Why is a Substack called The Liberal Patriot devoted almost exclusively to how Democrats can cobble together enough votes to avoid examining their ideas and policies?
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are new here because that is a very uncharitable read of our project. We have written plenty about the need for the party to revisit several of their positions that are out of step with the broader public. We are also going to write about other stuff sometimes.
I subscribed because I believe we need a viable liberal party. A party that is willing to look at where things went wrong. I’ve seen as many or more articles along the lines of what I described: centered on the theme of getting votes. Vulnerable seats, numbers, polls, etc. DNC research.
But thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt.
I’m a conservative so not their core constituency, but I thought it was a fair criticism. I think they need to write more about empowering moderates to regain control of their institutions, and less about how to Spanberg the nation.
All Rs should run ads labeling their opponents as "Spanbergers" - a democrat who runs as a moderate and goes hard left after winning. (And I literally laughed out loud that Iowa is included as a possible Dem pickup. Come on.)
It seems a little incomplete to fail to mention Sherrod Brown is 75 years old and historically a huge supporter of unions and US labor. Yet, Brown recently went to bat to keep Ohio Haitian factory workers in the US. They work for $15 bucks an hour, because most have enjoyed housing vouchers and a plethora of other subsidies, not available to the locals.
Business owners embrace cheap migrant labor. Less so, the Buckeyes who must compete with them for jobs and wages. Ohio migrant caused fatal car accidents have surged the past few years. The 4 IN Amish men recently killed by a migrant semi driver, perished 30 miles from the Ohio state line. The notion the wreck was not news in Ohio, seems unlikely.
In Texas, Beto had a King's war chest, the cover of Vanity Fair, a Kennedy comparison, a genuine love of Whataburger and fluent Spanish. He still did not win. Perhaps I underestimate the extent of Trump loathing, but Talarico is AOC in a Minister's collar. He seems to believe Socialism will be more palatable to Texans, covered in Bible passages, like the scripture is BBQ sauce. Crockett defies description. She is literally to the Left of AOC. Paxton is the Rep wildcard,, but still hard to imagine either James or Jasmine winning.
Also the Open Border is a different animal in Texas. We were under siege for years. When Abbott bused the tiniest fraction of migrants to Blue cities, the Biden WH toyed with implementing a "remain in Texas" policy. The Dem gem intended to place ankle monitors on millions of migrants and legally require them to remain in Texas for the years it took to adjudicate their asylum claims. It seems unlikely Reps will not remind Texas voters of the bullet they just barely dodged, at Dem hands.
Finally, Youth is great for energy. It is not great for avoiding foot in mouth syndrome like "mediocre Black Man" and "Governor Hot Wheels". Whoever wins the Dem Primary, must navigate the next 8 months without a self inflicted vocal shot. That may be easier said than done.
“…Maine, which Kamala Harris won by 6.9 points. Incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins has been a strong candidate for years, though it’s very possible her luck will run out this year…”
It seems a little incomplete to fail to mention that Senator Collins is chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, “voted with the Democrats 35% of the time”*, and is know for her ethics and common sense.
To say Senator Collins is a strong candidate is true. Six years ago she ran against the former Speaker of the Maine House of Representative, Sara Gideon. “The race was one of the most expensive in Maine’s history, with Gideon outspending Collins by more than twice the amount…”. Collins won 51% to 42.2%.
This time around, two Democrats are battling to run against Senator Collins, the 78 year old, unpopular Governor, who has yet to take a position on the hundreds of illegal marijuana grow houses in Maine or the Medicaid fraud a whistleblower have brought to light. The other candidate is a young man, attended an elite New England prep school, fighting the ‘oligarchy’, endorsed by Bernie Sanders, is an 100% disabled veteran, and has not held elected office.
We will see if Senator Collin’s luck holds out again this year.
My prediction---remember in 2024 I actually had the Rs SHORT by one---is that Rs gain net one with the addition of NH. Sununu was probably the only R who could, and likely will, win.
I think Texas is kind of a bellwether--not necessarily just for the senate, but for whether the Democrats are beginning to make the right decisions. A Talarico victory would tell us they are.
