All good in concept, but I don’t see the seed germinating, at least not yet. In this first momentous week of the new Trump era, take a look at the Democrat sound bites. The Price of Eggs (AOC and Elizabeth Warren). Chris Murphy quixotically messing about with Senate rules. I know many Dems currently hoping for things to get really bad so that they can make a comeback, without having anything like a New Frontier. For them, the Old Frontier was great and the only problems are “messaging” and the general imbecility of those “other” Americans.
I largely agree, although I see a lot of pieces like this that seem to operate under an assumption that Cori Bush was President the past 4 years and not Joe Biden. Biden's whole shtick was "America is great, we should strive to do great things, let's be bold" etc.
Now, yes he likely threw too many bites of the apple to the activist left cohort, and was too much of an institutionalist to really shake up the processes of implementing rather than just the policy objectives themselves, but after seeing Trump just shred checks and balances the past week+, it's hard to blame him for having that instinct.
Hi Toiler - Those are fair points. Biden was a centrist Democrat, and his team was competent. I liked many aspects of his presidency, but he lacked a certain vitality and results orientation and catered to the activist wing in dumb ways. Case in point: pushing EVs while snubbing Musk to appease unions and activists betrayed his lack of results-orientation. Or just look at Artemis vs SpaceX. My (ageist) sense is that a 20-years-younger version of Biden would've been quite good.
Age is a real thing. People tend to go downhill around 80 (or earlier). Kissinger kept writing up until the end, but he wasn't directly involved in international politics.
Im gonna listen to this asap! I was thinking about you this morning. I might need to write a song and perform a Rap Fiction song called, Lib-Blahs, just to show you how much I know how to skewer both sides.
I hate to say it, but you're telling the Democrats to snub their entire base, the people who put together mailers and make phone calls and knock on doors for them, not to mention the culture-war-obsessed liberal ladies who make big donations to Stick It To The Patriarchy.
What I actually expect to happen is Trump pissing off the world and causing so much inflation with tariffs and trade wars that the Democrats swoop back in in 2028 (and possibly cripple him in the 2026 midterms, as so often happens) and wind up doing the same crap all over again. Then we swing back and forth between WHITE MAN BAD!, people pooping in the streets, and incompetent people being hired because of their race and gender, and MAGA!, people going on shooting sprees, and incompetent people being hired because of their politics.
Meanwhile, the Chinese laugh into their baiju and go on taking back world dominance from the West, in another swing of the centuries-long-cycle between Eastern and Western dominance.
Those seem like the right top 5, and they also underscore the great irony in American politics. Losses loom larger than gains. Particularly in Presidential politics, the absence of things is often more persuasive than their presence. For example, did Trump/Vance credibly have any of those five things going for them? Or did they simply draft behind the absence of them to victory with fear, nostalgia and crisis narratives?
True. Harris's 1.5% loss feels much bigger, and some of the vibe shift is just normal transition exuberance — though I think there may a deeper cultural tide turning. What I see in the Trump coalition vs Democrats, particularly with more Silicon Valley talent jumping in, is a desire to restore American sovereignty, common sense, and build and win the future, even if some of their ideas like blanket tariffs are dumb. There's a certain vitality and innovative energy there that the more institutionalist Democrats lack right now. Then again, Trump could easily mess it all up pretty quickly through chaos and overreach, so we'll see.
I agree about energy, but what is being done is 99% stagnationists kleptocracy.
The one sort of clear policy, NEPA reform is limited only to certain kinds of energy projects and other seem to face additional obstacles.
Birthright citizenship is important for attracting world talent.
An interest in growth woud require reducing Biden's (and his earlier) import restrictions.
And we'll have to see if he can reduce enough current expenditure -- some off whihc are inputs to production, not consumption -- even to make up for extending the 2017, "Tax Cuts for the Rich and Deficits Act" much less make is dent in the existing deficit.
And his goofball ideas about monetary policy! This is not the right time to increase inflation.
And dismissing the IG's
Musk, Andreessen, Thiel. etc, are surely too smart to think that Trump's program will be good for the economy, so I presume they're there to get a larger slice of the shrinking pie or for self preservation.
I basically felt that with all her flaws, Harris would do less damage to growth than Trump than Trump.
Yes, if there is mass deportation and tariffs but still see higher investment it will not look good. I'd rather be wrong on the politics: no mass deportations, no new tariffs lower deficits and see an investment boom.
