Outsiders v. establishment

Max Burns of Daily Kos discussed what Democratic voters really want. Four Democratic candidates for a variety of offices, including Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan and Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York, got where they are “by campaigning as outsiders frustrated with Washington’s do-nothing Democratic establishment.” The Democratic establishment and the centrist group Third Way (see below) are fighting the Democratic Socialists in their own party. Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer gets an angry response when he tries to steer voters away from outsider candidates.

What Schumer, Third Way, and the Beltway barnacles that make up the aging Democratic elite fail to recognize is that this year’s election isn’t a battle between their party’s left flank and its centrists: It’s a referendum on the failed incrementalism of the Democratic establishment. ... That’s bad news for Democratic politicians who have spent decades promising voters that real change was just around the corner—and failing to deliver. The Democratic establishment “told you that every election for the last decade or two has been the most important election of your life, and then [they] get in power and aren’t willing to govern like this was the most important election of your life,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne argued on a recent episode of Lincoln Square’s “Strategy Session.” “It’s such a frustrating experience as a Democrat.” ... Cornered by their own disconnect from a base that demands Democrats actually start using their political clout, Schumer and Third Way can’t see that their desire to hold on to power actually harms their party’s ability to serve the American people. Worse still, Democratic establishment leaders seem more intent on defeating insurgent candidates like El-Sayed than in understanding and harnessing the message that made them so popular.

Robpos of the Kos community discussed Third Way. The group is preparing to use $15 million to “discredit democratic socialism.” Third Way is a dark money political organization. Its source of funding is hidden. Robpos looked over the most recent Board of Trustees. All in his list work for a big bank, such as Goldman Sachs, or for a private equity company. Robpos concluded:

These folks are not on our side. Third Way is NOT a “centrist” Democratic think tank no matter what they say, or how they are presented by the media.

Robpos noted that Third Way is trying to reduce it’s dependence on small donors (meaning more dependence on billionaires). Their goal, according to Robert Reich discussing a Third Way memo, is “to curb ‘far-left influence,’ adopt a ‘pro-capitalist’ stance, and stop ‘demonizing wealth and corporations.’” All this means Third Way is made up of people aligned with Republicans who declare they are “centrist” Democrats (and hope the media doesn’t look closely) with the goal of preserving the Democratic establishment who are already in the pocket of rich people. Put another way, the reason why Democrats have been making only incremental changes is they don’t want to annoy (with the resulting pulling of funding) their rich paymasters. This is the reason why voters see the party so unfavorably and why they are voting for candidates who are anti-establishment. Kelly Candaele, in an article for Capital & Main posted on Kos interviewed Sheri Berman, author of the book The Political Consequences of Economic Ideas: Neoliberalism, the Left, and the Challenges Facing Democracy Today. Here are some of the things they talked about. In the post-war era (aren’t we at a time when we should ask which war?) of approximately 1945 to 1975 the economic pie was growing and the slices were more evenly distributed with less privileged groups also gaining. Economists had thought we couldn't have both growing profits and growing wages and couldn't have growth without increased inequality. Both of those were shown not to be true in this era. That era ended with Margaret Thatcher in Britain and Ronald Reagan in America. They yanked their countries so far right that they were replaced by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton who were much more center-left than Democratic politicians before them. That created slow growth, rising inequality, relatively high unemployment, low productivity gains, and weaker unions. That weakened both the working class and middle class. And with the center-left turning away from strong worker support there was less reason to vote for the center-left. With the weakened situation of the working class, even the middle class, the ideas of the far-right have room to thrive. These ideas include: economics is zero-sum, therefore immigrants and minorities are why you aren’t getting ahead. Also, the system is rotten. Of course, the evidence of the post-war boom are obscured. Promoting the idea that economics is zero-sum leads to polarization and demonization.