I disagree a bit with Mr. Vasallos's thesis in his article yesterday, though I thought it was nonetheless a good one. I think a party that can run Mamdanis in New York, Talaricos in Texas, and Peltolas in Alaska has an advantage over a party that is (at present) essentially an undifferentiated mass of Trump substitutes. I think the route back to power might lay in that direction--becoming a looser, more regionalist party. That will help in recapturing the Senate for one cycle, and perhaps becoming more competitive in it for longer. (multiple cycles would be a tough get, but working toward it will benefit the party)
The authoritarian takeover might already be over, of course. The battlefield is not even. The DOJ is completely weaponized against Trump's political enemies now. ICE is as well, to a large degree, and there may be no easy way to de-militarize it. Press outlets and law firms have been subdued with the new innovation of the 'presidential lawsuit'. Executive Orders and unelected billionaires have let the strongman find a way to govern without Congress. There's been some pushback in the courts, but they can't keep up. Erdogan and Orban have shown us how the strength of the opposition often doesn't matter, regardless of how broad-based it is, if the strongman can capture these institutions.
That's why I think the Dems will need to juggle good governance and regionalism with (here TLP may disagree with me) a united support of prosecuting the unprecedented amount of corruption that has taken place since January 2025. Republicans stood by while the Trump family made 1.4 billion dollars off the presidency; that needs to be prosecuted out in the open.
If some Dems engaged in corruption, they should be swept up in it and prosecuted, too. Hang all the guilty, regardless of party. (metaphorically--not literally) The party should channel the anti-corruption ethos of the Progressive Era: let there be no sacred cows.
And for god sakes, start getting the old, decrepit leadership out of the party and hand it off to a new generation. If you want to stem the global tide of rightwing populism, you need people who understand the technologies that empower it, and how to use them. Boomers don't, and shouldn't be expected to.
Now Dems should be prosecuted? After Pelosi and her quarter billion dollars retired and Minnesota's Omar turned 30K into $30 million in a year, like it was water into wine?
Thanks for the chuckle. The entire concept of consequences often seems to elude many Dems. The world watched nearly the entire extended Biden clan enrich themselves off Joe's career. Dems ignored the corruption and muttered "Lunch Bucket Joe", as Hunter wiped the blow off his nose after patronizing hookers of questionable age, with the money he "earned" from multimillion dollar no show jobs and sketchy "foreign deals". Whose school age grandchildren have not regularly received 6 figure wires from foreign corps, without contract or invoice? Thru it all, Dems said not a word.
Now they want the Nuremberg Trials and and Watergate all rolled into one? Forgive my bluntness, but the delusions run deep. I do not care for Trump's tactics either, but the corruption ship sailed long ago, with the entire Biden family aboard, Joe at the helm, and Pelosi as First Mate. It is too late to sink it. Now we are just arguing over decimal points.
> "The DOJ is completely weaponized against Trump's political enemies now."
No, that was the DOJ under Biden. Trump as President essentially can't have classified documents because Presidents have the authority to declassify documents. But Biden as vice-president had declassified documents - and they were insecurely stored.
But the FBI sent a SWAT team to Mar-a-lago with orders to use lethal force if necessary. Then they rifled through Melania's underwear drawer as a way to assert their dominance and/or creepiness. But with Biden they said, "Don't worry, this is all a misunderstanding, we'll get it taken care of."
Even if one agrees with your characterization of that act, there is absolutely no comparison it when comes to scale. You are talking about something a whole order of magnitude different from:
>>prosecuting James Comey, Letitia James, Lisa Cook, Sidney Reid, Sean Dunn, and Jay Powell with so little evidence the DOJ can't even secure indictments, merely for displeasing the strongman--resulting in the only instances of federal prosecutors ending multiple efforts in a "no true bill" failure to indict *ever*.
>>Dropping the fraud case against Eric Adams and its ongoing criminal probe because they didn't want Adams replaced by a less Trump-friendly politician
...and that's before we get to Trump's pardons (not including them because you can argue they're not strictly DOJ) for allies that have allowed his family to profit off the presidency to the tune of 1.4 billion dollars.
