Ruy, you march along soundly then have to interject something like "No matter how badly Trump screws up," which kind of summarizes the problem. If you get away from hoax polling, Trump has NOT "screwed up" and is NOT "screwing up." Democrats must first and foremost understand this.
I can't say how strongly this siren song of "polling" is misleading people on both sides. If you instead look at things such as voter registration data, you'll see peoples' ACTIONS are much different than their purported WORDS TO POLLSTERS. Only until people on both sides understand Trump is a million miles from "screwing up" will anyone be able to develop strategies to, well, do whatever the hell they want.
So, again, just yesterday, we had new #s from NJ, where Rs gained another NET 4,000 or NH, an already red state where Rs gained another 49,000 SINCE NOVEMBER. In PPA, the tide keeps turning still. Now Ds have a net lead of 59,000 and are on track for PA to be a red state sometime next year. Again, these three are tiny samples of ALL 29 state movements.
A better question to ask would be, "What if Trump sees phenomenal success? What if the tariffs, as they have so far, produce $200 BILLION in new revenues, if more DOGE cuts result in say another 200,000 fed workers off the roles and fed budgets shrink, if we have three more years of peace, if the number of illegals goes down by 1 million?" These are all very, very likely outcomes. If I were a Democrat, I'd be planning strategy based on this scenario, not "when Trump screws up."
Oh, and as I keep warning, the TX/OH reality of redistricting (but Kollyfornia probably won't---way too difficult) is now likely to be joined by MO, FL, IN, and even NE, which will shift another 10 House seats to Rs so that the 2026 House elections are a lock for Rs before they start. Yes, you heard that here first.
Interesting that many in today's dwindling if radicalized ranks of a tattered Democratic Party believe that actions should bear no consequence, for them at least. Wasn't it The Great One, former President Obama, who proclaimed that "elections have consequences"?
Nebraska is not redistricting. We've tried unsuccessfully to adopt winner take all (electoral votes) like the other 48 states, but I think most people are against disenfranchising Democrat voters altogether. This year Dems aren't even running a candidate for senate, they have endorsed the so-called Independent Dan Osborne.
Indiana years ago under GOP leadership addressed the political one-upmanship and mischief too often accompanying redistricting by legislating that redrawn lines respect existing local county, municipal and township drawn lines where possible, setting up grounds for legal challenge where these entities get sliced and diced by either parry for political gain while voters get abused and disenfranchised.
Maybe when we elect officeholders on the basis of genuine bipartisan statesmanship and service above narrower political gain we will get better officeholders.
The Blue Dot representative (Republican Don Bacon) is a member of The Problem Solvers caucus. He can't even hold a town meeting in Omaha because of the childish screaming and booing and generally repulsive behavior of the Dems. He is retiring and I don't blame him.
I don't blame him either, though the calculated risk of losing some of the best and brightest is viewed by the rabid Democratic Left as another victory, and therein rests one of the many seemingly unresolved schisms in our political system.
For my own part, I am delighted to be retired from what has become the rough and tumble and disrepute of so much that passes for journalism.
Now who's nitpicking? Look, no matter how much you like any politician, that politician will screw up. All of them do. We are human beings, not machines. On our best day, we are lucky to get it three-quarters right. I suggest dismounting that high horse and walking on two legs along with us mere commoners. And your codes ("Kollyfornia") aren't as cute as you think. Quite the opposite: To a genuinely independent reader they tend to mark you as something of a grim zealot, much like those you purportedly oppose.
I’ll only add that, as a native Californian, the state is in utter chaos under Newsom. Though I never heard of “Kollyfornia,” mocking the state is hardly out of bounds.
"Trump has NOT "screwed up" and is NOT "screwing up." Democrats must first and foremost understand this."
Nah. We're in "firing people for reporting unfavorable jobs numbers" territory. That's never a sign things are going well.
There's no guarantee the Dems capitalize effectively, but Trump's overinflation of expectations during his reelection campaign is clearly kneecapping him now. Prices are still rising, we're still sending weapons to Ukraine, manufacturing employment has shrunk, deficits are no more under control than under Biden, and both job growth and overall economic growth have been anemic--Trump promised swing voters that he'd solve all these problems, Superman-style, on "day one." And it's well past day one.
The Dems would be stupid not to work on their own positive messaging, certainly, but they'd be extra stupid not to squeeze as much advantage out of Trump's self-sabotage as possible, too.
To some people, Trump is "firing people for reporting unfavorable jobs numbers" to others Trump is firing someone who apparently can't find her butt without both hands. Defending massive cock-ups and insisting on guaranteed life-time employment for any government worker, no matter how incompetent, is how Democrats roll.
My sense of social disorder is the result of open borders, the decriminalization of crime, tolerance and promotion of homelessness, racist DEI policies, mutilation of sexually confused adolescents, and the replacement of education by indoctrination, to name a few. Each one of these conditions can be directly traced to the policies and governance of radical interlopers who have co-opted the Democratic brand. They are governing so as to deconstruct and then rebuild our nation. How can I vote for a party openly hostile to my country and my family's well being?
" we live in a country where 78 percent of voters think change is more important than preserving America’s institutions"
Depends on how you define preserving America's institutions. If Humpty Dumpty has been falling for the last decades that that the Dems have been in charge, there were no American institutions as we have see for hundreds of years. Preserve is the wrong word. More like restore. It always has been about the systems. Individuals and their actions were not an indicator of anything or trend. It is how the systems dealt with them. and the systems are being dismantled mainly by the Dems. What is ironic for those who understand, the most existential threat to this country is the left. The ones who scream hysterically the most about it. I believe they are sincere. They just have their own definition of democracy. Just like the definition of the concepts of woman, gender, justice and so many others. And once you have the perceived power to define the world as you see fit, it would the only response is to destroy such a threat. Even the level Dems like LP can not save the party. As your radical side believes, resist, even violent resistance is needed.
Yesterday the DNC chair stated the Texas Dems who ran were preserving democracy. Really? Pritkzer defending them was a clown show. Even if you had a Trump heading the right direction, it will take a long time to prove the Dem party can be trusted. And every time the Dems get in charge will only prove what a catastrophic vote that is.
I really hope Mamdami wins. Better to sacrifice another liberal strong hold as a failure to save the country.
I hear you about Mamdani, but I don't think it's a good idea to hope that the opposition goes nuts. You never know what might happen.