But the polling tells us that while Trump has grown increasingly unpopular, the Democrats remain remarkably unpopular as well. If the Democrats don’t deal with their internal divisions — between radicals and moderates — and manage to unite around a platform that can prove attractive to a decent number of wavering and independent voters, they could still lose in 2028 and then face a Republican Party that will remain a radical threat to American democracy.

I donate to a lot of different organizations – LGBTQ of course, gun safety, voting rights, health research, etc. Over the years I’ve mailed off checks – and as much as possible I donate by check so credit cards don’t take a cut – and every few months a check isn’t cashed. I call the organization and they say they never received it. I don’t cancel the check because I discover the problem because the check isn’t cashed. I don’t investigate whether a cashed check was cashed by someone other than who I wrote it out to. The checks are just gone. There have been a few times when checks sent to a particular organization are more likely to be lost. When those mount up I sometimes stop donating to them. Yesterday an envelope was returned to me. I had addressed it to an organization I stopped donating to because the checks so often didn’t get cashed. It has the usual Postal Service yellow sticker saying “return to sender, not deliverable as addressed, unable to forward.” I opened the envelope. The check inside was dated four years ago.

Both arsonist and firefighter

In an article posted before my trip Daily Kos community member xaxnar discussed an article by Paul Krugman, published in his own Substack on the topic of wealth taxes. I’m working from xaxnar’s discussion, which includes quotes from the Krugman’s article, because most of Krugman’s words are behind a paywall. Krugman noted that in 1982 the Forbes 400 wealthiest Americans had a combined wealth of $92 billion. In 2025 it was $6.6 trillion, or 3.7% of national wealth and 26% of national income. The New York Times estimated that 300 billionaires made 19% of all political contributions in the 2024 election. That is a strong case for taxing the rich. One way to do that is restoring the highly progressive tax rates that Reagan dismantled. There are other forms of tax. The best one is whatever can get passed. Reagan passed his tax cuts 40 years ago. Why is is becoming an issue now? First, some people always saw it as an issue. But inequality doesn’t just happen after a tax cut. It takes a while to grow and a while for the cuts in education funding to increase the divide between the rich and the working class. So the concentration of wealth wasn’t recognized for a while. Second, tracking the wealth of the rich is hard. They aren’t paid a salary and most of the time they don’t have to report capital gains, because capital gains aren’t taxed (at least not to the level of a salary). Third, raising income taxes won’t fix the problem because so much of what they get every year isn’t classified as income. Don’t sell a wealth tax as a way to raise money for this project or that, or even to generally supplement what a government has for its budget. Sell a wealth tax because people that rich warp our society, culture, and politics. People that rich and income that unequal is a problem all by itself. xaxnar quoted Robin Givhans of the NYT discussing the show Your Friends & Neighbors about a former hedge fund manager and member of the Epstein Class.

We’re conflicted by the financial success of others. We always think we’d be better at being rich — more empathetic and philanthropic, better dressed and better behaved — than the people who actually are. You think you wouldn’t be a jerk, until you realize being the only decent soul in a room full of rich jerks makes you feel like a sucker.

Walter Einenkel of Kos posted a speech by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, discussing his plans to tax the rich. Use the reason that taxing the wealth can help the poor if you need to. Mamdani said:

We’re here today talking in some ways about art, but in other ways also about affordability and the importance of a tax on a secondary home worth more than $5 million is that it raises half a billion dollars and that is money that makes our streets safer.

Alonzo del Arte of the Kos community wrote that Mandle Cheung, CEO and chairman of ComputerTalk, merely a multi-millionaire, has a new hobby. That is to make a hefty donation to an orchestra with the provision he gets to conduct that orchestra. His usual choice of repertoire is the Second Symphony of Gustav Mahler, one of the biggest pieces for orchestra, one you don’t give to even the best freshmen in a conducting class. He also has his own orchestra, the Mandle Philharmonic in Canada. The Royal Philharmonic has scheduled a concert for later this week with Cheung directing. Del Arte has a problem with their advertising. It doesn’t say the professional orchestra and soloists will be led by an amateur conductor who paid money to do so. In the comments of the July 24 pundit roundup for Kos are some interesting cartoons and memes. In response to a NewsWire tweet that says the House rejected an amendment to cut off aid to Israel, Dr. NSPM-7 Whoa wrote:

You have no healthcare, can’t buy a house, rent is almost unaffordable, food is skyrocketing, no paid leave, no childcare. But your tax dollars will fund a foreign country with healthcare, paid leave, childcare + funding the entire lives of unemployed settlers & the orthodox.