Even if one concedes there were improprieties in the DOJ under Biden, there is no comparison in scale, breadth and depth of corruption. In the least charitable interpretation, you can say under Biden these improprieties were, at worst, rare and scattershot--the FBI and the DOJ for the most part remained independent, rather than just a means to attack the president's political enemies. Under Trump, the DOJ has been completely weaponized, and is really no better than the Senior legal agency of mafia states like Russia. Trump wanted a DOJ that looked akin to what they have in Russia, and he more or less got it--if there are no consequences, then that independence is gone forever. So I say the Democrats should make it a point to ensure there are consequences, if they acquire power again.
You're very good at collecting links, but let's drill into one of them and see if the leftist press' hysteria matches Biden's reality.
Renee Good's wife was impeding with Federal law enforcement. That much is not in dispute. They were blocking the street and the videos clearly show her ordering her wife to drive away rather than comply with Federal agents. So she should be investigated and she is a domestic terrorist.
By contrast, under Biden, parents speaking at a school board meeting against policies leftist policies and find that they were labeled domestic terrorists. Same thing with peaceful pro-life protestors.
>>"So she should be investigated and she is a domestic terrorist."<<
Firstly, declaring her a domestic terrorist *before you've even looked into the incident via an investigation* is itself an aspect of this weaponization process. Renee Good herself was declared a terrorist by the DOJ (and the vice president) *less than 24 hours after the incident*. The administration and the DOJ *couldn't have possibly known that before doing an investigation.* So the root incident is itself is an example of the weaponization I'm talking about.
Second, you're eliding the actual nature of the problem, which has nothing to do with your interpretation of the video you're citing: the problem was that the DOJ asked its lawyers to *drop* an actual investigation into the Good incident and *start* an investigation into her wife. A proper, non-weaponized DOJ would have tried to carry out an impartial investigation into the initial incident, and then if the results of that investigation warranted it, another into any related parties, (like Good's wife) and *then* made the determination as to whether wrongdoing occurred. Instead they just declared Good a terrorist, stopped the investigation of the incident, and went after her wife.
>>"By contrast, under Biden, parents speaking at a school board meeting against policies leftist policies and find that they were labeled domestic terrorists. Same thing with peaceful pro-life protestors."<<
You are conflating a third party letter *sent* to Biden by the National School Boards Association (which claimed violence against teachers could constitute 'domestic terrorism') with the Biden administration's official government position. I don't see how that helps your case at all.
Polymarket currently gives a better chance for an Rs maintaining control of the senate than any other scenario. Other than dislike of Trump we don't seem to be offering up any sort of big ideas to allow us to sweep the election.
Everyone has a responsibility to do something to better our future. May I guide you to “a third way” path? Please, join me at EthicalGovtNow.org. Only $12 annually - just CLICK into EthicalGovtNow.org. Dems may win the midterms, but our Republic is in a much more complicated place than most of us think. We need a longer view of solutions to our inherited societal and political complexities and need to look for them with priorities, while supporting all liberal Democrats now. One more time: please CLICK to visit and delve into: EthicalGovtNow.org or, what we are experiencing now our grandchildren are very likely to inherit.
Why is a Substack called The Liberal Patriot devoted almost exclusively to how Democrats can cobble together enough votes to avoid examining their ideas and policies?
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you are new here because that is a very uncharitable read of our project. We have written plenty about the need for the party to revisit several of their positions that are out of step with the broader public. We are also going to write about other stuff sometimes.
Yes, I am fairly new here. Uncharitable? Maybe.
I subscribed because I believe we need a viable liberal party. A party that is willing to look at where things went wrong. I’ve seen as many or more articles along the lines of what I described: centered on the theme of getting votes. Vulnerable seats, numbers, polls, etc. DNC research.
But thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt.
I’m a conservative so not their core constituency, but I thought it was a fair criticism. I think they need to write more about empowering moderates to regain control of their institutions, and less about how to Spanberg the nation.
All Rs should run ads labeling their opponents as "Spanbergers" - a democrat who runs as a moderate and goes hard left after winning. (And I literally laughed out loud that Iowa is included as a possible Dem pickup. Come on.)
