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I feel like the Dems should have an easy time in the next elections if they don't fumble it given the current state of things. On the other hand, they seem to purity test each other in ways that make such a coalition harder to attain.
They’ve demonstrated over and over that their core principles don’t actually exist, and are simply maxims that they have heard often enough that they blindly parrot them back.
The weak kneed leadership will be getting replaced by the populist message of Trump but coming from the left, people like Mamdani, the DSA candidates, etc.
The people clearly want leaders who will say : we will use political tools to help the economic situation of the poor and middle class.
Everyone from Jon Ossoff to Angie Nixon has some version of this message and its resonating
clearly they are smartening up
Smartening up would have been the Democratic Party ejecting Swalwell because he was a known creep. Instead he was the front runner for the CA Governor until like a couple months before the election when scandal, NOT the party cleaning house, took him out.
I don't know enough about the Tea Party to confidently give my opinion, I am a bit too young to have been politically aware when they were in their heyday as far as I know.
Leading but honest question: Are those candidates the same as Trump? I do not see how they share anything other than strategy and spin, and those things don't make policy.
Wag the Dog (movie) came out like 3 decades ago
If Chuck Schumer is asked about the weather, he'll first check with Netanyahu.
Just look at what Senatorial campaigns Schumer supports and doesn't. There's a lot of suspicion that Schumer (and the DSCC) is going to leave Abdul El-Sayed out to dry because he's anti-Israel, basically. Mandela Barnes got similar treatment in 2022. And yet you have blockbuster challenges like Jaime Harrison's, which spent $130M to oust Lindsey Graham. He lost by 10. Trump won by 12 so I guess he gained 2? Well done, everybody, the system works.
Oh and what did the DNC do with Jaime Harrison after he spent $130M to lose by 10? They made him the DNC Chair. The Democratic Party loves a loser. Just like Howard Dean.
The DSCC funding is a drop in the bucket of the overall funding in these races, and they have their own goals which may or may not be aligned with the party as a whole.
If your single issue is Israel funding (which it probably shouldn’t be but that is your choice), the Democratic Party and presidents did far more to reign in Israel’s behavior than republicans.
Support for Israel's current government (elections in October 2026) being but one example.
Republicans do this too. Two of the seats they're at most risk of losing are Maine and Alaska held by Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski (respectively). They currently have 53 votes (well, 52 with Mitch McConnell MIA). That means they can pass things with 50 votes (and JD Vance's tie break) on anything that can get past or doesn't require cloture (eg approving judicial nominations, reconcilation). So, every time you have a controversial nomination or bill, you'll often find Collins and Murkowski vote no because their votes aren't needed. The leadership is insulating them from attack. But when their votes are needed, they're there (eg Collins's required vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh).
As for the number of Democratic senators who voted against weapons for Israel, it is significant because it never would've happened 5 years ago, but it's also mostly performative because there's no way it was going to pass.
As another example, Democrats did a rare move to invoke the filibuster last year to stop ICE funding. This resulted in a government shutdown and important programs being punitively defunded (eg there was a reserve fund for food stamps that was intentionally not tapped). What happened? The Republicans needed 60 votes to force a vote. There were 52 votes. 8 Democratic senators crossed the floor to vote with Republicans. That's so weird. It's the exact number required. What a coincidence. Whatever that number was, 1, 5, 8, 12, it doesn't matter. There will most of the time be that number of exact senators requried. This, by the way, is part of the rotating villain role within the Democratic Party.
This is how calculated it was. All 8 of those who crossed the floor were either retiring or they weren't up for re-election in 2026 so the voters couldn't punish them. John Ossoff, the current liberal darling, was going to be one of the 8 but he's facing re-election this year so Chuck Schumer whipped another vote to replace him.
Another classic example was the Epstein transparency act. Trump threatened members who signed the discharge petition. Mike Johnson actually shut down the House for 7 weeks to try and get those that did to change their vote. yet when the discharge petition got 218 votes (the minimum required), suddenly the votes in the House and Senate were almost unanimous. Well, if support was almost unanimous, why not just have a vote to begin with?
Mitch McConnell can really be credited with pioneering a new era of obstruction in the Senate. He realized there was a political cost to some votes. Some things were popular and he didn't want to pass them so he'd just make sure they never made it to the floor for a vote.
So my point is that imagine the Democrats control the House, the Senate and the White House in 2029 and that same Israel funding bill came up. Will all those Senators and House representatives vote for it when it might pass and become law? Nope.