A cartoon posted by exlrrp shows protesters holding signs:

Save U.S. Forests! Home for our Homeless Save U.S. Schools Fund our National Libraries Protect our Constitution Bring U.S. Troops Home! Healthcare for All!

A guy in a suit comments to a colleague, “It’s awful how they hate America!” A meme posted by exlrrp about something that was big in the news before my travels and appears to still be a thing.

You have died of diarrhea lettuce because some DOGE kid used AI to decide safe quality foods are woke.

A meme by skol_vikings 21 shows packets of $100 bills. “The lettuce that Trump got form Taylor Farms is different from the lettuce they gave us.” In the pundit roundup for July 29 Greg Dworkin quoted Seth Masket writing for Substack and discussing why Democratic Socialists are having a moment now. I’ll summarize: People over 45 grew up when socialism was equated with communism, which was evil. Younger people believe capitalism isn’t all that great. Young people are frustrated our political system does not allow for criticism of Israel and the US support for it. A tweet from Acyn: Senator Thune says there isn’t enough Republican votes to get rid of the filibuster: I’ve had this conversation with the president many times. The votes are not there to do it. I know he thinks he can persuade people, but this is a hard position for a lot of Senate Republicans. Sahil Kapur added:

I’m a broken record on this, but again: Senate Republicans oppose nuking the filibuster because they believe the 60-vote rule blocks many more liberal goals than conservative goals in the long haul. Liberals have come to the same conclusion hence they mostly favor nuking it.

A tweet from Lakshya Jain includes a link to an article in The Argument Mag. The tweet says:

Today, far more people seem to agree with the left-coded view of elites ("billionaires") rather than the right-coded view ("college educated liberals and academics"). That may lend some surprising potency to today's forms of Democratic populism.

Way down in the comments exlrrp posted a meme:

Republicans: “Democrats were the slave owners. Republicans never owned slaves.” Democrats: “We’re taking down the monuments.” Republicans: “Leave our heritage alone!!!”

In the comments of yesterday’s roundup exlrrp posted a meme. The upper portion shows presidents

The IRS has audited every President annually for decades to ensure there was no corruption. Only one president found that to be a problem.

In the comments of today’s roundup exlrrp posted a meme:

Donald Trump wants to create a “paid version” of his “Truth Social” app. Users will pay $100,000 per month. Paid members will get priority access to all of his posts several minutes before anyone else, enough time for paid members to make life changing stock trades... while leaving non members in the dust. This is called insider trading. And it’s illegal. Donald’s plan is for the rich to get richer and everyone else gets f---ed.

David Michigan posted a tweet by Greg Sargent listing seven narratives that are key to understanding neofascism. I’ve condensed them a bit:

1. Only white people can sustain the highest culture, Western Civilization. 2. Different cultures are zero-sum, leading to violent conflict. 3. Violent masculinity is needed to save Western Civilization. 4. Women aren’t capable for that job. They’re to breed the race, not lead it. 5. Western leadership has been feminized, corrupted, and contaminated. 6. The contamination must be purged from politics and society. 7. This will restore whiteness to its previous (mythic) glory.

Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Kos quoted late night commentary.