Weirdly enough, I really think this is what happened to the Democrats in '16 in its own way. I think their worthies looked at the Republican field in '15 and decided to have their media types talk up Trump because, in their eyes, he was a total clown and easy to beat. I think they regarded Trump as a gift. Remember how Scarborough and Mika had him on Morning Joe all the time in the spring of '16, building him up like crazy? I do, because back then, Morning Joe was my insomnia show, and one that I respected.
I will never prove it, but I think that was part of a plan. Almost worked, too. Hillary won the popular vote by 2.1% that year, but ran it up in CA, NY, and IL, and overlooked what was happening in PA, MI, and WI. Her aides didn't, but she was arrogant. She thought she had it sewn up, and went to AZ in the end, thinking she'd twist the knife.
Oops. So they got the whackjob. My point: Beware the whackjob you think will be easy to beat, or who you think will crash and burn if he does get in. Really, you never know.
Yes, but you must remember this: Not only do people beat the odds and win the Powerball jackpot, but in politics there is a great deal of uncertainty. Shit happens, and happens pretty often.
I keep re-learning the reality that sarcasm is lost on the internet, but I cannot bring myself to use that /s device. My point was that long shots do happen, and more often in politics.
As a lifelong Independent, I continue to see both major parties as oriented primarily for their own welfare rather than the interests of the American electorate. Hispanics, African Americans and the young increasingly sense the hubris and condescension in the current Democratic Party leadership. With Ruy’s incisive observations, it’s amazing he’s still a Democrat. I suspect he remembers with fondness a party that no longer exists. I can’t help wondering, if Ruy came down from Mars today, knowing what he knows, how would he register?
Ha! I'm not so sure. Millions of ineligible voters have been removed from voter rolls in many states. I'm sure some of them voted. So Ruy wouldn't be breaking new ground.
AI is going to do to the PMC what automation and cheap overseas labor did to blue collar workers. The bottom two rungs on the professional ladder have just been removed and there is no putting that genie back in the bottle.
IMO this is going to rip up the social order more than anything and I don't think anyone in DC is focused on it. At a minimum, the Democrats need to pay attention, because it will be largely their voters who are impacted.
There are going to be a lot of lawyers with hundreds of thousands of student loan debt that cannot get an associate position anywhere. Same with accountants, finance, IT, programmers, the list goes on and on.
Not to mention older knowledge workers who are too young to retire but cannot get employed.
Maybe so, but maybe not. Will A.I. really be Amazon and Microsoft rolled into one, or will it be the Segway, hyped to the sky only to vanish? Or maybe voicemail and automated answering devices, press 1 or 2 or 3 ...
FWIW, I could see copyright infringement being the Lilliputians which tie down Gulliver. AI gets away with stealing other people's content, and that probably isn't a sustainable model.
Thus far, I haven't seen A.I. invent anything original. If it scares the hell out of every Ph.D. candidate banking on getting a doctorate for restating what came before, is that such a tragedy?
Sadly, those still willing to publicly admit to being Democrats seem to take a rather demented pride in the status, apparently equating being part of minority party status to a kind of exclusivity, a martyrdom if you will, an elitism uncontaminated by what they dismiss as the "unwashed masses."
This is the very foundation, if early stages, of an authoritarianism destined to meet with growing rejection and an irreversible slide in the polls.
In The Liberal Patriot, and notably its contributors like Ruy Teixeira, the Democratic Party has been handed a light in the darkness, an invitation and opportunity to comprehend the true history and clear virtues of liberalism -- properly understood rather than politically defined and maligned -- and its vital role in advancing freedom, individual worth, and self government.
So where are the leaders within the party who will dare turn on that light and let it shine?
In other words, where is the voice of reason? Sadly, there is no market for reasonable views at this time. Go to the David Brooks article Ruy links above and read the comments. They uniformly call him an idiot. That's the Democratic rank and file talking. I'm not sure who occupies the space corresponding to Brooks and Ruy on the right, but I have read some rational-right articles that were attacked in the same way. What's the answer? I wish I knew.
It is quite simple : The "Social Order" that the Democrat Party is and has been totally based on Identity Politics and DEI ! This ''Social Order " is based on a principle something like this : Success of a certain segment of society is based on holding back other segments of society and this is done through the flawed theory of Intersectionality of the so called "opressed" ! The American people are in the midst of rejecting this and this rejection will continue ! Trump is simply the only thing the democrats can villify no matter what he does and Americans are rejecting this approach also ! The mid terms will increase the republican majorities ( albeit by a small amount ) in both the house and senate and I predict a huge republican presidential victory in 2028 -- JD or Marco -- ! Who do the democrats have : Kamala - Pritzker - Newsome - Klobachar -- all jokes -- Shapiro ? Nope - b/c the dems will never nominate him -- Booker? LMAO -- Schiff? he could be in prison by then
I should add one more thing. It's 6 mo in and even the NYSlimes is calling Trump the most influential and pathbreaking president since FDR. (I'd say, by the time he's done, Trump will make FDR look like James Buchanan). The question NONE of his enemies/opponents even ask is, "What if he is totally successful in everything he does for 3.5 more years?" What if the fed budget shrinks by 1/3, the national debt starts falling, energy production drives gas prices down to under $2 as happened in his first term, Big Tech is thrilled with him for supporting AI not just with money but with ENERGY, if over 2 million illegals are removed, and if take-home pay rises about 30%?" This is the question everyone should be considering. Meanwhile, I will address the "social order" question in my own Larry Schweikart substack later today. Enjoy!
If those things were to happen, it would indeed be stunning. I bought a Powerball ticket yesterday afternoon, and haven't checked the numbers yet. The jackpot is worth $450 million or so, and if I win I will let everyone know.
UPDATE: Just checked. Not even a single number matched. Same deal with Hit 5. Dang.
How do you build an older order when currents generations have no idea of what the old order is and when told just tell you that it is passe’? My observation of 88 years thinks that the breakdown started when women had to go to work to help sustain living standards. Women used to be the fabric that held everything together. They visited and volunteered and ‘raised’ the kids on one paycheck. A present day example of the lack of social interacting is two of our young neighbors living next door to each other each having one child. One became pregnant again and had another boy. The other neighbor asked my wife if the next door neighbor had a a baby. She had no idea, even living next door, that the neighbor was even pregnant. In older days we used to talk to our neighbors. If one was outside we would go out and interact. Don’t see that anymore. Being a woodworker my garage door is open a lot and people walk by, wave and walk on. They never come up and ask what I’m doing or talk. Guess you call that ‘nosey’ today. So how do we build an interacting social order again?