It seems a little incomplete to fail to mention Sherrod Brown is 75 years old and historically a huge supporter of unions and US labor. Yet, Brown recently went to bat to keep Ohio Haitian factory workers in the US. They work for $15 bucks an hour, because most have enjoyed housing vouchers and a plethora of other subsidies, not available to the locals.
Business owners embrace cheap migrant labor. Less so, the Buckeyes who must compete with them for jobs and wages. Ohio migrant caused fatal car accidents have surged the past few years. The 4 IN Amish men recently killed by a migrant semi driver, perished 30 miles from the Ohio state line. The notion the wreck was not news in Ohio, seems unlikely.
In Texas, Beto had a King's war chest, the cover of Vanity Fair, a Kennedy comparison, a genuine love of Whataburger and fluent Spanish. He still did not win. Perhaps I underestimate the extent of Trump loathing, but Talarico is AOC in a Minister's collar. He seems to believe Socialism will be more palatable to Texans, covered in Bible passages, like the scripture is BBQ sauce. Crockett defies description. She is literally to the Left of AOC. Paxton is the Rep wildcard,, but still hard to imagine either James or Jasmine winning.
Also the Open Border is a different animal in Texas. We were under siege for years. When Abbott bused the tiniest fraction of migrants to Blue cities, the Biden WH toyed with implementing a "remain in Texas" policy. The Dem gem intended to place ankle monitors on millions of migrants and legally require them to remain in Texas for the years it took to adjudicate their asylum claims. It seems unlikely Reps will not remind Texas voters of the bullet they just barely dodged, at Dem hands.
Finally, Youth is great for energy. It is not great for avoiding foot in mouth syndrome like "mediocre Black Man" and "Governor Hot Wheels". Whoever wins the Dem Primary, must navigate the next 8 months without a self inflicted vocal shot. That may be easier said than done.
“…Maine, which Kamala Harris won by 6.9 points. Incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins has been a strong candidate for years, though it’s very possible her luck will run out this year…”
It seems a little incomplete to fail to mention that Senator Collins is chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee, “voted with the Democrats 35% of the time”*, and is know for her ethics and common sense.
* politicsthatwork.com/voting-record/Susan-Collins-300025
To say Senator Collins is a strong candidate is true. Six years ago she ran against the former Speaker of the Maine House of Representative, Sara Gideon. “The race was one of the most expensive in Maine’s history, with Gideon outspending Collins by more than twice the amount…”. Collins won 51% to 42.2%.
This time around, two Democrats are battling to run against Senator Collins, the 78 year old, unpopular Governor, who has yet to take a position on the hundreds of illegal marijuana grow houses in Maine or the Medicaid fraud a whistleblower have brought to light. The other candidate is a young man, attended an elite New England prep school, fighting the ‘oligarchy’, endorsed by Bernie Sanders, is an 100% disabled veteran, and has not held elected office.
We will see if Senator Collin’s luck holds out again this year.
My prediction---remember in 2024 I actually had the Rs SHORT by one---is that Rs gain net one with the addition of NH. Sununu was probably the only R who could, and likely will, win.
I think Texas is kind of a bellwether--not necessarily just for the senate, but for whether the Democrats are beginning to make the right decisions. A Talarico victory would tell us they are.
I disagree a bit with Mr. Vasallos's thesis in his article yesterday, though I thought it was nonetheless a good one. I think a party that can run Mamdanis in New York, Talaricos in Texas, and Peltolas in Alaska has an advantage over a party that is (at present) essentially an undifferentiated mass of Trump substitutes. I think the route back to power might lay in that direction--becoming a looser, more regionalist party. That will help in recapturing the Senate for one cycle, and perhaps becoming more competitive in it for longer. (multiple cycles would be a tough get, but working toward it will benefit the party)
The authoritarian takeover might already be over, of course. The battlefield is not even. The DOJ is completely weaponized against Trump's political enemies now. ICE is as well, to a large degree, and there may be no easy way to de-militarize it. Press outlets and law firms have been subdued with the new innovation of the 'presidential lawsuit'. Executive Orders and unelected billionaires have let the strongman find a way to govern without Congress. There's been some pushback in the courts, but they can't keep up. Erdogan and Orban have shown us how the strength of the opposition often doesn't matter, regardless of how broad-based it is, if the strongman can capture these institutions.