Literally hundreds of years of policy analysis by trade economists have uncovered very few cases in which tariffs are the correct policy. And the few that do exist (the is a cost that each importer imposes on the others such as undercutting their collective market power or not recognizing a collective risk) are difficult to implement.
Hey Jeff. Interesting post and some good ideas that I hope we Dems have an opportunity to implement.
However, I would argue that for now a certain amount of obstructionism is important given the massive deluge of potentially illegal EOs, the massive pardoning with no distinction made between those who only entered the Capitol and those who assaulted police, and many unqualified appointees. All of which for me point to a rough road ahead to say the least.
Also, you mention the issue of gerontocracy, which is real and not great, but that’s not limited to one side. Trump is just shy of 80 and many senate republicans are 80+ as well.
Hi Jim - Thanks for the comment. I'm not saying Democrats shouldn't oppose Trump when called for, but that alone I will not solve the party's 30-year favorability low. Democrats have to offer something better! You're correct that gerontocracy isn't limited to Democrats.
Very good essay. I agree, JFK energy is very much needed right now for Democrats and the country in general! Personally, I think the Democrats could start with the Black Capitalism agenda George Romney suggested in the Nixon administration as just part of their push to improve cities. But there is a lot more work to do. Representation politics (what I prefer to identity politics since basically all politics are based on identity to some degree, and I think what people mean when they talk about identity politics is this idea that every group has to be represented at the table for an action to be legitimate) has shown its limits and the backlash has certainly not been worth the lack of tangible progress made through this type of politics anyways. I could rant about democrats shortcomings forever. Good work!
Biden was not smart enough or competent enough to resist caving to the whims of the far left wing of his party. He left the Democratic Party in shambles from which it may never recover.
If the remaining party leaders (whoever they might be) were smart (which they are not) they would look closely at at Trump’s many executive orders (EO’s) and maybe find a few popular ones that they could agree with and then use those along with the more popular positions that they currently endorse as the basis for a resurgence in 2026 and 2028.
So what’s currently in their bag that people don’t hate and what can be done with them to make them more salable to a majority.
First, a woman’s right to an abortion is popular but many believe there should be some time limit put on its availability as development proceeds from a single cell ( . ) to a 👶. So consider limiting it to the first trimester except to protect the health of the mother or when the fetus is not viable.
Second, most people are worried about climate change but the intermittent renewable energy sources located far from load centers Democrats are currently pushing will never provide reliable energy. The best long term solution is nuclear power plants located at existing coal fired plant locations that already have cooling and distribution infrastructure and are located near where electricity is needed. In the meantime we should be leading an international effort to develop geoengineering solutions to the problem because we will never reduce carbon emissions in time to stave off disaster.
Third, most people support vaccinations when their development is transparent and their use is voluntary. Use that approach to offset the current anti-vaccine rhetoric of the Republicans.
Back to Trump’s executive orders. There are three worth considering supporting.
The first of these EO’s recognizes that open borders are politically unacceptable and that the age of mass migration is over. Importing millions of people who will work for next to nothing just to be here destroys the wages of working class Americans and drives up housing costs when we can't house our own citizens. People cannot overpopulate their home country and just expect to move to greener pastures. There are no more green pastures. They need to voluntarily reduce their own country's population to an environmentally sustainable level, stay home and work there to improve their living conditions.
His second important EO addresses the insanity of gender identity which denies the reality of human sexuality and results in men invading women’s sports, restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. Women need and are entitled to privacy from men. Even more diabolical is the mutilation of innocent children (many who would grow up gay) in pursuit of the impossible because you can’t change your birth sex.
Finally his EO that corrects the craziness of DEI which discriminates against whites, Asians and men in attempting to cure past discrimination against others is absolutely the correct approach. Who could believe that creating a new privileged class and a new discriminated against class would provide a solution to the problem? Not to mention that it’s clearly unconstitutional.
Would these actions help the Democrats recover? Who knows, but absent change there is no hope for them.
All good in concept, but I don’t see the seed germinating, at least not yet. In this first momentous week of the new Trump era, take a look at the Democrat sound bites. The Price of Eggs (AOC and Elizabeth Warren). Chris Murphy quixotically messing about with Senate rules. I know many Dems currently hoping for things to get really bad so that they can make a comeback, without having anything like a New Frontier. For them, the Old Frontier was great and the only problems are “messaging” and the general imbecility of those “other” Americans.