With regard to Trump’s slightly dipped poll numbers, sure his bellicose rhetoric and often ham-fisted implementation is turning some voters off, this doesn’t mean they don’t continue to see him as the lesser evil when compared to Democrats. Additionally, restricting illegal immigration, tariffs, and onshoring manufacturing were once core planks in the Democratic Party’s platform. Nothing shows how much they have abandoned blue collar American workers quite as starkly as their full throated opposition to Trump on these issues.
Dems are still in there, just fumbling a little bit of late. The longer they stumble about looking for some sort of solid ground to stand on the more likely they are to ditch the crazy and objectionable. Trump who is a very imperfect candidate managed to do it for the Republicans, and he still catches tons of grief from the Cato and Chamber of Commerce types. Democrats have less distance to go maybe, being as we are supposed to be the party of the little guy. Best not wait too long though, easier to retain voters than to win them back.
I saw an interview with the Teamsters President yesterday. He was saying it used to be people joined the union, had a steady job with decent pay and benefits, and after so many years retirement with a pension and health care. People say factory work sucks. Well maybe it does, but there's something to be said for supporting your family with a dependable job. Hard to uphold social order when you've lost your job and might lose your house and dignity.
I might comment that in the period the Teamsters' president was talking about, the Teamsters Union was run by thugs, backed up by the mob. Truckers got unjustifiably high pay, but they had to pay unjustifiably high union dues, and God help you if you tried to welsh on them.
Spot on Ruy. May I propose the disorder didn't begin with Trump, but Biden? Those of us old enough to have kept dinosaurs as childhood pets, know Presidents come and Presidents go, generally. Then came Biden, and disorder unseen since the Carter administration. Love him or loathe him, Trump didn't start the country labeling 1/2 of all Americans ill educated, racist rubes, who should not be trusted with their own health, let alone any say in government. That began with Biden, and the Dems before him.
When discussions begin with the word "uneducated", the moment is over before it begins. Ditto for racists, homophobe, misogynists.. . . and very other insult that perpetually pours out of the Left , with never an apology. No Left leader ever mentions they are rather fond of eating on occasion, refueling their cars or the lights illuminating their homes in the evening, so Dems might want to, at least, feign a modicum of respect, for the people that render those things possible. Ditto for the person who fixes the AC when it's 100 degrees outside, the heater when it is freezing, picks up the trash every week or any of the other services or produced goods, necessary for daily life. Instead 1/2 of America was commanded to bow down to Gender Studies majors with a C average and $300K in student debt, because state universities are beneath them.
Neither was Trump responsible for 10 million new arrivals arriving without a single extra bed to shelter them , an extra MD to address their health needs or a bilingual teacher to educate those lacking any English. No one was interested in deporting Grandfathers in the US for 30 years without criminal pasts, before Dems purposefully dissolved the Southern border for 3 years.
Did Dems expect Americans to yawn when their ERs and schools were overwhelmed , migrants committed horrendous violent crime and scarce affordable housing disappeared?
Dems lit the country on fire with their insults, a Covid debacle, historic inflation spurred by trillions wasted and mass immigration. The latter has failed so spectacularly across the globe, the prim and proper Brits now seriously worry a Civil War is unavoidable. Instead of admitting their mistakes and suggesting a reset to 2019, Dems foist blame on Trump and his supporters and promised additional states, a packed SCOTUS and future open borders when they regain power. Dems brought this upon us, and they are the only group who can right the ship. I suggest they begin with perpetual and blanket apologies.
One major destroyer of our social order was school busing. Destroyed neighborhood schools, which was a foundation of our neighborhoods when boomers were growing up. Now, with school vouchers that institution is really in ruin.
The institution of public education doesn’t need to be in ruins. It needs to produce a product worthy of the country’s needs and the massive amount of money it receives, a considerable amount of which goes to elect Democratic candidates. Charters and Choice will force the needed reforms that the unions were unwilling to implement.
Ronda: again, thanks for a nice discussion. I realized that I wanted to add something else to this discussion.
For 30 years, starting in 1977, I taught at Illinois State University. I was in the psychology department. We were also the ed psych department for the department of education.
So I taught teachers for decades.
I wouldn't want to overgeneralize, but here was my "typical" student: a first generation college student who worked in high school for college money, worked during the summers for college money, and worked during the school years for college money.
Sometimes when people have talked about Harvard or Yale being "elite," I tell them that it was I who taught at an elite school.
Those students showed up on time every class, worked HARD, I worked them HARD, and they loved it. Getting through my class with a C was a point of pride. I used to tell them that if they got a C in my class and the next fall I showed up in my children's classroom and they were the teacher that I could just go home and relax knowing they would be taught well.
Many of them went into teaching because they had been inspired by their teachers.
Maybe teachers are different now, as I'm sure all of my students are retired. But I can tell you, all of my thousands of students would not just sit on their butts and let their children pass without doing the learning that was required. They weren't raised that way, their personalities weren't that way, and they sure as HELL weren't taught that way!!!
Those data, of which we are familiar, are very distressing.
However, we don't believe that we know the cause of them. For example, our education was done as much by our parents as it was by our teachers. We were read to, we went to the library each week, my father would give me math exercises when we were together. We also learned to respect our teachers......we were never allowed, for example, to criticize a teacher. My father went to my school one day each year (during the 50s), just to emphasize to me how important it was.
Do parents still do that?
One other dimension to this problem is the EXPLOSION in the number of children who don't have fathers in the home. They don't stand a chance to be educated by their "parents" as a joint parent-teacher endeavor.
Now with devices it is much worse. Parents don't read books, children don't read books during the summers, etc.
I don't see the school voucher program as making things any better for the average student. Not opposed to it, but just see that the problems are much more cultural than they are school-related.
Ruy Teixeira’s warning about the collapse of the American social order deserves serious attention. He rightly notes that voters—especially working-class voters—see a fraying world: families disintegrating, civic ties eroded, institutions unresponsive. But where his analysis falters is in reducing this collapse to cultural detachment and elite radicalism, particularly within the Democratic Party. That’s not incorrect, but it is incomplete—and dangerously so.