“The top one percent put the American Dream behind a paywall.” —Texas U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico (D) at a campaign rally “My answer to everyone who’s hurting is, look at who’s in control. On the federal level, it’s Republicans across the board—Democrats control absolutely nothing. In a state like Texas, it’s Republicans across the board. And it’s so funny cuz they campaign on everything they’re gonna fix. I’m like, but you’re the ones that’ve been breakin’ it! It’s wild, because it’s like: Let me be the arsonist, but I’m also gonna be the firefighter.” —Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) on Jimmy Kimmel Live

Stories of my travels

I’m home. My travels (for now) are done. The primary purpose of the trip was to attend another International Handbell Symposium. This is the 15th of these I’ve attended. This one was held in Aberdeen, Scotland. I flew from Detroit to Amsterdam to Edinburgh. Because I didn’t want to rent a car I took the train up to Perth for a couple nights. One reason for stopping there is it is the closest rail station to the town of Rattray, the ancestral home of my sister-in-law who died five years ago. The town still has residents, a high school, and a community center, but its small commercial district is all boarded up. That’s not a big deal because there is another town across the river and its downtown is doing reasonably well. Back in Perth I visited the Perth Museum. It houses the Stone of Scone which is placed under the throne when a Scottish monarch is coronated. Since Charles III is king over the Scots (as well as the rest of Britain) the stone was there. I also visited the Perth Art Museum, which includes a neon unicorn. I took the train up to Aberdeen. The convention center is in a business park adjacent to the airport. So there are hotels nearby. But there aren’t any supporting amenities, such as a laundromat. There were over 600 ringers from 15 countries who formed one massive bell choir. We had nine directors from eight countries, each one leading one piece. In addition to spending a lot of time rehearsing the music we had classes in various aspects of handbells and in the culture of various participants. One class was about the Scottish tartan and kilt (no, I didn’t try one on). Another class was about Canadian folksongs arranged for bells and yet another about excerpts of a Hungarian operetta arranged for bells. After the Symposium I spent three nights in Inverness. I took one day trip to Loch Ness and Urquhart Castle and another trip to Dunrobin Castle, which featured demonstrations of hunting by hawk and falcon. I’ve been traveling for many decades. For my first trips I carried travelers checks. For this trip I used my credit card for nearly everything, even for many small purchases. For my time in Aberdeen some type of card or payment system was required because both the convention center’s coffee vendors (which I skipped) and the hotel were cashless. I found I had to be careful in some places because they offered to let me pay in dollars instead of pounds. I first thought this would be good because I could skip my card’s 1% foreign currency fee. But after doing it once I found out the business charged a 3% fee for allowing me to pay in dollars. I had withdrawn £50 when I got to Perth. I used my card so much that when I was back to the airport I still had a £20 bill. And the currency exchange at the airport charge a huge commission. Maybe during my next foreign trip I don’t use the ATM at all. On the flight to Europe I watched the documentary Paris is Burning about the black queer ball scene. I wanted to watch it because the youth at the Ruth Ellis Center in Detroit would imitate such balls. Preparing and participating in a ball could give a young queer person a chance to develop confidence and charisma. All that is good. Alas, by halfway through (and it isn’t very long) I was bored. I did finish it. Instead of watching anything else I tried to get some sleep. On the flight back to Detroit I watched two movies and had time for a third. On the way east I spotted a couple interesting movies, but they weren’t available on the return flight. I did see a couple Disney movies. The first was Zootopia 2 in which cops Nick the fox and Judy the rabbit solve another case. This one plays on the idea that we readily believe that snakes would be the villains. I enjoyed the story and the emphasis on inclusion. The second movie was Hoppers. A hopper is a mind that has been transferred into mechanical robot. The primary hopper is Mabel. Her grandmother introduced her to the glen around a beaver pond. Now with Mabel in college, Jerry the mayor wants to run a highway through the glen. Mabel, transferred to a beaver robot and able to hear what the animals are saying, works to rouse the other animals to stop him. It’s all great fun, though some a bit over the top (such as seagulls flying a shark through the air to terrorize Jerry), and there’s a good message about inclusiveness and the