surveys purportedly showing Americans opposing progressivism. Fuck those people. Or make them pick strawberries for a week.

The only thing I know for sure about partisan politics these days is that apologists for privatization and monopoly can never be trusted. They might be smiling while eliminating social security, hoping to make people feel better about descending into abject poverty, but what they ultimately offer is nothing that we need to build a future for the most of us.

The bottom line is and always has been the question of class in a democracy, and it has gotten to the point where a teeny minority has decided that it’s time to dump the idea of humans being created equal in favor of a techno-monarchy.

Trump officials reverse guidance exempting farms, hotels from immigration raids by Carol D. Leonnig, Natalie Allison, Marianne LeVine and Lauren Kaori Gurley at The Washington Post

• In the weeks since Miller’s announcement about ramping up arrests, business and industry groups have been heavily lobbying the White House, as well as Senate and congressional offices, pleading for an end to the crackdown. Rebecca Shi, chief executive of the American Business Immigration Coalition, said the pause officials put in place last week had signaled to many employers that the president was “open to a solution.”

• Then, on Sunday night, Trump made a post on his Truth Social account that he said amounted to an order for ICE officials “to do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History,” which he said would require them to “expand efforts to detain and deport Illegal Aliens in America’s largest Cities.”

• Asked about the post and whether ICE would continue to conduct raids in areas outside large Democratic cities, a White House official said, “While we will expand efforts in sanctuary cities, President Trump remains committed to enforcing federal immigration law — anyone present in the United States illegally is at risk of deportation.”

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June 16, 2025 by Heather Cox Richardson at Letters From An American

• If Trump is leaving the work of the presidency to others, his family is certainly using the prestige of the presidency to make money. In what it says is in honor of the tenth anniversary of Trump’s trip down the Trump Tower escalator into presidential politics, the Trump Organization has launched a mobile phone service. As Nikki McCann Ramirez of Rolling Stone explains, the plan is essentially another licensing deal, with the disclaimer specifying that the service simply uses the Trump name after contracting with another provider.

• The announcement claims that new made-in-America gold phones will be available in September, but as David Pierce of The Verge notes, the photoshopped image of the phone and the wonky specs on it, as well as the impossible promise to make them in America within three months, mean the phone “looks both bad and impossible.” The phone, too, is simply branded with the Trump name; the family business will not design or manufacture it.

• The family was evidently in a hurry to get this venture up and running. Kelcee Griffis of Bloomberg reported that the Trump Organization only applied for the trademarks for it last Thursday.

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Cuts to FEMA's storm prep program hammer communities that voted for Trump by Michael Kaplan, John Kelly, Maurice DuBois, and Hannah Marr at CBS

• Officials from five other cities across the Southeast told CBS News they were counting on funds from the BRIC program to avoid a repeat of past storm destruction, including Conway, South Carolina, part of a county President Trump decisively won in 2024.

• After the city experienced extensive flooding damage from successive hurricanes in 2015, 2016 and 2018, it took small steps to mitigate flooding by demolishing properties in its most flood-prone areas. A major step forward came when Conway was awarded a $2.1 million BRIC grant in 2021 to turn a new greenspace into a stormwater storage facility.

• "We've plucked all the low-hanging fruit there is for flood resilience," said City Administrator Adam Emrick, who added that Conway didn't have the financial capacity to implement any larger projects without federal help. "The next step is always and has always been bigger construction projects to make us a better, more hardened infrastructure to flooding."