In Washington State, the collapse of social order isn’t a matter of vibes or values.¹ For example, at the North Beach Clinic in Klipsan Beach, administrators are preparing for layoffs, service cuts, or closure. Why? Because of a Trump administration law signed on July 4, 2025, that slashes $900 billion from Medicaid over ten years—stripping the backbone from safety-net care in rural and working-class communities. These cuts include new work requirements, modeled on failed experiments like Arkansas’s, that will likely push millions off coverage—not because they aren’t working, but because they can’t keep up with the red tape. This isn’t moral failure. It’s administrative design. The state is replacing care with paperwork.
Meanwhile, a newly imposed rule from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bars both lawfully present and undocumented immigrants from accessing critical services like Head Start, behavioral health care, and community clinics. Clinics now face an impossible choice: either violate the new federal rules or violate their mission and statutory obligation to treat everyone who walks through the door.
In Yakima, more than 25,000 patients were seen by a community health center last year, 65–70% of them on Medicaid, another 20% uninsured. Now, staff are bracing for funding shortfalls, administrative overload, and the possibility of having to turn away patients in direct contradiction of federal health law and their own ethical standards. One clinic executive called it “a perfect storm” for the survival of community-based care.
These aren’t abstractions. Clinics that once served over 1.9 million Medicaid recipients in Washington, many of them children, are now forced to ration care. Staff cuts are looming. In rural areas, these clinics may be the only providers left. If they close, it’s not a matter of ideological alienation. It’s a matter of having nowhere to go when your child has a fever or your spouse is suicidal.
This is what the collapse of social order actually looks like. Not just in poetry or polling, but in budget spreadsheets, ER wait times, and shuttered clinics.
Teixeira is right that Democrats need to stop posturing and start confronting the breakdown. But he errs in treating the current crisis as a failure of messaging or values alone. The crisis is being deliberately accelerated through federal policy—and not by Democrats. The July 4 law, the Medicaid cuts, the immigrant exclusions—these are Republican programs, executed with full awareness of their likely effects.
That doesn’t let Democrats off the hook. In fact, it makes their passivity more damning. If they continue to fight only on symbolic terrain—moderating their language here, avoiding “woke” labels there—they will continue to look irrelevant to voters who are watching their world deteriorate. If Democrats want to be the party of the working class again, they must show up not just in language, but in law—defending institutions like the North Beach Clinic with the same ferocity that their opponents use to dismantle them.
What Teixeira sees as cultural abandonment is also a logistical abandonment. And it’s not norm-shattering radicalism that’s driving the collapse. It’s Republican bureaucratic cruelty, budgetary triage, and a cynical redirection of public rage toward the poor and the immigrant.
If Democrats can’t name that—and fight it—then they’re not just “not on the field.” They’re letting the field be burned.
There are reasons to oppose the changes to Medicaid. It's a worthy debate. That said, I suggest re-reading the posting, and then (as I did) finding and reading David Brooks's NYT piece that forms the backbone of Mr. Teixeira's message. The social erosion that he discusses LONG predates the so-called "big beautiful bill."
To reduce this to the funding of a clinic in Yakima is deeply unserious, to put it ever so mildly. Have you been in Yakima lately? I have. I don't shock easily, but I was shocked by the sign at a gas station asking the drug addicts not to throw their needles in the regular trash bins. Yakima has a very nasty problem with the Mexican drug gangs having merged with elements of the Yakima (Indian) Nation, and spreading that plague down to the tribes along the Columbia River.
So rail about the new budget, but don't sit there and blame it for what Messrs. Teixeira and Brooks have talked about. It's a deflection, and a disingenuous one at that. Someone should say so, and I just did. Come on, make sense.
Perhaps clinics are overwhelmed because Dems enticed 10-12 million people across the border, in 3 years, without a single extra MD or nurse.
It would be wonderful if Americans could afford to provide healthcare to every person on the planet. We cannot . Resources are finite , and it is not defensible to expect US taxpayers to underwrite the healthcare, housing and education of anyone who believes they would prefer to live in the US, rather than the country of their birth.
The stats above left out the most important one. 54% of all naturalized citizens, and immigrants dwelling legally and illegally in the US, utilize welfare programs. That is not sustainable. We have to stop pretending, it is an expense we can afford.
I focus on Yakima because we live about 100 miles away by road, and maybe half that far as the eagle flies, so I am somewhat familiar with the place. Yakima has barely half WA State's household income, and almost double the poverty rate. It has a serious narcotics problem, much the result of Mexican gangs and some from rogue elements among the Indians of the Yakima Nation.
The reason for so many Mexicans is that they pick the fruit, and Yakima is the center of the state's orchard area. That population has more than doubled in 20 years. It's impossible to know how many are legal born-American or naturalized citizens, here on agricultural visas, or illegals. The clinic mentioned in Ollie Parks's cut-and-paste job surely serves a whole lot of Mexicans, and they'd have a better idea.
As of yet, no one can say what the budget will do to Yakima's clinic. There have been community meetings about it, and nothing is nearly as clear as Ollie's fearmongering that has NOTHING to do with what Ruy Teixeira posted here. Ollie, if Democrats like you hope to persuade anyone of anything, you will have to start by being truthful and accurate rather than just making shit up and engaging in deflection. Just saying.
Indeed. Remember that the polling data is also a slam on Republicans, especially the Establishment variety. Republicans are ahead to marginalize them hence electoral success. Among Democrats, the radicals are the Establishment so a non-Establisment and non-radical vision is needed. Try populist fusion
Ruy, you march along soundly then have to interject something like "No matter how badly Trump screws up," which kind of summarizes the problem. If you get away from hoax polling, Trump has NOT "screwed up" and is NOT "screwing up." Democrats must first and foremost understand this.
I can't say how strongly this siren song of "polling" is misleading people on both sides. If you instead look at things such as voter registration data, you'll see peoples' ACTIONS are much different than their purported WORDS TO POLLSTERS. Only until people on both sides understand Trump is a million miles from "screwing up" will anyone be able to develop strategies to, well, do whatever the hell they want.
So, again, just yesterday, we had new #s from NJ, where Rs gained another NET 4,000 or NH, an already red state where Rs gained another 49,000 SINCE NOVEMBER. In PPA, the tide keeps turning still. Now Ds have a net lead of 59,000 and are on track for PA to be a red state sometime next year. Again, these three are tiny samples of ALL 29 state movements.
A better question to ask would be, "What if Trump sees phenomenal success? What if the tariffs, as they have so far, produce $200 BILLION in new revenues, if more DOGE cuts result in say another 200,000 fed workers off the roles and fed budgets shrink, if we have three more years of peace, if the number of illegals goes down by 1 million?" These are all very, very likely outcomes. If I were a Democrat, I'd be planning strategy based on this scenario, not "when Trump screws up."