importance of wild spaces. Before the trip I finished the book Dust Child by Nguyễn Phan Quễ Mai (those diacritical marks are so important!). Part of the setting is the Vietnam War and a dust child is an Amerasian child of a Vietnamese woman and an American soldier, considered by society to be nothing but dust. The story follows several threads. There is Phong, a dust child whose life is made worse because his American father was black. Phong sticks out because of his dark skin and that he is so much taller than the typical Vietnamese. Because of that he is bullied. In 2016 he is trying to immigrate to America with his wife and children. But he was the victim in a fraudulent previous attempt to immigrate and is refused. Another major thread in the story is Dan, an American suffering from PTSD from the war. His wife Linda hopes a trip to Vietnam will resolve some of his traumas. He wants to find Kim, the Vietnamese girl he fell in love with during his tour in 1969. Linda doesn’t know about her and doesn’t want to lose her. When Kim became pregnant he got scared. By that point he was beginning to suffer from PTSD. He wonders what happened to her child. After being introduced to Dan in chapter 2 I thought these two threads are too convenient. But Dan is white and not the father of Phong. A third thread is Trang. In 1969 she worked at a bar catering to soldiers and took the name Kim to protect her family. She shows us how she and her sister chose to leave their village to work in a bar in Saigon. The short answer is their parents were in debt and an old friend visits, explaining how she is able to dress well. At times I felt the author was not a great wordsmith. But she tells a great story and she does not allow her characters the easy way out. They have to grapple with the issues. One of those is the Amerasian children telling their elders: Did you really have no choice other than to leave me in an orphanage? Why did you wait so long to search for me? In an author’s note she explains that she got involved in an organization that worked to unite Amerasian children with their American fathers. She heard a lot of stories of what the children and soldiers went through. Though the book is fiction the characters are based on the stories she heard. I enjoyed this one very much and recommend it. While traveling I finished three books. A Walk in the Park by Kevin Fedarko. In America that phrase means something is very easy. While the title is accurate it is full of irony as the subtitle shows: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon. Walking that park is not easy and can be quite dangerous. Fedarko (the book refers everyone by their first name, so I’ll do that too – this is Kevin) is a freelance writer. One day he visited a company that does boat tours running the length of the canyon. He was so entranced by the boats and the idea he volunteered to join the crew for that summer and several summers after that. Volunteering means he never got paid. He also was never good enough to be in charge of a boat or have paying customers in his raft – so he hauled equipment. A few years into that he met Pete McBride, a freelance photographer. Pete proposed they team up and they became good friends. But Pete did very little planning for his photography trips which sometimes meant what he came to photograph didn’t happen at the time he was there. When Pete proposed they hike the canyon from one end to the other Kevin, who had seen the canyon only from the rim and the river, was all in. They got in touch with Rich Rudow, a veteran canyon hiker and explorer, who with a few friends was planning to hike the whole canyon. Pete sweet talked their way onto this team, though Rich’s crew were planning and training carefully and Pete bragged the trip could be done straight “off the couch.” Pete and Kevin tried to take a great deal of equipment they didn’t need – including Pete wanting duplicates of his extensive camera equipment – and refused many things Rich and team considered essential. The Grand Canyon does not have a paved trail from end to end, and for much of the way there is no marked trail. One must forge their own path, sometimes hiking close to the rim, sometimes close to the river, and the canyon walls between can be thousands of feet tall and steep. In the summer the temperature can be brutally hot and water can be scarce. One misstep and a person can slip right over the edge. This is not a place for amateur hikers. Which Pete and Kevin were. So, yeah, the first section of the hike did not go well. Once they were pulled off the trail some of Rich’s friends took over their training and some went with them when they began their second section. And – eventually – Kevin and Pete do hike the entire length. Along the way Kevin learns from Rich about notable people who have explored they canyon. Those stories are included. When Kevin encounters pottery fragments he begins to understand Native people lived in the canyon up until white people kicked them out. Rich