That's why I think the Dems will need to juggle good governance and regionalism with (here TLP may disagree with me) a united support of prosecuting the unprecedented amount of corruption that has taken place since January 2025. Republicans stood by while the Trump family made 1.4 billion dollars off the presidency; that needs to be prosecuted out in the open.
If some Dems engaged in corruption, they should be swept up in it and prosecuted, too. Hang all the guilty, regardless of party. (metaphorically--not literally) The party should channel the anti-corruption ethos of the Progressive Era: let there be no sacred cows.
And for god sakes, start getting the old, decrepit leadership out of the party and hand it off to a new generation. If you want to stem the global tide of rightwing populism, you need people who understand the technologies that empower it, and how to use them. Boomers don't, and shouldn't be expected to.
Now Dems should be prosecuted? After Pelosi and her quarter billion dollars retired and Minnesota's Omar turned 30K into $30 million in a year, like it was water into wine?
Thanks for the chuckle. The entire concept of consequences often seems to elude many Dems. The world watched nearly the entire extended Biden clan enrich themselves off Joe's career. Dems ignored the corruption and muttered "Lunch Bucket Joe", as Hunter wiped the blow off his nose after patronizing hookers of questionable age, with the money he "earned" from multimillion dollar no show jobs and sketchy "foreign deals". Whose school age grandchildren have not regularly received 6 figure wires from foreign corps, without contract or invoice? Thru it all, Dems said not a word.
Now they want the Nuremberg Trials and and Watergate all rolled into one? Forgive my bluntness, but the delusions run deep. I do not care for Trump's tactics either, but the corruption ship sailed long ago, with the entire Biden family aboard, Joe at the helm, and Pelosi as First Mate. It is too late to sink it. Now we are just arguing over decimal points.
> "The DOJ is completely weaponized against Trump's political enemies now."
No, that was the DOJ under Biden. Trump as President essentially can't have classified documents because Presidents have the authority to declassify documents. But Biden as vice-president had declassified documents - and they were insecurely stored.
But the FBI sent a SWAT team to Mar-a-lago with orders to use lethal force if necessary. Then they rifled through Melania's underwear drawer as a way to assert their dominance and/or creepiness. But with Biden they said, "Don't worry, this is all a misunderstanding, we'll get it taken care of."
“You show me the man, I’ll show you the crime.”
Even if one agrees with your characterization of that act, there is absolutely no comparison it when comes to scale. You are talking about something a whole order of magnitude different from:
>>prosecuting James Comey, Letitia James, Lisa Cook, Sidney Reid, Sean Dunn, and Jay Powell with so little evidence the DOJ can't even secure indictments, merely for displeasing the strongman--resulting in the only instances of federal prosecutors ending multiple efforts in a "no true bill" failure to indict *ever*.
>...and then, when they couldn't indict guys like Dunn, proceeding to prosecute the charges as misdemeanors that don't require indictments, only to have the juries *acquit them in every single instance*: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/06/us/politics/trump-sandwich-guy-verdict.html
>>stopping an investigation into the death of Renee Good to preserve Trump's PR angle on it: https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/us/renee-good-investigation-minnesota-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
>>pushing to investigate Renee Good's wife to do the same (an act of corruption so terrible that it led to mass resignations): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/07/us/renee-good-investigation-minnesota-trump.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
>>Mass firing prosecutors based solely on the fact that they prosecuted cases related to the January 6 riot-cum-insurrection: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/01/31/doj-purges-prosecutors-january-6-cases-00201904
>>Asking the Director of the FBI to turn over the names of all agents involved in the January 6 cases, and firing him for not doing so: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5441161-fbi-fires-acting-director-driscoll/
>>Dropping the fraud case against Eric Adams and its ongoing criminal probe because they didn't want Adams replaced by a less Trump-friendly politician
>>Weaponizing the agency so overtly that it leads to an unprecedented resignation or firing of 60 DOJ attorneys for that specific reason: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/11/16/magazine/trump-justice-department-staff-attorneys.html
>>Placing rivals in Congress under investigation merely for making controversial statements criticizing Trump, and attempting to financially punish them: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/doj-asks-judge-move-ahead-inquiry-sen-mark/story?id=129474249
>>Authorizing the raiding of the homes of critical reporters: https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/us-doj-lawyer-hit-with-bar-complaint-over-search-reporters-home-2026-02-09/
...and that's before we get to Trump's pardons (not including them because you can argue they're not strictly DOJ) for allies that have allowed his family to profit off the presidency to the tune of 1.4 billion dollars.