Oh, and as I keep warning, the TX/OH reality of redistricting (but Kollyfornia probably won't---way too difficult) is now likely to be joined by MO, FL, IN, and even NE, which will shift another 10 House seats to Rs so that the 2026 House elections are a lock for Rs before they start. Yes, you heard that here first.
Interesting that many in today's dwindling if radicalized ranks of a tattered Democratic Party believe that actions should bear no consequence, for them at least. Wasn't it The Great One, former President Obama, who proclaimed that "elections have consequences"?
Nebraska is not redistricting. We've tried unsuccessfully to adopt winner take all (electoral votes) like the other 48 states, but I think most people are against disenfranchising Democrat voters altogether. This year Dems aren't even running a candidate for senate, they have endorsed the so-called Independent Dan Osborne.
Indiana years ago under GOP leadership addressed the political one-upmanship and mischief too often accompanying redistricting by legislating that redrawn lines respect existing local county, municipal and township drawn lines where possible, setting up grounds for legal challenge where these entities get sliced and diced by either parry for political gain while voters get abused and disenfranchised.
Maybe when we elect officeholders on the basis of genuine bipartisan statesmanship and service above narrower political gain we will get better officeholders.
The Blue Dot representative (Republican Don Bacon) is a member of The Problem Solvers caucus. He can't even hold a town meeting in Omaha because of the childish screaming and booing and generally repulsive behavior of the Dems. He is retiring and I don't blame him.
I don't blame him either, though the calculated risk of losing some of the best and brightest is viewed by the rabid Democratic Left as another victory, and therein rests one of the many seemingly unresolved schisms in our political system.
For my own part, I am delighted to be retired from what has become the rough and tumble and disrepute of so much that passes for journalism.
Now who's nitpicking? Look, no matter how much you like any politician, that politician will screw up. All of them do. We are human beings, not machines. On our best day, we are lucky to get it three-quarters right. I suggest dismounting that high horse and walking on two legs along with us mere commoners. And your codes ("Kollyfornia") aren't as cute as you think. Quite the opposite: To a genuinely independent reader they tend to mark you as something of a grim zealot, much like those you purportedly oppose.
I’ll only add that, as a native Californian, the state is in utter chaos under Newsom. Though I never heard of “Kollyfornia,” mocking the state is hardly out of bounds.
All in context. I mock it too, but there's a level of zealotry with Larry that stands out to me.
"Trump has NOT "screwed up" and is NOT "screwing up." Democrats must first and foremost understand this."
Nah. We're in "firing people for reporting unfavorable jobs numbers" territory. That's never a sign things are going well.
There's no guarantee the Dems capitalize effectively, but Trump's overinflation of expectations during his reelection campaign is clearly kneecapping him now. Prices are still rising, we're still sending weapons to Ukraine, manufacturing employment has shrunk, deficits are no more under control than under Biden, and both job growth and overall economic growth have been anemic--Trump promised swing voters that he'd solve all these problems, Superman-style, on "day one." And it's well past day one.
The Dems would be stupid not to work on their own positive messaging, certainly, but they'd be extra stupid not to squeeze as much advantage out of Trump's self-sabotage as possible, too.
To some people, Trump is "firing people for reporting unfavorable jobs numbers" to others Trump is firing someone who apparently can't find her butt without both hands. Defending massive cock-ups and insisting on guaranteed life-time employment for any government worker, no matter how incompetent, is how Democrats roll.
My sense of social disorder is the result of open borders, the decriminalization of crime, tolerance and promotion of homelessness, racist DEI policies, mutilation of sexually confused adolescents, and the replacement of education by indoctrination, to name a few. Each one of these conditions can be directly traced to the policies and governance of radical interlopers who have co-opted the Democratic brand. They are governing so as to deconstruct and then rebuild our nation. How can I vote for a party openly hostile to my country and my family's well being?
" we live in a country where 78 percent of voters think change is more important than preserving America’s institutions"
Depends on how you define preserving America's institutions. If Humpty Dumpty has been falling for the last decades that that the Dems have been in charge, there were no American institutions as we have see for hundreds of years. Preserve is the wrong word. More like restore. It always has been about the systems. Individuals and their actions were not an indicator of anything or trend. It is how the systems dealt with them. and the systems are being dismantled mainly by the Dems. What is ironic for those who understand, the most existential threat to this country is the left. The ones who scream hysterically the most about it. I believe they are sincere. They just have their own definition of democracy. Just like the definition of the concepts of woman, gender, justice and so many others. And once you have the perceived power to define the world as you see fit, it would the only response is to destroy such a threat. Even the level Dems like LP can not save the party. As your radical side believes, resist, even violent resistance is needed.
Yesterday the DNC chair stated the Texas Dems who ran were preserving democracy. Really? Pritkzer defending them was a clown show. Even if you had a Trump heading the right direction, it will take a long time to prove the Dem party can be trusted. And every time the Dems get in charge will only prove what a catastrophic vote that is.
I really hope Mamdami wins. Better to sacrifice another liberal strong hold as a failure to save the country.
I hear you about Mamdani, but I don't think it's a good idea to hope that the opposition goes nuts. You never know what might happen.
Weirdly enough, I really think this is what happened to the Democrats in '16 in its own way. I think their worthies looked at the Republican field in '15 and decided to have their media types talk up Trump because, in their eyes, he was a total clown and easy to beat. I think they regarded Trump as a gift. Remember how Scarborough and Mika had him on Morning Joe all the time in the spring of '16, building him up like crazy? I do, because back then, Morning Joe was my insomnia show, and one that I respected.
I will never prove it, but I think that was part of a plan. Almost worked, too. Hillary won the popular vote by 2.1% that year, but ran it up in CA, NY, and IL, and overlooked what was happening in PA, MI, and WI. Her aides didn't, but she was arrogant. She thought she had it sewn up, and went to AZ in the end, thinking she'd twist the knife.
Oops. So they got the whackjob. My point: Beware the whackjob you think will be easy to beat, or who you think will crash and burn if he does get in. Really, you never know.
It’s all about probabilities. He is the most probable candidate into tank NY. Maybe he won’t. But the odds are he is the guy.