arranges for Kevin to meet Natives working to reclaim some of their land, others working to prevent developers from despoiling the canyon, and yet more who are profiting from the canyon. Kevin is clearly on their side. Because the first part of the trip went so badly, by the end Kevin wonders why didn’t Rich refuse to take them on? Why did Rich’s friends willingly train and accompany them? I quite enjoyed Kevin’s story and he is a good writer. Because of what he learns about himself, the canyon, and the millions who visit it this book gets a high recommendation. Guests of War by Robin Jenkins. He is a well known Scottish author. I bought the book in Scotland. It was first published in 1956 and reprinted this year. At the start of WWII the British Prime Minister told Hitler that if Poland was invaded Britain would declare war. At that time the British government instituted a program where residents, at least the women and children, of cities likely to be bombed were evacuated to rural areas. So the profoundly poor residents of the (fictional) district of Gowburgh in Glasgow were evacuated to the (fictional) well off community of Langrigg. I expected there would be a lot of conflict between the rich and the poor. There is some of that, but less than I expected. For the most part the villagers opened their homes and otherwise supplied their visitors with needed things. One component in the story is the incompetence of the leadership in both locales. They think certain operations must be done in a particular way, and aren’t willing to be flexible when those plans are shown to be unworkable. An example was the demand that all incoming children be inspected for lice, a process that takes way too long when there are hundreds of children. Besides the kids were inspected before they got on the train. Also, assuming that all the kids from the poor neighborhood had lice was a form of discrimination. A forward says the real evacuations usually weren’t planned well. Some of the evacuation trains were woefully short on food. Several women with a large number of children couldn’t be placed in private homes so a quite large estate was opened for them to live together. A woman of the Langrigg city council was sure the poor families would turn the place into a slum – which didn’t happen. A woman of Gowburgh considered herself to be too important to be from that place. She complained her husband, a barber, didn’t make enough money and offered to trim the hair of homeless people. How could he lower himself! She demanded special accommodations for her children because her son would, of course, grow up to be a famous doctor. Not just the people of the rich town could be snooty. I enjoyed the book. The third book was Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank and published in 1959. At that time in history, just after Sputnik, there was a “missile gap” in which the USSR had better and more long-range nuclear missiles than the US did. What if the USSR relied on that gap to launch a nuclear war against the US? The first section of the book is leading up to the war. Randy lives in central Florida, north of Orlando. His brother Mark is a colonel in the Strategic Air Command and sends Randy a telegram saying he is sending his wife and kids to live with Randy and ends with the phrase, “Alas, Babylon.” The phrase had been used by a fire-and-brimstone preacher and the brothers adopted it as a way for Mark to tell Randy that the ultimate war was about to start. The nukes hit Miami, Orlando, Tampa, and Jacksonville as well as many other cities and military bases across the country. Randy’s home and town escapes the fallout. Soon residents clear out local stores of all provisions. The dollar can’t buy anything so becomes worthless. The banking system collapses as does communications. Electricity was supplied by Orlando, so that ends. Randy and his small community (including an extended black family) do decently because they live on a river and can fish for food, they have communal access to an artesian well, they have orange groves and gardens, and several of them are proficient with tools and mechanical things. Frank’s message is even with such a calamity humanity will survive. Returning from such a huge technological setback may take decades to centuries, but will happen. In a forward by David Brin, author of a similar post apocalypse story The Postman (which I’ve read and enjoyed, but skip the movie), he says a big difference between Frank’s story and many others like it is that Frank offers hope. But even if great number survive a nuclear war will be devastating to millions of people. I enjoyed the book. There were scenes of the characters faced with the latest crisis balanced with scenes of tenderness. It’s a good one. I stayed up last night to my usual bedtime, though it was about 3am in the time zone I woke up in. Then I woke up at 4am Detroit time. I seem to get over jet lag when I leave home, no matter whether I fly east or west. But once home recovery takes longer.