Completely agree. They're a long way away from this, but it's the only path!
I largely agree, although I see a lot of pieces like this that seem to operate under an assumption that Cori Bush was President the past 4 years and not Joe Biden. Biden's whole shtick was "America is great, we should strive to do great things, let's be bold" etc.
Now, yes he likely threw too many bites of the apple to the activist left cohort, and was too much of an institutionalist to really shake up the processes of implementing rather than just the policy objectives themselves, but after seeing Trump just shred checks and balances the past week+, it's hard to blame him for having that instinct.
Hi Toiler - Those are fair points. Biden was a centrist Democrat, and his team was competent. I liked many aspects of his presidency, but he lacked a certain vitality and results orientation and catered to the activist wing in dumb ways. Case in point: pushing EVs while snubbing Musk to appease unions and activists betrayed his lack of results-orientation. Or just look at Artemis vs SpaceX. My (ageist) sense is that a 20-years-younger version of Biden would've been quite good.
Age is a real thing. People tend to go downhill around 80 (or earlier). Kissinger kept writing up until the end, but he wasn't directly involved in international politics.
Im gonna listen to this asap! I was thinking about you this morning. I might need to write a song and perform a Rap Fiction song called, Lib-Blahs, just to show you how much I know how to skewer both sides.
lol, nice. I'll be interested in your thoughts on this one, especially since I know you have ideas for making Detroit great again.
I hate to say it, but you're telling the Democrats to snub their entire base, the people who put together mailers and make phone calls and knock on doors for them, not to mention the culture-war-obsessed liberal ladies who make big donations to Stick It To The Patriarchy.
What I actually expect to happen is Trump pissing off the world and causing so much inflation with tariffs and trade wars that the Democrats swoop back in in 2028 (and possibly cripple him in the 2026 midterms, as so often happens) and wind up doing the same crap all over again. Then we swing back and forth between WHITE MAN BAD!, people pooping in the streets, and incompetent people being hired because of their race and gender, and MAGA!, people going on shooting sprees, and incompetent people being hired because of their politics.
Meanwhile, the Chinese laugh into their baiju and go on taking back world dominance from the West, in another swing of the centuries-long-cycle between Eastern and Western dominance.
Bingo! Great ideas. Anybody in mind going to try them?
Thanks. Time will tell!
Those seem like the right top 5, and they also underscore the great irony in American politics. Losses loom larger than gains. Particularly in Presidential politics, the absence of things is often more persuasive than their presence. For example, did Trump/Vance credibly have any of those five things going for them? Or did they simply draft behind the absence of them to victory with fear, nostalgia and crisis narratives?
True. Harris's 1.5% loss feels much bigger, and some of the vibe shift is just normal transition exuberance — though I think there may a deeper cultural tide turning. What I see in the Trump coalition vs Democrats, particularly with more Silicon Valley talent jumping in, is a desire to restore American sovereignty, common sense, and build and win the future, even if some of their ideas like blanket tariffs are dumb. There's a certain vitality and innovative energy there that the more institutionalist Democrats lack right now. Then again, Trump could easily mess it all up pretty quickly through chaos and overreach, so we'll see.
I do like the New Frontier analogy. That was my sophomore year at U Texas.
"can-do energy." ???
I agree about energy, but what is being done is 99% stagnationists kleptocracy.
The one sort of clear policy, NEPA reform is limited only to certain kinds of energy projects and other seem to face additional obstacles.
Birthright citizenship is important for attracting world talent.
An interest in growth woud require reducing Biden's (and his earlier) import restrictions.
And we'll have to see if he can reduce enough current expenditure -- some off whihc are inputs to production, not consumption -- even to make up for extending the 2017, "Tax Cuts for the Rich and Deficits Act" much less make is dent in the existing deficit.
And his goofball ideas about monetary policy! This is not the right time to increase inflation.
And dismissing the IG's
Musk, Andreessen, Thiel. etc, are surely too smart to think that Trump's program will be good for the economy, so I presume they're there to get a larger slice of the shrinking pie or for self preservation.
I basically felt that with all her flaws, Harris would do less damage to growth than Trump than Trump.
Thanks for sharing. Your last statement is interesting. Time will tell.
Yes, if there is mass deportation and tariffs but still see higher investment it will not look good. I'd rather be wrong on the politics: no mass deportations, no new tariffs lower deficits and see an investment boom.