Yes, but you must remember this: Not only do people beat the odds and win the Powerball jackpot, but in politics there is a great deal of uncertainty. Shit happens, and happens pretty often.
Some one always wins the lottery. It is set up that way. Not so for governing ideology.
I keep re-learning the reality that sarcasm is lost on the internet, but I cannot bring myself to use that /s device. My point was that long shots do happen, and more often in politics.
Got it.
As a lifelong Independent, I continue to see both major parties as oriented primarily for their own welfare rather than the interests of the American electorate. Hispanics, African Americans and the young increasingly sense the hubris and condescension in the current Democratic Party leadership. With Ruy’s incisive observations, it’s amazing he’s still a Democrat. I suspect he remembers with fondness a party that no longer exists. I can’t help wondering, if Ruy came down from Mars today, knowing what he knows, how would he register?
He's trying to reform them. I'm not sure they can be reformed, but I do respect him for trying. It's what Americans do.
He is indeed. As you say, gotta give him props for trying.
Aliens can't vote. Had to stick that in.
Ha! I'm not so sure. Millions of ineligible voters have been removed from voter rolls in many states. I'm sure some of them voted. So Ruy wouldn't be breaking new ground.
AI is going to do to the PMC what automation and cheap overseas labor did to blue collar workers. The bottom two rungs on the professional ladder have just been removed and there is no putting that genie back in the bottle.
IMO this is going to rip up the social order more than anything and I don't think anyone in DC is focused on it. At a minimum, the Democrats need to pay attention, because it will be largely their voters who are impacted.
There are going to be a lot of lawyers with hundreds of thousands of student loan debt that cannot get an associate position anywhere. Same with accountants, finance, IT, programmers, the list goes on and on.
Not to mention older knowledge workers who are too young to retire but cannot get employed.
Maybe so, but maybe not. Will A.I. really be Amazon and Microsoft rolled into one, or will it be the Segway, hyped to the sky only to vanish? Or maybe voicemail and automated answering devices, press 1 or 2 or 3 ...
FWIW, I could see copyright infringement being the Lilliputians which tie down Gulliver. AI gets away with stealing other people's content, and that probably isn't a sustainable model.
That said, I am worried.
Thus far, I haven't seen A.I. invent anything original. If it scares the hell out of every Ph.D. candidate banking on getting a doctorate for restating what came before, is that such a tragedy?
AI isn't inventing anything original. It doesn't have to invent anything to wreak havoc on people's livelihoods.
I hope to hell it ends up being benign, but God knows what happens when a bunch of educated knowledge workers revolt.
I hesitate to make predictions about A.I., and only suggest some circumspection. Where is that flying car that the Jetsons promised, anyway?
Oh no doubt. But I don't think this is on the radar of the D party at all. It should be.
Sadly, those still willing to publicly admit to being Democrats seem to take a rather demented pride in the status, apparently equating being part of minority party status to a kind of exclusivity, a martyrdom if you will, an elitism uncontaminated by what they dismiss as the "unwashed masses."
This is the very foundation, if early stages, of an authoritarianism destined to meet with growing rejection and an irreversible slide in the polls.
In The Liberal Patriot, and notably its contributors like Ruy Teixeira, the Democratic Party has been handed a light in the darkness, an invitation and opportunity to comprehend the true history and clear virtues of liberalism -- properly understood rather than politically defined and maligned -- and its vital role in advancing freedom, individual worth, and self government.
So where are the leaders within the party who will dare turn on that light and let it shine?
In other words, where is the voice of reason? Sadly, there is no market for reasonable views at this time. Go to the David Brooks article Ruy links above and read the comments. They uniformly call him an idiot. That's the Democratic rank and file talking. I'm not sure who occupies the space corresponding to Brooks and Ruy on the right, but I have read some rational-right articles that were attacked in the same way. What's the answer? I wish I knew.
It is quite simple : The "Social Order" that the Democrat Party is and has been totally based on Identity Politics and DEI ! This ''Social Order " is based on a principle something like this : Success of a certain segment of society is based on holding back other segments of society and this is done through the flawed theory of Intersectionality of the so called "opressed" ! The American people are in the midst of rejecting this and this rejection will continue ! Trump is simply the only thing the democrats can villify no matter what he does and Americans are rejecting this approach also ! The mid terms will increase the republican majorities ( albeit by a small amount ) in both the house and senate and I predict a huge republican presidential victory in 2028 -- JD or Marco -- ! Who do the democrats have : Kamala - Pritzker - Newsome - Klobachar -- all jokes -- Shapiro ? Nope - b/c the dems will never nominate him -- Booker? LMAO -- Schiff? he could be in prison by then
I should add one more thing. It's 6 mo in and even the NYSlimes is calling Trump the most influential and pathbreaking president since FDR. (I'd say, by the time he's done, Trump will make FDR look like James Buchanan). The question NONE of his enemies/opponents even ask is, "What if he is totally successful in everything he does for 3.5 more years?" What if the fed budget shrinks by 1/3, the national debt starts falling, energy production drives gas prices down to under $2 as happened in his first term, Big Tech is thrilled with him for supporting AI not just with money but with ENERGY, if over 2 million illegals are removed, and if take-home pay rises about 30%?" This is the question everyone should be considering. Meanwhile, I will address the "social order" question in my own Larry Schweikart substack later today. Enjoy!
If those things were to happen, it would indeed be stunning. I bought a Powerball ticket yesterday afternoon, and haven't checked the numbers yet. The jackpot is worth $450 million or so, and if I win I will let everyone know.
UPDATE: Just checked. Not even a single number matched. Same deal with Hit 5. Dang.
It will ruin you as a person. So, we'll send you our address so you can dump some of the poison on us, and we'll be glad to help you that way.
No need to thank us.
I'm afraid no ranch and corporate jet for me. Better luck next time. LOL
FDR is the most overrated president in U.S. history.
How do you build an older order when currents generations have no idea of what the old order is and when told just tell you that it is passe’? My observation of 88 years thinks that the breakdown started when women had to go to work to help sustain living standards. Women used to be the fabric that held everything together. They visited and volunteered and ‘raised’ the kids on one paycheck. A present day example of the lack of social interacting is two of our young neighbors living next door to each other each having one child. One became pregnant again and had another boy. The other neighbor asked my wife if the next door neighbor had a a baby. She had no idea, even living next door, that the neighbor was even pregnant. In older days we used to talk to our neighbors. If one was outside we would go out and interact. Don’t see that anymore. Being a woodworker my garage door is open a lot and people walk by, wave and walk on. They never come up and ask what I’m doing or talk. Guess you call that ‘nosey’ today. So how do we build an interacting social order again?