Even if one concedes there were improprieties in the DOJ under Biden, there is no comparison in scale, breadth and depth of corruption. In the least charitable interpretation, you can say under Biden these improprieties were, at worst, rare and scattershot--the FBI and the DOJ for the most part remained independent, rather than just a means to attack the president's political enemies. Under Trump, the DOJ has been completely weaponized, and is really no better than the Senior legal agency of mafia states like Russia. Trump wanted a DOJ that looked akin to what they have in Russia, and he more or less got it--if there are no consequences, then that independence is gone forever. So I say the Democrats should make it a point to ensure there are consequences, if they acquire power again.
You're very good at collecting links, but let's drill into one of them and see if the leftist press' hysteria matches Biden's reality.
Renee Good's wife was impeding with Federal law enforcement. That much is not in dispute. They were blocking the street and the videos clearly show her ordering her wife to drive away rather than comply with Federal agents. So she should be investigated and she is a domestic terrorist.
By contrast, under Biden, parents speaking at a school board meeting against policies leftist policies and find that they were labeled domestic terrorists. Same thing with peaceful pro-life protestors.
>>"So she should be investigated and she is a domestic terrorist."<<
Firstly, declaring her a domestic terrorist *before you've even looked into the incident via an investigation* is itself an aspect of this weaponization process. Renee Good herself was declared a terrorist by the DOJ (and the vice president) *less than 24 hours after the incident*. The administration and the DOJ *couldn't have possibly known that before doing an investigation.* So the root incident is itself is an example of the weaponization I'm talking about.
Second, you're eliding the actual nature of the problem, which has nothing to do with your interpretation of the video you're citing: the problem was that the DOJ asked its lawyers to *drop* an actual investigation into the Good incident and *start* an investigation into her wife. A proper, non-weaponized DOJ would have tried to carry out an impartial investigation into the initial incident, and then if the results of that investigation warranted it, another into any related parties, (like Good's wife) and *then* made the determination as to whether wrongdoing occurred. Instead they just declared Good a terrorist, stopped the investigation of the incident, and went after her wife.
>>"By contrast, under Biden, parents speaking at a school board meeting against policies leftist policies and find that they were labeled domestic terrorists. Same thing with peaceful pro-life protestors."<<
This is false. The DOJ never officially labeled concerned parents at school board meetings as domestic terrorists, and Merrick Garland himself explicitly said that peaceful speech at school meetings is protected by the First Amendment and not terrorism, and that FBI agents would *not* be going after parents at school board meetings. (https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/2021/10/21/garland-to-congress-fbi-agents-will-not-be-attending-school-board-meetings-1391982)
You are conflating a third party letter *sent* to Biden by the National School Boards Association (which claimed violence against teachers could constitute 'domestic terrorism') with the Biden administration's official government position. I don't see how that helps your case at all.
Polymarket currently gives a better chance for an Rs maintaining control of the senate than any other scenario. Other than dislike of Trump we don't seem to be offering up any sort of big ideas to allow us to sweep the election.
https://polymarket.com/event/balance-of-power-2026-midterms
Everyone has a responsibility to do something to better our future. May I guide you to “a third way” path? Please, join me at EthicalGovtNow.org. Only $12 annually - just CLICK into EthicalGovtNow.org. Dems may win the midterms, but our Republic is in a much more complicated place than most of us think. We need a longer view of solutions to our inherited societal and political complexities and need to look for them with priorities, while supporting all liberal Democrats now. One more time: please CLICK to visit and delve into: EthicalGovtNow.org or, what we are experiencing now our grandchildren are very likely to inherit.