Blank tariffs would be dumb, that's for sure.
Literally hundreds of years of policy analysis by trade economists have uncovered very few cases in which tariffs are the correct policy. And the few that do exist (the is a cost that each importer imposes on the others such as undercutting their collective market power or not recognizing a collective risk) are difficult to implement.
Hey Jeff. Interesting post and some good ideas that I hope we Dems have an opportunity to implement.
However, I would argue that for now a certain amount of obstructionism is important given the massive deluge of potentially illegal EOs, the massive pardoning with no distinction made between those who only entered the Capitol and those who assaulted police, and many unqualified appointees. All of which for me point to a rough road ahead to say the least.
Also, you mention the issue of gerontocracy, which is real and not great, but that’s not limited to one side. Trump is just shy of 80 and many senate republicans are 80+ as well.
Hi Jim - Thanks for the comment. I'm not saying Democrats shouldn't oppose Trump when called for, but that alone I will not solve the party's 30-year favorability low. Democrats have to offer something better! You're correct that gerontocracy isn't limited to Democrats.
Got it! And 100% agree it’s not enough. I’m starting to see some leadership in that area and I’m hopeful we’ll see even more.
Very good essay. I agree, JFK energy is very much needed right now for Democrats and the country in general! Personally, I think the Democrats could start with the Black Capitalism agenda George Romney suggested in the Nixon administration as just part of their push to improve cities. But there is a lot more work to do. Representation politics (what I prefer to identity politics since basically all politics are based on identity to some degree, and I think what people mean when they talk about identity politics is this idea that every group has to be represented at the table for an action to be legitimate) has shown its limits and the backlash has certainly not been worth the lack of tangible progress made through this type of politics anyways. I could rant about democrats shortcomings forever. Good work!
Thank you! I will study up on Black Capitalism - not familar.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/markbergen/2012/02/28/george-romney-and-the-last-gasps-of-national-urban-policy/
Please do! George Romney was ahead of his time! Not perfect! But definitely ahead of his time!
Biden was not smart enough or competent enough to resist caving to the whims of the far left wing of his party. He left the Democratic Party in shambles from which it may never recover.
If the remaining party leaders (whoever they might be) were smart (which they are not) they would look closely at at Trump’s many executive orders (EO’s) and maybe find a few popular ones that they could agree with and then use those along with the more popular positions that they currently endorse as the basis for a resurgence in 2026 and 2028.
So what’s currently in their bag that people don’t hate and what can be done with them to make them more salable to a majority.
First, a woman’s right to an abortion is popular but many believe there should be some time limit put on its availability as development proceeds from a single cell ( . ) to a 👶. So consider limiting it to the first trimester except to protect the health of the mother or when the fetus is not viable.
Second, most people are worried about climate change but the intermittent renewable energy sources located far from load centers Democrats are currently pushing will never provide reliable energy. The best long term solution is nuclear power plants located at existing coal fired plant locations that already have cooling and distribution infrastructure and are located near where electricity is needed. In the meantime we should be leading an international effort to develop geoengineering solutions to the problem because we will never reduce carbon emissions in time to stave off disaster.
Third, most people support vaccinations when their development is transparent and their use is voluntary. Use that approach to offset the current anti-vaccine rhetoric of the Republicans.
Back to Trump’s executive orders. There are three worth considering supporting.
The first of these EO’s recognizes that open borders are politically unacceptable and that the age of mass migration is over. Importing millions of people who will work for next to nothing just to be here destroys the wages of working class Americans and drives up housing costs when we can't house our own citizens. People cannot overpopulate their home country and just expect to move to greener pastures. There are no more green pastures. They need to voluntarily reduce their own country's population to an environmentally sustainable level, stay home and work there to improve their living conditions.
His second important EO addresses the insanity of gender identity which denies the reality of human sexuality and results in men invading women’s sports, restrooms, locker rooms and prisons. Women need and are entitled to privacy from men. Even more diabolical is the mutilation of innocent children (many who would grow up gay) in pursuit of the impossible because you can’t change your birth sex.
Finally his EO that corrects the craziness of DEI which discriminates against whites, Asians and men in attempting to cure past discrimination against others is absolutely the correct approach. Who could believe that creating a new privileged class and a new discriminated against class would provide a solution to the problem? Not to mention that it’s clearly unconstitutional.
Would these actions help the Democrats recover? Who knows, but absent change there is no hope for them.