This is simply an outgrowth of https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/the-democrats-governance-problem
With regard to Trump’s slightly dipped poll numbers, sure his bellicose rhetoric and often ham-fisted implementation is turning some voters off, this doesn’t mean they don’t continue to see him as the lesser evil when compared to Democrats. Additionally, restricting illegal immigration, tariffs, and onshoring manufacturing were once core planks in the Democratic Party’s platform. Nothing shows how much they have abandoned blue collar American workers quite as starkly as their full throated opposition to Trump on these issues.
Dems are still in there, just fumbling a little bit of late. The longer they stumble about looking for some sort of solid ground to stand on the more likely they are to ditch the crazy and objectionable. Trump who is a very imperfect candidate managed to do it for the Republicans, and he still catches tons of grief from the Cato and Chamber of Commerce types. Democrats have less distance to go maybe, being as we are supposed to be the party of the little guy. Best not wait too long though, easier to retain voters than to win them back.
I saw an interview with the Teamsters President yesterday. He was saying it used to be people joined the union, had a steady job with decent pay and benefits, and after so many years retirement with a pension and health care. People say factory work sucks. Well maybe it does, but there's something to be said for supporting your family with a dependable job. Hard to uphold social order when you've lost your job and might lose your house and dignity.
I might comment that in the period the Teamsters' president was talking about, the Teamsters Union was run by thugs, backed up by the mob. Truckers got unjustifiably high pay, but they had to pay unjustifiably high union dues, and God help you if you tried to welsh on them.
Spot on Ruy. May I propose the disorder didn't begin with Trump, but Biden? Those of us old enough to have kept dinosaurs as childhood pets, know Presidents come and Presidents go, generally. Then came Biden, and disorder unseen since the Carter administration. Love him or loathe him, Trump didn't start the country labeling 1/2 of all Americans ill educated, racist rubes, who should not be trusted with their own health, let alone any say in government. That began with Biden, and the Dems before him.
When discussions begin with the word "uneducated", the moment is over before it begins. Ditto for racists, homophobe, misogynists.. . . and very other insult that perpetually pours out of the Left , with never an apology. No Left leader ever mentions they are rather fond of eating on occasion, refueling their cars or the lights illuminating their homes in the evening, so Dems might want to, at least, feign a modicum of respect, for the people that render those things possible. Ditto for the person who fixes the AC when it's 100 degrees outside, the heater when it is freezing, picks up the trash every week or any of the other services or produced goods, necessary for daily life. Instead 1/2 of America was commanded to bow down to Gender Studies majors with a C average and $300K in student debt, because state universities are beneath them.
Neither was Trump responsible for 10 million new arrivals arriving without a single extra bed to shelter them , an extra MD to address their health needs or a bilingual teacher to educate those lacking any English. No one was interested in deporting Grandfathers in the US for 30 years without criminal pasts, before Dems purposefully dissolved the Southern border for 3 years.
Did Dems expect Americans to yawn when their ERs and schools were overwhelmed , migrants committed horrendous violent crime and scarce affordable housing disappeared?
Dems lit the country on fire with their insults, a Covid debacle, historic inflation spurred by trillions wasted and mass immigration. The latter has failed so spectacularly across the globe, the prim and proper Brits now seriously worry a Civil War is unavoidable. Instead of admitting their mistakes and suggesting a reset to 2019, Dems foist blame on Trump and his supporters and promised additional states, a packed SCOTUS and future open borders when they regain power. Dems brought this upon us, and they are the only group who can right the ship. I suggest they begin with perpetual and blanket apologies.
One major destroyer of our social order was school busing. Destroyed neighborhood schools, which was a foundation of our neighborhoods when boomers were growing up. Now, with school vouchers that institution is really in ruin.
The institution of public education doesn’t need to be in ruins. It needs to produce a product worthy of the country’s needs and the massive amount of money it receives, a considerable amount of which goes to elect Democratic candidates. Charters and Choice will force the needed reforms that the unions were unwilling to implement.
To go along with your point, the NEA recently had a huge fight over making gender identity a major focus of elementary education.
If I was a parent, I'd get my kid out of public schools.
I hope you're right. Good comment.
2/3rds of US 8th graders cannot read at grade level, 4 years after they must read to learn other subjects.
School choice is no the cause of mass education failure. It is our only hope back to mass literacy.
Ronda: again, thanks for a nice discussion. I realized that I wanted to add something else to this discussion.
For 30 years, starting in 1977, I taught at Illinois State University. I was in the psychology department. We were also the ed psych department for the department of education.
So I taught teachers for decades.
I wouldn't want to overgeneralize, but here was my "typical" student: a first generation college student who worked in high school for college money, worked during the summers for college money, and worked during the school years for college money.
Sometimes when people have talked about Harvard or Yale being "elite," I tell them that it was I who taught at an elite school.
Those students showed up on time every class, worked HARD, I worked them HARD, and they loved it. Getting through my class with a C was a point of pride. I used to tell them that if they got a C in my class and the next fall I showed up in my children's classroom and they were the teacher that I could just go home and relax knowing they would be taught well.
Many of them went into teaching because they had been inspired by their teachers.
Maybe teachers are different now, as I'm sure all of my students are retired. But I can tell you, all of my thousands of students would not just sit on their butts and let their children pass without doing the learning that was required. They weren't raised that way, their personalities weren't that way, and they sure as HELL weren't taught that way!!!
Thanks.
Those data, of which we are familiar, are very distressing.
However, we don't believe that we know the cause of them. For example, our education was done as much by our parents as it was by our teachers. We were read to, we went to the library each week, my father would give me math exercises when we were together. We also learned to respect our teachers......we were never allowed, for example, to criticize a teacher. My father went to my school one day each year (during the 50s), just to emphasize to me how important it was.
Do parents still do that?
One other dimension to this problem is the EXPLOSION in the number of children who don't have fathers in the home. They don't stand a chance to be educated by their "parents" as a joint parent-teacher endeavor.
Now with devices it is much worse. Parents don't read books, children don't read books during the summers, etc.
I don't see the school voucher program as making things any better for the average student. Not opposed to it, but just see that the problems are much more cultural than they are school-related.
Best. Thanks for the good comment.
BRAVO!!!! We must stop rearranging the deck chairs and deal with the sinking ship.
Ruy Teixeira’s warning about the collapse of the American social order deserves serious attention. He rightly notes that voters—especially working-class voters—see a fraying world: families disintegrating, civic ties eroded, institutions unresponsive. But where his analysis falters is in reducing this collapse to cultural detachment and elite radicalism, particularly within the Democratic Party. That’s not incorrect, but it is incomplete—and dangerously so.
In Washington State, the collapse of social order isn’t a matter of vibes or values.¹ For example, at the North Beach Clinic in Klipsan Beach, administrators are preparing for layoffs, service cuts, or closure. Why? Because of a Trump administration law signed on July 4, 2025, that slashes $900 billion from Medicaid over ten years—stripping the backbone from safety-net care in rural and working-class communities. These cuts include new work requirements, modeled on failed experiments like Arkansas’s, that will likely push millions off coverage—not because they aren’t working, but because they can’t keep up with the red tape. This isn’t moral failure. It’s administrative design. The state is replacing care with paperwork.
Meanwhile, a newly imposed rule from HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. bars both lawfully present and undocumented immigrants from accessing critical services like Head Start, behavioral health care, and community clinics. Clinics now face an impossible choice: either violate the new federal rules or violate their mission and statutory obligation to treat everyone who walks through the door.
In Yakima, more than 25,000 patients were seen by a community health center last year, 65–70% of them on Medicaid, another 20% uninsured. Now, staff are bracing for funding shortfalls, administrative overload, and the possibility of having to turn away patients in direct contradiction of federal health law and their own ethical standards. One clinic executive called it “a perfect storm” for the survival of community-based care.
These aren’t abstractions. Clinics that once served over 1.9 million Medicaid recipients in Washington, many of them children, are now forced to ration care. Staff cuts are looming. In rural areas, these clinics may be the only providers left. If they close, it’s not a matter of ideological alienation. It’s a matter of having nowhere to go when your child has a fever or your spouse is suicidal.
This is what the collapse of social order actually looks like. Not just in poetry or polling, but in budget spreadsheets, ER wait times, and shuttered clinics.
Teixeira is right that Democrats need to stop posturing and start confronting the breakdown. But he errs in treating the current crisis as a failure of messaging or values alone. The crisis is being deliberately accelerated through federal policy—and not by Democrats. The July 4 law, the Medicaid cuts, the immigrant exclusions—these are Republican programs, executed with full awareness of their likely effects.
That doesn’t let Democrats off the hook. In fact, it makes their passivity more damning. If they continue to fight only on symbolic terrain—moderating their language here, avoiding “woke” labels there—they will continue to look irrelevant to voters who are watching their world deteriorate. If Democrats want to be the party of the working class again, they must show up not just in language, but in law—defending institutions like the North Beach Clinic with the same ferocity that their opponents use to dismantle them.
What Teixeira sees as cultural abandonment is also a logistical abandonment. And it’s not norm-shattering radicalism that’s driving the collapse. It’s Republican bureaucratic cruelty, budgetary triage, and a cynical redirection of public rage toward the poor and the immigrant.
If Democrats can’t name that—and fight it—then they’re not just “not on the field.” They’re letting the field be burned.
¹ Jake Goldstein-Street, “Safety-net clinics face ‘perfect storm’ from U.S. changes,” Chinook Observer, August 5, 2025. Originally published by Washington State Standard. https://chinookobserver.com/2025/08/05/safety-net-clinics-face-perfect-storm-from-u-s-changes/
There are reasons to oppose the changes to Medicaid. It's a worthy debate. That said, I suggest re-reading the posting, and then (as I did) finding and reading David Brooks's NYT piece that forms the backbone of Mr. Teixeira's message. The social erosion that he discusses LONG predates the so-called "big beautiful bill."
To reduce this to the funding of a clinic in Yakima is deeply unserious, to put it ever so mildly. Have you been in Yakima lately? I have. I don't shock easily, but I was shocked by the sign at a gas station asking the drug addicts not to throw their needles in the regular trash bins. Yakima has a very nasty problem with the Mexican drug gangs having merged with elements of the Yakima (Indian) Nation, and spreading that plague down to the tribes along the Columbia River.
So rail about the new budget, but don't sit there and blame it for what Messrs. Teixeira and Brooks have talked about. It's a deflection, and a disingenuous one at that. Someone should say so, and I just did. Come on, make sense.
Perhaps clinics are overwhelmed because Dems enticed 10-12 million people across the border, in 3 years, without a single extra MD or nurse.
It would be wonderful if Americans could afford to provide healthcare to every person on the planet. We cannot . Resources are finite , and it is not defensible to expect US taxpayers to underwrite the healthcare, housing and education of anyone who believes they would prefer to live in the US, rather than the country of their birth.
The stats above left out the most important one. 54% of all naturalized citizens, and immigrants dwelling legally and illegally in the US, utilize welfare programs. That is not sustainable. We have to stop pretending, it is an expense we can afford.
I focus on Yakima because we live about 100 miles away by road, and maybe half that far as the eagle flies, so I am somewhat familiar with the place. Yakima has barely half WA State's household income, and almost double the poverty rate. It has a serious narcotics problem, much the result of Mexican gangs and some from rogue elements among the Indians of the Yakima Nation.
The reason for so many Mexicans is that they pick the fruit, and Yakima is the center of the state's orchard area. That population has more than doubled in 20 years. It's impossible to know how many are legal born-American or naturalized citizens, here on agricultural visas, or illegals. The clinic mentioned in Ollie Parks's cut-and-paste job surely serves a whole lot of Mexicans, and they'd have a better idea.
As of yet, no one can say what the budget will do to Yakima's clinic. There have been community meetings about it, and nothing is nearly as clear as Ollie's fearmongering that has NOTHING to do with what Ruy Teixeira posted here. Ollie, if Democrats like you hope to persuade anyone of anything, you will have to start by being truthful and accurate rather than just making shit up and engaging in deflection. Just saying.
Indeed. Remember that the polling data is also a slam on Republicans, especially the Establishment variety. Republicans are ahead to marginalize them hence electoral success. Among Democrats, the radicals are the Establishment so a non-Establisment and non-radical vision is needed. Try populist fusion
The Democrats seem to think that it's just another "messaging" problem. That's what their consultants tell them, and why not? Ka-ching!
"With a couple of billion and strategic ad buys in crucial districts we can turn this thing around no problem." Ka-ching!